Another possible route took him up and to the left, toward an old tollway that seemed to mark the end of the Heavenly Kingdom’s static defenses. They controlled a lot of the territory beyond, but the patrols there looked random. There were no fortifications or checkpoints. It was a much longer route than the other but, potentially, one that required a lot less fighting. The last option was to veer right and take Park Avenue to Richardson. The Heavenly Kingdom had controlled that territory for even less time than they’d held Plano, and the fighting there had been heavier. They’d pass a lot of checkpoints, but not much in the way of troop concentration as long as they kept south and away from Dallas proper.

The scouting work itself was exhilarating. Roland had a lot of ground to cover so he spent most of his time sprinting and scaling buildings, leaping from roof to roof and in between shattered windows. His senses were in full use. There were always passing convoys of civilians or patrols of Martyrs or those odd white police vans somewhere nearby. He was close to caught a dozen times and he loved every minute of the work.

By the time he got back to the main square it was quite late, and almost time for the buses to leave. He did a quick loop of the square to see if he could find Manny and Sasha. He caught traces of their scents but neither of them seemed to be out and about. He eventually tracked Sasha’s pheromone trail back to the House of Miriam, but Manny seemed to be gone. That was strange. Roland headed back to the buses in the hope of finding him there. But Manny wasn’t in line, or on any of the buses.

So Roland headed back to the base and tried to ignore the unease as it blossomed in his belly. Maybe he headed back early. Maybe the “date” went bad. That made sense. Sasha seemed nice, for a religious extremist, but you couldn’t predict zealots. It was so damn easy to set them off. Manny might’ve just said the wrong thing and decided it’d be safest to head back to the base and chill in the barracks.

The bus pulled into the school-cum-training-facility’s little vehicle depot. Roland noticed at once that Martyr Ditmar and a small bodyguard of armed men were waiting. That was unusual. Roland’s hindbrain warned him that this was probably related to Manny’s disappearance. He felt a thin drip of adrenaline start tapping on the back of his amygdala. It was the feeling he associated with Shit About To Happen. Roland tried to enjoy it, without letting it push him into action before he knew what was really going on.