The Twelve

27


Peter was in the medical bay for ten days. Three cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, burns on his legs and feet, his hands scraped raw like slabs of meat; bruises and gashes and cuts all over, too many to count. He’d been knocked cold but had apparently failed, despite his best efforts, to crack his skull. Every movement hurt, even breathing.

“From what I hear, you’re goddamn lucky to be alive,” the doctor said—a man of about sixty with a bulbous nose veined from years on the lick and a voice so coarse it sounded dragged. His bedside manner involved using the same tone, more or less, that a person might take with a hopelessly disobedient dog. “Stay on your back, Lieutenant. You’re mine until I say otherwise.”

Henneman had debriefed Peter the day the team had returned to the garrison. He was still a little out of it, doped up on painkillers; the major’s questions glided over his brain with the disassociated contours of a conversation occurring in another room among people he only vaguely knew. A man, a very old man, with a tattoo of a snake on his neck. Yes, Peter confirmed, nodding his head heavily against the pillow, that was what they saw. Did he tell them who he was? Ignacio, Peter replied. He told us his name was Ignacio. The major obviously had no idea what to make of these answers; neither did Peter. Henneman seemed to be asking the same questions again and again, in only slightly altered forms; at some point, Peter drifted off. When he opened his eyes again—as he would soon discover, a day and a night having passed—he was alone.

He saw no one else except the doctor until the afternoon of the fourth day, when Alicia appeared at his bedside. By this time Peter was sitting up, his left arm dressed in a sling to hold his shoulder in place. That afternoon he’d taken his first walk to the latrine, a milestone, though the voyage of just a few shuffling steps had left him enervated, and now he was faced with the problem of trying to feed himself with hands encased in mittenlike bandages.

“Flyers, you look like hell, Lieutenant.”

The light in the tent was dim enough that she’d removed her glasses. The orange color of her eyes was something Peter was accustomed to, though she rarely let others see them. She slid into a chair at his bedside and gestured toward the bowl of cornmeal mush that Peter, without much success, was attempting to spoon in his mouth.

“Want a little help with that?”

“Don’t you wish.”

She flashed a smile. “Well, it’s good to see you’ve still got your pride. Henneman grill you?”

“I barely remember it. I don’t think he liked the answers very much.” The spoon slipped from his grip, dragging a glob of the gluey paste onto his shirt. “Shit.”

“Here, let me.”

He was now endeavoring to clamp the spoon between his thumb and the edge of the bowl to wedge it into his palm. “I told you, I’ve got this.”

“Will you? Just stop.”

Peter sighed and let the spoon drop to the tray. Alicia dipped it into the bowl and aimed for his mouth. “Open up for mama.”

“You know, you never struck me as the maternal type.”

“In your case, I’m willing to make an exception. Just eat.”

Bite by bite, the bowl was emptied. Alicia took a rag and wiped his chin.

“I can do that myself, you know.”

“Nuh-uh. Comes with the service.” She leaned back. “There, good as new.” She put the rag aside. “We had the service for Satch this morning. It was nice. Henneman and Apgar both spoke.”

Though Satch was presumed killed in the explosion, Henneman had led a squad back up the mountain to look for him. The gesture was symbolic; still, it had to be made. In any case, they’d found nothing. What had happened at the base of the cave would never be known.

“So that’s that, I guess.”

“Satch was a good guy. Everybody liked him.”

“We always say that.”

Alicia shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

Peter knew they were thinking the same thing: the plan had been theirs, and now Satch was dead.

“Seeing as you’re fed, I should be heading off. Apgar’s sending me south to recon some of those oil fields.”

“Lish, how did you know something was down there?”

The question seemed to catch her short. “I don’t really have an answer, Peter. It was just … a feeling.”

“A feeling.”

She was staring past him. “I don’t really know how to put it into words.”

“I thought only Amy could do that.”

Alicia shrugged, pushing the subject aside: Don’t press. “I guess I owe you for going out on a limb for me like that. Nice to have a little company in the doghouse at least.”

“This whole thing has had it, hasn’t it?” he said glumly.

