“Look, pal, I didn’t see your brand on the lady anywhere,” he said sarcastically, “and last I checked she wasn’t screaming for help. If you have a problem with her having a good time with someone else, try talking it out like a man rather than throwing a fit.”
That was, apparently, not the right thing to say. The man’s face reddened until Alex wondered if he’d have a stroke right there; then he lunged in with both arms swinging.
The way the fool was telegraphing himself Alex didn’t even have to tap into his more esoteric abilities; he just twisted his head slightly to let the punch flash past, then leaned back to avoid the next. When the third came, he evaded it just as easily, but realized a moment later that the swing would connect with the woman he’d been chatting up.
A meaty smack echoed through the bar as the man’s fist found itself stopped a hairsbreadth from Alice’s face, engulfed in Alex’s hand. For a moment neither of them moved; then just as the man started to swing again, Alex exploded into action.
His free hand swept out, chopping the man’s throat lightly enough not to cause permanent harm, then looped back and hooked his ear, tugging it back. He swept the man’s face forward into the bar, then released him, allowing him to bounce back.
As the attacker hit the floor, three other men, presumably his pals, strode forward. Alex rose to his feet and smiled at them, and they instantly froze. When they looked into his eyes, they saw nothing but black — no pupils, no irises, no whites of the eyes. Just endless black.
They all blinked and fell back as he strode forward. When they looked again, everything was normal, but by then the man they’d almost attacked had stepped over their friend and calmly turned to face Alice.
“Terribly sorry, Alice. It could have been fun.” He smiled, tossing a glare at the man by his feet. “Some people have no manners at all.”
Alexander Norton shrugged apologetically, then headed for the door as the crowd parted to let him through.
“Hey, Sheriff. How’re things going?”
Leland Griffin turned and smiled at the woman who was walking up the street toward him. “Fine, Sal, you?”
“Oh, you know, same as always.”
Leland chuckled, nodding. “Don’t I know it, but that’s why I live here, Sal. The reliability.” The sheriff looked up at the sky, noticing the darkening tint. “Sun’s going away.”
“It does every year.” Sally sighed as she paused by the sheriff’s four-by-four. “I hear there’s been some trouble in the fields.”
“You know I can’t talk about that, Sal,” Leland said with an easy smile, then shrugged. “Besides, the oil companies use their own security for most things. I’ve only heard what you have.”
“There’s been talk about shutting down some of the wells.”
“Unless they’re running dry, I don’t expect that’ll happen. Relax, Sal, things will be just fine,” Leland said reassuringly.
He knew that in a small town like Barrow anything became big news quickly — it was just the way of things. Part of his job was to keep people from blowing every little hiccup out of proportion, scaring the pants off the folks he had to look after.
“Well I heard—” Sally began, only to be shut up midsentence when a scream sounded from down the street.
Leland spun in place, his eyes seeking out the source of the noise, and froze for an instant when he spotted the figure stumbling down the street.
“Oh my Lord…,” Sally trailed off, hand coming to her mouth.
Leland rushed around the front of his Tahoe, approaching the man, “Hey there, partner, you look mighty wet, and I’ve got blankets back in the truck, so…”
He paused, realizing that it wasn’t water coating the man’s body. Just then, the figure began to collapse. Leland lunged in, caught him, and looked down into a face he suddenly recognized.
“Mitch?” He blinked. “Jesus, man, what happened to you?”
Mitch Sanders, one of the local oil workers, looked up at him with a face coated in blood. “They’re coming this way.”
Then he slumped in Leland’s arms, who staggered slightly as he started to drag him back to the Chevy.
CHAPTER 3
The men were shifting slightly in their seats, like they couldn’t get comfortable in their own skin. Hawk could sympathize, as he felt that same itch whenever he was in a new place. It was a combination of things, really. The training they’d all received from their government, a sort of instilled paranoia that kept them alive in the field, compounded by the realization that they were always, always, in the field.
“These are the boys I was able to shake loose, Hawk,” Rankin said from where he was leaning against the wall in the corner. “I might be able to get a few more in a couple weeks, when they come off mission.”
Hawk Masters nodded, accepting that. Few military people who’d crossed the veil lived as he did — most tended to throw themselves against more understandable problems until those “easier” things laid them out on a slab somewhere. Especially operators.
These five men were an example of that, from what he’d read in their files.
Jack Nelson. Career lieutenant, if Hawk was reading the file right. His credentials were stellar, but he’d die on a mission long before he was considered for promotion. Sniper school, Ranger tabbed, spent a year sunning with the Brits’ Special Boat Service. Commendations up the yin and down the yang.
But Hawk could read between the lines as well as any military man. Nelson had problems with authority, stemming from a disastrous mission three years ago. Sole survivor. Since then, he’d become a “less than exemplary” officer. Hawk wondered what he’d done to earn that comment, since it had to be pretty bad, but not quite bad enough to toss him out on his ass.
Robbie Keyz was next. It was a miracle he wasn’t dead already, given the missions he’d been sent on over the last five years. When he was out of the field, however, his record read like a squad leader’s nightmare. Drunk and disorderly, insulting superior officers, reckless behavior — the list went on and on. The real miracle was that his superiors hadn’t put a bullet in the petty officer themselves. There weren’t too many officers in the navy, or out of it, who were in love with the idea of a demolition specialist who genuinely seemed to be insane.
Especially not one as good as “Keyz to the City.” Hawk had heard about some of the man’s more unorthodox mission solutions, including the time he’d completely flattened an entire city block in Baghdad. Honestly, he wasn’t sure how it hadn’t made the nightly news. The fact that it hadn’t was probably the only thing that had saved Keyz from a dishonorable followed by a stint in Leavenworth.
That and the fact that they never dug a single body out of that entire godforsaken mess. I wonder what the hell was really in there? Hawk suspected that if anything in Keyz’s record indicated that he’d crossed the veil, it was that mission.
The next name was one he knew personally, having done a few missions in the sandbox with the man before the incident with the Fitz. Nathan “The Djinn” Hale. The new nickname had raised an eyebrow as he read over the file. Last he’d been aware, Nathan had been using the codename “Hand,” as in “hand of God.” Sniper specialist, currently in the top five for longest confirmed kills, behind a Brit and a couple Canucks. Hawk remembered one particular mission, when Nathan had needed to make a shot at twelve hundred yards with a borrowed Colt M4. A patently impossible shot with that weapon. After some quick calculations in his head, figuring in wind, distance, and the enemy’s cover, Hale aimed the gun fifty-eight degrees up and almost seventy to the left of the target before pulling the trigger. When they got there to check, they found the enemy shooter’s body. A round was still in his pelvis, after having traveled down through his shoulder, heart, and intestines. It was an impossible shot. Full fucking stop. Hale had pulled it off first try with what even he cheerfully admitted to being a Hail Mary.