Black of Hearts, page 3
part #12 of Quentin Black Mystery Series
She pointed towards the line of cameras on their side of the barrier.
“Yes. But not only that. Not primarily that. They have mines, sister,” he said, still using that polite voice. “Land mines. A lot of them.”
Kiko’s eyes widened.
“Mines?” She stared down the slope. “Motherfuck.”
“Yes,” Jax replied, his tone unmoving.
“Along the whole wall?” she said, incredulous.
He nodded, giving her an equally somber look.
“Both sides. Mines and drones,” he confirmed. “We’re outside the periphery here, but about a hundred yards down the slope, the security measures kick in. We’d definitely be videoed, ID’d, tracked, recorded, and likely shot at, both by humans and drones.”
He took another drag of the hiri cigarette, his dark purple eyes flickering down to her lips, then back to her eyes.
“Charles would know,” he added. “He would know we’d been down here, and that we were assessing his capabilities––”
“Black didn’t care about that,” she said, waving him off. “Well. Not overly.”
Jax fell silent.
Then, his expression unmoving, he shrugged. Exhaling some of that sweet-smelling smoke, he pointed again at the monochrome valley.
“You see those lines? The shadows out there?” He aimed his finger at one of the clusters of dark lines Kiko had noticed and puzzled over earlier. “The ones that happen in those odd formations?”
Kiko nodded. “Yeah. What is that? Another security measure?”
“Bodies,” Jax said, matter of fact.
When Kiko flinched, staring at him, he only pointed down the slope again.
“They had a big cluster of people try to rush the wall––”
“Wait. On this side? The American side?”
“No,” Jax said. “Not primarily. Mostly on the other side.”
“So why are there bodies on this side?” Kiko said, frowning.
“Presumably those are the humans who made it past the mines on the other side and over the wall,” Jax answered calmly. “See how there are more craters there?”
He aimed his finger gracefully back towards the wall, this time pointing past it, to the Mexican side.
“…You can see the rough range of the mines, based on the dispersion of the bodies. Basically, everything not a road has a pattern of IEDs and other pressure-sensitive explosives. Also, in a few places, the drones are reporting laser triggers for other defense measures.”
He indicated the other side of the wall with another disconcertingly graceful motion.
“Those are fresh. Like perhaps from last night. A day ago, at most.”
Kiko stared down at the valley, hands on her hips.
After a pause, she shook her head.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “I mean, I get the dual measures, but it seems like overkill. Is the wall to keep people out, like President Regent has been saying? Or––”
Jax was already shaking his head.
“Given the placement of a preponderance of security measures on this side, not to mention the mines… Ace is thinking no. The wall isn’t only, or perhaps even primarily, to keep people out, although that will likely be the political story.”
At her silence, Jax went on in the same calm voice.
“Most of those in the infiltration team working out of San Francisco agree. They think Charles is using this national security pretext to lock down the country. There are now rumblings about closing the airports… at least to civilians… until the riots and unrest are ‘contained.’ Again, this is being couched in terms of national security.”
Kiko’s frown deepened.
Black warned them something like a civil war might be coming.
The reality was sinking in slower, at least for her.
“Why?” she said, trying not to feel stupid for asking. “Why lock down the country? Black said Charles would be spreading this thing, going international. Why would Charles want the United States cut off from the rest of the world, if the goal was to conquer all of it?”
Jax shrugged, taking another drag of the hiri.
“I can only speculate, sister,” he said. “Your friend, Angel, believes Charles may want the different tribes of humans isolated from one another, to increase aggression and paranoia between them. Black appeared to agree with her. So did Yarli… and her human mate, Manny.”
Pausing, he added,
“And it is not a stupid question, sister. All of this is theory until we get someone inside Charles’ camp at a high enough level to know his exact thinking.”
Kiko brushed this off.
“This all sounds like a prelude to war,” she pointed out. “Does Black have any theories on who it will be? Who Charles plans to attack?”
Jax frowned, gazing down at his feet as he exhaled smoke.
For the first time in the conversation, he looked young to her.
He also looked sad, like her question depressed him.
Watching him, watching his face, it struck Kiko that this wasn’t his natural personality. He wasn’t supposed to be a sad man. He wasn’t supposed to be this serious.
Jax flinched, violently, his long body tensing. His dark purple eyes widened as he turned, meeting her gaze.
Feeling caught––and rude, that time––Kiko looked away, her face warming.
The silence between them grew awkward.
Clearing his throat, Jax stubbed out the remainder of the leaf-wrapped cigarette with his boot and spoke, still focusing down on his feet in the dust.
“I don’t think Black and the others think the exact players in the coming war are particularly important, sister,” he said, his voice polite. “It’s more about causing chaos and trauma, along with diversion through violence. If Charles can incite wars between different groups, he’ll likely involve as many countries and regions as he can.”
Kiko nodded, biting her lip.
She stared down at the wall, her mouth growing taut.
“To kill off humans,” she muttered.
“In part, yes,” Jax said, his voice faintly cautioning. “I doubt that is his only goal though, sister… or even his primary one. I suspect his real goal is more practical. This will clear the path for him to do major societal reorganization without most humans noticing well enough to fight him, or even slow him down.”
At her stare, Jax shrugged, adding,
“For example, he might want them distracted with war so he can more easily implement changes in the structuring of the economy, not to mention the introduction of new tech, new surveillance, new methods of population control, changes in how the government operates, border checkpoints that will facilitate the monitoring of movements of the different races––”
“Vampires,” Kiko muttered.
Jax looked at her, his dark purple eyes serious.
They struck her suddenly, as almost heartbreakingly sad.
He looked so young to her.
Younger than her, although she knew, as a seer, he was likely decades older. When his eyes flickered away, Kiko swallowed, fighting embarrassment, fighting the impulse to touch the young seer.
She cleared her throat.
“Okay, I get it,” she said, in part to kill their second awkward silence. “Charles wants everyone distracted. But from what Black said, a lot of this is about vampires. According to Black, Charles positively hates vampires. He’s afraid of them. With the borders under his control, Charles can track and control the movement of vampires in and out of the country. I’m assuming he already has ways to test for them… ways that could work in a racial checkpoint type set-up, I mean.”
Jax nodded thoughtfully. “Presumably, yes.”
Kiko nodded back, frowning out over the desert. “If Charles’ first goal is wiping out vampires, controlling the borders is likely step one.”
“Yes.” Jax nodded, his eyes flickering away. “Yes, Black mentioned this to me, too. I agree, it makes sense.”
Jax cleared his own throat.
Then, shrugging, staring down at his boots, he added,
“They used similar methods on Old Earth. Racial checkpoints. The next step will be registration of all citizens. Mandatory microchipping. Looking for irregularities in movement and association… again, they will claim this is all for safety, but it will serve to restrict freedoms dramatically, likely for humans as much as vampires.”
His face neutral, he added,
“Black is right. It does seem Miriam’s blood uncle learned all the worst lessons from our birth world.”
Kiko nodded.
Strangely, she felt her head starting to clear.
As much as she hated everything they were discussing, something about saying it all out loud demystified it, too. It clicked her back into work mode.
“Okay. They need the borders closed.” Kiko frowned, folding her arms over her armored vest. “So the idea is to stop them here. Before they get to the rest of it.”
Jax gave her a sideways glance.
From the scrutiny in his expression, Kiko got the impression he was noting her renewed sense of purpose.
After a pause, the seer nodded.
“Yes. I think that is correct. Black thinks Charles has a very deliberate staging strategy.” His otherworldly, purple eyes continued to study hers. “He thinks this is all being rolled out according to a pre-defined schedule. From what I am seeing, I agree with him.”
Kiko nodded. She’d heard the others talking about that.
“What do you think?” Jax said.
“What do I think about what?” she said, kicking her boots into the loose dirt.
She glanced over to find him studying her face with that curiously intimate stare.
“What do I think about what Charles is doing?” she said. “What do I think about Black’s strategy?” She grunted, going back to kicking at the dirt. “What do I think about why the vampires aren’t fighting back yet?”
She thought about all three questions.
“Everything you’re saying about Charles rings true,” she said. “And I’m the last person to ask about what goes on in the mind of a vampire.”
Her words came out bitter.
If Jax noticed, he didn’t react.
“I doubt that is true,” he said neutrally. “But I wondered specifically what it is you think we should advise Black, given what we’re seeing down here. Do we recommend he send resources to attack the wall? Remotely detonate the mines? Force them to defend it? Or do we cede them this and focus on the next piece of staging?”
Kiko frowned. “Is that possible?”
“Which part?”
“Any of it. But I meant with the mines.”
Jax shrugged one of those graceful seer shrugs.
“From our perspective, the technology is crude here, sister. I suspect our seers could manage this, depending on the precise trigger mechanism.”
Kiko frowned.
It honestly hadn’t occurred to her until now, but they had a lot of the same technological advantages as Charles these days. A lot of Old Earth seers had joined their ranks, including many trained in the sciences. They could potentially exploit that knowledge to overcome even cutting-edge military tech from this version of Earth.
“What about the camps?” Jax said. “Does Black want us to assess those while we’re here?”
Kiko grunted, smiling humorlessly.
“I don’t think Black is exactly running the show right now, do you?” she said, giving Jax a sideways look. “He’s been pretty wrapped up in trying to figure out what the hell’s happening with his wife. We should probably talk to Yarli. Or maybe Cowboy and Angel.”
Pursing his lips, Jax gave her a nod.
“Yes,” he said. “That sounds right.”
“What does Ace say?” Kiko said, hands on her hips.
“Hang on. I just asked. Holo is consulting with the others.”
Kiko frowned.
Apparently Jax had been talking to Holo, even as he talked to her.
She knew it was none of her business, but she couldn’t help wondering about the exact nature of the Holo-Jax relationship. They were obviously close. Some of the others implied it was more than that. It was variously rumored they were half-brothers, cousins, lovers, mates, childhood friends––
Jax broke into her train of thought, his voice sharp.
“Hold on. Holo says they’re getting new feed from the drones. Something’s happening along the wall. Southeast of us. Maybe a mile.”
Kiko’s eyes tracked to her left. She clicked on the binocular view in her headset, following the snaking line of wall.
As she did, Ace’s voice rose in her headset, sounding panicked.
“Kiko?” he said. “Are you seeing this? Holo said he just told Jax.”
“Looking now,” she said, still staring.
Then she found it.
Lines of dust and smoke kicked up into the air on the horizon due southeast. The puffs of dust and smoke multiplied in a line, coming faster––
The sound reached them.
A booming series of explosions ripped through the desert air.
The cliff trembled.
Kiko winced, holding out an arm instinctively for balance.
Her eyes remained on the line of explosions. The smoke blackened, growing thicker. She watched as the detonations multiplied, right before the sound reached them again, the delay oddly like thunder.
The detonations didn’t stop. A third line of clouds shot up even faster, reaching into the pale blue sky as columns of red-tinted smoke.
She looked past the smoke, and now she saw them.
They looked like a swarm of ants.
They covered that whole section of desert, as if multiple hatches opened in the desert floor and they all flooded out. When more of those black clouds shot up, individual explosions merged into one continuous, rolling rumble. Sharper, higher pops multiplied, probably small arms fire from drones and the wall.
Her mind imagined she could hear screams.
She hadn’t blinked since the first line of dust appeared.
“They’re rushing the wall,” Jax commented.
Kiko nodded, wordless.
She saw a line of vehicles now, coming from the west, racing along roads on either side of the wall. Given the distance, and the speed, they had to be going over sixty miles per hour. The dark, matchbox-looking trucks and off-road vehicles jounced and jumped alongside the high wall, mounted weapons jerking wildly as they accelerated.
Yanking the binoculars off her belt, she raised them to her eyes, squinting against the glare of the fading afternoon sun.
She could see them for real then.
People running for the wall.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
Something about the way they ran struck her as odd, at least where she could glimpse their bodies and shapes through the smoke. They didn’t run like they were panicking. They didn’t run like military, or even a group of humans doing a coordinated, kamikaze run.
Kiko didn’t see a single one of them veer, dodge, zig-zag––not even when humans sprinting alongside them stepped onto mines and exploded.
They didn’t stop to help one another.
They didn’t try to hide behind one another, or reverse course.
