6:24 p.m. EST
Dani’s heart caught in her throat as she saw Tommy surrounded. He raised his shotgun again. She closed her eyes, unwilling to watch.
Help him, Lord, she prayed. Send him—
A huge explosion rocked the ground. There was a second explosion, and then a third.
“What was that?” Tommy’s voice asked over the headset.
“I don’t know,” Dani said. “It’s not us.”
She heard the sound of machine-gun fire, tracers arcing across Tommy’s property from all directions. A burst of static came from the GPhone and then . . .
“Thought maybe you folks could use a little help,” said a voice. A familiar voice.
“Ed?” Dani said. “How’d you get on this line? How did you know—”
“We need you to stay inside until we’re done,” Stanley said brusquely. “If we have to use missiles, we may not be able to limit collateral damage.”
Dani switched monitor views in time to see Tommy grab one of the Helios 9000s and point it up into the sky, illuminating the black outlines of a dozen drones far larger than the Orison passing overhead, firing missiles and machine guns.
“Didn’t see you coming,” Tommy said.
“No one does,” Stanley replied. “That’s the point.”
Dani had Tommy and the others take shelter in the windows and doorways of the house. They kept shooting, but the CIA drones took the larger part of the battle now.
As the gunfire slackened, Tommy joined Dani in the kitchen. She’d had the Orison 6 fly high above the battlefield, keeping the camera aimed at the house, giving them a bird’s-eye view of the battle. As the drone climbed, she saw the Gevaudan beasts retreating, defeated and decimated.
Out the window, the fallen body of one of the Gevaudan dissolved in the rain, as if it had been made of smoke or ash.
Casey, Ruth, and Reese met them in the kitchen just as a Skype call from Ed Stanley came in.
“Are you all right?” Stanley said.
“We’re good,” Dani said. “Your timing couldn’t have been better.”
“Speaking of timing,” Stanley said. “We had people at the coordinates you gave us for the boys, from the file Tommy got off Ghieri’s computer. But somebody got there ahead of us.”
“Who?” Dani asked.
“Not sure,” Stanley said. “We’ll have some time to look at the surveillance footage from the drones we had on scene. It looks like somebody shot them with tranquilizer darts, like on a National Geographic special. I thought maybe you could tell me. You’re the ones who wanted to take them alive.”
“We did what we had to do,” Dani said. “Those things out there in the woods, I don’t care. But the boys Ghieri sent out with his little packages—they’re just boys. They didn’t ask for this, and they don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve been manipulated, and they’re victims. I’m not going to allow them to be killed. It’s that simple.”
“And that’s exactly what Ghieri was counting on,” Ed Stanley said. “That’s why they used children. They knew that somebody was going to be too . . . sentimental to take them out. According to my sources, six of them were able to poison the water supplies they targeted before you were able to subdue them. Six.”
“I understand that,” Dani said. “According to my sources, you killed one of the boys.”
She exchanged glances with Reese.
“If you’re talking about Hythe End near Heathrow, yes. We took out the target. And he was one of the six who got through. Both your defenses and ours.”
“He wasn’t a target,” Dani said. “A target is a piece of paper with a bull’seye on it. He was a human being. His name was Edmond Stratton-Mallins.”
“I’m sorry,” Stanley said. “It couldn’t be helped.”
“Is there anything else you need?” Dani said.
“There’s a party at St. Adrian’s Academy tonight,” Stanley said. “We’re going to be flying over it to take some pictures. I suggest you keep your little paper airplane out of the way.”
He logged off, and Dani did the same.
“Did he just insult my drone?” Tommy said. He was holding the drone’s control module and watching it on the screen. “Speaking of which, I think you ought to see this.”
“What is it?” Dani asked, coming to Tommy’s side.
“Charlie and Ben said they’d be here when we needed them, right?”
“I guess we didn’t need them,” she said.
Tommy shook his head. “This was too easy,” he said. “This was just a screen pass.”
“A what?”
