Chapter 4
Triangulate With Two
Of the trios sent to scout Boise and prepare the city for further cleansing, only four Sons had escaped a relentless onslaught of shadowbeasts, sarnaki, and—as if the situation were not laughably dire enough—entirely human threats.
The Mad God had spies and hands among mortals as well as in the Dreaming Lands.
Naturally matters only became worse. Now only Nigel and Edward were left, harried relentlessly westward almost to the Pacific.
Every bolthole arduously found was swiftly compromised, repeated attempts to head eastward and rejoin their fellows blocked, every call-in overrun by squealing static.
The Mad God was expending a great deal of effort to keep the western part of the continent free of Sons who had betrayed him and the lirai those traitors now served.
Which was interesting, certainly—but Nigel had more pressing concerns. As in, surviving this bloody night.
Reaching another city large enough to provide better cover should have granted Father and Elder some breathing space, but the entire urban sprawl was seething with chill, furious intent and the high nasty cries of hunting-horns.
A breath of foulness to the breeze meant goatmen as well, boiling up from caverns and tunnels no mortal found save by accident despite their proximity to populated areas.
The shaggy excrescences had once been a purely rural nuisance.
“North?” Edward crouched at the edge of the roof, gazing at the street below without seeing. His pupils held pinpricks of pale blue huntglow, and his ribs heaved as he sought enough air to fuel their wild career.
At least there was no shortage of ammo; this was the wild West and a few sorcery-camouflaged moments in any box or department store was enough to grab all manner of necessary items.
“You know what’s in the snow.” Nigel peeled a hand away from his side; the wound was healing in due order, though tacky-wet blood stuck to his dirty fingers and his shirt was mere rags. “South, well. The weather’s nicer but the unclean are bigger.”
“If we could find a single potential…” Edward shook his head, not quite meeting Nigel’s steady gaze. “I know. But damn it.”
Despair was dangerous as rage. “Exceeding unlikely any could survive lands so infested. It would be easier to hijack a plane, fly right over the Divide.” He let a moment or two lapse before his mouth twitched, and Edward’s half-smothered chuckle was a reward.
The grief of poor Michael’s violent passing was shelved until they were in something closer to safety; while there was work to be done, nothing else could matter.
Not only their Younger, swarmed by no less than a half-dozen sarnaki with their cursed ivory spears, but Kane and finally Beckett as well.
The other Father had sacrificed himself to buy them exit from the city they had been sent to cleanse; he had held back an overwhelming attack, just as the other fallen Sons…
Nigel shook his head, a quick flicker dispelling memories and the incipient attack of hopelessness.
The deadly, persistent whisper inside his head was intensifying, the god putting forth a great deal of effort for two stray Sons.
Perhaps it was not a compliment paid to any skill or luck, more of a rabid animal’s fixation on prey wriggling just out of reach.
“Thought you didn’t like flying.” Edward’s wide, fey smile was that of a soldier prepared to sell his own death dearly.
The Elder tugged at his weapons-harness, leather straps standing up to hard use.
Little time or energy for repair now, but the most important gear was still serving well. “Must be your age.”
“Must be.” The last thing any Father wanted to talk about was the physical accumulation of years. After all, achieving this stage of Sons evolution meant ruthlessness, not to mention stubborn, humorless dedication far beyond the pathological.
Edward stilled, frowning, and Nigel heard it too. A new urgency had invaded the horn-calls, shrill sawing discord full of sharpwhistle meaning. High-value prey, that tune whispered, and a soft nasty chuckle slithered through Nigel’s head.
Other than that, it was a relatively pleasant summer night.
“That can’t be for us,” his Elder said as the cries mounted afresh, clustering about a mile or so to the north. “Or… a trap?”
Not for two lone Sons. They were already exhausted, and simply prolonging the inevitable. Nigel considered the options. “What do you say we find out, lad?”