They ran in eerily straight lines, ignoring their fellow travelers even as they ignored gunfire, whether from drones zipping back and forth overhead, or when artillery fire erupted from the high, black wall as border agents tried to stop the wave of invaders.
They didn’t try to save themselves at all.
They just ran.
Kiko stared from one to the other through the binocs, looking for variation.
When she didn’t see any, she clicked over to visuals from the drone feeds, hoping to get a more accurate take on the crowds rushing the fence.
That only made her puzzlement worse.
Their faces, their eyes, their expressions…
All of them were just blank.
They didn’t look angry.
They didn’t look determined.
They didn’t look afraid. They didn’t look sad, or desperate.
They just looked… empty.
Staring at them, switching between the lagging drone feed in her headset and the high-powered binoculars, Kiko felt a sickness growing in her gut.
She knew, even before she admitted it to herself.
She knew what was happening.
It was broad daylight.
Every face and body on the desert floor was human.
They were human beings, running under the sun, running across the sandy desert floor, running across and exploding mines… clearing a path.
Clearing out the mines.
She knew, again without thinking about how she knew, that the next wave of humans would tackle the wall itself. The one after that would tackle the mines on the other side of the wall. They would keep sending them, more and more of them, as many as it took, until the humans had cleared the way, making it safe for their masters to cross.
The sun would set in probably two hours.
Three at most.
By then, Kiko thought, all the mines in that part of the desert would be gone.
Craters and human body parts would cover that whole section of desert, possible for a full mile, but the way would be clear.
The beings who sent the humans over would be free to come out of their hiding places, and into the desert night. They would be free to cross over into the United States, with little of consequence to stop them.
It looked like Uncle Charles’ plan to keep the vampires out suffered from a few flaws.
Lowering the binoculars, Kiko glanced at Jax.
The seer lowered his own, answering her grim face with a look of his own.
2
Awaken
I OPENED MY EYES, gasping.
I could only lay there at first.
I lay flat on my back, gasping, staring up at the ceiling in the dark.
Next to me, I heard more breaths, deeper, heavier breaths, fighting through air that felt cool to me, borderline cold, even inside the heated room.
I felt his body react to being back.
I felt the shock in his light. I felt even more shock from his mind, shock at what had happened, what I’d done to him.
“Yes. But not only that. Not primarily that. They have mines, sister,” he said, still using that polite voice. “Land mines. A lot of them.”
Kiko’s eyes widened.
“Mines?” She stared down the slope. “Motherfuck.”
“Yes,” Jax replied, his tone unmoving.
“Along the whole wall?” she said, incredulous.
He nodded, giving her an equally somber look.
“Both sides. Mines and drones,” he confirmed. “We’re outside the periphery here, but about a hundred yards down the slope, the security measures kick in. We’d definitely be videoed, ID’d, tracked, recorded, and likely shot at, both by humans and drones.”
He took another drag of the hiri cigarette, his dark purple eyes flickering down to her lips, then back to her eyes.
“Charles would know,” he added. “He would know we’d been down here, and that we were assessing his capabilities––”
“Black didn’t care about that,” she said, waving him off. “Well. Not overly.”
Jax fell silent.
Then, his expression unmoving, he shrugged. Exhaling some of that sweet-smelling smoke, he pointed again at the monochrome valley.
“You see those lines? The shadows out there?” He aimed his finger at one of the clusters of dark lines Kiko had noticed and puzzled over earlier. “The ones that happen in those odd formations?”
Kiko nodded. “Yeah. What is that? Another security measure?”
“Bodies,” Jax said, matter of fact.
When Kiko flinched, staring at him, he only pointed down the slope again.
“They had a big cluster of people try to rush the wall––”
“Wait. On this side? The American side?”
“No,” Jax said. “Not primarily. Mostly on the other side.”
“So why are there bodies on this side?” Kiko said, frowning.
“Presumably those are the humans who made it past the mines on the other side and over the wall,” Jax answered calmly. “See how there are more craters there?”
He aimed his finger gracefully back towards the wall, this time pointing past it, to the Mexican side.
“…You can see the rough range of the mines, based on the dispersion of the bodies. Basically, everything not a road has a pattern of IEDs and other pressure-sensitive explosives. Also, in a few places, the drones are reporting laser triggers for other defense measures.”
