Nightstalkers (18 page)

Well, of course it was, he realized just as quickly.

It was working.

But why weren’t the dampeners kicking in?

“Opening ramp,” Eagle announced.

Roland walked forward, carrying parachute and reserve, a machine gun, a flamer, body armor, ammunition, and a bunch of other gear that added over 160 pounds to his body weight.

“I’m going to give green directly above the LZ,” Eagle said. “So if you don’t pull, you’ll go through the roof, but be on target.”

“Funny guy,” Roland said.

Mac started humming and the team joined in, and then, surprisingly, it was Moms who began chanting:
“Roland was a warrior from the land of the Midnight Sun.”

A couple of those in the know joined in.

“With a Thompson gun for hire.”

The ramp cracked open and air swirled in. The rest of the team joined in for the next line.

“Fighting to be done.”

The ramp locked in place. Roland looked over his shoulder at the team and Moms, a big grin on his face. He gave a thumbs-up.

The green light went on and he stepped off into darkness.

Moms fell silent and so did the team.

Moms stepped forward and took Roland’s place on the ramp.

In the lead.

Winslow ignored everyone and grabbed his cell phone. What the hell was that landline number he’d installed in the secret lab? He scrolled through his contacts list and found it, under Nobel. He pressed.

It rang. And rang.

Finally a hurried voice answered. “Yes?”

“Ivar! The dampeners?”

“I’m trying.”

Winslow gripped the phone so hard it creaked, close to cracking. “They’re not in already?”

“No.” There was a pause. “Uh, it’s glowing.”

“The mainframe?”

“And it’s all around the table. It’s getting bigger!”

The professor looked at the laptop screen. It too was glowing. Pulsing. Outward. Not possible. But it was happening.

It worked.

Nobel, here I come, bitch
, Winslow thought.

“What’s the particle reading?” he demanded.

“Negative twelve point six.”

“Negative? It can’t be a negative.”

Ivar had no clue what was going on, as Doctor Winslow hadn’t told him.

He typed so hard the keyboard almost broke, but it was no use. The dampeners Doctor Winslow had developed, something no one had understood, were simply not engaging.

Roland was at terminal velocity as he dropped through four thousand feet. He was alternating between watching the terrain and houses below and his altimeter.

“Ivar? Ivar?”

There was a burst of static so strong that Winslow pushed the phone away from his ear. Lilith was in front of him, in 100 percent anger/regret mode. Stephen had smartly scurried out the door with all the others.

“Ivar?”

Just static, then it went silent.

Winslow looked at the screen of the laptop.

A golden pulse surged from the screen, hitting the professor. Smoke rose from the singed spot on his shirt.

“Shut it down!” Lilith was pounding on his back.

Winslow leaned over and his fingers flew over the keys to no avail.

No Nobel?

He punched the small button on the left side to eject the hard drive.

To no avail.

He slammed the laptop shut, but the glow was bigger than the machine and nothing happened. He opened it back up to work the keyboard with one hand while his fingers on the other were still pressing to eject. His hand on the keyboard began to quiver. He tried to stop it, but watched helplessly as that hand tapped the return key and he saw the screen begin to shimmer with lights, brighter than the gold behind them, and these tiny lights started to move toward him out of the screen like when he was a kid and holding a mason jar for the fireflies.

They flew out of the screen as he saw his hand being sucked into it. He had a moment of feeling good, feeling superior, because he actually thought of Ivar and that meant he wasn’t completely selfish.

Roland pulled at eight hundred feet AGL. He had pinpointed the target house, noting several cars moving away.

He touched down on the peak of the roof as gentle as Santa delivering goods to a child who’d been nice—even though the one in this house was almost certainly naughty.

Winslow saw the gold sparks flash by. The last thing he saw was Lilith’s face, screaming something and swatting futilely as the six sparks circled her briefly then raced out the front door.

Then Winslow’s arm went into the screen.

Followed by the rest of him.

The big platinum Rolex fell with a thud onto the keyboard.

Roland popped the quick releases, letting his chute slide onto the roof as he readied the M-240 machine gun. He was scanning, quickly doing a three-sixty, when he saw them come out of the walls of the house and scatter in different directions.

“I count six Fireflies leaving the target,” Roland announced. “We’ve got Rift.”

Lilith collapsed in shock. The hired help had left after serving dessert, the guests scattered at the confrontation, so there was no one left in the house as the Fireflies left.