“Well, I ain’t doin’ anything else tonight,” Edward drawled, the dots of huntglow in his pupils swelling briefly before extinguishing. He rolled his shoulders once, a swift settling motion, and Nigel realized how gaunt, ragged, and unshaven the Elder was. Both of them were sorry specimens indeed.
But they were armed, and had their breath back. Once their kind had been the Mad God’s most favored servants; now they were his greatest enemies. It was time to earn the latter distinction afresh.
Nigel wasted no more time, setting off diagonally across the rooftop, gathering speed. Eerily silent, their footsteps nevertheless fell in perfect tandem, and he tried not to feel a treacherous, wriggling worm of hope inside his chest.
There were only a few things which would garner such furious effort from the Mad God’s servants. If they could reach the source of the confusion in time…
Best not to think about it. Just do your job.
And he must also plan for what would happen if they did not arrive first.
* * *
As every human being is unique, so too is every city—and just as every animal must, every urban area obeys certain basic laws of its species.
Which meant Nigel and his Elder could avoid packs of roaming unclean instead of offering battle, listening intently to the hornsong as they moved with preternatural speed.
It was easier as a trio, especially the practice of leapfrogging up the sides of tall buildings, but two Sons working together could run more swiftly than even the long-legged ygshil upon the ashgrass plains of Tharne.
Not that Sons—or even the Dreamers themselves—would go near those undulating nightmare fields starred with thorny asphodel and overrun with packs of partly psychic, unevenly physical five-horned monstrosities. But the comparison held.
Buildings rose and fell as they careened, a college campus and its associated sprawl of parking lots flowered around them before retracting, then a hunting-node throbbing with activity swallowed two Sons.
Crowded bars, late restaurants, and associated hot spots threaded with dark alleys perfect for an opportunistic predator or two to inhabit—no doubt students and other inhabitants went missing here with some regularity.
Maybe some cops actually investigated, instead of simply assuming runaways or wanderlust. They would find nothing or be stymied, of course… and, if too persistent, dealt with by the god’s mortal hands.
They finally came to temporary halt atop a mid-sized structure at the periphery.
Nigel’s ribs heaved as he crouched easily at the roof’s edge, eyeing the bright smears of headlights below; he ignored mounting fatigue and the burning on the inner surface of his left forearm.
Lirai-controlled Flame sealed the vivid red rune-scar from further corruption, but often phantom pain remained; the door through which Sons drew endurance, speed, and sorcerous strength necessarily had to remain ajar.
“Fuck me.” Edward wasn’t quite wheezing, but it was close. He immediately turned to watch his Father’s six, brawny shoulder nearly touching Nigel’s. “What are they chasing?”
Language, lad. There was no room for levity past the pressure in Nigel’s chest. “Moving fast, whatever it is. We’re close enough, but can’t triangulate with just two.”
“But we can with them.” The Elder’s overgrown blond mop was a windblown mess; high color stood out on his scruff-stubbled cheeks. He crouched easily, scanning the street below. A thin throbbing thread of dance music from a bar reached them, was whisked away on a hot breeze. “Right?”
Good lad. “Absolutely. Go—no.” A strange sensation brushed Nigel’s nerves, far different from the biting-on-tinfoil chill of intense shadowbeast activity. An attack? “Wait.”
“What is that?” Clearly, Edward felt it too. The younger man stiffened, chin lifting and his eyes once again firing with huntglow. A bare glimpse of the boy he must have been before his mark showed through the screen of hardened professionalism, there and gone in half a heartbeat. “Sir?”
He was, after all, so very young. Everyone was, except for other Fathers.
“Salvation,” Nigel murmured. It was outlandish, bizarre, simply impossible. Yet the wave of warmth was undeniable, brushing over every inch of his filthy, bruised body. Even the enhanced healing granted a Son was having a difficult time with the night’s games. “Hurry.”
Another noise pierced the formless mutter of citynight—a chirp, squealing rubber, an engine dropping to a growl that meant serious business.
Nigel and his Elder were already moving.