Shadows Lurking in the Village

chapter 3

I

As soon as she set foot in the meeting house, Josette noticed something was wrong. No one was there. The heater was still blazing. Blankets were spread out where Beth and Emily had lain, and damp clothes hung over chairs by the heater. Everyone’s bags sat in the first place she looked—meaning they hadn’t been touched. The room was warmer than it’d been when they left. If they’d all gone somewhere, or made good their escape, it had to have been a good while ago. Or had they simply disappeared? The phrase spirited away flashed through her brain.

Where could they have gone, leaving all their baggage behind and not even bothering to turn off the heater?

Josette shifted the high-caliber minigun down by her hip. While flicking off the safety, she simultaneously activated the box of ammunition on her back, creating some slack in the ammo belt so she could fire without it jamming.

The strangeness of this occurrence drove deeper into Josette’s heart with each passing moment. If the group had encountered some hostile force, her husband wouldn’t have gone without leaving some signs of a fight.

Were they really spirited away after all?

Bolstered by her impatience, Josette’s ears caught a faint thump. Turning on reflex, she ended up facing the door that led to the adjoining room. It was closed. She heard something again. Footsteps. She listened intently. They were approaching the door. They stopped just shy of it. And didn’t move.

“Who’s there?” Josette asked in a low voice.

There was no reply.

“It’s me,” said the woman. “I’m back now. Nothing’s wrong, so come on out.”

Shifting the barrel of her weapon from the door to the wall about a yard away, Josette hit the firing button. Even the touch of a baby’s finger would’ve been enough to trigger it. The minigun shook. The flexible arm absorbed the vibrations. Even at the full auto setting of two thousand rounds per minute, she could keep a bead on a foe a thousand yards away—although the enemy would be shredded.

The ten-round burst opened a ten-foot-wide hole in the wall. Through it, a white figure could be glimpsed bolting to the right.

“I saw that!”

The words were accompanied by another barrage, but it had already occurred to the woman that she shouldn’t kill whoever this was. Relenting after a second ten-round burst, she returned the minigun to her back and drew the pistol from her hip. She was facing the back of the meeting house. Nobody was there. No one at all.

“Whoever you are, come on out!”

Although Josette didn’t notice it at the time, on the floor about six feet to her right a pale man’s hand appeared stealthily, and it slowly began knifing across the stone floor as if it were water, bound for her ankle. Opening and closing in an unsettling manner, the hand’s fingers were just about to touch her boot, but grabbed empty air instead.

There was a man’s cry from the hall, and Josette began walking in that direction, saved by the veritable hair’s breadth.

The hand curled its fingers in regret, and then once more sank through the stone floor.

 

“What’s going on?” asked the pale-faced Bligh.

“See for yourself!” Josette replied, going on to tell him of everyone’s disappearance. On hearing that the target of her fire had been a white figure, Bligh looked as if he’d been run through the heart.

“What is it?”

“Er, nothing,” the man replied. There was no point in telling her about it now.

“We were brought here because they needed people, weren’t we?”

“Could be,” the man conceded.

“So, what happened to D?”

Seeing the way Josette’s face fogged over with rapture, Bligh wasn’t disgusted, but rather acknowledged that it was only natural.

“I ain’t never seen anybody so pig-headed before. Even after hearing the gunfire, he just kept right on going.”

Josette heaved a sigh. Bligh sensed this was due not so much to the disappointment of him not joining them as to his failure to say goodbye.

“We ain’t safe here, either. Think we oughta relocate to a house somewhere?”

“Would we be safe there?”

“Nope,” Bligh said with a grave shake of his head. “Still, it’d be better than here. Let’s get going. Luckily, our bags are still here.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Josette replied with a nod, acquiescing with startling ease. But such was to be expected from a warrior’s wife.

Gathering up everyone’s baggage, the two of them went outside. Josette, who stood at the fore, drew a deep breath.

A black figure was approaching through the blurry curtain of rain.

“I’ll be damned,” said the woman, her voice carrying tension and fear—and expectation.

That expectation was met. About six feet shy of the pair, the figure took shape as D.

“You folks moving house?”

Josette was about to lose her mind. D’s voice had been so hoarse, he sounded like a hundred-year-old codger.

On seeing how she was looking all around, Bligh felt a small sense of satisfaction.

