Chapter 21

  Children of Isapa

  The older man raised his hand to his chest.

  “I am Tahvo.” He gestured toward the younger man. “This is my son, Naha.”

  Naha nodded once but didn’t say anything.

  “Toyahdoh sent us.”

  Tahvo looked at Naha and tipped his head toward Colt and Clay. Naha pushed off the wall, walked behind them, and unlocked the cuffs. Colt first, then Clay.

  Colt rubbed his wrists and looked at Tahvo’s arm. The sleeve had shifted back down and he couldn’t see the tattoo anymore, but he didn’t need to. The image was burned in his head. The long snout and the pointed ears. A coyote, not a wolf.

  Clay leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Well ain’t that somethin’. My name’s Clay.” He chuckled. “This here’s Colt. You might know him as the Lost Child of Esa.” He said it proud, like he was introducing royalty.

  Tahvo smiled.

  “Yes. Toyahdoh told us all about the both of you.”

  He slid the compass across the table toward Colt.

  “We were able to retrieve this for you before the ninjas escaped.”

  Colt looked at it. His mind went back to the smoke. The one-eyed ninja pulling that ball from its belt. The room filling in seconds. When it cleared, the ninjas were gone and the compass was gone with them.

  How the hell did these two get it back?

  He kept his face flat.

  “That’s uh.” He grabbed the compass and turned it over in his hands. “That’s great.”

  MODULE DETECTED: SPATIAL ANCHOR MK-I

  The words flashed in his vision.

  He had it. After everything that happened, he had it in his hands.

  Tahvo leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on the table.

  “Tell me what happened at the museum.”

  Colt kept his face flat. “Ninjas came through a portal. Killed a lot of people. We fought back.”

  “And the compass?”

  “We went there to get it.”

  “How did you know it was there?”

  Colt paused for a second. “Kevin told us.”

  Something flickered behind Tahvo’s eyes at the name, but he didn’t push. He just nodded slow, like he was filing it away for later.

  “You did well to survive. The Oni are not easy to fight.”

  Colt didn’t answer. He was watching Tahvo’s arm, waiting for the sleeve to shift again so he could get another look at that ink. It didn’t move.

  Naha still hadn’t moved from his spot by the wall. Hadn’t shifted his weight or looked at Clay once. His eyes stayed locked on Colt, unblinking, like he was counting his breaths.

  Clay leaned over and dropped his voice low. “Yer boy over there don’t blink much, does he?”

  Colt didn’t answer that either.

  Naha’s hand went to his jacket and pulled out a small cube. Perfect edges. It shined like shinki but the shape was too clean, too precise. He turned it over in his fingers slow, watching Colt the whole time.

  Colt didn’t know what it was, but he knew its was something.

  Tahvo kept talking. “Toyahdoh told us you opened a portal at your cabin. That you brought your father’s body through.” He tilted his head just a little. “That is not an easy thing to do. Most operatives take months to learn that skill.”

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  Colt’s gut tightened.

  How did he know about that? Toyahdoh hadn’t been there when they left. The wolves hadn’t been there. Nobody had seen them go through that portal except Kevin, and Kevin sure as hell wasn’t talking to these two.

  He opened his mouth to ask, but the door opened behind them before he could get the words out.

  A cop stuck his head in, the same one who’d shoved Colt into the car. He looked at Tahvo, then at Naha.

  “Everything alright in here? You fellas need any—”

  Naha moved.

  Colt barely saw it. One second the cop was talking, the next Naha had a blade buried in the side of his head, right through the temple. The cop’s mouth stayed open but nothing came out.

  Naha put his free hand on the cop’s forehead and a flash lit the room, yellow bleeding into violet. The cop’s body jerked once and went limp. Something passed from the body into Naha, a faint glow that traveled up his arm and sank into his chest.

  Naha let the body drop and pulled the blade free.

  Clay shot up from his chair. “What the fuck!”

  Tahvo smiled.

  “Sit down.”

  Colt was already moving.

  He came up out of the chair and swung hard, his fist catching Naha square on the jaw before the man could turn around. The jaw shattered under his knuckles and Colt felt it give, felt the bone crack and shift. Naha’s head snapped sideways and he dropped, the blade clattering to the floor with the cube skittering after it.

