Hunters in the Night (12 page)

“You
and I both know that nightcrafters don’t subscribe to the laws of ordinary
people. That’s why you’re here in the first place. You’ve been outside the
rules of the system and playing dangerous games.”

“The
rules don’t apply to us because the rules are shit,” Madison said. “People like
us do a lot of good in this world, and a lot of that is because we don’t have
to bother with a system created by the idiots in power.”

“That’s
what we tell ourselves to dodge the guilt and responsibility,” I said. “It’s
easy to think we’re the good guys, the mavericks bucking the system and helping
each other to be truly free. But the truth is that we’ve been putting millions
of lives at risk for our own personal gain. I’ve realized that. You, on the
other hand, seem ignorant of it. I’m just wondering if that ignorance is
willful or not.”

I
added that last line to goad her. I knew she was a smart woman — she went to
Columbia after all — and one of the quickest ways to make a well-educated
person mad is to imply that they’re stupid. She took the bait.

“Who
the hell are you calling ignorant?” she yelled. “You aren’t even a decent
nightcrafter! You just got lucky with your little trick, but I could tell
you’re just an amateur. You couldn’t even dispel a few inkwells. You’re a hack,
and you’re calling
me
ignorant. I’m surprised Mater let idiots like you graduate. You must have
sneaked by while Kellar was in charge. I hear he’s always had a soft spot for
charity cases.”

Kellar.

Now
that was revealing. My eyebrows involuntarily shot up in surprise when she said
his name but, judging by Madison’s nasty grin, she mistook the gesture as a
sign that her insults had hit a sore spot. I’m glad she assumed I knew more
than I actually did while simultaneously calling me an idiot. I wanted to know
more, but I couldn’t risk revealing that I had no idea what the hell she was
talking about. So I calmed myself and stuck with my original plan.

“Look,”
I said, “I understand that you’re pissed off because you were tracked down,
knocked out, and locked up by a bunch of strange people. But you need to
understand what we’re after here. The Rift is
dangerous
. It’s a threat to
everyone’s security, and the nightcrafters have their heads stuck too far up
their asses to realize it.”

Madison
relaxed and she settled back in her chair. “The Rift isn’t that much of a
threat. We control it, not the other way around.”

“If
you have so much control, why do you let attacks by the Rift-kind happen?”

“We
don’t
let
them happen.
They’re accidents. Like people getting bitten by sharks. Crap just happens
sometimes.”

“A
surfer getting randomly bitten by a shark is an accident,” I said. “An innocent
kid getting eaten because sports fisherman were putting bloody bait in the
water to get a trophy fish? That’s something different.”

“We
didn’t open the Rift,” Madison said, without missing a beat.

“But
you are using it, and spreading it. Things are getting worse because of you.
Besides, did you ever think it might be a better idea to
close
the damn thing?”

“Nobody
can close it.”

“How
do you know? Have you tried?”

She
glared at me, silently.

“Exactly,”
I said. I sensed an opening and went in for the kill. “You don’t know because
you never tried and probably never even thought about it because you were too
caught up in your new powers and everything they could do for you. Your powers
and your teachers have you on a self-serving path that ignores the rest of the
world, and
that’s
why I call
you ignorant.”

“And
you think you can convince all the nightcrafters to quit the craft just to be
upstanding citizens?” Madison said.

“That
would be ideal,” I said.

She
scowled at me. “You’re a hopeless idealist.”

“And
you’re in denial,” I said.

“Kiss
my ass,” Madison said. “When the others find out about this, you’re dead.”

“Maybe,”
I said as I stood and carefully backed away, towards the door, “but you’re here
in the meantime. You might want to cooperate if you want to make your stay less
uncomfortable.”

I
left the room with Madison’s fierce eyes trying to stare a hole into me.
Without her magic, she wasn’t really a threat. More bark than bite. But I was
sure that if she ever did escape she would do everything in her power to make
me feel pain.