“Everyone’s vanished on us. Only their bags were left. I saw something white and opened fire on it, but it ran off before I could find out what it was. So we figured we’d hole up somewhere else.”

“Got someplace in mind?”

Now, it was relief that nearly drove Josette out of her mind. For D had spoken in his normal voice.

“No, but I was thinking maybe we’d pop in to a nearby farmhouse or something.”

Saying nothing, D turned.

Following his lead and noticing what it was he faced, Josette and Bligh gasped and swallowed hard.

Due to the increased impetus of the rain, they could make out no more than a hazy shape, but it was—the fortress.

“Oh, come on! That’s a Noble lair!” Bligh said, and he spoke for Josette, too.

“If you’re talking about their lair, the same could be said of the entire village,” D said before eyeing the two of them in silence.

Josette shut her eyes. She felt so sad she could die.

“Hey!” Bligh exclaimed, elbowing her and giving her a look of contempt. “You’re a real sucker for pretty boys, ain’t you, lady? I’ve been giving you too much credit!”

“Watch how you talk about me,” she shot back, jabbing him with twice as much force. “And I’ll thank you not to keep calling me lady. The name’s Josette, mister.”

“Gotcha,” Bligh replied with a hearty nod. This was no time for squabbling. “Anyway, D’s right. Still, I don’t know if I could just go up to a Noble’s castle and—”

“To get outta this village, you gotta learn the Nobles’ secret. Isn’t that why you two went up there?”

Feeling like she was about to lose her mind again, Josette rubbed her temple. It was that damned hoarse voice again.

“It would save a lot of trouble.”

That came from D. Josette felt as if she were listening to some nightmarish comedy skit.

“Okay, let’s do that. That fine by you?”

At Bligh’s question, Josette nodded.

Just then, D turned and looked back.

Bligh strained his eyes.

There were four of them—a quartet of shadowy figures fanned out behind them. Each was tall. They wore sopping wet clothes. Humans—or humanoid, at the very least. However, there was something odd about them, something that couldn’t quite be nailed down.

“You folks from the village?” Bligh said, trying to establish a friendly rapport. “We were staying at a nearby inn. Came here to escape a massive landslide. Where is everybody?”

The four of them advanced suddenly. The sun was still high. Yet they seemed locked in darkness.

The second figure from the left extended his right hand. It was at that instant the others realized what was odd. Dozens of bluish-black tentacles burst from the cuff of the figure’s shirt, sticking to Bligh’s face. Latching onto them with his hands to try and pry them off, Bligh was dragged forward. Out into the rain—into the world of the shadowy figures.

A glint of light pulled the man back.

At that moment, Josette looked at D. The blade he gripped in his right hand was wet. That was all she knew.

A heartbeat later, the tentacles were severed with an explosion of blood the same bluish-black hue, and Bligh first stopped in his tracks, then backed toward his companions. Tentacles rained to the ground from his face.

“OSB?” D asked.

“An OSB/human composite,” the hoarse voice responded. “Goddamned Sacred Ancestor—it’s downright scary how he never tired of this shit.”

In the meantime, the shadowy figures had readied for their next attack. All had drawn pistol-like weapons from their belts and had them trained on D. From the way they moved, they’d definitely pulled the triggers. However, there was no muzzle flash, but D kicked off the ground without a sound, his sword flashing out, and four heads sailed up like ripe fruit, bathed in a fountain of their own blood as they rolled across the terrain.

Looking down at the one that stopped by his feet, Bligh cried out and jumped back. He’d been sure it was a human head, but it swiftly decayed, melting away into slime of a hue that was not of this world that was then washed away in the rain.

Neither Bligh nor Josette could speak at first. More than the fear of a new attack by their enemies, it was D’s swordsmanship that’d left them dumbstruck. He had beheaded a quartet in the blink of an eye, and while there was a chance the rain had washed it away, there hadn’t been so much as a drop of gore on his blade.

Here was someone from a completely different world than theirs.

“Er—” Bligh said, trying to speak to the Hunter, but D had already started walking toward the fortress. The very picture of solitude, he became a shadowy outline—then slid off to one side. No one could’ve imagined it. The beautiful fiend who’d dispatched four foes in an instant had feebly toppled at length.

“Wh-what the hell happened?”

When the two of them dashed over, a hoarse voice explained, “Nothing. Just got sleepy all of a sudden.” Before it had been nothing save unsettling, but now it seemed like a voice from heaven on high. “Lately, we’ve been working out in the strong light,” it continued, “and them flames earlier took a toll, too. The castle’s not gonna happen now. Get us into that farmhouse.”