  Colt looked at his hand. It didn’t even hurt. Those AP points he’d dumped into strength were real.

  Tahvo lunged across the table.

  “Clay, come on!”

  Colt grabbed the blade and the cube off the floor and shoved them in his coat pockets, then kicked the chair into Tahvo’s path and ran for the door with Clay right behind him.

  MODULE DETECTED: CONDUIT DAGGER MK-I

  MODULE DETECTED: PHASE CUBE MK-I

  MELEE WEAPON EQUIPPED

  Conduit Dagger

  The hallway stretched out empty in both directions, green walls and buzzing lights with doors lining both sides.

  Colt turned left. He remembered the room they’d passed when the cops brought them in, metal lockers along the wall. That’s where they’d put their stuff.

  He found it with the door hanging open. A cop sat at a desk with his back to them, writing something. Metal lockers lined the wall behind him. Colt didn’t slow down. He grabbed the man by the collar and threw him out of the chair, sent him into the wall where he slumped down out cold.

  “Sorry.” Colt said

  Their gear was in one of the lockers, the door hanging half open. His satchel, his revolver, his bowie, and Clay’s sawed-off all sitting there waiting.

  Colt grabbed his stuff. He pulled the blade and cube from his coat and dropped them in the satchel, then shoved the revolver in his coat pocket and put the bowie in his belt.

  Clay grabbed his shotgun and cracked it open to check the shells.

  A noise echoed from the end of the hallway. Low snarling mixed with the click of claws on tile, moving toward them fast.

  Colt turned toward the sound.

  Two shapes came around the corner at the end of the hall. Big things on four legs with fur the color of bone. Coyotes, but not normal ones. These were the size of wolves, maybe bigger, and their eyes glowed yellow with that same violet flicker running through.

  They saw Colt and Clay and broke into a run.

  Clay turned and raised the shotgun. “Oh shit.”

  The coyotes leaped.

  DEAD EYE: ACTIVATED

  0:05

  The coyotes hung in the air mid-lunge with their jaws open and teeth bared. Clay was frozen beside him, finger on the trigger, eyes wide.

  0:04

  Colt ran toward his brother.

  0:03

  He opened the map and hit Earth 145, then Travel. The portal split open in front of them with blue and white light spilling out.

  0:02

  Colt shoved Clay hard and his brother fell backward through the portal, frozen mid-fall.

  0:01

  Colt looked back at the coyotes.

  One of them was still tracking him. Its eyes moved, following him even through the slowed time, its head turning just a fraction to adjust.

  It could see him.

  Colt dove through the portal.

  DEAD EYE flashed and disappeared.

  The world went white.

  Colt hit the floor hard and slid across the smooth surface until he crashed into Clay’s body. They both went sprawling with limbs tangled together, the satchel clutched tight against Colt’s chest.

  They lay there side by side, neither of them moving.

  Colt stared up at the ceiling with its bright lights.

  The HUB. They made it.

  His chest heaved and his lungs burned. His heart was still pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.

  Clay slapped his shoulder.

  Colt flinched at the noise. Clay yelled it out loud, his voice bouncing off the walls. “You did it, brother! Holy shit, man!” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slow. “That mangy ass mutt was about to eat my freakin’ face, man. Fuck.”

  He laughed, the kind of laugh that comes out when you’re not sure if you should be laughing or crying.

  Colt laughed with him. They were alive. They had the compass. They were back.

  Then the laughter faded and the weight of it started to settle in his chest.

  Children of Isapa. Toyahdoh’s story about Esa’s brother, the one who set worlds on fire. They had people here on this Earth, dressed like feds, walking into crime scenes, carrying badges. How long had they been here? How many of them were there?

  And that coyote. The way its eyes had tracked him through Dead Eye.

  He needed answers. He needed to talk to Toyahdoh.

  Footsteps clicked across the floor.

  “I see you have accomplished your mission.”

  Colt turned his head.

  Kevin stood over them, that single eye glowing down at their bodies sprawled across the floor.

  “You also acquired additional modules.” Kevin’s head tilted. “Well done. You must not have encountered any resistance.”

  Colt looked at Clay.

  Clay looked at Colt.

  Neither of them said a word.

  END OF ACT 1