“A screen pass,” he repeated. “The quarterback fakes a play, and the offensive line lets the defense through without much of a fight. And just when the linemen are about to tackle the passer, he lobs it over their heads to a running back. A guy who’s been pretending to be a blocker.”
“A feint, you mean,” Dani said.
“Exactly. It’s one of the oldest strategies known to warfare. I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
“On a football field. Hitler thought Normandy was a feint,” Dani said. “And he was wrong. Normandy was the real thing.”
“These beasts attacking the house were a feint,” Tommy repeated. “If it wasn’t a feint, how do you explain this?”
He showed her the controller for the drone, which was still flying at fifteen thousand feet, surveying the town. The view was from the infrared camera; she saw a blue haze on the ground and above Bull’s Rock Hill. Tommy froze the frame, then played back a portion he’d just recorded at thirty times slower than real time.
A chill ran down Dani’s spine. “Dear God,” she said. “Oh, dear God.”
The air above Bull’s Rock Hill, and the ground around it, was teeming with demons, fallen angels far larger and stronger and far more evil than the beasts they’d just driven from Tommy’s property.
“That’s it,” he said. “That’s the real battle.” He put his raincoat on, then took the shotgun he’d been using and a backpack full of shells.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Dani asked.
“Bull’s Rock Hill,” Tommy said.
“The road’s out,” she reminded him.
“I’m not taking the road.”
“What are you going to do?” Dani asked him.
“Attack,” Tommy said.
“Tommy—wait.”
He stopped.
“So you’re going to singlehandedly attack a thousand demons, armed with nothing but a shotgun, even though you fought one single demon in your own driveway and couldn’t defeat it?” Dani said.
“Well, it sounds really stupid when you put it that way,” Tommy said.
“That’s because it is really stupid.”
“They’ll be there if I need them,” he said. “Ben and Charlie.”
He tried to smile, but she saw the fear on his face.
“Dani, I know this is right,” he told her. “This is faith. Sometimes it makes total sense, and sometimes it flies in the face of common sense, but for me, it’s simple. We’ve located the enemy. We attack the enemy. And we attack with faith.”
“I’m coming with you,” Reese said.
“You can’t,” Tommy said. “Someone has to stay here—”
“If you’re about to say ‘and protect the womenfolk,’ I’m going to punch you in the face,” Dani said. “We womenfolk can protect ourselves.”
“Hey,” Detective Casey said. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
“You’re okay with this?” Tommy said, looking first to Reese, then at Dani.
“I’m okay with this,” Dani said. “I trust you. Just make sure you come back.”
Tommy ran across the courtyard to the garage bay where the ATV was parked, the driving rain impossibly falling even harder than it had earlier. He pushed the key into the ignition, pressed the starter button, waited for Reese to take a seat on the cargo rack behind him, then sped out into the rain, pausing briefly in the driveway to mount one of the Helios 9000 spotlights to the front gear rack.
“Hold on tight,” he called over his shoulder. “If I hit a bump, you might be airborne. We both might be airborne.”
Half a mile down the road he found Detective Casey’s car, tipping precariously where the water had eroded away the road beneath the passenger’s side wheels. He turned off the pavement and headed cross-country, following paths and trails he’d run hundreds of times in high school. As he sped, it seemed as if the night was growing brighter.
“Tommy,” Reese said. “Stop for a second.”
“No stopping,” Tommy shouted. “We don’t have time.”
“Well, then at least slow down,” Reese said. “I really think you’re going to want to see this.”
He slowed the ATV to a walking pace and turned around to look behind him. What he saw took his breath away. He heard a voice in his ear. It sounded like Dani’s.
He realized he was still wearing the Bluetooth earpiece. As Dani spoke, the drone flew low overhead.
“Tommy,” she said. “I’m right above you.”
“I wish you were. I wish you were here to see this.”
“See what?”
He hesitated, wondering how to put into words the glorious sight before his eyes. A sky filled with angels, shining white, too many to count, following him into battle.
“Tommy?” Dani said. “See what?”
“Lord, please let her see,” Tommy prayed. “Let Dani see your glory too.”