Not entirely sure of what was going on, the pair still knew in an instant that those instructions were for the best. With Bligh putting D over his shoulder, and Josette taking the two cyborg horses by the reins, they started walking toward the farmhouse that loomed to their right.

No one was witness to this save the other three heads that still lay in the downpour, giving off white smoke. By the time Bligh, D, and Josette had passed through the farmhouse door, these too had decayed—featureless, eyes melted, ears fallen off. All that remained in the street now of the humanoid quartet were four sets of clothing, leaking the virulent-colored sludge that’d once been their bodies—which the pounding rain quickly dissolved as well.

II

D’s violent decline was the result of “sunlight syndrome.” A condition exhibited solely by human/Noble half-breeds—dhampirs—it could render them unconscious without warning, and no amount of trying would rouse them. Having no recourse but to wait for him to awaken on his own was a horrifying proposition, and that might take a few seconds or a few years—and in some cases, even a few centuries. It was impossible for any physician to say how long it would take—or for the dhampirs themselves, for that matter.

On hearing this from Josette, Bligh grew pale. Without D, they were afraid to go up to the castle—at some point, they’d become psychologically dependent on the Hunter. Could just the two of them leave D there and go on to the castle? Not a chance.

“Since we don’t know when he’ll wake up, we can’t stay here forever!” Bligh insisted, smacking his fist into the palm of his other hand.

“Excuse me, whoever that other voice is. But where exactly are you?” Josette inquired amiably.

“Let’s just keep that a secret. See, we’re surrounded by enemies.”

“Well, your voice will be enough. Give us some good advice. All our people have vanished, and you can see what’s become of our great hope. Plus, the enemy’s come at us in daylight—so, what do we do?”

“You gonna do as I tell you?” the hoarse voice said in a strangely confident tone. “If so, I might have a few pearls of wisdom to drop on you.”

“Don’t go acting so important, you son of a bitch,” Bligh snarled, rolling up his sleeves. “Start talking. If you don’t, I’ll find you for sure and tear you to pieces!”

“Oh, give it a shot, you countrified thug. One look at me and you’ll feel a lot better.”

“See if I don’t!” Bligh shouted, reaching for the survival tool known as an s-device, but Josette stopped him.

“Knock it off. Right now, staying alive is our first priority. We’ll do as you say. What should we do?”

“Oh, leave it to the lovely lady to see the light. First off, lock this place down. Seal up every last door and window. You should find the stuff to do it in the general store.”

“Must’ve had yourself a good look around,” Bligh spat, but the warrior’s wife got to her feet.

“The general store, eh? Let’s get going.”

 

Their destination had been less than a hundred yards away. The shop was as quiet as everyplace else, and there they found rows of merchandise waiting for them. Hammers and nails were easy enough to locate. As Bligh looked around for anything else they might need, Josette said to him, “You know, those things earlier weren’t really human or Nobility. Think they were OSB, like D said?”

“Yeah, probably. They were crazy strong. And humans or Nobility don’t look as creepy as all that.”

“They were human in shape, though.”

“Maybe that’s the sort of experiments they run in this here village.”

“What do you suppose the Sacred Ancestor wanted to do?”

“I’ll be sure to ask him if I ever run into him,” Bligh replied. “Oh, now this is a find! ‘Scent of Norak’ from the Norak Soap Company. They went out of business more than five hundred years ago, but the stuff’s legendary for how good it was at getting out dirt and the way it smelled after. Who’d have thought we’d find some here. That’s a keeper!”

Ebullient, the man grabbed one bar, then two more, then still more until his hands were so full he dropped one.

“Oops.”

As he squatted down to retrieve the soap, Bligh noticed something. There were the sandal-clad feet of a woman beside him. Straightening up in amazement, he was greeted by Charlotte’s pale visage. It was only natural that he let out a cry of surprise and stood bolt upright. He even blinked his eyes. Still, Charlotte didn’t fade from view.

“Dear me, why so surprised?” Charlotte said with a smile.

His eyes must’ve been playing tricks on him just now, because her color was normal. Bligh looked over at Josette. She wasn’t there. He quickly understood why every hair on his body had risen on end. The door to the back room was hanging wide open. She’d gone off in search of something.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, is there?” Charlotte said with a flirtatious laugh.

