The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

drawing. Go. GO.”
    Travis spun, the rifle coming around in his right hand, stopping just before the twin pine that came up in a V from its roots, fifteen feet away.
    He heard a man gasp—surprise laced with anger—and in the same moment he saw the impossible: a silenced pistol slipping into view as if from a fold of nothingness.
    Travis fired.
    The heavy rifle gutted the air, the cyclic recoil maybe three times harder than the M16’s had been, pushing him off target almost immediately—but it didn’t matter. Even over the blast-chatter of the rifle he heard the killer scream, and the pistol went sideways, end over end in a pitched arc. A second later the lowest bough of the double pine bent violently downward; it seemed to pin itself to the ground.
    Travis let go of the trigger. Silence. Then he heard the man crying and fighting to breathe.
    Travis looked at the sphere in his hand. The blue light was strobing now, the rhythm matching his own accelerated pulse.
    Emily’s voice cooed in his head, and he heard her giggle.
    “Gave him a hurts donut, didn’t you? Gave him a whole box of them with sprinkles and cherry filling.”
    Travis felt his logic slipping. He understood that the voice wasn’t Emily at all, that this thing had nothing to do with her, but even that understanding began to fade—by the second—as he held the thing. He felt the clarity of his thinking being washed out, like visual details lost in light glare.
    It was time to let go of it. Let go fast, like Paige had said.
    He opened his hand—
    The rifle fell and clattered on the roots at his feet. It took him a full breath to realize his mistake.
    “Sweetie, you don’t want to drop me, do you?”
    Now that he thought about it, no, he really didn’t want to let her go.
    Her? It.
    “You can think of me as a girl if you like. It’s all the same to me. I haven’t even minded being called the wrong name all this time. I promise to tell you my real name someday. It’s a lot cooler than ‘Whisper.’ ”
    With each passing moment—each heartbeat of the sphere—the voice soothed him more deeply. Soothed him and took him back there, to that night, to those few hours he’d long remembered as the best of his life.
    “There you go.”
    Emily kissing him, her need almost a tangible thing, her breath mixing with his, pulling away just long enough for her to tear off her shirt up over her head.
    “You hit him with three of your twelve shots, in case you were wondering.”
    So beautiful. It didn’t matter what she said now. The voice was enough. And what had Paige been thinking? Who in their right mind would let go of this thing? This lovely thing.
    “Your third bullet hit the collarbone and glanced down at a forty-five. It fragged just in time to shatter the T6 and T7 vertebrae. Ouch and a half. He’s not even in shock; he’s feeling ninety-four percent of the pain capacity of the human nervous system. And judging by his systolic, he’s gonna keep feeling it for another eighty seconds or so.”
    “I love you,” Travis heard himself whisper. “I always loved you.”
    “Oh honey, Emily Price is dead. You know that.”
    “Yes, I know.” It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Everything was wonderful.
    “Tough on her family that no one alive knows where she’s buried, don’t you think?”
    “The worst.” He sighed, his heart beating faster, the light keeping up with it.
    “Briar Lake, the dunes west of the nature center parking lot. There’s a stand of eight birches on the crest of the backdune. She’s under the smallest one, more or less. It wasn’t even there when they put her in the ground; now its roots are coiled through her rib cage.”
    So wonderful, so savagely wonderful. Travis drew the light closer to his eyes. How had he mistaken this dear thing for a star? It was so much more.
    “You should really be thinking about Paige Campbell.”
    Who was Paige Campbell? Who cared?
    “That kiss may have been only practical, but my hunch is that she’ll be up for the real thing once she gets to know you. My hunches tend to be right, by the way.”
    “Oh. That’s nice.”
    “If both of you survive what’s coming, you’ll have a chance with her, in spite of your résumé. Surviving is the trick, though, isn’t it, considering where the two of you are going soon. Seven Theaterstrasse in Switzerland. Never mind that it’s the linchpin of her enemy’s plan. The fact is, it’s the most dangerous building in the world—if