Vault of Shadows (19 page)

“That's sick.”

“
Yeah, it is, and don't ask me how it works because I have no idea. No one does. Almost seems like magic.”

Milo said nothing to that.

“We call them holo-men,” continued Ramirez. “The Bugs have started using them all throughout the South over the last couple weeks or so. Most of the time you can't even tell they're fake. Not if the light's bad, 'cause that makes the holograms look totally real. Rainy nights like tonight? Heck, they could walk right up to you and you wouldn't know you were in trouble until you were dead.”

“He couldn't walk at all.”

“Yeah, well, that's where you got lucky. Looks like this one lost a fight to someone. Maybe one of my squads, or more likely a refugee, 'cause my guys would have put it down for good. The Bugs must have propped him up to ambush anyone coming this way. His gun is gone. No knife, either. Not sure what happened there. Maybe a slippery darn scavenger managed to steal them, or maybe the Bug who propped him up didn't have a spare.”

“So . . . he wasn't dangerous?” asked Milo.

“Don't think that for a second. If you had gotten close enough, he'd have choked the life out of you. Maybe even bit you. These things are programmed by the Bugs. They'll kill you any way they can.” He glanced up at the gloomy sky. “The Bugs have upped their attacks on camps over the last couple of days. They've gotten even more vicious. Nastier, if that's even possible. Not sure why.”

Milo was pretty sure he
did
know why, but he didn't tell Ramirez about the crystal egg or the Heart of Darkness. He wanted to, but something made him hold his tongue. He wondered if the Witch of the World was somehow whispering in his ear so quietly that all he could do was react but not actually hear her. What was the phrase he'd read that described that? Subliminal influence? Or maybe subconscious influence. Something like that.

There was a flash of lightning, but now the thunder lagged behind it by almost ten seconds, which told Milo that the storm was moving away. The rain was slowing too.

Ramirez said, “A couple of the holo-men were even fitted out with explosive vests like suicide bombers used to wear back when humans were fighting humans. Insane stuff. We lost a lot of people before we figured it all out, and there are still a lot of others out there who don't know. Unfortunately, even though we've been able to trash a bunch of these holo-men, we haven't recovered much of their tech. The wiring and holographic stuff are pretty basic, but we haven't begun to crack how they read minds and pull out such convincing images. The Bugs have really gotten smarter lately, and now they're using our own memories against us.” He shook his head. “And you thought you were seeing your dad? I'm sorry, kid, but that must have been pretty rough. I lost my folks during the invasion and I was already twenty-two. I can't even imagine what you must be feeling.”

Milo said nothing. What he really wanted to do was
find a nice quiet spot to sit down and cry. The soldier came over and knelt in front of him.

“Where are your people, Milo?” asked the sergeant. “Where's Colonel Silk? We heard that there was an attack, and we saw the hive ship over the bayou.”

Milo wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “They attacked us.”

He told Ramirez what had happened. Not all of it, but enough. He did not mention the Nightsiders. But he did tell him about the Huntsman. The big sergeant looked frightened at the mention of the alien-human hybrid.

“The Huntsman, huh? Is that what he calls himself? Geez, that's creepy,” Ramirez said hollowly. “We've been hearing reports about some weird new Bug critter that's supposed to be half-human, but to tell you the truth I didn't believe them. Or maybe I didn't want to. Geez. Most times when rumors start flying around about that thing being in the area, we lose all contact with our people almost immediately, and if we find survivors, they're half out of their minds. Guess now I have to believe it's all true. You're Colonel Silk's son and you don't seem like you're all that crazy.”

“Um . . . thanks?”

“One of the survivors we met—this poor guy who lost his whole camp—said that there was this big monster-looking guy running around with a pack of Stingers like a hunter with his dogs.”

“It's true,” said Milo. “I saw that up close.”

“If you're
being straight with me, then that is some seriously scary stuff, though this Huntsman sounds like he stepped right out of a nightmare.”

“He's real, all right,” Milo assured him. “He destroyed our whole camp and killed most of . . . most of . . .”

The tears suddenly started coming, and it made Milo so angry. He didn't want to cry, but he couldn't stop himself. The big sergeant looked at him up and down, his face stern, and Milo thought the man was going to yell at him, tell him to suck it up. Instead the soldier hooked an arm around Milo's shoulders and pulled him close, hugged him, held him.

The way a father might.

The way a friend might.

The way anyone should.

Milo finally got control of himself. It was hard, though, because until now he'd needed to be strong, to be the strongest one around. Now, with the soldier here and other soldiers close, he was able to be himself. To be a kid in a big, bad, broken world full of monsters.

Ramirez didn't tell him that everything was going to be all right. He wasn't unkind enough to lie like that. Instead he held Milo and whispered in his ear.

“You're alive, kid. You survived. You're tough.”

When Milo could manage, he coughed his throat clear and then pointed the way he'd come. “We need medics. Right now. And transport.”

Ramirez stood quickly. “Tell me.”

Milo did so, and the sergeant took a small, scrambled walkie-talkie from his pocket, keyed it, and made the call to his people.

Hearing him make that call and knowing that help—real help—was on its way hit Milo harder than anything that had happened so far. The tears, newly stopped, came again, and this time he didn't know if they were ever going to end.

B
ut of course tears end.

Everything ends, and Milo knew that. Storms pass and night turns into day and wounds heal.

Even so, to Milo it seemed as if there was never going to be anything but pain, fear, running, hiding, fighting, and hurting. Nothing else, and no hope of peace or escape.

He tried not to look at the holo-man, but he couldn't help it. With the tech destroyed, the man in no way resembled Milo's dad—but so what? He had. He'd spoken with his dad's voice, worn his face. Had
been
him, even if only for a brief time. The lie was devastating. To Milo this new tech seemed even worse than pulse pistols or the barbs of Stingers. This didn't just hurt flesh or break bones. It broke his heart. It cut him all the way to his soul. It made the pain of the loss of his dad a thousand times worse because it dangled hope in front of him and then snatched it away. It was a kind of wrong Milo had no words for. It made him ache for his father. To have him here, alive and whole, or to
know
that he was dead. Seeing the holo-man only made the
doubt burn like a supernova inside his chest. He could feel it like a physical pain. He loved his dad so much, and he missed him so very much.

Right then Milo wanted his mom so badly he could have screamed.

He almost did.

But didn't.

Instead he looked up into the gray sky and imagined the Huntsman's monstrous face. “I'm going to stop you,” he whispered slowly, forcing the words out past the tension in his throat and through clenched teeth. “No matter what it takes, no matter what I have to do, I'm going to find you and kill you.”

Far away, on the other side of the lake, hidden in the heavy clouds above New Orleans, there was a final rumble of thunder. To Milo it sounded like the deep, unnatural laughter of his most hated enemy. A laughter filled with confidence and cruelty. Laughter that mocked Milo's promise, and threatened worse in return.

As if he were engaged in a real confrontation, Milo stood there, fists balled, glaring his hatred into the windy skies, feeling the seeds of darkness take hold in the soil of his soul. He silently repeated his promise. His vow.

I'm going to find you and kill you.

The rain slowed and slowed and finally stopped, but the swamp dripped and the humidity was oppressive.

Ramirez let Milo have his time, and spent a few minutes talking into his walkie-talkie, receiving intel and
giving orders. Soon other soldiers came out of the woods. Like Ramirez they were dressed in camouflage that hid their presence until suddenly they were there. These were well-trained soldiers, highly skilled at moving with almost no sound even through dense foliage. Somehow that level of skill was also a comfort. It proved to Milo that the Swarm had not already won. It made a forceful argument that people—human beings—were sometimes at their best when they were pushed to the edge.

None of these hard-faced men and women mocked him for crying. They nodded to him, acknowledging him, accepting him as one of their own, and that told Milo something about them. They were all survivors, which meant they had all lost something. There was not one person among them who had not shed his or her own tears. Maybe a river of them. Maybe an ocean.

Tears did not make you weak.