“Well, I guess not,” Bligh had to confess. He then asked, “What about everybody else?”

That was the real question.

“They’re fine. They’ll be back soon.”

“Back from where?”

“Somewhere far, far away.”

A smile rose on Charlotte’s lips.

Ah, Bligh thought to himself sadly.

“Say, would you bring me back where you’re staying? I’d like to leave the village with you.”

“Nope,” Bligh replied, shaking his head.

“Why not?” Charlotte asked, taking a step closer and draping a pale arm around his neck. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“’Cause your eyes are awful red.”

“Come on. Give me a kiss.”

“No, thanks.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause your eyeteeth are longer and sharper than before.”

“Oh dear. So, you noticed?” Charlotte laughed. She hid her teeth no longer. “You should be like me. It feels so good!”

Power surged into her arm. Pushing back against it with his left hand, Bligh said, “Sorry about this,” and swung the s-device he’d drawn with his right at her decisively. It struck Charlotte at the base of the neck and sliced her diagonally clear down to the vertebrae.

As Bligh pulled the weapon out again, Charlotte stood there, her lips twisting into a grin.

“That didn’t hurt one little bit.”

“And the others—is everybody like you now?”

“Nope,” she replied languidly, her head swinging from side to side with a seductive look. “They’re different. I’m the only one who ended up like this. Now, give me a kiss.”

“Back!” Bligh exclaimed, brandishing his weapon again, but Charlotte’s hand touched his. Though she only appeared to brush him, Bligh felt frozen down to the bone and couldn’t move.

“Now, then,” Charlotte said, her smile nothing if not bright and cheery as she pressed her lips to the nape of his neck.

Bligh quaked with despair at his fate.

Without warning, the lips came away from him. As the woman pulled back, her face was quickly chiseled with a look of pain and anger, and Charlotte planted both hands on his chest and shoved him back, then turned around. The tip of the short spear that took her through the back and burst from the top of her breast was wet with fresh blood.

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “There was someone else with you.”

“Right you are.”

As Charlotte turned, Josette pointed the minigun at the woman’s chest and gave her a nod.

“There are a ton of things I’d like to ask you. If you’ll surrender quietly, I won’t do anything to you.”

Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. There was a sadness to the gesture.

“Sorry, but it can’t be that way.”

Bright blood spilled from her mouth. To keep it from getting on her face, Josette raised one hand to block it, and at that instant Charlotte made a powerful kick off the floor. While in midair, her body was torn apart, scattered into countless chunks of bloody flesh. And a number of them left splotches of red on Josette’s face.

III

Leaving the scene of the tragedy as it was, the pair returned to the farmhouse. Perhaps sensing the aura of despair that radiated from every inch of them, the hoarse voice met them with the query, “Oh, something happened, eh?”

“Yeah, something—and it went like this.”

Once Bligh had related the particulars, he got as his reply, “I see.”

Seeing as the hoarse tone wasn’t particularly surprised, Bligh had to wonder. “You seem pretty used to all this, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” the hoarse voice laughed. “It’s an old story. Only the components have changed.”

“What do you mean by that?” Josette asked, and it came as little surprise that her tone had changed. There was the shock of their vanished compatriot returning as a servant of the Nobility, plus the fact that Charlotte had appeared in the daytime.

“Mix a Noble and a human and you get a dhampir, like our friend here,” the voice said. By Bligh’s estimation, it was coming from the vicinity of the Hunter’s left hand. “There are other dhampirs, too. But it’s pretty much safe to say none of ’em have this guy’s power. So it looks like the Sacred Ancestor’s trying to make a different version of him.”

“Mixing human beings with Nobility?!” Josette cried out incredulously.

“But given there isn’t anyone who’s fueled the rumor mill like this guy, I don’t think his efforts have paid off. Maybe he keeps experimenting in vain even now.”

“But the Sacred Ancestor has long since—”

“Yeah, there are a number of rumors he was destroyed. But there’s no proof any of ’em are true. That’s why he’s a legend.”

“Wait a minute. If the Sacred Ancestor’s still alive, how do you explain the Nobility going into this slide for the last three thousand years?” Bligh inquired.

“That’s why I’m not saying he’s alive, either,” the hoarse voice countered. It carried a faint laughter. “Dead or alive? Whatever the case, what you see is probably no more than an illusion of the Sacred Ancestor. Hell, it might be the Nobility’s whole civilization is one, too.”

