When I raised my head toward the impossible crack in the wall, it was gone.
Bang.
Just like that. The crack on that wall and, when I turned my aching head to look, the other one as well. Leaving no trace at all of what I’d seen. I shook my head, trying to clear away the debris inside my skull. There were other cracks from the explosion or earthquake, or whatever it was that was destroying the building, but no trace of the two cracks that had allowed the man in reptile-painted body armor to pass.
If the armor was armor at all.
If the man was a man at all.
The last of the electricity faded out from my arms and I sagged back, gasping, my head hurting, my heart hammering. I dug into my pocket and pulled out the torn Faraday bag. The green crystal gun and the guard’s ring lay there, shattered into fragments and dust. I peered close and saw that each piece was glowing as brightly as the wall had done a moment ago. Then it faded, faded, faded… and went dark.
No. Almost dark. Deep inside of it there was a tiny spark of the green shimmer, but it looked strange. Like it wasn’t so much small as very far away. Which was, of course, impossible.
Impossible.
What in the holy hell just happened?
What had I seen?
What?
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN
I got shakily to my feet. My balance was for shit and I felt sick and stupid and strange. The committee of three in my head was silent for a change, as if they, too, were dazed and battered. Sounds were weird, too. I could hear the gunfire and yells from different parts of the building, but they sounded too far away. Miles away. Or… or maybe it was that my mind kept not wanting to hear them, or care about them.
My instincts kept yelling at me to pay attention to that. Not to disregard what was going on, but to start damn well caring about it. There was a big trench opening up in the gulf between mind and heart, and too damn much of me wanted to lean so far over the edge that I’d fall.
Then, as if from all the way at the far end of a football field, I heard Doc Holliday’s words come echoing back.
If anyone— anyone—begins acting strangely or erratically, you need to get them out of the building.
“Jesus Christ…,” I breathed. My head felt like a cracked egg, my nerves were shot, and I had no idea if I’d actually experienced and witnessed any of that, or if my brains were scrambled by trauma. The tremors were subsiding, but the building was a mess. Ghost came over and leaned against me, whining, needing comfort, as if I had any to give. I squatted down and wrapped my arms around him, sharing my reality with his. It was maybe cold comfort, but it was what we had. I felt tears burning in my eyes. My dog had saved me. He’d somehow understood what I was going to do, and he attacked me to save me. It was the smartest, bravest, most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever experienced. I hugged him and kissed his fur and wept as he whined and tried to lick me.
Then, slowly… slowly… I got to my feet. The floor was buckled and cracked, but it was solid. There were no dark winds blowing, no shadows in my mind. They had gone when the green man had taken the crystals away. Junie was right, as she was often right. Doc Holliday might be a hard-core scientist, but she was going to have to embrace a wider definition of things now that she was working with the DMS. The stuff we encountered was often outside the box of science as she knew it. Sometimes way outside, and Junie was likely to be her guide. After all, Junie’s DNA was proof that we are not alone.
No. Not alone.
The green man could have killed me.
He did not. And as I thought about that, the memory of what the Closers on the road in Maryland said came back with a lot more force and clarity.
We are not your enemy.
I licked brick dust and tears from my lips and nodded as I walked over to the far wall. There was a slender crack caused by the explosion — if it was an explosion, and I had my doubts; but it was less than a finger’s width apart. Everything around it was solid and showed no other evidence of what I’d seen. The opposite wall was the same — only a crack that a baby mouse couldn’t squeeze through.
Then there was another rumble way down deep beneath my feet, and I could feel the vibration through the soles of my shoes. It was distant, though; farther away. More explosions?
No, I didn’t think so. Not explosions. The God Machine was down there and the earth was trembling. That wasn’t difficult math for me to understand.
I tapped my earbud. “Echo T-team,” I said, tripping over it, “r-report.”
Top came on the line and used an executive code to isolate the call. “Where’s your head at, Cowboy?”
“Exposed to green quartz,” I said. “I’m clear now.”
“How sure are you?”
“Sure.”
“Okay then,” he said slowly, and put the whole team on the call. “Listen up. Cowboy got dosed by the green quartz shit. He says he’s clear, but nobody takes chances with anybody, do you copy?”
He said it harsh and hard and they all responded with passion. No one offered sympathy or support for me, because that’s not how it’s done. Later, maybe, we’d all get drunk over it. Now we had to survive.
“Give me a sit-rep,” I said, fighting to keep the shakes out of my voice. There was a jumble of responses, and I heard pain in every voice. Every single one of them checked in. A few dents but no real injuries. No casualties; at least on our side. Thank God for that.
“Cowboy,” demanded Cole, “what happened to the building? Was that a bomb?”
“I think it was another goddamn earthquake,” I answered. “There’s a God Machine in the subbasement and I think it somehow went active. Continue exfiltration,” I ordered. Then I closed out of the team channel and got Bug on the line. “Kid, tell me you guys all saw what just happened.”
“Cowboy, I—” he began, but stalled. The fact that his first question wasn’t “Saw what?” was a total gut-punch.
Before he could say more, another voice broke into the call. “Cowboy, this is the Deacon. We saw everything your bodycam showed us. Are you in immediate danger from the person you just encountered?”
“No… no, I don’t think so,” I said uncertainly. “But I don’t know what the hell it was.”
Instead of answering, Church said, “Get your team out of that building. By any means necessary. Do it right now.”
A new rumble shook the building, and the floor canted under me. I grabbed the doorknob and jerked it open just as yet another massive jolt shook the whole building. Bigger than the first two. Ghost went skidding past me, his nails scraping lines all the way to the wall. He barked angrily, but at what? The building? The Earth? God?
I heard Duffy yelling over the shared line. “Echo Team, part of the south wall just collapsed. I think part of the parking lot’s collapsing. Oh… shit! A fucking sinkhole just opened up in the parking lot. Everyone get out of the building right now.”
Right now was a problem, though, because the building may have been falling the hell down, but it was also filled with a bunch of guys trying to shoot us. Christ. Ghost and I, weak and battered and sick as we were, ran down the stairs to join the fight.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN