“Oh God,” she said.
To her left, Sharon darted a look. “What?”
Alex didn’t reply. She couldn’t. But she had enough experience with the Changed and knew when she smelled it.
Daniel and Jack didn’t have much time.
And neither did they.
32
A wind sled is not like a snowmobile. The principle’s closer to that of an airboat: a strong engine producing enough air to propel a boat over shallow water or ice. There are two controls: a throttle for power and a wheel or a stick that controls the rudder and directs the air.
The problem with a wind sled? No brake. The only ways to stop are to dump air or power down. And a wind sled is clumsy. This thing doesn’t turn on a dime. Jerk the rudder too quickly, spill enough air, and you guarantee a stall.
As soon as he felt the Spitfire move, Tom jammed the throttle, slotting it all the way forward. The sled responded with a thumping lurch and then shot from the boathouse so quickly he was thrown back against the dog. His foot slid on the accelerator, and he heard the engine instantly dip and grumble as the Spitfire slowed to nothing more than a slow walk. Gasping, he righted, then mashed the accelerator hard.
Bulleting away from the boathouse in a cloud of diesel, the sled sped over the spit and onto snow-mantled ice with a solid thump. The ride was rough; every imperfection and dip in the snow and ice came through as a hard bounce and jitter, but he was moving. Odd’s layout spread before his mind’s eye. Jed’s ice-fishing house was off to his right at about one o’clock. Best to give it a wide berth, bank left, head for the jink.
Something flickered, liquid and orange, and his eyes flicked right. The cabin was a torch. Huge flames boiled from the shattered picture window and splashed over the eaves. Inside that front room, the fire, bright as lava, streamed up the walls and over the ceiling. Even at this distance, he saw the moment a propane tank went, because the fire hitched, pulled back in an ice-blue gasp. The fireball exploded into the night with so much force he heard the boom over the sled’s roar.
He was so stunned that he didn’t realize he was slowing until the engine guttered. Too late, he dropped his boot again, but the Spitfire was already sliding to a halt. In the sudden silence, he caught a shrill sputter, like the scream of a buzz saw.
Jed’s snowmobile.
Come on! He jabbed the ignition, but the engine had flooded and all he got was a click and a whir and a whole lot of nothing. Heart pounding, he forced himself to wait for it . . . wait for it . . . then cranked the engine again. This time, he was rewarded with a bellow. The wind sled lurched and began to pick up speed.
He shot a look over his shoulder. The single eye of the snowmobile’s headlight was steady. They weren’t moving. Why not? Then he saw the lake spread beneath him in a shimmery silver carpet. Reflection. They were lighting him up so they could—
He felt something—big, huge—rush for him. Startled, he faced front just in time to see Jed’s icehouse and his own shadow suddenly leap out of the gloom. Gasping, he wrenched the wheel, banked left. The camper swept by in a dizzying swirl as the sled fishtailed, dumped air, slowed down. There was a hard bang as the Spitfire’s berglass hull slapped and bounced off the camper’s wood runners. Then, a bright spark danced at the corner of his right eye. A split second later, there was a sharp ting as the bullet smashed sheet metal.
Now he knew why they’d stayed on shore. The icehouse’s metal shell reflected light just like the snow. Four hundred yards and change, with a scoped rifle, was nothing.
Go, go! Hammering the accelerator, he spun the wind sled into a wide, drunken port turn. The Spitfire yawed. Behind, he felt the dog scrambling to keep its balance, but they were moving now, gaining speed, heading for the jink, fine rooster tails of ice and snow dusting to a billowing cloud.
He knew what they would do now. The snowmobile was old but much more powerful and faster. All he had was a head start. He could hear nothing above the engine roar now, not the scream of the Spitfire or even the wind. Speed turned the cold air into a scythe that sliced at his exposed flesh. He was blasting across the lake, flying blind, going on memory, relying on luck. As the Spitfire took the jink, he threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the night blue and then brighten as the snowmobile’s light lanced through the dark in a tight, neat arc.
Running out of time. Where was it? How long had he been on the ice? Two minutes? Four? He should be there soo—
He felt the moment the ice and snowpack changed. There was a lurch and then a dip as the ice roughened, and then he was bouncing as the hull smacked rutted and refrozen ripples. Another bounce and the ride got rougher, his teeth chattering as the wind sled hit thinner ice over the rift.
If anything, he should go faster. Pound the accelerator and get the hell out of there. Those hunters were close, gaining by the second, and they would be on him, so he needed to go, to go, to gogogo!
