“Retrieving?” Bone asked. He was confused. Which items was the colonel talking about?

“You know the lie of the land, so I’m told, so I’ll want you to brief my logistics team.”

“Sorry, which items?”

“The threats,” the colonel said. “I’m instructed to use lethal force only if absolutely necessary.”

“You’re here to capture them?”

The colonel frowned, his first sign of not being in control.

“You can’t capture these things!” Bone said. “You said you’ve seen the footage. Don’t you understand how dangerous they are?”

“How many are there?”

“The one you saw is Mallian. Tore a man in half with his bare hands.”

“Let him try doing that to a Humvee.”

“There are others worse than him. Three of them, they’re infected with some sort of virus or nerve agent, something that—”

“I know about the infected,” Miles said. “They should be dead. If they are still on their feet they’ll be weak and ineffective.”

Bone shook his head, snorting laughter. “You don’t understand. None of you understand.”

“I understand that I’m here with orders, and you’re here because you know what these things are.”

“Yes, and I know what they aren’t. They aren’t just target practice for you. They aren’t creatures that will come quietly, or sit by while you coax them into cages. They aren’t anything you’ve ever seen or imagined before. They have a fairy that—”

“A fairy?” Miles said, and his bright eyes sparkled with laughter. Bone also heard someone in the Toyota chuckling.

“Oh, God,” Bone said quietly.

“Look, your superior said you were here to assess and keep tabs on what was happening, and I’m sure you’ve done that to your full ability. Now the army’s here.”

“Where?” Bone asked. “I see you and a car!”

Miles smiled, a lifeless expression that didn’t touch his eyes. Bone realised they were actually the same height, even though he’d first assumed the colonel to be a few inches taller than him.

“They’re coming,” he said. He looked past Bone, and for a second Bone thought the Kin had made themselves known, following him up out of the valley, stalking him, and now they would pounce and make a show of slaughtering this blinkered military man just as they’d killed the poor cop who’d come on ahead. But the colonel smiled again and slapped Bone’s shoulder a couple of times. “In fact, they’re here.”