“Get away from it, Sheyel,” she cried.
It resembled a shroud, diaphanous and pale and insubstantial. As she watched, he splashed toward it and it opened to embrace him. A sudden gust of wind threw the entire structure out of coherence, almost, one might say, out of focus. But it drew quickly together again.
Tripley’s guards whispered to one another and leveled their weapons.
Sheyel suddenly seemed to realize his danger. He screamed and fell backward. In a single smooth motion, the entity rose around him and engulfed him.
The security people waited for the command to fire. But Tripley hesitated.
She could see Sheyel’s silhouette through the folds of the shroud. His body convulsed. Bursts of green light rippled through the thing.
Then he went limp and it dropped him smoking into the shallow water, and flowed up onto the beach. Kim realized it was making toward the table and the Valiant.
Tripley gave the signal and his people opened fire. The woods came alive with frightened animals.
The security force had placed themselves well and they had the entity in a cross fire. Laser bolts whispered through the darkness. They struck the creature and bursts of vibrant colors forked through it. It spasmed. Some shots went awry, ripping into trees and the lake. The night filled with steam and geysers and shouts. Then with surprising swiftness it darted to one side and enveloped one of the men.
Kim ran forward to help but Bricker almost casually knocked her flat. “Stay out of this, honey,” she said. “You’ll just get yourself killed.”
Tripley, who did not have a weapon, pulled her out of the line of fire.
The area became a cascade of brilliant light, a gaudy pyrotechnic display. Shouts mingled with the murmur of the lasers and the screech of birds.
Kim recalled her own weapon and broke away from Tripley. She ran back to the flyer.
The struggle raged across the shorefront, illuminated in stark flashes. The shroud let go of its victim, who fell unmoving to the sand, and turned toward Tripley. She thought she saw recognition flicker in the thing’s eyes. It ignored the two still firing and flowed toward him. He looked around for a weapon but could find nothing better than a plank.
The two remaining guards threw everything they had at it. It shuddered, and a curious keening rose into the night, but it needed only seconds to overwhelm Tripley, to suck him within its amoebic folds.
Kim pulled the microwave out of its container. It looked like a fold-up tin box. She tugged at it and it opened into a cube about a half meter on a side.
The entity disappeared with Tripley into the trees. The guards raced after it, still firing, the bursts coming a little less frequently and with somewhat less authority as the battery-powered weapons began to wear down. The forest was ablaze with light. A tree trunk exploded and someone screamed. Kim couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman.
She set the cube down and unwrapped the magnetron. It was an orange sphere about the size of a baseball. She inserted it into its slot.
Behind her, the ruby flashes of the lasers became sporadic. And stopped. Only the slow emerald pulse remained.
The forest fell absolutely silent, save for her own labored breathing.
The green light began moving in her direction.
She thought of abandoning everything, of jumping in the flyer and getting out, but that meant leaving everyone. Leaving the Valiant.
The shroud drifted through the shrubbery and paused.
Those mad eyes locked on her.
My God.
It knows me.
It thinks I’m Emily.
She dug the remote and the power pack out of the container. She pocketed the remote and manically, irrationally, read the specs on the power pack. The device would generate one thousand watts for about four hours. She started to attach it to the microwave, fumbled it, dropped it, tried to pick it up without taking her eyes off the shroud.
It watched her. Gave her time.
Stupid ass.
As if it had read the thought, it opened up, a vast blossom, preparing to take her. Electricity rippled through its translucent veils.
Kim connected the power pack, drew out her laser, and began cutting a round hole in the oven’s front panel. The thing moved close, shut off her air. The eyes were gone, and she felt a sudden flow of warmth and well-being as the mist closed down.
She used her fist to punch the disk out of the front panel, set the oven on its legs, aimed it straight ahead, angled it up a bit, and hit the remote.
The entity jerked convulsively.
She kept her thumb down and the shroud crackled and thrashed. Kim caught an electrical burst on one shoulder, smelled burning flesh, but she bit off the scream and seized the oven in her arms. She turned in a circle and the mist spasmed and retreated from the invisible beam.
The night filled with electricity. The cloud withdrew. It whirled in a dizzying crescendo. Suddenly Kim could see only mist and dying sparks rising into the sky, like the aftermath of a campfire when someone has thrown a bucket of water on the logs.
“Regards from Solly,” she said, and continued to fire after it.
The shroud drifted against the wind back out onto the lake.
Against the wind.
The son of a bitch was still alive.
She stumbled after it, splashed into the water, holding the oven clumsily but still firing. The water rose to her thighs and then she stepped in a hole and pitched forward. The microwave went into the water.
She recovered it and lifted it into her arms and tried the remote again. It sizzled and popped and a small cloud of black smoke came out of it.
She dropped the oven, hurried back, and dragged Sheyel out of the water. Then she went into the woods, found Tripley crumpled against a tree, Bricker face down in a small clearing, the remaining guards scattered. All looked dead.
On the lake, the fireflies circled and gained strength.
She collected the Valiant, carried it over to the flyer, and put it in the backseat with the duplicate she’d had made up at Blanchet Preserve.
“Jerry,” she told the AI, “let’s go. Back to the hotel.”
The shroud was re-forming. She watched it grow stronger, brighter, as the flyer rose into the air. To her horror, it detached itself from the lake and began to come after her.
“As fast as we can,” she urged.
They ascended into scattered clouds. The sky was full of moons.
Below, the shroud trailed tendrils as it rose after her. It was adjusting, changing shape, making itself into a sphere. Mist drifted behind it. It looked like a comet.
The thing wants the Valiant. All it cares about is the Valiant.
Were old memories coming back? She was sure it had confused her with Emily. And it had gone quite deliberately for Tripley, who’d been standing harmlessly off to one side. “Jerry,” she said. “Contact Air Rescue.”
“Are we having a difficulty, Dr. Brandywine?”
She had to restrain a near-hysterical response. “Minor problem,” she said.
Jerry opened a channel and a male voice came on. “This is Air Rescue. Please identify yourself.”
“Kim Brandywine. I’m in a Redbird flyer.” Jerry flashed the hull number and aircraft description to them. “We’re in trouble.”
The shroud was coming fast.
“Please state the nature of your emergency, Kim.”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s a little tricky. There are five people dead near the village at Lake Remorse. You won’t have any trouble finding them. There are two flyers with them.”
That got his attention: “What happened to them?” he asked.
The sensors had picked up the shroud, and she watched its marker blinking onscreen.
“They were murdered.”
There was a long silence and then Kim heard a new voice. Female this time. “Kim, this is the supervisor at Air Rescue. Are you reporting a murder?”
“Five murders.”