“You think an illusion’s got us trapped in here, jackass?” Bligh snarled.

“You know, it seems Charlotte said the others hadn’t become vampires yet. We’ve got to hurry up and save them.”

“Zzz . . .”

“Really—are you pretending to be asleep?!” Josette exclaimed.

“Pervy bastard! Hell, you and D are both useless!”

“It’s sunlight syndrome,” said the hoarse voice.

“You little bastard!”

Narrowing his search down to the vicinity of the Hunter’s left hip, Bligh was about to pounce, but nothing lay there but D’s left arm.

“The sun will be going down soon,” Josette said as she watched the dull light fading through a window. “Let’s get down to boarding the place up.”

The farmhouse proved larger than expected, and securing every opening save a window in the living room took more than four hours. Furthermore, they moved what furniture they could—cupboards, dressers, and the like—to block off every door but the front one, and when their work was finally finished, the two of them plopped down on the floor drenched in sweat and wheezing for breath.

While they’d been working, there’d been a gusty little sound like someone using a fogger coming from D’s room, but it ended before either of them even heard it.

“Hey . . . Isn’t D . . . up yet?” Bligh called over between breaths.

“Not yet.”

“When will he wake up?”

“Don’t know. Zzz . . .”

“You little bastard!”

At that point, Josette raised her sweat-streaked face.

“What’s wrong?” the man asked.

“Quiet.”

Silence descended, but it was immediately shattered.

On her chest, Josette had a gold pendant shaped like a bell out on top of her armor, and it was giving off a ring that was clear, if faint as smoke. Before fortifying the place, Bligh had seen Josette scattering something shiny around the house, coming back, and then scattering some more three times in total.

Could it be they were bells like this? When something touched them, did they make a sound that somehow resonated through the one around Josette’s neck as well? No sooner had this rationale occurred to the man than Josette explained, “I scattered the same sort of bells around. If someone touches them, the sound’s transmitted to this one.”

“Someone like who?”

“I don’t know. Just stay on your toes. Charlotte showed up out of nowhere, right? And since they can hear the bells, too, they may stop trying to walk around quietly.”

“Great,” Bligh groused, spear in hand as he looked all around.

“Relax,” the hoarse voice called out to them. “While the two of you were nailing things down, I put a shield up inside the house.”

Such words would always be welcome, even in that voice.

“A shield? How’d you manage that?” Bligh inquired.

“Zzz . . .”

“Screw you. At any rate, we don’t have to worry about ’em suddenly popping in through the windows, right?”

“That’s right.”

“That in itself will be a big help,” Josette remarked, her tone one of complete faith in the source of the hoarse voice. In their present situation, she had to believe if she wanted to keep from losing her mind. Faint as it’d been, now they’d lost the rays of sunlight that watched over the world and chased the darkness away. And a long night was beginning. It was the world of the Nobility—a world of evil.

“How many are there?” Bligh asked, his words heavy and clinging.

“One,” Josette replied, closing her eyes and listening intently. “Five yards out . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Right outside the door now.”

A knock rang out. It wasn’t a thoughtless hammering. Rather, it was the rapping of a considerate guest.

“They’re here,” the hoarse voice said.

Turning her minigun toward the door, Josette asked, “Who is it?”

Though low, her tone burned with fighting spirit. But that determination soon pitched wildly.

“It’s me.”

Amazed, the woman cried out, “Dear?!”

Bligh heard it, too. The voice was that of Lyle Brennan—Josette’s husband. He’d come back. A warrior, tested in the fires of a hundred battles.

“Please, just hear me out,” Brennan continued. “I managed to escape. But they’re after me. Hurry up and let me in.”

Fighting back his own rashness, Bligh looked at Josette. Dark flames burned in her heart. The fire showed in her eyes. As murderous intent.

“We can’t do that, dear. Come back after dawn,” Josette said with determination.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. I’ve got people on my tail. They could kill me at any minute. You’re my wife, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know about anything,” Josette replied, her words gnawed over by fangs of pain.

Bligh came to her aid, saying, “It’s me. Bligh. You hear me, Brennan?”

“Yeah.”

“Hate to say it, but I got attacked by Charlotte. She was a full-on servant of the Nobility. We can’t trust you, either. Answer a question for me.”

“You think I’ve got time for this shit?!”

