“When we crucify you,” Bostock said nastily, “you won’t be coming back.”
“Pretty cocky,” Max said, “for a man on his way to see the father of the child he had murdered... Boy’s body is in the trunk, by the way.”
Bostock’s smug facade faltered, but only for a moment. “White must be even softer than I thought if he lost to the likes of you.”
Alec jammed the gun in the man’s side. “Yeah,” Alec said. “Takes a real schmuck to let transies like us get the better of him.”
Her cell phone chirped. “Go for Max.”
“It’s Sam, Max. I’m with Lyman Cale.”
“Can you do anything for him, Doc?”
“I’m arranging to have him taken out of here by private medivac — but I don’t hold out much hope. The man has been nearly starved to death.”
“These the medivac people Logan has used?”
“Strictly Eyes Only ops. Bling’s with me now. We need to not hang around here, you know — you left some... trash.”
The mansion and the grounds were littered with dead security guards. And of course a few live ones were salted away in the basement, and might get frisky, over time...
“You’re right, Sam. Get out of there, ASAP. Get Logan’s uncle some help, and you and Cindy to safety.”
“Got it. Good luck. Stay safe.”
“You, too, Sam. ’Bye.”
She broke the connection.
“Dr. Carr?” Alec asked.
“Yeah. If Mr. Cale lives to see the New Year, it’ll be a miracle.” She turned to Bostock in the backseat, her voice icy. “By the way, if White doesn’t kill you, I’m going to.” Their eyes met for a long moment, and he kept his face impassive and proud; then she turned back — and heard a little gulp behind her.
They drove for hours and, as midnight passed and the temperature turned cold, Max wondered what exactly she and her friends could do to stop a comet that was supposed to wipe out mankind come Christmas.
The weirdest part was that she cared. Most of the ordinaries had shared nothing but revulsion and fear with her and her kind. If she was their damn messiah — and she’d had a sort of virgin birth, hadn’t she? — she couldn’t say she was wild about the idea of dying for their sins.
“That’s it!” Bostock said from the backseat. “Just up ahead!”
Mole slowed.
At the mouth of a blacktop lane that cut through dense trees was a large white sign that said in bold black letters:
“Somebody doesn’t have the Christmas spirit,” Mole growled.
“That’s the only way in,” Bostock said, an excited edge in his voice.
“And out,” Max said. She turned and looked at their captive, pointedly. “You’d just love us to go driving down there — a gate? A guard?”
Bostock was smiling. “Don’t worry — when they find out it’s you, the welcome will be warm.”
Max’s eyes went to Mole, who was shifting his latest stogie from one corner of his mouth to another.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Keep driving.”
Mole kept driving.
Both he and Max had a good sense of direction, a Manticore-tuned grasp of geography, and after a while she nodded to the lizard-man chauffeur to turn right onto a dirt road, which was little more than a path. It wasn’t wide and didn’t look like it had been traveled on for a good long time.
Still, something about the road had set off Max’s radar, and she pointed to a grove of trees off to the left. “Pull in over there and park it. Kill the lights.”
Mole eased the car off the road, onto the grass, and let it glide under the cover of the trees.
They all got out, Alec still holding the gun on Bostock, the bound secretary hopping along awkwardly.
“You’re wasting your time,” Bostock said.
“Gag him,” Max ordered.
Joshua held Bostock while Alec went back to the car; soon Alec returned to give Bostock half a smile before jamming a rag in his mouth and circling his head with duct tape.
“I’m going up ahead to have a look,” Max said. “Hang here — if I’m not back in half an hour, bail.”
“I’ll just tag along,” Mole said.
“No. Stay with the group.”
Joshua raised his hand like a school kid wanting to be excused, and said, “Me, then.”
She shook her head. “It’s just a recon — better off alone. I’ll be back soon.”
Before they could put up any more fuss, she took off.
She traveled less than a mile through the silent, dark woods, the evening chill making the temperature crisp again. The trees were close together, the grass not too tall, and above her, small meteors streaked across the sky, giving her a sense of foreboding.
She’d read in that rag Sketchy wrote for about the end-of-the-world comet, but hadn’t taken it any more seriously than the vampire bat boy story or “Bigfoot Had my Baby.”
But the comet was coming...
Still in the woods, she reached the top of a short hill and peeked around a tree to see what lay beyond.
Down the other side, past another patch of trees — alone in the middle of a wide, well-trimmed, sparse landscape — sat a three-story white stucco building and two outbuildings. Even from this distance she could see that bars covered the windows, and something C. J. Sandeman, the nutty brother of Ames White and evidently her half brother, had told her — when was it, a year ago? — came back to her.
“I’m not going back to their loony bin,” C.J. had said.
From here the building indeed looked exactly like a no frills mental hospital. Below her, she knew, sat the stronghold of the Conclave.
Logan was in there somewhere — White, too; and God only knew how many Familiars, and what horrors...
But they had to go in. If they were walking into a trap, so be it; at least she’d be near Logan one last time.
The people in that bare-looking building — whether directly or indirectly — had been screwing with her since before she was born. It was too close to sunup to do anything now; they would sit tight during the day, and then tomorrow night it would be time to take the asylum away from those madmen.
Chapter ten
Showdown at big sky
They took turns watching the Conclave stronghold from Max’s spot atop the hill, facing the northwest rear corner of the building complex. Max had scouted all the way around the place, and this seemed to be the best, most easily defensible vantage point.
Though they couldn’t see the front entry, they could monitor the parking lot and most of the compound; the lot had a dozen cars, plus a couple company vans, which was promising — it indicated the size of the staff, which would seem manageable, though she wouldn’t have minded knowing if these Familiars were car-pooling.
Her foray around the far side of the building had provided little more than knowing that the sign out front identified this as BIG SKY RETREAT. When C.J. called the place a “loony bin,” Max had no idea he was being this literal.
On the other hand, it made perfect sense for the Conclave’s purposes: an ideal front, and a wonderful cover for both their sub-rosa activities and the keeping of any prisoners... Should any state inspectors come ’round, the only protestations they might hear would be courtesy of the inmates.
Of course, with the snake cult in charge, the lunatics really were running the asylum.
By dawn, Max and her minicommando squad had a pretty good idea of the Conclave’s movements around the facility. Roving patrols of three took circuitous and seemingly random routes around the edges of the valley, into the woods surrounding the grounds of Big Sky; however, none of them came as far into the woods as the hill.