I
returned to the chamber behind the two-way mirror. After the extreme brightness
of the cell, I’d forgotten how dark it was in here. My eyes struggled to adjust
to the darkness as Dominique strode up to me and asked, “Who is Mater?”

“I
have no clue,” I said. “Maybe Madison’s teacher?”

Dominique
put her hand on her chin and nodded thoughtfully. “Mater means ’mother’ in
Latin. It would make sense.”

“Usually
nightcrafters and their students are matched up by gender,” I said. “Women
teach the girls and men teach the boys. It just works out better that way.”

“Madison
also mentioned Kellar,” Dominique said. “Your teacher.”

“Yeah,
I did catch that. Apparently Kellar’s not the head honcho anymore. Maybe he
retired.”

“Maybe,”
Dominique said. “And maybe this Mater person took his place. Regardless, it
seems like we have our first lead on the identity of another nightcrafter. See
how good you are at interrogations?”

“I
don’t know about all that,” I said. “She might not ever want to talk me again
after this.”

“We’ll
see about that,” Dominique said.

“You
really think Madison is going to tell us anything else?”

“No,”
Dominique said, directing her eyes back at Madison through the two-way glass.
“Not willingly, at least. But there are other ways.”

“Like
what?” I asked.

“There
are other ways,” she repeated. “You should go now. But don’t stray too far.
Madison may want to talk again soon.”

“It’s
Friday,” I said. “Maybe I made some weekend plans.”

“Maybe
I just canceled them,” Dominique said.

* * *

On
my way back home, I realized something. Dominique was my boss.

I
know it sounds idiotic, but the gravity of my situation never really sunk in
until that moment. Dominique knew where I lived, she knew my name, she knew my
social security number, and she had my DNA profile and fingerprints. Most
importantly, thanks to my exuberant willingness to help, she knew exactly how
to circumvent my abilities. She owned me. If things turned sour, I could end up
just as much of a prisoner as Madison.

I
had been so happy that someone was willing to help me stop the threat of the
Rift, I hadn’t even realized the trap I’d set for myself. I couldn’t back out
of this. I couldn’t just quit and say I’d had enough. If I wanted to escape I
would have to go underground, change my name, and live on the run. I didn’t
have the foggiest clue on how to do any of that. My only route to a normal life
without NATO was to complete my mission. The Rift would have to be closed.

I
drove back to my building and let the car idle outside. My mind was in a hundred
different places at once. I wanted to rest, and relax. But I also wanted to
keep moving. It was almost like staying in one spot would just remind me of how
trapped I was.

So
I put the car back in gear and kept driving.

I
roamed the city for hours, driving around every part I knew and a few
neighborhoods I’d never been in. When traffic threatened to get too congested,
I turned out of the city and got lost in suburbia. For a while I didn’t know
where I was, but that was okay. All that mattered was the freedom the road gave
me.

By
the time I got my bearings it was five in the morning. It would be dawn soon.
Once I knew where I was, I decided to visit a familiar spot. It was a place I
had not been to in a long while, and it was past time I went back for an
update. I drove west, out to Springfield Township in New Jersey.

The small city
was quiet at this hour, and I was the only person on the streets. I drove up to
a park near the border of the city and got out of the car. There’s a lamppost
in the middle of the park — ten feet of iron painted black. I think it’s been
there for over a hundred years.

When
Kellar first kicked me out and I had to learn how to live on my own, one of the
first things I did was explore the boundaries of the Rift. I soon learned that
certain parts of New Jersey were “dry” and completely devoid of any sign of the
Rift. Without the Rift, I was just another ordinary guy, so I wanted to get an
idea of how far I could go before I reached an area beyond the Rift’s invisible
well of power. The westernmost point used to be this lamppost at Blackstone
Park in Springfield Township.

Not
anymore.

