The conversation and the planning continued. Some of the members loved the idea; others were fearful and opposed it. They wrangled on into the night. I was no longer listening. Instead, I was thinking of the balance of power between the two sides. Between the Gray Men and these cultists. In the final analysis, I had to give the Gray Men the advantage. They were obviously advanced and more organized. Still, I thought the Gray Men must have felt some fear every time they came to our world, but they kept doing it. They came and carried out their missions, or died trying. What if they were just as afraid of us as we were of them?
Gilling ended the night by passing out weapons and spare objects. I saw the doll Caroline had used to attack me—a doll that produced a gush of heat. Gilling gave it to the homeless fellow, Old Red. I winced at that. I could have been wrong, but I thought he was as likely to burn some of our own members down as the nearest Gray Man.
By midnight, the fever of war ran through the group. I was struck by their emotional nature. Was there more here at work than just natural anger toward invaders? I came to think that either someone in the group was heating their collective emotions with an object—or that the objects themselves tended to unbalance people who possessed them too long. One theory was as good as the other. Whichever was correct, they’d built themselves up into a frenzy bent on revenge by midnight.
I watched with growing detachment as they formed into groups and made plans. Their powers were quite varied and diverse. One old woman had the power to make others float in the air—but not herself. A middle-aged man with a banker’s paunch was a healer of sorts, and was put on duty as the medic. We were a vigilante group in this dark struggle. Earth’s own militia.
As Gilling had said, it could only end in triumph or tragedy. I was convinced that the effort was necessary. Whoever had the power to choose the time and place of any battle had all the power. In this case, if we broke their machine, they could no longer visit us. But if they killed Gilling or stole his object, we could no longer visit them. At that point, we would be unable to attack, we could only defend.
Of one thing I was almost certain: whichever side lost this struggle would lose its power to cross the barrier between the worlds, and would therefore be at the mercy of its enemies.
Gilling led us out front to where the driveway circled around a large fountain. I saw most of the cars had been parked on the lawn. Overlapping tire tracks there on the grass made it obvious they did this often. No wonder the sprinkler pipes were broken and leaking.
He organized us into two groups and named them squads.
“My group is the support squad,” he explained. “Draith will lead the combat squad, just as we practiced during our defensive drills. The combat squad will go in first, then the support squad will go in when it is safe to do so and set up our defenses.”
These statements caused me to raise my eyebrows. I waved to him.
“I have a few questions,” I said.
He took me aside while the others busied themselves. They rolled up two black SUVs and opened the backs of them. Each had several large plastic bags. They opened the bags and began dumping them into the empty fountain. A dusty plume quickly arose to fill the yard.
“What is that?” I asked.
“A mixture of grass seed and rice,” he explained. “It will serve as the organic fuel to open a large rip. These materials are harder to work with than blood, but they are long-lasting and easier to obtain in quantity.”
I shook my head. This was indeed a strange business. I was left wondering if the witches of Salem had been up to something all those centuries in the past. This was beginning to look like a spell and a ritual to me. The only difference was our greater understanding of the process.
“How can we get away with this? Are you paying the police off? Or the neighbors?”
Gilling laughed lightly. “No. See that woman over there?”
I followed his finger toward a drooping, unkempt palm tree. I peered, and saw the outline of a thin woman under the low-hanging fronds. “Who is it?” I asked.
“Her name is Abigail,” he said. “She is one of my best. She covers our tracks. She makes this place quiet, dark, and—uninteresting.”
“Yes, I’ve met her before. She controls minds? Like Meng?”
Gilling’s hand fluttered. “Not exactly. Abigail changes the air, I think. It becomes more dense and harder to see and hear through. Look up at the stars.”
I did as he asked, and frowned. They were normally dim near the city due to light pollution, but the stars here were blurred almost to the point of invisibility.
“That is very odd,” I said. “It reminds me of the way the other side of a rip looks. All smeared and wavering.”
“Yes. I think it is a similar effect. She increases the density of the air, I believe. She makes it thicker.”
“Why is she under that palm?”
“To concentrate. She needs to focus to maintain the effect.”
“Now,” I said, “tell me who is on my combat squad and why.”