In a low fold in the land, they found the burned remains of a bonfire, built from old telephone poles, heavy with creosote. The fire would have burned hot and long. Ukiah crouched there, smoky ghosts of the bonfire filling his senses as he shifted fingers through the fine ash, finding bits of bone.
The man had been short, dark haired and dark eyed, Italian in heritage, born of a human mother and father, middle-aged, perhaps a parent himself—and long dead before the cult killed his body. The bone fragment showed that he'd been infected by the Ontongard and replaced, cell by cell, until he was fully alien in stolen human form. The cremated man had been Hex's Get long enough that all of the bone had not only been replaced but improved upon, a creature of inhuman speed and strength, healing faster than Ukiah could; the Get should have been nearly indestructible.
Rennie came out of the darkness, silent in his passage.
Ukiah handed the bone to him." We're close."
The tall, lean leader of the Dog Warriors examined the fragment, reading Hex's familiar stamp on what once was human." They're good at this game."
Rennie meant the Temple of New Reason, who had discovered the alien Ontongard and deemed them demons. Not that they were far from wrong— the Ontongard certainly fit the description of evil personified. The first Ontongard, Hex, had extended himself into hundreds by infecting humans over the centuries; a hundred thousand more humans had died when their immune systems resisted the virulent infection.
" The Temple is successful only because the Gets never see them coming," Ukiah said. In the way that Pack knew Pack, the Ontongard could sense the Pack. The cult, though, could lose itself in the sea of humanity and strike without warning. Unfortunately, the Pack was as blind as the Ontongard to the cult, and thus just as vulnerable.
Seeing themselves as holy warriors, the cult believed the ends justified the means of saving the world. Ironically, with the stolen Ae, they could accidentally destroy all life on the planet.
A train whistle echoed out over the land, drawing Rennie's attention to the east." We're losing the dark." Rennie tossed the bone aside and took off at a run.
The dream skipped, plunging into darkness and resurfacing . . .
Ukiah's cell phone vibrated, and he paused to answer. An unfamiliar phone number showed on the display." Hello?"
" Is this Joe?" a female voice asked.
" No. You've got a wrong number."
" Is this. . ." She read off a number, but the last two digits were transposed from his.
" No. You messed up dialing the number."
" I'm sorry; I just got this new phone. Sorry."
The line went dead. Storm clouds cloaked the moon; the night grew darker. The lone headlight of a train crossed his path, a quarter mile ahead . . .
. . . the freight cars flashed by, the rails ringing up and down the sonic range. He was the only one on this side of the track. The diesel engine roared on, too far ahead for him to catch. Somewhere a mile or more in the opposite direction, the end of the train had yet to come into sight.
"Go on," he thought to Rennie, who had paused in his hunting to check on Ukiah."I'll catch up in a few minutes."
Rennie's memories played back over the countryside they'd just searched, reconsidering it for hidden dangers, finding none."Come when you can."
Ukiah ran alongside the train, looking for something that went over the tracks, or under . . .
. . . Ukiah's cell phone vibrated. Who now? He took out his phone. The same number as last time showed on the display. He thought about answering and growling at the clueless woman, but he settled for turning off the phone completely . . .
. . . He paused on the berm of the highway, squinting as the headlights of an oncoming truck hit his night-sensitive eyes. He fumbled out his flashlight, knowing that he'd be night-blind for several minutes after the truck passed—a hazard of having eyes that shifted to night vision. At the fringe of his awareness, he sensed sudden intensity from the others— they'd found something. He went still, focusing on them. The Dog Warriors gathered around a farmhouse, windows dark, hunched under towering oaks. The wind brought the smell of C4 and the taste of red.
Movement warned him too late, and he snapped out of the focus as the truck suddenly veered toward him.
It hit him on the left side, smashed him to the hard road, and rolled over him. Caught between the truck and the road, he tumbled. His flashlight flipped alongside him, showing frightening glimpses of the trailer's undercarriage. Strut, axle, gears flashed by. Somehow the big wheels missed him but his flashlight went under the last set and was crunched flat.
It lasted only seconds but it seemed like forever. Finally it was over. Ukiah lay sprawled facedown on the pavement, dazed and broken. The truck shuddered to a stop, its engine dropping to the low rumble of an idle. The air was heavy with the smell of smoking rubber.
"Cub?" Rennie's thoughts pushed through the pain."What happened?"
Good question. Ukiah tried to lever himself up and discovered with an explosion of new pain that his left arm was shattered.
"Cub?"
"A . . . a . . . a truck. A truck hit me."
Cars were stopping on the highway; people were getting out. For a moment it seemed like a normal accident. Then Ukiah recognized one of the cars: Goodman's dark blue Honda. The cult had taken the car after dismembering their rogue kidnapper.
"Rennie! Rennie!" He could only think of the bonfire victim, chopped up and burned to ash. He fought to stay conscious, to try to crawl away. They were certain to do worse than kill him.
Ice swung down out of the truck's cab and headed toward him, in long, determined strides." He's probably not alone. We have to act quickly. Kill him."
" But if we're right about him—" a female cultist started to protest.
" Then he'll only be dead a little while." Ice handed her a pistol." And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. . ."
Ukiah bolted awake. Even with his eyes open, though, he could see the muzzle flash suddenly brilliant in the rain-cloaked night, feel the bullets hit him with a force that nearly matched that of the truck.