Unknown

Can you put it out? I asked Luis.

Maybe, he responded. If it gets close enough. But that leaves us with a huge unconscious problem for anybody to notice. Which is not the point of stealth.

I closed my eyes, pushed my face into the clean, springy grass, and sent my aetheric senses out to find something, anything we could use.

I found a deer. A magnificent young buck, sharpening his antlers against a tree just beyond the tree line.

I panicked him with a pulse of Earth power and sent him bounding into the clearing, where he froze in shock at the sight of the huge, feline form of the chimera snuffling at apparently empty grass.

The chimera’s head snapped up, the elusive smell of humans suddenly overridden by obvious prey.

Run, I told the deer, and released it. It turned and crashed back into the trees, bounding for its life.

The bear/panther roared after it, powering on massively muscled legs. Other howls answered it from all sides—the pack, taking up the hunt. I felt sickened, but the deer had already made the fatal error; I had only exploited it to our advantage.

We crawled as fast as such things could be accomplished.

We were not quite at the glowing curve of the dome when I heard the revving of engines on the other side of the chasm. Agent Sanders was making noise, a lot of it. Voices shouted. Metal banged. They were relocating all their tents to here, right within sight of the compound. No more hiding and playing coy.

I heard Agent Sanders’s voice, magnified into a giant’s deep shout, roll in a wave across the distance. “You in the dome,” he said. “I want to talk to the leader of the Church of the New World in this location.”

No response. I lifted my head and took reckonings. The access road was less than ten feet ahead of us, and to the left was a cleared open area, dirt only, neat as if it had been cordoned off by nature herself. The supply drop. That meant that at least one access was located right there, as close as possible to that spot; human nature and efficiency dictated that to be the case. One didn’t build a road and a drop point if the access was on the other side of the building.

And Pearl, I knew, would have built access in whatever ways she liked.

Follow, I whispered to both Luis and Turner, and crawled around the edge of the supply area, almost to the dome itself.

Then we waited.

It took some time. Agent Sanders repeated his request, over and over, in a bland and a

And after almost half an hour, an access point opened on the dome, and a single person stepped outside.

Not Pearl, of course. I didn’t recognize this man. He was tall, sun-browned, lean, and with a hardened face that looked strong, but not kind. He had a bullhorn as well.

He came out of another access point, one further along the curve of the dome.

“Who are you?” he demanded, his own voice just as strong and deep as Sanders’s had been. “What do you want from us?”

As if that wasn’t obvious. The man couldn’t be oblivious to the abduction of children going on within his own house.

See if you can open it, I whispered to Luis, and felt him crawl past me and touch his hand to the dome near the supply drop point.

While Pearl’s spokesman and Sanders carried on their make-believe negotiations—and there was really no doubt how that would end—the area of the dome where Luis’s hand had rested suddenly belled inward, and parted with a cool whisper of air to form a circle.

Like a mouth.

I hesitated, staring at it. The last time I had entered one of Pearl’s lairs, it had almost destroyed me, and I’d been alone at the time. I hadn’t had to worry about two other lives trailing along behind me.

Luis started to enter the opening. I reached out and grabbed his arm, hard.

No, I said.

What the hell? Why? We’re exposed out here! Because this was what she wanted, or she would not have driven me to this point. Picadors, and bulls. She had opened only the doors she wanted me to go through. Pearl understood me. On some level, we were the same—outcast, angry, vengeful. I had taken one road, and she another, but in parallel, not opposition.

I closed my eyes for a moment, shivering, and then whispered, Stay here, both of you. Stay down. I will open it to bring the children out.

Luis stared at me from shocked, wide eyes. You can’t go in alone.

I won’t be alone, I said. You’re always with me. He involuntarily reached out to me, cupping my cheek in his warm, dirty palm, and the look in his face was horrified, heartbroken, and angry.

Start the attack at the other domes, I told him.

You can’t do this, he said. Beside him, Turner was making urgent go motions; without the Earth Warden talent for silent communication, he was left frustratingly out of the loop.

She’ll have the children waiting, I told Luis. If we go in as a group, there will be deaths. I can’t let that happen. It was what Pearl wanted. For us to be trapped in close quarters, fighting these children for our lives. The more of us there were, the worse the toll would be.

You can’t do this alone, he said again. He wasn’t wrong, but I also understood now that there was a price for victory here, as everywhere.

And the price was too high. She meant it to be too high.

Follow, I said. Wait five minutes, and follow. If I’m dead, do what you can.

I didn’t bother to argue with either one of them. I just lifted my body and lunged inside, slamming the opening shut behind me and locking it with a twist of my will. He could force it, but it would take time.

I didn’t think there was much left.

When I turned back, I faced an organic sweep of cool, iridescent walls—not quite stone, not quite bone, not quite nacreous. It curved as it followed the outer shape of the dome, and I ran lightly along the path, looking for what I knew I would find.

I rounded the curve and found Isabel.

“Ibby?”

I slowed my steps, my metal left hand touching the outer wall, and stared at her with the intensity I reserved for those I loved, and for enemies. I wasn’t sure which she was now. Or whether she was still both.

Isabel was still, in body, a chubby little girl, but she had put aside the behavior of a child. She stood very still, very alert, watching my approach. Behind her were three other children, each older than she was. They were dressed the same, all in that durable camouflage material, which I now realized had the same properties that Luis had used in his efforts to conceal us; the material mimicked its surroundings, and now it was a shimmering ivory, like silk.

“Ibby,” I said. I stopped and faced her, just as still as she was. “I’ve come to take you home, Ibby.”

She didn’t answer. None of them did. They just watched me with alert, angry eyes.

“Isabel, I don’t want to fight you. I want to take you home.”

Isabel slowly shook her head. “This is my home.”

“No. Your home is with your uncle Luis.” And me, I wanted to say, but didn’t dare. “He’s waiting for you. He’s missed you so badly. You remember your uncle, don’t you?”

Her dark eyes flickered for a moment, and I knew she was remembering. What she might remember was another question; if Pearl had succeeded in altering the girl’s perceptions, her memories, she might be reliving imaginary trauma—or real ones. Pearl had manipulated these children, tried to use their familial feelings to raise barriers and drive hatreds—but she could only manipulate, not program. That left them vulnerable to the same appeals.

“Uncle Luis is dead,” Ibby said. “You killed him. It was horrible.”