Scott Sigler - Ancestor

A bra.

“Andy, you were right about one thing,” Magnus said to the room. “Sara Purinam is a fucking cunt.”

Somehow, Purinam had brought that goddamn plane back. That meant as many as four military-trained people on the island. All armed with Berettas.

He walked to Clayton’s wall-mounted phone. Next to the phone hung a picture of a young Clayton and a young Clint Eastwood, each holding up a huge steelhead trout, both grinning like mad.

Magnus dialed the mansion’s general number. No answer. Goddamned Clayton was out on the trails again, or—more likely—hanging out wherever he’d stashed Sara and the others.

Was Sara and her crew with Rhumkorrf? Was Andy heading into a trap? Magnus dialed another number.

“Watchtower, Gunther here.”

“Gun, Magnus. Any sign of Danté?”

“Nope. And no other aircraft, either.”

A slice of good news. Magnus needed to clear up all these loose ends before his brother arrived. Danté might turn a blind eye to murder that had already happened, but he wouldn’t stand by while Magnus executed people.

“Turn the radar on and leave it on,” Magnus said. “I’m out on the sled. You see anything, you hit the air-raid siren.”

“Yes sir.”

“Have you seen Colding and Andy?”

“Two sleds just went by,” Gunther said. “Could be them.”

“What about Clayton’s Bv206?”

“Saw the zebra-striped thing about five minutes ago, heading southwest, toward the mansion. It’s frickin’ freezing up here, Mags. How about I come down and work the security room for a while?”

Magnus hung up without answering. Clayton was heading back to the mansion. Was he going for the armory? Did he have Sara and her crew with him?

The Arctic Cat was much faster than the Bv206. Magnus ran out of Clayton’s house—whatever it took, he had to get to the mansion first.

COLDING HELD THE throttle open wide, pushing the Arctic Cat to its limits. The Cat’s headlights illuminated a narrow cone of the wooded trail’s thick darkness. The trail popped out of the trees at Big Todd Harbor, then continued along the coastline. A cloud-covered moon cast down feeble light.

The name “harbor” was a misnomer for this northwest-side beach strewn with huge, jagged chunks of weathered limestone, but it was an inlet, so long ago someone had named it thus all the same. He cast a quick glance out at the water… and did a double take. The small inlet looked completely frozen over. At least a half mile of ice stretched out from the coast, as if Black Manitou was growing. The bitter cold wasn’t satisfied with claiming just the land—it wanted everything, including the churning waters of Lake Superior.

He looked back up the trail and his hands reactively locked on the brakes: a fallen tree blocked the path. Colding fought to keep the snowmobile under control. The rear end fishtailed to the left, but he brought it to a stop just parallel to the tree. The sled now pointed straight toward the trail’s three-foot-high right snowbank.

Dead and free of bark, the tree blocking the road really wasn’t much of a tree at all. Maybe a foot in diameter. If he’d hit it full speed, however, it would have demolished his snowmobile and probably killed him. The tree had fallen from the left side of the trail, and only extended about four feet onto the right bank. They could easily go around it.

But there was something odd about the tree.

Behind him, Andy slowed his Polaris to a stop, his headlights illuminating the dead wood. Colding dismounted his Arctic Cat and knelt next to the log. He flipped up his face shield for a better look. Long, deep, parallel white marks covered the old wood.

Claw marks. From… a bear, maybe?

Not a bear. You know what it is .

No. No way.

He sensed Andy walking up behind him. Andy had been on Black Manitou many times over the years. Maybe he’d say it was normal, not what Colding already knew it had to be. Colding patted the claw marks with his left hand.

“Andy, look at this. You ever seen anything like this on the island?”

Andy leaned down for a closer look. “Can’t say that I have. What is it?”

“Looks like claw marks. Please tell me there are bears on this island.”

Andy stood up, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen any. And I’ve been in these woods dozens of times.”

Colding ran his gloved fingers over the deep marks. The four parallel grooves were almost two inches apart. The claw would be huge . He wondered if the thing that had made these marks was moving southwest, toward the mansion, or north, toward Rhumkorrf.

Then his eyes registered the footprints. Everywhere. Hundreds of them, pressed into the packed trail. Big prints, eight inches wide and a foot long, clean indentations of claw tips in front of each of the four toes. The snowmobile’s lights cast black shadows within the prints, making them look deeper, larger, even more ominous.

If Rhumkorrf made it back… then the cows could have made it back too.

The memory of the camera-biting fetus stabbed at him. A few pounds then. Now? Probably over two hundred.

Colding stood and walked back to his snowmobile. “Andy, we’ve gotta move, fast. I think I know what made those marks.” He swung his leg over the Arctic Cat and sat. He paused before hitting the start button and looked back. Andy was just standing there.

Andy took off his gloves. “Well, I guess this is as good a place as any.”

“For what?”

With a smooth motion, Andy unzipped his snowsuit, reached inside, and came out with his Beretta pointed right at Colding.

“To pay you back for drawing down on me.”

Colding stared at the gun. How could he have been so stupid? He should have tried to take Andy out the second he realized the C-5 was on the island. There was no way he could unzip his snowsuit and draw his own Beretta before Andy gunned him down.

“Andy, the… the cows, did Magnus tell you what’s inside the cows? Just listen to me for a second… look at the weird footprints all over the ground. It’s those things.”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, that’s a problem for sure. But you know what? It’s really not a problem for you . Not anymore.”

This was it. He was going to die, shot to death on this frozen island.

“Andy, please.” He heard his own voice crack a little. Was that what begging sounded like? Coming out of his own mouth? “Come on, man, this is bad, you don’t have to do this.”

“Wrong. Magnus told me to do it. It’s either me or you. Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun, so I choose you.”

Colding’s mind raced for something to say, but words escaped him. What would it feel like to be shot? Holy shit holyshit maybe he could dive for Andy’s feet, maybe—

Andy cocked the hammer. “You ready, Bubbah?”

Colding didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.

A crack echoed across the darkness. Colding’s body twitched violently, anticipating the lethal pain, but after a fraction of a second he realized the sound had come from the woods. A broken stick.

Andy turned his head to look. His gun remained leveled at Colding.

Colding moved to launch himself at Andy, but he wasn’t even halfway out of his seat before Andy turned back, eyes locked on Colding. “Don’t bother, duck-fucker.”

Colding froze. He was screwed, so utterly screwed.

Another cracking sound, smaller this time but still definitive. Colding thought he saw movement deep in the wood’s blackness.

From the trees behind Andy came a low, slow, deep growl.

Colding’s skin tingled all over. He felt a new fear, a primitive fear, even beyond that brought on by a gun pointed at his face.