“Apgar’s going to do what he’s going to do. I’m not a mind reader.”

“Do you think he believes us?”

Alicia said nothing. Her eyes had gone away again. Then, with a quizzical expression:

“Peter, do you remember that movie Dracula?”

The memory called him back five years. Peter had been watching it with Vorhees’s men in the Colorado garrison on the night Alicia had returned from the mission that had found the nest of virals in an old copper mine.

“I didn’t know you saw it.”

“Saw it? Hell, I studied it. The thing is like a viral owner’s manual. Never mind the cape and castle and all that nonsense. It’s the rest that fits. A human being whose life has been ‘unnaturally prolonged.’ Using the stake in the heart to kill him. The way he has to sleep in his native soil. The whole business with the mirrors—”

“Like the pan in Las Vegas,” Peter cut in. “I thought the same thing.”

“It’s as if their reflection, I don’t know, screws them up somehow. The whole movie is like that.”

“Lish, where are you going with this?”

She hesitated. “Something always nagged at me, a piece I couldn’t place. Dracula has a sort of adjutant. Somebody who still looks human.”

Peter remembered. “The crazy one who eats the spiders.”

“That’s the guy. Renfield. Dracula infects him, but he doesn’t flip, at least not completely. He’s more like somebody caught in the early stages of infection. It got me wondering, what if they all have somebody like that?” She was looking at him keenly now. “Do you remember what Olson said about Jude?”

Olson was the leader of the community they’d found in Nevada, the Haven—a whole town of people who would sacrifice their own to Babcock, First of Twelve. Olson had been nominally in charge, but the fact had emerged that it was Jude who really ran the place. He had some kind of special relationship to Babcock, though its nature had gone unexplained.

“ ‘He was … familiar,’ ” Peter quoted. “I never understood what Olson meant. It didn’t really make sense. And you were pointing a gun at his head.”

“So I was. And believe me, there are days when I wish I’d gone ahead and pulled the trigger. But I don’t think it was gibberish. I looked up the word at the library back in Kerrville. The dictionary said the definition was archaic, so I had to look that up too, which basically just means old. It said that a familiar is a kind of helper demon, like a witch’s cat. A sort of assistant. Maybe that’s what Olson was talking about.”

Peter allowed himself several seconds to process this. “So what you’re saying is that Ignacio was Martínez’s … familiar.”

Alicia shrugged. “Okay, it’s a stretch. I’m sort of cobbling things together here. But the other thing to consider is the signal. Ignacio had a chip in him, just like Amy and the Twelve. That means he’s connected to Project NOAH.”

“Did you tell Apgar any of this?”

“Are you serious? I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

Peter didn’t doubt that. Nor did he doubt that whatever blame she had incurred for the botched raid on the cave was his as well.

Alicia rose to go. “Either way, we should know more about where we stand by the time I get back from Odessa. No point in worrying for now. I know you think you’re indispensible, but we can get along without you for a few days.”

“You’re not making me feel any better.”

She smiled. “Just don’t expect me to come back to feed you again, Lieutenant. You only get that once.”

As she moved toward the door, Peter said, “Lish, hold up a second.”

She spun to look at him.

“What Ignacio said. ‘He left us.’ What do you think it means?”

“I don’t have an answer for that. All I know is he should have been there.”

“Where do you think he went?”

She didn’t answer right away. A shadow moved over her face, a darkening from within. It wasn’t anything Peter had seen before. Even in the most perilous circumstances, her composure was total. She was a woman of absolute focus, always giving her attention to the task at hand. This was similar, but the energy wasn’t the same. It seemed to come from a deeper place.

“I wish I knew,” she said, and slipped her glasses on. “Believe me.”

Then she was gone, the flaps of the tent shifting with her departure. Peter felt her absence immediately, as he always did. It was true: they were always leaving each other.


Peter did not see her again. Six days later, he was released. His ribs would need longer to heal, and he would have to take it easy for a couple of weeks, but at least he was out of bed. Making his way across the garrison to report for duty, a surge lifted his steps. The sensation reminded him of a time many years ago when, just a boy, he’d been sick with a high fever, and after the fever had broken how just being up and about made even ordinary things seem charged with a fresh vitality.

Yet something else was different; Peter could feel it. Everything appeared normal—the soldiers on the catwalks, the roar of generators, the ordered movements of military activity all around—yet he sensed a shift, a discernible lessening of intensity.

He entered the command tent to find Apgar standing behind his desk of battered metal, scowling at a stack of papers.

“Jaxon. I didn’t expect to see you for a couple more days. How are you feeling?”

The question struck Peter as uncharacteristically personal. “Fine, sir. Thank you for asking.”

“Take a seat, won’t you?”

For a while Apgar continued to shift his papers. Though not a large man—Peter stood at least two hands taller—the colonel exuded a strong, physical presence, his movements precise, nothing wasted. After a period of time that might have been two full minutes, he appeared to achieve a satisfactory ordering to the documents and lowered himself into his chair to face Peter across the desk.

“I have new orders for you. They came this morning in the pouch from Kerrville. Before you say anything, I want you to know this has nothing to do with what happened in Carlsbad. I’ve been expecting this for some time, actually.”

The last of Peter’s hopes sank beneath the waves. Going, going, gone. “We’re abandoning the hunt, aren’t we?”

“ ‘Abandoning’ would be too strong a word. Putting under review. There’s a feeling at Command that some of our resources have to shift. For the time being, you’re being transferred to the Oil Road.”

It was worse than Peter had expected. “That’s a job for Domestic Security.”

“Generally, yes. But this isn’t without precedent, and it comes from the president’s office. Apparently she’s of the opinion that security for oil shipments has been too lax, and she wants the Army to take a role. A transport leaves at the end of the week for Kerrville, and I want you on it. From there you’ll report to the DS in Freeport.”

Despite what Apgar said, Peter knew the decision had everything to do with Carlsbad. He was being demoted—if not in rank, then in responsibility.

“You can’t do that, sir.”

A lift of his eyebrows, no more. “Perhaps I misheard you, Lieutenant. I could swear you just told me what I could and could not do.”

Peter felt his face grow warm. “Sorry, Colonel. That’s not what I meant.”

Apgar studied Peter a moment. “Look, I get it, Jaxon. Tell me something. How long have you been out here?”

Of course the colonel knew the answer; he was asking only to make a point. “Sixteen months.”

“A long time in the sticks. You should have been rotated out a while ago. The only reason you haven’t is that you always put in a request to stay. I’ve let it go because I know what the hunt means to you. In a way, you’re the reason all of us are here.”

“There’s no place else I want to be, sir.”

“And you’ve made that abundantly clear. But you’re only human, Lieutenant. Frankly, you need the break. I’m headed back to Kerrville after we button things up, and as soon as I can, I’ll put in a request at Division to move you back out to the territories. I’m not in the habit of making deals, so I suggest you take this one.”

There was nothing to do but agree. “If I may ask, Colonel, what about Lieutenant Donadio?”

“She’s got new orders, too. This isn’t just you. As soon as she returns from the slicks, she’s going north to Kearney.”

Fort Kearney was the northernmost outpost of the Expeditionary. With a supply line stretching all the way from Amarillo, it was typically shut down before the first snowfall.

“Why there? Winter’s only a couple of months away.”

“Command doesn’t tell me everything, but from what I hear it’s gotten pretty thick up there. Given her talents, I’m guessing they want a new S2 to help clear out the hostiles before they evac.”

The explanation felt thin, but Peter knew better than to press.

“I’m sorry about Satch,” Apgar continued. “He was a good officer. I know you were friends.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Dismissed, Lieutenant.”


Peter spent the rest of the week in a state of suspension. With nothing else to occupy his time, he mostly stayed in his quarters. The map on the inside lid of the locker, once a badge of purpose, now felt like a bad joke. Maybe there was something to Alicia’s theory, and maybe there wasn’t. It seemed likely they would never find out. He thought of the time before he’d joined the Expeditionary, wondering if he’d made a mistake by enlisting. Back then, the fight had been his alone. Now it belonged to a larger enterprise, one with rules and protocols and chains of command in which he had little, if any, say. He had surrendered his freedom to become just another junior officer about whom people would someday remark, “He was a good guy.”

The morning of his departure arrived. Peter carted his locker to the staging area where the transport awaited, a semitrailer loaded with the tires Peter’s men had brought down from Lubbock. He hoisted his baggage into the cargo compartment of the escort vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Good to be going home, sir?”

Peter merely nodded. Anything he might have said would have sounded peevish, and the driver, a corporal from Satch’s squad, didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of his bad mood.

“I’ll tell you the first thing I do after I collect my scrip,” the corporal said, his exuberance barely contained. “I’m going straight to H-town to spend half of it on lick and the other half in a whorehouse.” Suddenly embarrassed, he glanced at Peter with a flustered look. “Um, sorry, sir.”

“That’s all right, Corporal.”

“Anybody at home for you, Lieutenant? If you don’t mind my asking.”

The answer was too complicated to even begin. “In a way.”

The corporal gave a knowing smile. “Well, whoever she is, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

The order was given; with a belch of diesel fumes, the convoy began to pull away. Peter was already settling into the trancelike state he hoped to maintain for the next three days when he heard someone yelling over the racket of engines.

“Hold at the gate!”

Alicia was jogging toward the Humvee. Peter drew down the window.

“I just got back an hour ago,” she said. “Who do you think you are, leaving without saying goodbye?”

Her face was a mask of oily grime; she smelled faintly of petroleum. But the thing that caught his eye was a glint of metal on her collar: a pair of captain’s bars.

“Well, look at that,” he said, managing a wry grin that he hoped masked his envy. “I guess I’ll have to start calling you ‘sir.’ ”

“I like the ring of that. About time, if you ask me.”

“Apgar’s cycling me out.”

“I know. The Oil Road.” There was no reason to elaborate. “It’s easy duty, Peter. You’ve earned it.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Say hi to the Circuit for me. And Greer, if you see him.”

Peter nodded. There was only so much that could be said with the driver present. “When do you leave for Kearney?”

“Two days.”

“All eyes up there. Apgar says it’s gotten pretty thick.”

“You, too.” She glanced at the driver, who was studying the wheel with his eyes, then back at Peter. “Don’t worry. What we were talking about before. It’s not over, okay?”

He felt, inside her words, the pressure of something unstated. From behind them rose an impatient roar of engines. Everyone was waiting.

“Sir, we really have to be going,” the driver said.

“That’s okay, we’re done here.” Alicia regarded Peter one last time. “I mean it, Peter. It’ll be all right. Just go see your boy.”





28


The first pain arrived, like a late train roaring into the station, on an afternoon in late September of warm Texas sunshine and a high blue sky. Amy was in the courtyard, watching the children play; in another few minutes the bell would sound, summoning them inside to finish their lessons, and Amy would return to the kitchen to help make dinner. An island of rest in the midst of the day’s never-ending rhythm of tasks done and, just as swiftly, undone; always, when lunch was concluded and the dishes put away and the children set loose to burn off the morning’s accumulated antsiness, Amy followed them outside and took up a position at the edge of the playground that was near enough for her to enjoy the bright energy of their activity while not so close as to allow the children to draw her in. These were her favorite thirty minutes of the day, and Amy had just closed her eyes and tilted her face to receive the warm rays of the early autumn sun when the pain hit: a powerful clenching in her midriff that caused her to bend sharply at the waist, stagger forward, and exhale a soft cry of shock that even in the busy hubbub of the courtyard could not fail to go unnoticed.

“Amy? Are you all right?”

The image of Sister Catherine—pale, long-faced, irises as blue as cornflowers—came into Amy’s focus. The sweat was pouring off her; her hands and feet had turned to cold jelly. Everything below her waist seemed to have lost some essential density; in another moment Amy would, literally, melt to the ground. Part of her wanted to vomit while another part refused, creating an internal stalemate that rendered her unable to speak.

“Maybe you better sit down. You’re white as a ghost.”

Sister Catherine steered her to a bench against the wall of the orphanage—a distance of twenty feet that could have been a mile. By the time they reached it, Amy couldn’t have taken another step without collapsing. With a bustle of concern, Sister Catherine left her, then returned with a cup of water, which she pressed into Amy’s hand. Activity on the playground seemed to have proceeded without interruption, but Amy could sense that some of the children were watching her. The pain had dissipated into a more general nausea but not the feeling of weakness. She felt both hot and cold. More sisters had crowded around, all speaking in hushed, earnest voices, questioning Sister Catherine. Amy didn’t want the water but everyone was insistent. She took a small sip.

“I’m sorry,” she managed to say. “One minute I was perfectly fine …”

“Over here, Sister,” Catherine said, waving toward the doors to the orphanage. “Come quickly.”

The small crowd parted as Sister Peg strode forward. The old woman studied Amy with a pinched expression that managed to seem both worried and irritated at the same time.

“Well? Will somebody tell me what happened here or will I have to guess?”

“I don’t know,” said Sister Catherine. “She just … collapsed.”

The playground had been brought to a standstill. All the children were staring at her now. Amy looked for Caleb, but her view was blocked by Sister Peg. She couldn’t recall a time when she’d ever felt ill; she understood the principle but had never experienced the reality. Almost worse than the pain was the embarrassment. It made her want to say something, say anything, to get everyone to stop looking at her.

“Amy? Is that what happened?”

“I just felt dizzy. My stomach hurt. I don’t know what it was.”

The old woman pressed her palm to Amy’s forehead. “Well, I don’t think you have a fever.”

“It was probably something I ate. I’m sure if I sit here another minute I’ll be okay.”

“She doesn’t look good,” Sister Catherine chimed in, and the others nodded. “Honestly, Amy, I thought you were going to pass out.”

A general murmuring ensued. No, she didn’t look good, not good at all. Could it be the flu? Something worse? If it was something the girl had eaten, would they all become sick, too?

Sister Peg allowed the group its moment of conjecture, then brought them to silence with a raised hand. “I don’t see a reason to take chances. Off to bed with you, Amy.”

“But I’m really feeling much better. I’m sure I’ll be all right.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you. Sister Catherine, will you assist her to the dormitory?”

Catherine helped her to her feet. She felt a little unsteady, and her stomach wasn’t quite what it should be. But the worst of it had passed. Catherine led her into the building and up the stairs to the room where all the sisters slept, except for Sister Peg, who, being in charge, had quarters of her own. Amy undressed and got into bed.

“Can I do anything else?” Sister Catherine was drawing the shades.

“I’m fine.” Amy did her best to smile. “I think I just need to rest a bit.”

Standing at the foot of the cot, Catherine regarded her for a moment. “You know what this could be, don’t you? A girl your age.”

Your age. If Sister Catherine only knew, thought Amy. Yet Amy also understood what the woman was suggesting. The idea took her by surprise.

Sister Catherine smiled with sympathy. “Well, if it is, you’ll know soon enough. Believe me, we’ve all been through it.”

Making Amy promise to call her if she needed anything, Catherine made her departure. Amy leaned back on her cot and closed her eyes. The afternoon bell had rung; downstairs, the children would be filing in for their lessons, smelling of sun and sweat and fresh afternoon air, some of them, perhaps, wondering what all the fuss on the playground had been about. Surely Caleb would be worried about her; Amy should have told Sister Catherine to say something to the boy. She’s just tired. She was feeling out of sorts. She’ll be right as rain in a jiff, you’ll see.

And yet: A girl your age. Was it possible? All the sisters complained about the “ordeal,” as they called it; it was a common joke of the orphanage that living in such tight quarters, everybody menstruated at the same time, making one week of every four a nightmare of bloody rags and quick tempers. For a hundred years Amy had lived in complete innocence of these basic facts; even now she could not have said she understood the phenomenon completely, but she grasped the gist. You bled, not a lot but some, and this would be uncomfortable, extending over a period of days. For a while Amy had regarded the prospect with horror, but over time this feeling had yielded to a fierce, almost biological yearning, and the fear that none of this would ever happen to her, that this door of human belonging would always stay closed and she would live in a child’s body forever.

