“Go to hell,” the farmer said.
“That’ll be a yes.”
Caleb drew a pistol from inside his boiler suit. “Got him.”
The farmer gave him a sceptical glance. People tended to go one of two ways with Caleb; kind-faced, softly-spoken, hunched with self-consciousness, he struck people as either slow enough to take advantage of or too quietly calm to trust. After a moment, the farmer settled on the latter, and finally loosened his grip on the shotgun. Reece took it. “Now what’s the fuss?”
The slim one straightened up. “You ain’t coming through here, no way –”
The man flattened himself against a wall as Reece pushed past into the next room. The farmer called out, an explanation or a dismissal. Reece didn’t hear it. A woman on the far side of the room gasped, but she wasn’t his concern. Dead centre, with the other furniture cleared to the sides, was a girl no older than seven, sat on a wooden chair. Her arms, legs and chest were bound by thick leather belts. Her black hair hung in locks over hazel skin, the white of her eyes haloing big dark irises that fixed on Reece.
Reece glanced at the woman for an explanation; young but built big, in the same farming slacks as the men. Likely the farmer’s daughter. She cringed at the pistol, too scared to speak. Reece turned back to Slim, who raised his hands.
“Ain’t what it looks like! She’s the devil, I swear!”
“What is it, Reece?” Caleb asked.
“Like y’all ain’t involved?” the farmer snarled.
“What in hell kind of –” Reece spun back to the girl. “They hurt you? Jesus – what’d they do –”
He crouched, about to grab her bindings, when Slim pleaded, “No, don’t!” He flinched at Reece’s pistol but continued, “Look at her eyes!”
Holding his gun steady, Reece checked the girl again. Her gently dark skin was marred around the extremities: grubby at her neck, dark under the eyes and nose, scratched. She had on a white t-shirt and denim dungarees, all stained – fallen in mud a few times. Her gaze hadn’t left him since he entered. Eyes massive in her face. The irises, now he looked, were red as blood.
“You see it, don’t you?” Slim said.
“Don’t bother, Donny,” the farmer growled from the hallway. “Think they come rolling in here by chance? With all that thing’s been saying?”
“Dammit,” Caleb said, “let’s see.”
Reece frowned as Caleb pushed the farmer into the room. “That thing?”
“Ho-ly hell,” Caleb gasped, over the farmer’s shoulder.
“She ain’t right.” The farmer’s daughter found her voice, a squeak. Terrified as slim Donny, getting busted like this.
“We wanted to help her, man!” Donny insisted. “But she says things –”
“Get yourself up against that wall,” Reece said. “The pair of you. And you” – to the woman – “untie this goddamn child.”
“I ain’t staying.” Donny made a move. “Not if she’s loose.”
“Please,” the girl said, weakly. Donny winced. “Help me …”
Reece said, “None of y’all are leaving. Didn’t I ask you to untie her?”
“Don’t you dare,” the farmer rumbled, before his daughter could budge.
“You miss the part where we got guns on you?” Caleb asked. “Shit, I’ll do it –” He stepped forward and the farmer lunged for the gun. The pair of them twisted over it, the farmer’s weight bearing them to the ground. Donny sprang for the door and tripped, the stumble making Reece’s shot hit the wall where his head should’ve been. The farmer shouted murderously, grappling with Caleb, and the daughter screamed, as Donny dived out the room and Reece’s second shot hit the doorframe.
A third shot sounded, muffled by Caleb’s scuffle. The farmer’s angry shout spiked and Caleb yelled, “Get this fat bastard off me!” But Reece was running through the hallway, as Donny sprawled spider-like out across the drive. Reece aimed as he reached the door, but hit a patch of Stomatt’s blood and slid, landing on his rear. He scrambled upright and saw a last slither of Donny’s angular joints slipping into shadow. Man moved like a damn greyhound.
Caleb grunted around the farmer’s bulk and the daughter’s screams turned to fierce curses. Caleb insisted, “Ma’am, you saw him attack me! Woulda killed me!”
Reece trotted back to the living room to find the farmer inert on the carpet, blood pooling under his chest. His daughter was shuddering in a crouch as Caleb stood over her, gun at his side. “Stop screaming, please – I didn’t want to have to do it!”
And in the middle of the chaos sat the red-eyed girl, eyes locked on Reece again. Afraid. Reece holstered his gun and took a knee. “It’s gonna be alright, cher. We’ve got you.” The farmer’s daughter kept whimpering, no no no.
Rapid footsteps came over the entrance boards and both Reece and Caleb spun with pistols raised. It was Leigh-Ann, running in with a MAC-10 submachine gun and a deadly look on her face. Reece yelled, “Dammit Leigh there’s a kid in here!”
She shouted, “What in hell are y’all doing?”
The shrieked question stilled the room, even the farmer’s daughter going quiet. The trio of gun-toting criminals looked at each other, the dead farmer and tied-up girl. Reece stood, in silent admission that this had got well out of hand.
Leigh-Ann laughed. “Shit, boys, this your idea of getting help?”
2
The closer he got, the more Agent Sean Tasker, Ministry of Environmental Energy, hoped something was actually wrong in the fishing village of Laukstad. He’d been sceptical flying from Tokyo to Norway, and for the three-hour drive from Tromsø, and occupied his mind trying to focus on the snow-blanketed mountains that he could describe to his daughter Rebecca, rather than consider how he was travelling especially far for this latest dead-end lead. His driver and escort, Police Inspector Akre, refused to believe there was anything worth investigating. Red-faced and cheery, he had explained that Laukstad had sporadic phone connections at the best of times, so two days without hearing from the village was nothing. Three days, by the time Tasker arrived, was slightly unusual, but not enough to raise alarm. Snowstorms might have cut them off, but the villagers would be taking care of themselves.
Tasker imagined some slick-suited bastards in corporate offices laughing at him, redirecting MEE resources to the strangest possible places, to find nothing amiss. This “lead” had come from Duvcorp, after all, a corporation known for making their own rules. Some bored Duvcorp researcher had told a newbie MEE director that they’d picked up unusual energy readings out here, so why not have an agent travel all the way from Japan to check it out? Well. It was about time he came home to debrief anyway, and he hadn’t seen Helen and Rebecca in three months, but even so – the deputy director had lapped it up, insisting this contact was going behind Duvcorp’s back, giving the Ministry a unique chance to subvert them. Tasker knew better than to trust that crap. Most likely, it was revenge for him hounding Duvcorp’s mates in Tokyo, Mogami Industries. Some vindictive Duvcorp strategist figured exactly how to position this so that it’d be him making this hopeless journey.