“Thanks for the offer.”

CHAPTER SIX

Owen Tovar turned out to be a tall man, thin and weathered, waiting just inside the door with a black plastic shotgun propped up on his shoulder. He smiled at Kira and Gianna.

“If that moron had told me you had women with you, I’d have let you in a lot sooner.”

Marcus stepped in front of Kira protectively, but Tovar chuckled and clapped him on the arm. “Nothing unseemly, son, just good manners. Soldiers I can take or leave, but I’m afraid my mama trained me a little too well to leave a lady outside in a storm like this.” He shut the door behind the last soldier and pushed his way through the group toward the dark interior of the house. “I gotta say, whichever one of you found me in here is a better tracker than most. You’re wasting your talents in the Grid.” He opened another door to reveal a brightly lit room—an old living room, maybe, with no exterior windows and a cheery orange fire in a stonework fireplace. The room was tightly packed with old couches and blankets, and a small wooden cart sat against a set of closed double doors on the far side. Kira turned to the right as she walked in, sizing up the area, and jumped back in surprise when she found herself nose to nose with a camel.

“Say hello, Dolly.”

The camel groaned, and Tovar chuckled. “Don’t be rude, folks, answer back.”

Marcus smiled and bowed to the camel. “Pleased to meet you, Dolly. Mr. Tovar failed to mention how lovely his companion was.”

“I don’t know if every camel’s as ornery as she is,” said Tovar, “but we get along more or less. I figure she must have escaped from a zoo or something; I found her a few years back, just wanderin’ around.” He ushered the group through the doorway and closed it behind them. “I went through a lot of trouble to keep this fire invisible from outside,” he explained. “Chimney still works, too, so with a storm like this to hide the smoke, you can’t even tell I’m here.”

“We followed the tracks,” said Marcus, pulling off his coat.

“The tracks don’t lead here,” said Tovar. “At least not directly.”

“I heard you,” said Jayden, a small smile creeping through the corner of his mouth. “Dolly needs a few lessons in stealth.”

Tovar shook his head. “She wanted more sugar. Figures you folks’d be passin’ by for the two seconds she decides to argue the point. Most folks—meanin’ those folks nosy enough to be lookin’—never find this place at all. They just follow my tracks down around the next house, back through the woods, and then give up when they hit the creek. Turns out the bridge is fallen down, if you’ll believe it, and the planks I use to get across are pretty well hidden on the wrong side.”

“You’re a drifter,” said Jayden.

“I’m a salesman. That makes me a target for all kinds of unsavories, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a target of opportunity.” He moved a pile of blankets from the couch nearest the fire. “Best seats to the ladies, naturally. This place is pretty cozy with just me in it, but we’re going to get downright neighborly with this many people trying to sleep.”