She checked: no, she wasn’t bleeding. If Sister Catherine was correct, how long before it started? She wished she’d taken the opportunity to ask Catherine more. How much blood would there be, how much pain, how would she feel different? Though in her case, Amy reasoned, nothing would quite be the same. Maybe it would be worse; maybe it would be better; maybe it would never happen at all.

She would have liked to be a woman. To see it reflected in another’s eyes. For her body to know what her heart already did.

A scratchy mewing interrupted her train of thought. Of course Mouser would come to check on her. The old gray cat ambled to her bedside. A pitiful sight he was—eyes fogged with cataracts, fur matted and tacky, his tail dragging with age. “Did you come to look in on me? Did you, boy? Well, come here.” Amy lifted him from the floor, leaned back on her cot, and balanced him on her chest. She ran her hands through his coat; he replied in kind, butting his head against her neck. The sun is out, why are you in bed? He circled three times before settling down on her chest, loudly purring. It’s fine. You sleep. I’ll be right here.

Amy closed her eyes.


Then it was night, and Amy was outside.

How had she gotten outside?

She was still wearing her nightgown; her feet were bare and damp with dew. The hour was impossible to know but felt late. Was she dreaming? But if she was still asleep, why did everything feel so real? She took measure of her surroundings. She was near the dam on the upstream side. The air was cool and moist. She felt a lingering urgency, as if she’d awoken from a dream of being chased. Why was she here? Had she been sleepwalking?

Something brushed her leg, making her startle. She looked down to see Mouser, staring at her with his clouded eyes. He began, loudly, to meow, then trotted toward the dam, stopping a few feet away to look at her again.

His meaning was clear; Amy followed. The old cat led her toward a small concrete structure at the base of the dam. Something mechanical? Mouser was standing at the door, meowing.

She opened the door and stepped inside. The darkness was total; how would she find her way? She felt along the wall, searching for a switch. There. A bank of lights flickered to life. At the center of the small room was a metal rail guarding a circular staircase. Mouser was standing on the top step. He turned to look at her, issued one more insistent meow, and descended.

The stairs spiraled down. At the bottom she found herself once again in blackness. Another fumbling search for a light switch; then she saw where she was. A wide tube, leading in only one direction, forward. Mouser was well ahead of her, dragging elongated shadows over the walls. His urgency was contagious, drawing her deeper into this underground world. They came to a second hatch, sealed with a ring. A length of pipe lay on the floor beside it. Amy threaded it between the spokes and turned; the door swung open, revealing a ladder. She turned to consult Mouser, who met her gaze with a skeptical look.

Not for me, I’m afraid. You’re on your own now.

She descended. Something awaited her at the bottom; she felt its presence, deep in her bones. Something terrible and sad and full of longing. Her feet touched down. Another shaft, wider than the first. Water trickled along the floor. At the far end, she saw a circle of light. Now she knew where she was: one of the spillway tubes. It was moonlight she was seeing. She moved toward its penumbral glow just as a shadow moved across it. Not a shadow: a figure.

She knew.

Amy, Amy, daughter of my heart.

He reached toward her through the bars: a long, crooked claw, the digits distended, tipped with curving talons. As their palms touched, his fingers curled first through and then around her own. She felt no fear, only a spreading lightness. Her vision blurred with tears.

Amy, I remember. I remember everything.

Their hands held fast. The feel of his touch had dispersed to every part of her, bathing her in its warmth—a warmth of love, of home. It said: Always I will be here. I will be the one to keep you safe.

My brave girl. My brave Amy. Don’t cry now.

A great sob shook her, a flood of pure emotion. She was happy, she was sad, she felt the weight of her life.

—What’s happening to me? Why do I feel like I do? Please, tell me.

His face made no expression, for there could be none; all that he was, was in his eyes.

All your questions will be answered. He is waiting for you, in the ship. I will show you the way when the time comes.

—When? When will it come?

But Amy knew the answer even as she spoke the words.

Soon, said Wolgast. Very, very soon.