It took a full second for the impact of that to hit me.

The boy still spoke in that old woman's voice, but she'd called me Captain.

I don't wear captain's bars. None of my team wears a rank or unit patch. No one in the DMS ever does when they're in the field.

So how in the wide blue f.u.c.k did this little freak know what I was?

I made sure my voice was controlled. "Who are you?"

"I need to give you a message, Captain."

The figure stood there, arms still out to the sides. I ran the light over his face. The eyes were as dark as holes. The burned flesh around them was puckered and raw.

"I won't tell you again," I warned him.

"I have something you want. You have something I want. I wish to complete my end of the bargain."

"You are going to shut your f.u.c.king mouth," I said sharply. "Right now."

I took another step forward and reached a careful hand out to do a gentle pat-down. It didn't matter that Bunny had already searched the kid. It didn't take all that long to pocket a pistol or strap on a C4 vest. The body inside the robes was as thin as a scarecrow, and dust plumed out from the dry cloth.

The flesh between my shoulders twitched and contracted, because even though the shape my eyes saw was a boy, the shape my hand touched was not. The hips were wider, the waist narrower, and there were b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Huge, pendulous, drooping nearly to her waist.

My hand recoiled as if it had a mind of its own. Recoiled in horror and disgust.

"What the . . . ?"

I raised the pistol and pointed the barrel ten inches from the dark eyes, and with my other hand, I tore open the front of the robe.

There was a flash of something.

The world seemed to go red, as if the whole cave was washed with a crimson floodlight. I had a split second's look at the body revealed beneath the robe.

Definitely not a boy.

It was a woman's body. Bloated in spots, emaciated in others, with those huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s and skin that was puckered and blistered from furnace heat. Her eyes flared wide and she swiped at me with one hand.

Or . . . with what had been a hand.

The fingers were wrong somehow.They'd . . . changed.They were too long, each joint stretched to an unnatural length, and there seemed to be an extra joint. Or . . . segment. Like the segmented legs of some disgusting pale bug.

I saw-but in no way could prevent-that elongated hand from slapping my pistol.The gun went flying, end over end, and struck a wall.

Then the second hand wrapped itself around me-around my face and throat.The segmented fingers seemed to be able to completely encircle my head so that I was caught in a net of bony fingers weirdly hot to the touch. I heard my own skin sizzle; I could smell it burning.

I screamed, but then the woman . . . thing . . . whatever in G.o.d's name it was . . . lifted me completely off the ground and yanked forward so that my face was an inch from hers. She tugged away the scarf, and I now saw what Finn must have seen-the face of an ancient woman, hideous and disfigured, with a nose either covered in clay or composed of it. Small fires seemed to ignite in her dark eyes, and when she smiled, her lips curled up and wide-wider than is possible-until row upon row of jagged teeth were exposed in a leer.

I saw all of this from the reflected light of the fallen gun.

When she spoke, her voice was a rasping wrongness. If a reptile tried to force human speech from a mouth that had never been constructed for it, I believe that's how it would sound.

"We have what you want," she said, and her breath stank of rotting eggs. Like methane or sulfur. It made me want to vomit, but I fought it back. Just like I fought back the scream that wanted so badly to burst from my chest.

"Christ!" I whimpered. "What are you?"

"The bargain needs to be completed," she said insistently.

I hit her as hard as I could, hooking a left over the top of the arm that held me and catching her on the temple. Her head snapped around just like it should have, but then it whipped back to center. Just like it shouldn't have.

I hit her again, and again.

Kicked her, too. Real G.o.dd.a.m.n hard. In the stomach, the thigh, the chest.

I might as well have been dipping my toes in a cool pond. She took it all and I could see her body sway slightly from the impact of foot-pounds.Those kicks would have put Bunny down. Bones should have splintered, the jagged edges tearing through muscle and veins and organs.These were of lethal intent, delivered with steel-tip shoes by someone who knows what the h.e.l.l he's doing. I've killed people with such kicks before.

She ignored them.