The door jolted violently.

“If you don’t open the door, I’ll bust it in!”

“Stop it, dear—if you come in, I’ll have to open fire on you!”

“Josette, is that any way to talk to your husband? Forget shooting me, and shoot that jerk!”

Bligh shouted, “What happened to all of you? Where’ve you been all this time, and what’ve you been up to?”

“They’re coming,” Brennan said, his voice quavering. “Open up! Hurry!”

Josette looked at Bligh.

“No can do. He could be lying,” said the man.

“I’m sorry.”

He never would’ve suspected the minigun she held down by her hip would swing around to slam him in the back of the head. Sparks shooting across his eyes, Bligh blacked out.

He quickly regained consciousness.

Josette was by the doorway. The door was half open. She was thrusting the barrel of the minigun at it, trying to dislodge the board she’d shot through.

Bligh got to his feet and was about to dash forward.

“Stoooooop!”

His tongue failed him. His feet got tangled, too. Pitching forward, he felt a pain from the back of his head, and then it went dark again. When he desperately tried to get up again, Brennan came through the door.

“Over there,” Josette said, pointing to a spot, and then she began replacing the board she’d removed. Her right hand held a hammer.

“So, you the one who kept me from getting in here?” Brennan called over to Bligh, still laid out on the floor. The warrior stood there like a wrathful god.

Despite his headache, the man had no trouble reading the hatred in that voice. This is gonna be ugly, he thought.

“Save your venting for later. We need every hand we’ve got.”

Even as Brennan listened to Josette, he drew the sword from his back.

“Dear?!”

“This hoodlum thought he could decide whether I lived or died, did he? I won’t sit still for that.”

The warrior raised his blade.

They heard the whistle a split second before the steel was about to sink into Bligh’s chest.

“What’s that?”

Swinging his head around with incredible speed, Brennan turned his gaze to the door to the adjacent room. The room where D lay. Like a man pursued by fear he leapt into the next room. And there he saw D lying in bed. He only halted for a moment in the doorway due to the shock of the sleeping Hunter’s good looks.

Going over to the bed, the warrior looked down at D, whom he’d never met before, and said, “So, this is him? He’s handsome, I’ll give him that. Damn, if I keep looking at him, I’ll lose the will to kill. Now, to get rid of him.”

Holding his sword up along the right side of his head as if it were a bat, he was just about to bring it down on D’s neck when someone said, “Doesn’t seem like he’s possessed after all.” It was a hoarse voice he absolutely wouldn’t have thought was the Hunter’s, so Brennan bugged his eyes and started looking all around.

“Who’s that? Where are you?”

He got an answer.

“Right here.”

It was at that moment that D’s left arm reached for Brennan.

Swinging the sword was pure reflex for the warrior. The way the hand went flying from the wrist down left him feeling slightly puzzled. His aim had been a little higher than that. The limb flew through the air, struck the door, and fell to the floor.

“There’s no blood,” Brennan said, squinting his eyes to look at the wrist, but he quickly thought better of it and raised his sword once more.

This time, he was interrupted before he could swing it. Brennan arched backward. A short handmade spear was stuck in his back.

“Knock it off, you son of a bitch! You really did get yourself turned into one of the Nobles’ lackeys, didn’t you?” Bligh bellowed from the doorway.

For all his shouting, Brennan hadn’t been hurt badly.

“No, it’s not like that. He made the first move on me.”

The warrior reached back and pulled out the spear. A bloody flower swiftly blossomed on his back.

“Get back on your feet and take your medicine. You tried to kill D just now, didn’t you?”

“No. He attacked me.”

“Shut up and die already!”

Bligh raised a second short spear to strike, but at that moment his ears caught these words: “It’s like the clown says.”

“Huh?!”

Poised as he was to hurl his weapon, Bligh was knocked off balance and stumbled forward.

“Dear,” Josette said, rushing over, and, on seeing her husband’s condition, she gave Bligh a horribly vengeful look. If Brennan hadn’t told her just then to stop, she might’ve opened up with the minigun and reduced Bligh to a thousand bloody chunks.

“You’re all making a big mistake. We’ve already got to the bottom of this misunderstanding. Focus on what’s outside,” the hoarse voice said.

“I didn’t see anything,” said the woman.

“No, they’re coming after me.”

Josette was about to refute that when her ears caught a dull impact that sent vibrations through every inch of her.