I
walked twenty feet west from the lamppost and I could still feel the Rift here.
It was strong. Pulsing. Growing. Of course, I had always known that the Rift
was spreading. The mapping expedition in Europe had proved that. But I never
thought it would happen this
fast
.
And the worst part of it was that I felt responsible for some of it. I had
spent far too much time tapping into the Rift recently. I always told myself it
was for the greater good, but sometimes it was hard to reconcile that with my
conscience. That was especially true in times like this, when I could see the
direct effects of what people like me were doing.

Just
beyond that lamppost, in a quiet part of New Jersey that had never reported any
Rift-kind sightings before, was an elementary school. It’s a cute little
building with a rainbow-colored playground in the back and childish crayon
drawings plastering the windows. When I first came here, I pledged I’d never
see the day when the Rift spread to that perfect refuge of innocence. But I’d
failed these kids and their families. The darkness was on their doorstep. Maybe
nothing would happen this month, or this year, but eventually some kid would be
alone in that darkness, and something horrible would happen.

I
stayed next to that lamppost in Springfield and watched the sun come up. I
hadn’t seen a sunrise in forever, maybe not since I was in grade school.
Watching that distant ball of fire gradually banish the darkness was a calming
experience.

I
didn’t go back home after that. Instead, I just went back to the NATO building.
I figured there would be plenty of work to do and tons of information to sift
through from Madison’s capture. It was early Saturday and there was certainly a
lull in the normal activity, but I wasn’t the only one at work. As I walked
through the halls, a few bleary-eyed staffers did their best to give me
welcoming morning greetings.

Dominique
gave me my own office in the building when I first signed up, although I’d only
been there once. It was in the middle of a crowded clutch of offices that held
junior team members and the assistants of NATO bigwigs. The area was always a
hive of activity, with eager young people hurrying off in every direction. I
felt strange being in a place that was so busy all of the time, but Dominique
felt the best thing to do was hide me in plain sight with all the other young
people.

I
got into my office, turned on the annoying fluorescent lights, and logged into
my computer. Then I typed out a message reporting my findings on the spread of
the Rift to Dominique. The message went out on an encrypted system that was
separate from the main email servers, so I wasn’t worried about the wrong eyes
taking a peek.

Once
that was done, I opened up my regular email inbox. To my surprise, it was full
of unread messages. A cursory glance showed that most of the items were just
standard protocol alerts; the usual minutiae of government work. As mundane as
it all was, I ended up totally absorbed by it. A boyish part of my brain was
still amazed that I’d ended up with a secret government job, and every little
message held promise of revealing some special knowledge. I lost myself in all
the messages for well over three hours, but I had only read through half of
them when my desk phone rang. I answered it.

“Come
to my office,” Dominique said. Then the line clicked off.

I
shut down my computer, locked my door, and made the long trip to Dominique’s
office in an entirely different area of the campus. Fifteen minutes and two
security checks later, I was sitting in a leather chair across from Dominique.
She didn’t even take her eyes off her computer screen when I walked in. I had
to sit there for a few minutes before she even spoke to me.

“Based
on your new observations in Springfield,” she said, “I had the science team do
some estimates on the new spread of the Rift.” She pulled up a global map on
her computer screen, with the familiar outline of the NATO Rift map overlaid in
black. “This is our original map,” she said. Then she hit the Enter key, and
another image popped up. In this one, the black blob in the North Atlantic was
significantly larger. Its spread was still limited to the east coast of North
America and the west coast of Africa, but in Europe the dark spot had moved
considerably eastward, nearly blanketing all of Sweden and Germany now.

“Why
is the spread uneven?” I asked.

“The
geeks were hoping you knew the answer to that question,” Dominique said.
“They’re fairly sure these calculations are a good estimate, and the numbers
are supported by reports of what appear to be Rift-kind encounters. I also
called up some European field agents when I got your message. I had them do
some quick activity measurements in the Rift frequency and their data also
supports the calculations. It seems clear that the Rift has spread, and the
spread has been more dramatic in Europe. But we still don’t know exactly how
far yet.”