Instead, he eased his foot from the accelerator. His speed dropped, the engine grumbled; ice and snow grabbed the hull. He felt the wind sled slow and stumble. There was a hard thunk as the bow skipped over a knee of ice, and then the Spitfire bounced and smacked over a welter of ice floes, their seams stitched with ice that was whisper-thin, no more than two inches thick. Good enough for him. Perfect. He slowed and slowed and watched the darkness gray, then blue, then silver as the churn of the snowmobile grew louder and louder . . .
Now! He stamped down hard. The engine swelled as the Spitfire screamed to full throttle and plowed over the ice, its hull slapping up and then down like a flat stone skipping across a pond. There was a tremendous bang and then—all of a sudden—he was over open water. Cold spray sheeted up all around, but he kept on, straight and true, bracing himself for the sudden lurch he knew would come as soon as the sled regained the ice and snow. He prayed his speed was enough to plane the boat, compensate for the weight of him and his gear and the dog. God, the dog. He hoped Raleigh was smart enough to hunker down, or else the impact might throw—
The Spitfire’s bow barreled onto the ice with a jolt and a hop, and then he was past the rift, screaming over the surface. He felt the lake hardening again, the jolts dying. A hard cut to the right, and then he was spilling air, curling around so the bow faced back the way he’d just come.
“Raleigh, down!” Cutting the engine, he swept up his rifle, slotting it as he pivoted from the waist, ready to fire—
Just as the snowmobile broke through.
33
“What the hell do they want?” Ray twisted right and left. “What’s going on?”
No one answered. The Changed had closed round in a circle. Alex and the others were lined up directly across from Daniel, who was still flanked by two ninja-kids. Another held Jack by the scruff of his neck. Spider was beside the boy, loose and limber, corn knife in hand. Jack’s fear-smell—curdled milk and hot urine—was so strong Alex tasted it.
Acne elbowed his way through, followed by Beretta and Leopard. Pain bit into Beretta’s face, but he was steadier on his feet now. His danger smell made her pulse skip. Acne clutched two rifles, his own with that gas piston, and another she recognized at once: the Browning X-Bolt that Nathan had given her before that mad dash from Rule.
This close, she also got a good look at the handgun tucked in Leopard’s waistband. She would know a Glock anywhere.
“What do you want from me?” Daniel said. It was costing him to stand. He was hunched into a comma, an arm clamped to his side. “I told you. You can have me. I won’t fight you anymore. Just let Jack go.”
Beretta stared at Daniel for a long second. Acne strode forward, the Browning outstretched.
“What?” Daniel stared at the rifle as if Acne was trying to hand him a python. “I’m not taking that. Give you a chance to shoot me? Fine. You want to kill me, just do it, but—”
“Don’t you get it, kid?” Sharon’s tone was flat. “You get to choose: shoot one of us or little Jackie-boy there gets his throat cut.”
Alex’s mouth dried up. She smelled how on the mark Sharon was. This was tit for tat: give me this, I give you that, and we’ll call it even.
“What?” Ray said. He pushed Ruby behind him. “What the hell?”
“Daniel.” Jack’s eyes were buggy with terror. “Daniel, Daniel, Daniel . . .”
“I won’t do it,” Daniel gasped. A hard shudder rippled through his body, and one of the ninjas grabbed him before he could fall. Daniel shook him off with a strangled curse. “You can’t make me like you. I’m not a murderer.”
“Well, I guess they think you are like them,” Sharon ground out. If doom could speak, Alex thought it would have this old woman’s voice. “Whatever you and your friends did, you pissed them off, and now they’re gonna make you pay.”
No, not just pay. The air was so clogged with the stink of the Changed and the dead and her fellow prisoners—and now with Daniel’s horror and Jack’s terror—that it was as if she was breathing them all in: their histories, their fates. She was certain this was a test. A trial.
A rite.
“Please. You said you’d let Jack go.” Daniel turned to Beretta and Acne. “I’m responsible. I organized the attack. Kill me, but leave Jack and these other people out of it, please.”
“What happens if he doesn’t choose?” Ray threw a wild look at Sharon as if she might know the answer. “He doesn’t have to.”
“I think they got other ideas,” Sharon said.
“I can’t do this.” Daniel’s gaze skipped from one to the other. When his eyes landed on Alex, they grabbed and held. “They can’t ask me to do this.”
They could. And they were. She wanted to say something, anything. In a movie or a book, this was where the heroine volunteered. Stepped up, did the right thing. It should be her. She did not want to die, but the monster lived inside her head. It had yellow eyes and needle-teeth. It was growing a face. It was a cancer, and she was going to die anyway. Tom would’ve done it. Chris, too. That little kid deserved a chance.