Sometimes the courage to cry, to be
seen
to cry, was a mark of toughness. It was a sign that you cared enough about life, about the world, to continue to
feel
even when everything seemed to be falling down.

Milo's tears slowed and stopped. He took a few long, steadying breaths as he thought things through. He worried about what might happen when these soldiers reached the lakeside where Shark and the others waited. The Nightsiders were too smart and way too practiced at not being seen by humans. Mook could just fall apart and look like a pile of rocks, and Iskiel would vanish into the
trees. Evangelyne was the problem. As long as she stayed in human form, everything would be okay. What happened if she transformed, though? On one hand, it might help her heal from those terrible injuries. On the other, how would armed soldiers react to a girl suddenly turning into a wolf? No, he thought, call it what it was. How would the EA soldiers react if they were confronted by a werewolf?

What could he do, though? Trying to explain this to Ramirez would never work. No one would believe him, and Milo couldn't blame them. He was already more than four full days into his association with the Nightsiders and he still found it hard to accept.

He fidgeted as he tried to decide what to do.

“Okay, kid, that's done,” said Ramirez as he lowered his walkie-talkie. “We have a patrol two miles from that point on the beach. They'll get there first and evac the wounded. We have a skimmer inbound, and that'll get the most seriously injured upriver to an exfiltration point.”

A skimmer was a kind of airboat that whipped along on inflated pontoons. Unlike swamp boats, skimmers had nearly silent engines. The EA mostly used them at night for quick runs, but they were rare because they were hard to make. However, it was much safer to use a skimmer than one of the far more dangerous helicopters.

“Where will they take them?” asked Milo. “To the church in Mandeville?”

“Not a chance. One of our people led a holo-man back to the church last night. Thought it was his cousin. Forty
minutes later we were hit. A drop-ship, two Stingers, and more hunter-killers than I've ever seen.” Ramirez shook his head sadly. “We lost a lot of friends last night, kid. We lost some good people. And that's why we have to get our butts in gear. That holo-man saw you, which means the Bugs saw you. They probably think you're a refugee from the church. We need to put a lot of gone between us and here. You ready to rock?”

“Sure. Let me grab a few stones for my slingshot, though. I'm almost out.”

The sergeant grinned. “Don't bother. I got something better.” He fished in his pack, brought out a small but heavy pouch, and tossed it to Milo.

The bag made a faint metallic
clink
as Milo snatched it out of the air. He loosened the drawstring and poured some of the contents into his palm. They were gleaming metal balls about the size of marbles but heavier. Milo held one up to examine it, and when he recognized what it was, he flinched. “This is shrapnel from a boomer.”

“Yup. One of my guys fried one in a short-yield EMP trap. That deactivated the bomb, so we were able to pick it apart for tech. These ball bearings were packed in with the explosives.”

The sight of them sickened Milo. He'd seen what happened when a boomer exploded. Several of them had detonated during the hive ship's attack on his camp. Those ball bearings, hurled with the force of high explosives, were like a spray of bullets.

“Yeah, kid,”
said Ramirez, “I
know how you feel, but tech is tech, and though this is pretty low-tech, these ball bearings are going to hit a lot harder than any stone you use. These will give your slingshot a whole lot more pop. Might even flip the switch on a Bug lifelight, you never know.”

Milo didn't want to take them, but as he weighed them in his hand, he thought about the vile deception of the holo-men and how much he'd love to have the Huntsman in his line of fire. It was a dark thought, but it belonged to him now. He nodded his thanks and attached the pouch to his belt.

“Hey,” he said, unslinging his satchel, “let's make this a swap. I scavenged some tech too.”

“Don't need Bug night-vision goggles, kid. We have a ton of that junk and—”

“Pretty sure you don't have this stuff,” Milo said as he opened his bag and removed the two Dissosterin grenades and the gleaming pulse pistol.

The soldier's jaw nearly hit the ground. He took the pistol gingerly, as if it were as fragile as eggshell, and held it up. A couple of the other soldiers stopped and gaped at it. “Holy mother of pearl! How . . . how . . . I mean, seriously . . .
how
 . . . ?”