She playfully punched his arm. “Not bad, Officer Davis.”
He grinned. “I’m good for more than barfing at crime scenes, you know.”
The feed came up on his screen. “Okay, nothing so far…” He forwarded the footage.
She pointed. “There.”
The same man stepped from the shadows, somehow with his face still obscured from identification. He walked directly in the path of an oncoming car. After a brief exchange, they watched as he pulled a gun and pointed it at the driver.
Keith whistled. “Definitely not FBI.”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “I know that car.”
Sure enough, Steve Dupree’s faded Honda Civic made a drunken turn before driving away and out of the camera’s view.
“That’s all I got,” Keith said. “Not a lot of cameras in the area. Maybe I can find some others.”
She pulled her cell from her pocket. “I have a better idea.”
“What — you’re gonna call him?”
“No, I’m going to trace his cell. Get a position on him.”
“We don’t have the authority. Don’t think you’ll get it without explaining this. You know the Feds will just snatch it out of our hands if we do.”
She glanced at Agent Plumm’s card again. “Maybe. Or maybe I can call in a favor.”
Steve winced under the weight of the metallic contraption on his head. “Look, maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”
Guy didn’t appear to notice Steve’s discomfort. But then again Guy wasn’t the one wearing a bulky metal halo on his head. The thing weighed at least five pounds, and was positioned on Steve’s head by a padded band secured by metal screws like some medieval torture device. Tiny multicolored lights glinted in sporadic patterns across its surface.
Guy paused in the act of securing the apparatus and gave Steve a hard stare. “Do you want the chance to save your wife or not?”
“Of course.” Steve took a wary glance around the large, darkened room. It looked like an abandoned spa building, one that apparently doubled as one of Guy’s safe houses. The lights from an Olympic-sized swimming pool were the only illumination, casting the area in glimmering shades of electric blue. Light and shadows shifted, with darkness on the verge of a dominant victory.
“Of course I do. Sheila is all I have in the world.” His eyes blurred. “I’d do anything to get her back.”
“Then do anything.” Guy finished adjusting the device on Steve’s head. “This teletracker should be able to link you back with Sheila. Try to see what she sees. Try to find out where she is before she’s forced to kill again.”
“What happens if this doesn’t work? What will happen to Sheila?”
Guy guided Steve over to the edge of the pool. “It might already be too late. All we can do is try.”
With that, he shoved Steve into the tranquil, glowing waters.
Steve had no time to protest. Barely enough time to register the betrayal before the shock-cold stunned his entire body. The splash was already muted as he sank into the darkening depths as if made of stone.
Sharp, biting pain stabbed his head. Frantic thoughts of electrocution flashed through his mind before something even worse registered.
The light had vanished.
He was alone in the still black, only aware of being underwater because of the clammy wetness and the claustrophobic pressure. The water seemed to weigh a ton, an entire ocean pressing down on him, refusing to yield. Panic ensued; he fought to move his limbs, but they responded only sluggishly. It was as if he were imprisoned in viscous darkness, some prehistoric creature trapped in a tar pit, slowly suffocated and dissolved until only his fossils remained.
He screamed.
Bubbles fled from his throat as water poured in, filling his lungs.
Water.
He was still in the swimming pool. The rest was just panic, sheer terror caused by darkness and aquaphobia. He blindly kicked upward, following the stream of bubbles. A distant light drew nearer; wane and flickering like a candle on the verge of snuffing out. His lungs seared as he swam with desperate speed toward the surface.
Dead faces greeted him.
They leered with death grins, sightless eyes hollowed, faces half-rotted. It was their bodies that blocked the light. The figures grew more distinct as he advanced, covering nearly every inch of the surface. Even though he was near to drowning, he still had to overcome his revulsion in order to push away the pale, mushy flesh in order to rise to the top.
Everything had changed.
The air was cold and harsh, prickling his lungs and immediately summoning a coughing fit. He choked and gasped while treading water. His hands automatically went to his head, but to his shock the contraption was no longer strapped on. He forced down the panic that threatened to overwhelm his senses, trying to focus on the situation.
The odor of sickly sweet meat was rank in his nostrils, thick and nauseous. The sky was the color and texture of old oatmeal, the wind a dying beast. Impossible as it seemed, he was in a river, the waters logged down by the sheer number of dead that clogged it.
Trying not to vomit, he pushed through the corpses until he reached the shallows. The stark landscape was completely unfamiliar. The bones of winter trees littered the horizon, and a distant town was barely visible on the other side. It looked like the type he'd seen in medieval movies. He shivered and hugged himself as the bitter wind bit into his flesh.
He topped a hillside and stopped in his tracks.
People were visible, but he never thought to call out. They shambled along, more dead than alive. Most appeared to be in stages of rot — some barely visible, others nearly walking corpses. Their clothes matched the era of the town, fashions from a bygone era.
Even worse was the figure that moved with fluid grace in their midst. The troglodyte was instantly familiar — taller than any man and whip-slender, garbed in shadows with a pale, faceless head stark against the darkness that draped it. Even in the grainy daylight it was barely visible, a walking stain that guided its macabre puppets along with unseen strings.
Icy fingers squeezed Steve's throat when the troglodyte froze. The plague-infected horde stopped as well. Their heads swiveled and their heads lifted, as if they relied more on scent than vision. Steve was acutely aware of his visibility from where he stood atop the hill. He slowly lowered himself, trying to get low and attempt to clamber back down the embankment unnoticed.
The movement may as well have been a flare. The troglodyte's head whipped in Steve's direction; sightless eyes locked onto him, burning with hatred of every living thing. It lifted a slender arm and pointed with a bony, elongated finger.
The hordes howled in response.
The sound was chilling, more animal than human. They rushed toward Steve's hilltop like disturbed ants, stumbling over one another in their haste. Their gait was bestial, almost simian, as if they had shed their humanity and devolved into something subhuman. Their eyes glinted like dully polished stones, devoid of any semblance of self-consciousness. The troglodyte towered behind them, a pasty-faced silhouette with arms that became tentacles, shadowy lashes that flayed his horde, whipping them into a frenzy.
Steve turned and fled.
His heart pumped fire in his veins, fueling his muscles. He bounded down the sandy terrain, his feet barely touching the ground, trailed by the ravenous shrieks of the infected mob. The dead lay as they were, tripping him as he tried to reach the river again, slowing his progress as though intentionally trying to impede him.
He waded into the waters, surrounded by plague-ridden, putrefied corpses. The odor was nearly enough to make him vomit, but he remained silent, praying the living would lose his trail. He dared not move, not look as he floated on his back, slowly drifting to the underworld along with the rest of the dead.