He indicated the other side of the wall with another disconcertingly graceful motion.
“Those are fresh. Like perhaps from last night. A day ago, at most.”
Kiko stared down at the valley, hands on her hips.
After a pause, she shook her head.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “I mean, I get the dual measures, but it seems like overkill. Is the wall to keep people out, like President Regent has been saying? Or––”
Jax was already shaking his head.
“Given the placement of a preponderance of security measures on this side, not to mention the mines… Ace is thinking no. The wall isn’t only, or perhaps even primarily, to keep people out, although that will likely be the political story.”
At her silence, Jax went on in the same calm voice.
“Most of those in the infiltration team working out of San Francisco agree. They think Charles is using this national security pretext to lock down the country. There are now rumblings about closing the airports… at least to civilians… until the riots and unrest are ‘contained.’ Again, this is being couched in terms of national security.”
Kiko’s frown deepened.
Black warned them something like a civil war might be coming.
The reality was sinking in slower, at least for her.
“Why?” she said, trying not to feel stupid for asking. “Why lock down the country? Black said Charles would be spreading this thing, going international. Why would Charles want the United States cut off from the rest of the world, if the goal was to conquer all of it?”
Jax shrugged, taking another drag of the hiri.
“I can only speculate, sister,” he said. “Your friend, Angel, believes Charles may want the different tribes of humans isolated from one another, to increase aggression and paranoia between them. Black appeared to agree with her. So did Yarli… and her human mate, Manny.”
Pausing, he added,
“And it is not a stupid question, sister. All of this is theory until we get someone inside Charles’ camp at a high enough level to know his exact thinking.”
Kiko brushed this off.
“This all sounds like a prelude to war,” she pointed out. “Does Black have any theories on who it will be? Who Charles plans to attack?”
Jax frowned, gazing down at his feet as he exhaled smoke.
For the first time in the conversation, he looked young to her.
He also looked sad, like her question depressed him.
Watching him, watching his face, it struck Kiko that this wasn’t his natural personality. He wasn’t supposed to be a sad man. He wasn’t supposed to be this serious.
Jax flinched, violently, his long body tensing. His dark purple eyes widened as he turned, meeting her gaze.
Feeling caught––and rude, that time––Kiko looked away, her face warming.
The silence between them grew awkward.
Clearing his throat, Jax stubbed out the remainder of the leaf-wrapped cigarette with his boot and spoke, still focusing down on his feet in the dust.
“I don’t think Black and the others think the exact players in the coming war are particularly important, sister,” he said, his voice polite. “It’s more about causing chaos and trauma, along with diversion through violence. If Charles can incite wars between different groups, he’ll likely involve as many countries and regions as he can.”
Kiko nodded, biting her lip.
She stared down at the wall, her mouth growing taut.
“To kill off humans,” she muttered.
“In part, yes,” Jax said, his voice faintly cautioning. “I doubt that is his only goal though, sister… or even his primary one. I suspect his real goal is more practical. This will clear the path for him to do major societal reorganization without most humans noticing well enough to fight him, or even slow him down.”
At her stare, Jax shrugged, adding,
“For example, he might want them distracted with war so he can more easily implement changes in the structuring of the economy, not to mention the introduction of new tech, new surveillance, new methods of population control, changes in how the government operates, border checkpoints that will facilitate the monitoring of movements of the different races––”
“Vampires,” Kiko muttered.
Jax looked at her, his dark purple eyes serious.
They struck her suddenly, as almost heartbreakingly sad.
He looked so young to her.
Younger than her, although she knew, as a seer, he was likely decades older. When his eyes flickered away, Kiko swallowed, fighting embarrassment, fighting the impulse to touch the young seer.
She cleared her throat.
“Okay, I get it,” she said, in part to kill their second awkward silence. “Charles wants everyone distracted. But from what Black said, a lot of this is about vampires. According to Black, Charles positively hates vampires. He’s afraid of them. With the borders under his control, Charles can track and control the movement of vampires in and out of the country. I’m assuming he already has ways to test for them… ways that could work in a racial checkpoint type set-up, I mean.”
Jax nodded thoughtfully. “Presumably, yes.”
