Wickerman Cove

Part 37: The Second Coming

It took a lot of work to convince Mrs. Strong that their 'governement work' meant they had to go to what she thought was a derelict canning factory in the early hours of the morning.

It took even more work to convince her that there was no need for her son Scott, who apparently used to work there, to meet them at the gate.

Thankfully, Steph managed to tell a convincing enough string of lies that poor Scotty got to stay in bed and they had more or less legible directions to Hudson Canning.

The half an hour after that had been a flurry of weapons checks, raiding Mak's collection of definitely-legal-Russian-firearms, and Steph missing the bullpup. It was an ugly thing, but Steph was more attached to it than she'd realised. Theoretically, she could probably just yank people's organs out of their bodies a little more, but (a) it was gross, and (b) she could already feel a yawning tiredness that suggested she was going to run out of juice.

Of course, the yawning tiredness might also be from the fact that it was almost the sort of time when a normal New England town would be heading for sunrise, and Steph couldn't remember when she'd last slept.

"Rest," Mak said, glancing across to Steph as he drove. They were in Penny's car, since the trees would protect them from being seen until they were pretty close anyway. "Exhaustion does more to interfere with your reflexes than two beers. Good beer, not your American swill."

"Do I look that bad? Or did they give you a talisman that does mind reading?" Steph asked, making herself comfortable against the padded wall.

"You've been shaking your head every ten seconds," he said. "You were either trying to keep yourself awake or you have nerve damage."

Steph was asleep almost before he finished his sentence.

They were reassuringly ordinary dreams: snatches of her mom, living at home in Florida with weird intrusions from her life at barracks. A party with friends from Highschool that she barely remembered. She'd expected portentous nightmares about the Guide or cities under the sea. The only feature from the recent strangeness was Renard periodically running through scenes, nudging things with his four-horned skull head.

She woke before anyone needed to rouse her – the car had stopped moving and the lights were dark. Penny put a cold hand on her shoulder.

"I'm okay," Steph said, a little surprised that she was telling the truth. "Did we make it without being seen?"

"I think so," Mak said, reaching behind himself to get his things. "Doctor Etrange was very successful in hiding us from prying eyes."

Since the hearse lacked much in the way of rear seating, Penny had stretched herself out in the back with Renard. Between the darkness of the night and the fact that she was dressed completely in black, she looked like a disembodied, floating skull.

Steph tried to shake the sleep off. Like every other time she'd snuck a catnap that had gone deeper, she felt refreshed but dizzy.

There was something else. For a second, it felt like motion sickness, but regular nausea didn't come from a specific direction. She could feel whatever it was, in the distance, a pulsating wrongness that went to the pit of her stomach.

She watched the darkness outside. It refused to do anything interesting. "Which way to the factory?"

Unsurprisingly, Mak pointed straight in the direction of whatever it was that was making her want to hurl.

Complaining wouldn't do any good. She held a penlight between her teeth so that she could check her weapon, and stepped out into the chill of the night. Mak kept his rifles in fishing rod cases. The compartment where Penny had put the bullpup hadn't been long enough to fit either of Mak's store-brand AR-15s, so she'd had them in the back with her. She climbed out as Steph leaned in to retrieve the rifles, levering herself out of the hearse with a flurry of skirts.