The Devil's Dream: Book One (33 page)

"Were you here the
first time?"

He nodded.

"Did you see
Brand?"

He nodded again.

"What was it
like?" she asked.

"Just like the
book said. He planned the whole thing. He sat there and laughed at us
like we couldn't stop him if we wanted." He paused, but didn't
turn from the window. "It was like he thought we were only a
part of his mind and he could do what he wanted with us."

"And this time?"

"I wish he knew we
were coming this time too. I wish he thought we were just pieces of
his mind, pawns he could move. It was easy that way."

The car rolled along
the road, back to the warehouse Dillan gave them. Lackluster Lane.
Her gun rested on her knee and she wouldn't holster it until Brand
had enough bullets through his chest to make sure he never moved
again. Then she would drop the gun and lie down next to it, her hands
behind her head. Art could arrest her for murder and they could
figure out what would come next, but her daughter and husband would
still have a
next
.

She saw the Buick.
Parked at the end of the road, empty and quiet like a cemetery.

"Fuck," Art
said.

He pulled the radio
from his waistband.

"Alright everyone,
it looks like he's here. Set up a perimeter twenty five feet out from
the building. Surround the structure, up on the curbs and grass. I
don't want him able to run anywhere except directly into our arms."

Cars went to the left
and right, speeding up as they realized what was happening: no one
was coming to meet them—they were late. Cars and SWAT vans jumped
curbs, opened their doors and peered over windows holding automatic
weapons. Allison had seen setups like this countless times, both in
practice and in real time.

Except now, they were
assaulting the building that held her daughter. They were attacking
the place her husband lay in, bruised and beaten.

Allison's car stopped
fifty feet from the garage door and the two agents in the front
hopped out, one positioning himself behind the front of the car and
the other behind his door. Art looked to her.

"You can stay in
here if you want; I'd prefer it actually but we don't have time to
argue."

Allison opened her door
and stepped out of the vehicle, her gun at her side.

Art opened the
hatchback and pulled a bullhorn from it.

"MATTHEW BRAND.
THIS IS THE F.B.I. COME OUT OF THE BUILDING WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE
AIR."

* * *

Matthew heard the words
as clearly as he had ten years ago. Sound particles ran into air
particles and transmitted the voice of another to his eardrums.

HANDS
IN THE AIR
.

He heard it and
couldn't believe it. No one was outside. No one knew where he was and
if they did, they certainly hadn't arrived this quickly. He looked
back down at the man before him; Jerry's brain had swelled and so
carving into his skull wasn't possible as the brain might have simply
split through the opening. Instead a clear glass tube stuck out of
where his eye once lived. The eye, for its part, hung on the man's
cheek, not completely removed. The tube ran to a metal box and the
box ran a cord to an outlet. The tube was causing an expansion of
Jerry's brain cavity, the pain would have been unbearable if the man
was conscious—his bones actually stretching with air being pumped
in. He wouldn't die and that's all Matthew needed.

Jerry was almost hooked
up, almost ready to go. Wires ran from his other eye, sunk deep into
his brain, all the way to the Conductor. Matthew hadn't bothered with
any plans to keep the man alive indefinitely, because once this thing
started, Jerry could die. Another hour was all he needed, just to get
the girl on the gurney and—

"BRAND. COME OUT
NOW."

Matthew looked down at
his hands. They were shaking. Because he
had
heard it the first time. Because he knew that the voice screaming for
him meant this was over. Because they had found him.

Jeffrey
Dillan
.

Matthew let him go, had
searched out others he felt were more important. A mistake of such
huge magnitude that he couldn't remember why he made it. Here he
stood, an hour or two away from meeting his son, and it would never
happen—the people outside wouldn't let it.

Jerry Moore was ready.
The other two people were ready. He had three, one an infant, but
still alive. Would that be enough?

He continued staring at
his shaking fingers while his mind ran through calculations,
determining the time needed and the likelihood of success.