Kiko nodded back, frowning out over the desert. “If Charles’ first goal is wiping out vampires, controlling the borders is likely step one.”
“Yes.” Jax nodded, his eyes flickering away. “Yes, Black mentioned this to me, too. I agree, it makes sense.”
Jax cleared his own throat.
Then, shrugging, staring down at his boots, he added,
“They used similar methods on Old Earth. Racial checkpoints. The next step will be registration of all citizens. Mandatory microchipping. Looking for irregularities in movement and association… again, they will claim this is all for safety, but it will serve to restrict freedoms dramatically, likely for humans as much as vampires.”
His face neutral, he added,
“Black is right. It does seem Miriam’s blood uncle learned all the worst lessons from our birth world.”
Kiko nodded.
Strangely, she felt her head starting to clear.
As much as she hated everything they were discussing, something about saying it all out loud demystified it, too. It clicked her back into work mode.
“Okay. They need the borders closed.” Kiko frowned, folding her arms over her armored vest. “So the idea is to stop them here. Before they get to the rest of it.”
Jax gave her a sideways glance.
From the scrutiny in his expression, Kiko got the impression he was noting her renewed sense of purpose.
After a pause, the seer nodded.
“Yes. I think that is correct. Black thinks Charles has a very deliberate staging strategy.” His otherworldly, purple eyes continued to study hers. “He thinks this is all being rolled out according to a pre-defined schedule. From what I am seeing, I agree with him.”
Kiko nodded. She’d heard the others talking about that.
“What do you think?” Jax said.
“What do I think about what?” she said, kicking her boots into the loose dirt.
She glanced over to find him studying her face with that curiously intimate stare.
“What do I think about what Charles is doing?” she said. “What do I think about Black’s strategy?” She grunted, going back to kicking at the dirt. “What do I think about why the vampires aren’t fighting back yet?”
She thought about all three questions.
“Everything you’re saying about Charles rings true,” she said. “And I’m the last person to ask about what goes on in the mind of a vampire.”
Her words came out bitter.
If Jax noticed, he didn’t react.
“I doubt that is true,” he said neutrally. “But I wondered specifically what it is you think we should advise Black, given what we’re seeing down here. Do we recommend he send resources to attack the wall? Remotely detonate the mines? Force them to defend it? Or do we cede them this and focus on the next piece of staging?”
Kiko frowned. “Is that possible?”
“Which part?”
“Any of it. But I meant with the mines.”
Jax shrugged one of those graceful seer shrugs.
“From our perspective, the technology is crude here, sister. I suspect our seers could manage this, depending on the precise trigger mechanism.”
Kiko frowned.
It honestly hadn’t occurred to her until now, but they had a lot of the same technological advantages as Charles these days. A lot of Old Earth seers had joined their ranks, including many trained in the sciences. They could potentially exploit that knowledge to overcome even cutting-edge military tech from this version of Earth.
“What about the camps?” Jax said. “Does Black want us to assess those while we’re here?”
Kiko grunted, smiling humorlessly.
“I don’t think Black is exactly running the show right now, do you?” she said, giving Jax a sideways look. “He’s been pretty wrapped up in trying to figure out what the hell’s happening with his wife. We should probably talk to Yarli. Or maybe Cowboy and Angel.”
Pursing his lips, Jax gave her a nod.
“Yes,” he said. “That sounds right.”
“What does Ace say?” Kiko said, hands on her hips.
“Hang on. I just asked. Holo is consulting with the others.”
Kiko frowned.
Apparently Jax had been talking to Holo, even as he talked to her.
She knew it was none of her business, but she couldn’t help wondering about the exact nature of the Holo-Jax relationship. They were obviously close. Some of the others implied it was more than that. It was variously rumored they were half-brothers, cousins, lovers, mates, childhood friends––
Jax broke into her train of thought, his voice sharp.
“Hold on. Holo says they’re getting new feed from the drones. Something’s happening along the wall. Southeast of us. Maybe a mile.”
Kiko’s eyes tracked to her left. She clicked on the binocular view in her headset, following the snaking line of wall.
As she did, Ace’s voice rose in her headset, sounding panicked.
“Kiko?” he said. “Are you seeing this? Holo said he just told Jax.”
“Looking now,” she said, still staring.
