“The’ve gone towards the hills,” said Eugene.
“That so?”
“Took my boy. Threw my house down.”
“Many of them?”
“Dozen or so.”
“OK Eugene, you’d best get in with us.” Packard ordered a cop out of the back. “You’re going to be hot for them bastards, eh?”
Eugene turned to where Lucy had been standing.
“And I want her tried —” he said.
But Lucy was gone, running off across the desert: doll-sized already.
“She’s headed off the road,” said Eleanor. “She’ll kill herself.”
“Killing’s too good for her,” said Eugene, as he climbed into the car. “That woman’s meaner than the Devil himself.”
“How’s that, Gene?”
“Sold my only son to Hell, that woman —”Lucy was erased by the heat-haze.
“— to Hell.”
“Then let her be,” said Packard. “Hell’ll take her back, sooner or later.”
Lucy had known they wouldn’t bother to follow her. From the moment she’d seen the car lights in the dust-cloud, seen the guns, and the helmets, she knew she had little place in the events ahead. At best, she would be a spectator. At worst, she’d die of heatstroke crossing the desert, and never know the upshot of the oncoming battle. She’d often mused about the existence of the creatures who were collectively Aaron’s father. Where they lived, why they’d chosen, in their wisdom, to make love to her. She’d wondered also whether anyone else in Welcome had knowledge of them. How many human eyes, other than her own, had snatched glimpses of their secret anatomies, down the passage of years? And of course she’d wondered if there would one day come a reckoning time, a confrontation between one species and the other. Now it seemed to be here, without warning, and against the background of such a reckoning her life was as nothing.
Once the cars and bikes had disappeared out of sight, she doubled back, tracing her footmarks in the sand, ‘til she met the road again. There was no way of regaining Aaron, she realized that. She had, in a sense, merely been a guardian of the child, though she’d borne him. He belonged, in some strange way, to the creatures that had married their seeds in her body to make him. Maybe she’d been a vessel for some experiment in fertility, and now the doctors had returned to examine the resulting child. Maybe they had simply taken him out of love. Whatever the reasons she only hoped she would see the outcome of the battle. Deep in her, in a place touched only by monsters, she hoped for their victory, even though many of the species she called her own would perish as a result.
In the foothills there hung a great silence. Aaron had been set down amongst the rocks, and they gathered around him eagerly to examine his clothes, his hair, his eyes, his smile.
It was towards evening, but Aaron didn’t feel cold. The breaths of his fathers were warm, and smelt, he thought, like the interior of the General Supplies Emporium in Welcome, a mingling of toffee and hemp, fresh cheese and iron. His skin was tawny in the light of the diminishing sun, and at his zenith stars were appearing. He was not happier at his mother’s nipple than in that ring of demons.
At the toe of the foothills Packard brought the convoy to a halt. Had he known who Napoleon Bonaparte was, no doubt he would have felt like that conqueror. Had he known that conqueror’s life-story, he might have sensed that this was his Waterloo: but Josh Packard lived and died bereft of heroes.
He summoned his men from their cars and went amongst them, his mutilated hand tucked in his shirt for support. It was not the most encouraging parade in military history. There were more than a few white and sickly-pale faces amongst his soldiers, more than a few eyes that avoided his stare as he gave his orders.
“Men,” he bawled.
(It occurred to both Kooker and Davidson that as sneak-attacks went this would not be amongst the quietest.)
“Men — we”ve arrived, We’re organized, and we’ve got God on our side. We’ve got the best of the brutes already, understand?”