He turned on her, glared at her, suppressing an emotion that it surprised him he would feel, which was hurt. She should be grateful for his skills, not disgusted by them.

“I do what works. I want you two to stay close but hang back.”

“Hang back,” Pete said. “Are you nuts?”

“Stay well out of the way. Stay behind your Metal Storms. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Mark, don’t go in there alone.”

“Listen to me. That’s a trap, okay? But they will not spring it until all three of us are in it. If I do my job right, by then it’ll be too late.” He gripped the knife. “They are going to take significant damage now. If they understood how much, this trap would not be here. You’re bright kids, so you’ll figure out when I need you, and you’ll come.”

“Mark?” Linda reached toward him.

It was just an automatic action, the way he thrust the knife at her. He hadn’t planned to do it, hadn’t thought about it.

“You do not come with me now,” he said carefully. “That is an order. You observe and move in when you’re needed.”

Leaving them standing together in the forest, uncertain, their two Metal Storms closed at their sides, he entered the town, coming first to the edge of a yard. He jumped the low fence and landed hard, clattering into a line of garbage cans. A lid rolled out into the street, stopped, and fell over, whanging endlessly, agonizingly as it twirled round and round.

The voices from the Glade did not stop. This close, he could hear an odd note in the laughter, something almost mechanical. He was reminded of figures in a fun house, blaring recorded laughter.

To his right was a chicken coop, quiet after dark. He headed past it and up to the house. No life inside, so he went around it and down to the street in front.

Ahead, a traffic light stood at red. A car waited in the intersection, an elderly Buick. Listening, watching, he sought to identify any sign of hybrids. But he couldn’t make much sense of anything because the sounds around him were distorted into strange, lingering growls.

Before, killing had been a process, nothing emotional about it. Fulfilling his mission. Now he was filled with what could only be described as an urgent eagerness. Previously, he had feared the creatures, but now he absolutely loathed them. He recalled their empty eyes, their voices lilting with menace.

He moved along an empty side street, under a faintly buzzing streetlight. Not a car passed, not a child called out in the softness of the summer evening. Worse, he could hear more clearly now, sounds he really did not like coming from the Glade, mechanical laughter and wild human screams, and the clatter of frenetic drums.

He went closer.

Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FASCINATION