It
can happen
. He wasn't completely sure; he couldn't be, but
he thought it possible. Matthew took in a deep breath and closed his
eyes, trying to silence his mind and body, trying to focus on what
was about to happen. On what he had to do.

When he opened his
eyes, his hands were still.

"BRAND, YOU CAN
COME OUT, OR WE CAN COME IN." The words moved through the thick
brick walls as if they were little more than lace. Nothing the person
outside said mattered. They would come for him and all of this would
be over, but maybe he could see his son again, if only for a moment.
Maybe before they put him in a gas chamber somewhere, he could see
Hilman one last time.

Matthew's body moved.
Pushing the newest gurney into place. He traced all of the wires to
each of the appropriate holes, both on the bodies and the Conductor.
Thirty seconds later he stood behind the Conductor, the long tube
that would make everything happen. He looked at the large glass
square. That's where his son would be; right there, and no matter
what happened when the cops entered, he would be speaking to Hilman.

He pressed the large
button on top of the Conductor. As a metal lever lowered inside, a
large whoosh of air pushed out of the bottom, staring the process.

"BRAND. WE'RE
COMING IN."

* * *

"Bomb the first
door, then flood in. Parker and Lane, left along the wall. Branch and
Ward, to the right. Stanford, Price, you guys go down the middle.
I'll meet you in there."

Two SWAT officers ran
to the door, placing a round explosive on the metal, and hurried
back. Five seconds later sparks, fire, and smoke rose from the
controlled explosion, and as the fire spread across the metal, the
smoke grew too, creating a screen for anyone that wanted in.

"Go," Art
said into his radio and the crews ran toward the smoke with Allison
watching fifty feet back, neither her nor Art moving yet. The cops
ran at the smoke, disappearing inside.

"Should we go?"

"Yes. Keep your
gun up, but be careful, there's a lot more of us in there than him."

They ran, listening to
the silence in front of them, hearing no gunshots, no noise at all.

Five feet from the
smoke screen—Allison about to run in with absolutely no knowledge
of what she would see on the other side—the silence that permeated
the warehouse disappeared.

* * *

Matthew saw them
curving around the walls of his laboratory like water through a creek
bed. Their eyes were scanning the entire place, but they still hadn't
seen him; his thin body lost behind such a large piece of equipment.
They would see, as soon as they looked closely, but by then he hoped
it would be too late for everyone in the room.

What came next wouldn't
need any guidance from him. All he had to do was sit here and wait.
The smoke screen their explosive created was blowing inside the
warehouse, but not destroying his vision of the process taking place
in front of him. He saw the blood, the organs, all of it being sucked
from the bodies and pulled toward the Conductor. Bits of brain,
pieces of liver, all of it flowing through the tubes as the Conductor
did its best to empty the bodies. Three bodies, not ideal, but
perhaps enough.

The fireworks started
as the first drops of blood were pulled into the Conductor, and the
high whining sound of compression and electricity began inside. Only
Matthew could hear it though, the gun shots drowned out the noise for
everyone else.

* * *

Allison and Art ran
through the smoke, despite the sound of high powered machine guns
firing. They knelt three feet in, guns pointed up and out, without
either saying a word. She scanned the room, small explosions seeming
to erupt all around her and men screaming to her everywhere. Some
screamed in pain, others screamed orders, but she didn't know what
anyone was saying. She heard the
thud,
thud, thud, thud
of automatic weapons all around her, and
then felt the sharp rip of a bullet pass by her shoulder.

Allison flattened
herself against the ground and saw Art lying next to her, both of
them looking at each other.

Sweat dripped from her
brow and fell to the cold concrete her face touched. The bullets kept
flying, hitting the walls behind her and streaking straight through
the brick, leaving dust floating in their wake.

"WHERE'S IT COMING
FROM?" She screamed through the noise around her. Art pointed
his gun at the ceiling, and Allison turned to look.

She saw and understood.