Then she found it.
Lines of dust and smoke kicked up into the air on the horizon due southeast. The puffs of dust and smoke multiplied in a line, coming faster––
The sound reached them.
A booming series of explosions ripped through the desert air.
The cliff trembled.
Kiko winced, holding out an arm instinctively for balance.
Her eyes remained on the line of explosions. The smoke blackened, growing thicker. She watched as the detonations multiplied, right before the sound reached them again, the delay oddly like thunder.
The detonations didn’t stop. A third line of clouds shot up even faster, reaching into the pale blue sky as columns of red-tinted smoke.
She looked past the smoke, and now she saw them.
They looked like a swarm of ants.
They covered that whole section of desert, as if multiple hatches opened in the desert floor and they all flooded out. When more of those black clouds shot up, individual explosions merged into one continuous, rolling rumble. Sharper, higher pops multiplied, probably small arms fire from drones and the wall.
Her mind imagined she could hear screams.
She hadn’t blinked since the first line of dust appeared.
“They’re rushing the wall,” Jax commented.
Kiko nodded, wordless.
She saw a line of vehicles now, coming from the west, racing along roads on either side of the wall. Given the distance, and the speed, they had to be going over sixty miles per hour. The dark, matchbox-looking trucks and off-road vehicles jounced and jumped alongside the high wall, mounted weapons jerking wildly as they accelerated.
Yanking the binoculars off her belt, she raised them to her eyes, squinting against the glare of the fading afternoon sun.
She could see them for real then.
People running for the wall.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
Something about the way they ran struck her as odd, at least where she could glimpse their bodies and shapes through the smoke. They didn’t run like they were panicking. They didn’t run like military, or even a group of humans doing a coordinated, kamikaze run.
Kiko didn’t see a single one of them veer, dodge, zig-zag––not even when humans sprinting alongside them stepped onto mines and exploded.
They didn’t stop to help one another.
They didn’t try to hide behind one another, or reverse course.
They ran in eerily straight lines, ignoring their fellow travelers even as they ignored gunfire, whether from drones zipping back and forth overhead, or when artillery fire erupted from the high, black wall as border agents tried to stop the wave of invaders.
They didn’t try to save themselves at all.
They just ran.
Kiko stared from one to the other through the binocs, looking for variation.
When she didn’t see any, she clicked over to visuals from the drone feeds, hoping to get a more accurate take on the crowds rushing the fence.
That only made her puzzlement worse.
Their faces, their eyes, their expressions…
All of them were just blank.
They didn’t look angry.
They didn’t look determined.
They didn’t look afraid. They didn’t look sad, or desperate.
They just looked… empty.
Staring at them, switching between the lagging drone feed in her headset and the high-powered binoculars, Kiko felt a sickness growing in her gut.
She knew, even before she admitted it to herself.
She knew what was happening.
It was broad daylight.
Every face and body on the desert floor was human.
They were human beings, running under the sun, running across the sandy desert floor, running across and exploding mines… clearing a path.
Clearing out the mines.
She knew, again without thinking about how she knew, that the next wave of humans would tackle the wall itself. The one after that would tackle the mines on the other side of the wall. They would keep sending them, more and more of them, as many as it took, until the humans had cleared the way, making it safe for their masters to cross.
The sun would set in probably two hours.
Three at most.
By then, Kiko thought, all the mines in that part of the desert would be gone.
Craters and human body parts would cover that whole section of desert, possible for a full mile, but the way would be clear.
The beings who sent the humans over would be free to come out of their hiding places, and into the desert night. They would be free to cross over into the United States, with little of consequence to stop them.
It looked like Uncle Charles’ plan to keep the vampires out suffered from a few flaws.
Lowering the binoculars, Kiko glanced at Jax.
The seer lowered his own, answering her grim face with a look of his own.
2
Awaken
I OPENED MY EYES, gasping.
I could only lay there at first.
I lay flat on my back, gasping, staring up at the ceiling in the dark.
Next to me, I heard more breaths, deeper, heavier breaths, fighting through air that felt cool to me, borderline cold, even inside the heated room.
I felt his body react to being back.
I felt the shock in his light. I felt even more shock from his mind, shock at what had happened, what I’d done to him.
