to watch the sunrise, welcoming in the new day and wondering how different it would be. Each day offered renewed possibilities and a refreshed chance at life, and even in his darkest moments a spectacular sunrise would not help but touch him.
I wonder if Nathan's been found yet, he wondered, and a flock of rooks passed across the sunrise. Cole closed his eyes briefly and imagined he were one of them. He envied the animals their simplicity of life. Their main purpose was to survive and procreate; his own purpose was borne out of revenge. A particularly human trait, revenge. It served no aim. It was like a fox coming after the hounds. He had lost his own meaning in the world.
Cole opened his eyes and brought himself back to the here and now. Back to the unnatural.
His objective was now divided. On the one hand, he could not let Natasha reach the other berserkers. He had gathered evidence over the years that she was different somehow, altered, experimented upon by Porton Down and … improved. That was the one word the scientist had used before Cole shot her. Improved. He had no idea what they had done to her, but he did know one thing for sure; it would have only been to make her more deadly. And once reunited with the others, she could well become too powerful for him to take on his own.
On the other hand, finding the escapees had, until today, been his prime concern. What he would do then he had not even considered, because the prospects were too terrifying. Call in the army, perhaps. Give them the opportunity on a plate to clean up an old mess.
Or maybe after so long, he would go it alone.
The escapees had been silent for ten years. Cole scanned the news every day, always looking for signs that they had been active, but there was nothing obvious. Murder, death, missing people, all these happened, but not in any great numbers in any one place. Not in Britain, at least. If the monsters had gone abroad … well, he would know soon enough. If Natasha looked to be making for the ports or an airport, this would be a whole new game.
Either way, he had some fucking vampires to hunt and kill.
Even though they cut across fields it was more than a mile. It took almost half an hour for the farmer to lead Cole to his farm, and ten times in the last ten minutes of their walk Cole daydreamed about putting a bullet in the fat man's arse. Roberts and Natasha were getting farther and farther away, and every minute wasted meant that finding them again would be harder. Cole listened for Natasha, inviting her in, and her random words soon faded with distance into mumbles, and then whispers, and after that he was uncertain that he heard anything at all. His subconscious told him that she was still touching him, her words so quiet now that they were shadows rather than voice, and he was sure that she was still there. Raving. Gloating. And luring him on …
Luring him on, because that was the only way she would ever find the others.
'That's it!' Cole said as they entered the farmer's yard. A fat woman stood at the doorway to a rundown house, and a tall youth emerged from one of the sheds, both of them staring at the farmer and seeing the fear in his eyes.
'Yes, that's it,' the farmer said, pointing to the BMW. 'I'll get the keys. Er … you want me to get the keys?' He stood there in the cow shit and awaited Cole's permission to leave.
Cole smiled. 'Yes, the keys,' he said. He slipped the .45 into his jacket, hoping it had not been noticed but seeing in the fat woman's eyes that it had. He looked from her to the farmer to the tall youth standing beside the steel shed. The boy held a shovel in his hands as if it could swipe a bullet from the air. Too many John Woo movies.
'What's wrong, John?' the woman asked. Her voice was firm, the fear well hidden. Cole guessed that however surprised and scared she may be, she would stay in control. The boy, however, was already growing pale as realisation set in.
'I'm taking your car,' Cole said to the woman. 'It's a matter of national security.' Damn, maybe he'd seen too many movies! Instead of smiling he turned to the boy and stared him down.
'You're not taking my car,' the woman said.
'Janet, he's army!' the farmer said, waddling across the yard, hands held out to his wife. Cole realised he had an ally in this man, someone for whom the extraordinary was a break from the mundane day-to-day. Never mind the woman he had seen Cole shoot, never mind the fate of the man who had crashed his way out of the cottage driveway. This was an adventure.
'Has he shown you ID?'
'No. But he has a gun.'
'Oh then he must work for the army!' The woman stared across the yard at Cole, glanced down at the pocket where he'd slipped the .45, then back up at his face. What do you want? her expression said, and Cole glanced across at the black BMW and shrugged. That's all.
'Is that a real gun?' the boy said.
'It's real alright!' the farmer said, turning from his wife to the boy. Easier reaction there. Not so much hostility. 'I've just seen a gunfight!'
This guy's a gem, Cole thought. The farmer had already forgotten that the other party in the 'gunfight' had not possessed a gun.
'Look, Janet,' Cole said, stepping forward with his hands held out from his sides, 'I really do need your car, and I really am going to have it. I didn't exaggerate in what I said, though I could have put it better. You'll get the car back, and you'll have a letter of thanks and some small reward for your troubles.' The woman's expression hardly changed. Hard bitch, he thought. 'You'll get a new tractor, too!'
'He shot the tractor?' the boy asked.
Cole sighed and shook his head. This was getting more ridiculous by the minute! And then the woman spoke, and ridiculous turned to crazy.
'I don't believe any of what you say. There's a loaded shotgun on the wall three feet from me. You show me ID right now or I go for it.'
'Janet—'
'You don't want to do that, Janet,' Cole said, drawing the .45 again. 'What do you think this is, a movie?'
'No, I don't watch them. This is me protecting my property and my family.'
'You go for it and I'll shoot the boy first.'
Damn, he didn't have time for shit like this. Random thoughts began to fly at him, his own ideas coming together at high speed, reacting to the trauma of the last few hours. He was not used to being confused, and he was not used to someone getting the better of him. Roberts had been at the nasty end of Cole's pistol and yet he'd escaped, and now here Cole was wasting time arguing with a bumbling idiot farmer, his TV-addled son and the fucking Terminatrix!
He did not have time …
Natasha is drawing me on because while I'm still hot after them, Roberts will keep on going… I take this BMW and that fat bitch will be on the phone to the police in seconds … I could kill them. Slurry pit. Be ages before they were found. … And just what is it Natasha has? How is she 'improved' ?
The woman was glancing back and forth from him to the boy. Cole looked at him, back to her, then to the farmer. 'Oh, for fuck's sake!' he said. He put the gun back in his pocket. 'You—John—go and get me the car keys and I'll be on my way.'
'Don't you move, John!' the woman said. She had edged back into the doorway and reached inside the room, and Cole expected her to bring out the shotgun at any moment. Then he'd have two choices—run or shoot her. That was somewhere he didn't want to get to—ten seconds ago I was thinking about killing them and throwing them in the slurry pit, wasn't I? Wasn't I?—but unless something changed very soon, that's just where he would be. Run or shoot.
'Shit.' Cole looked around the farmyard, saw a herd of cows looking out from a barn with sad faces. Back to the woman. She was farther into the house now, and maybe her hand had already found the gun. The boy stared at his mother, wide-eyed. John, the fat farmer, turned in circles, seemingly at a total loss.
And every second Natasha grew farther away.
Cole pulled the gun and shot one of the cows.
The herd panicked, perhaps more at the blast of the gun than because one of their number was thrashing on the floor of the shed, its skull ruptured and pumping blood into the shit-covered yard.
From the house Cole heard the clatter of the dropped shotgun. Janet disappeared inside.