Five huge guns hung
from the ceiling, each of them on a large pole with a motor attached
at the top of each pole, so that the weapons could swivel. The guns
some huge caliber—something Allison had never seen before, and a
large trunk on each pole fed them ammo, everything powered by the
motor. They swung around slowly, each one dealing with a certain area
of the warehouse, and none of the bullet sprays overlapping. The
bullets were puncturing walls and traveling deep into the cement
floor. Their swivel seemed to cover an area of fifty feet with fire,
and the guns turned slowly, showering down bullets and casings in a
steady and calm state. Everyone was pinned to the ground. The gun
pointing in Allison's direction barreled bullets straight through the
smoke screen, and only luck had kept it from ripping them apart as
they charged inside. She moved her eyes across the wall, looking at
men doing exactly as her and Art were, seeing others slumped dead on
the floor. Fifty-fifty, maybe? The screams from the well and wounded
alike were slowing down now, and only the deep, thumping sound of gun
fire filled the room. Everyone was looking for cover. No one willing
to move with the ceiling raining bullets.

"HOW LONG CAN THEY
LAST?" She screamed at Art.

He lay on his stomach,
his gun out before him, scanning the room as well.

"FIVE MORE
MINUTES!"

"THE MIDDLE, ART.
THE MIDDLE IS SAFE."

"WHERE WE ARE NOW
IS SAFE!"

It was, the guns were
firing over their heads, a safe ten feet away, and if everyone stayed
where they were, they could outlast this onslaught and move forward
when it was over.

A fresh scream shot
into the air from Allison's right. Her head darted to look, wondering
who had fucking moved into the path of the gun. Before she could find
out, more screams sung out and a bloody mist filled much of the air.
Allison saw people trying to crawl away, to move further into the
warehouse. Bullets carving through legs, leaving them nearly stumped
humans, soon to be stumped corpses as they bled out.

"THEY'RE MOVING
IN. THE GUNS ARE MOVING IN!" Art screamed at her.

She felt the bullets
behind her, what had once hit the walls and shot through the open
warehouse door was now connecting with the ground directly behind her
feet, chewing up the concrete floor. Allison lurched forward without
thinking, Art following, both of them army crawling forward, while
the guns slowly aimed inward. She heard screams as those around her
didn't figure it out in time, didn't understand that the guns were
not only swiveling, they were now aiming closer to the middle of the
room. How many people had run in here? Seventy? How many were left?
And where the fuck was Brand? She kept crawling not waiting for the
guns to stop and fix on a spot. A group of men were huddled in the
center of the room, all lying face down and looking out at the people
crawling towards them. The guns weren't pointing in the middle,
everything there was clear. Allison wanted to get up, to run forward
and jump into the middle of the group, hoping the guns wouldn't reach
her, but if she stood, a bullet would take off her face.

The guns were gaining.
She had made progress for a bit, leaving the flakes of concrete
exploding from the floor, but even as she crawled she felt them
again, sprinkling across her ankles. There wasn't any time. She
wasn't going to make it before the gun above split her open like a
ripe melon.

"KILL THE GUN!"
She screamed to Art and flipped over on her back, her gun facing
straight upward. She aimed immediately and released rounds into the
gray metal machine gun above her. She didn't know what exactly to
hit, only hoping that her bullets would destroy whatever machinery
lived inside that allowed the weapons to continue churning out
missiles.

A hot puncture of pain
struck her foot but she didn't look down; she just kept firing,
because if she didn't that pain would spread across her entire body.

The gun above moved
slightly to the left, going through its swivel, bullets pouring from
its mouth and then...it stopped. Stopped moving, stopped firing.
Allison listened to the dry click of her own gun as she kept pulling
the trigger, not realizing that the immediate danger was over.

She saw Art's hand on
her weapon and he forced it to her stomach. Both of them lay there,
staring at the ceiling, still listening to the other guns blasting
away and people screaming.

“SHOOT THE FUCKING
THINGS!” Art screamed out, trying to be heard above the constant
thumps from the weapons above.

No one answered, not
with their voices anyway, but Allison heard automatic weapons firing,
mixing in with the sound of her own piece and the drum of the bullets
raining down. The officers alive, the ones near, they were firing
too.