“No time for explanations. Come right now.”

Alec took Angela by the hand and the three of them trotted through the icy darkness down three houses to Will’s place, while Alec’s mind raced. An infection. Something’s happened to Will. Maybe the wound was worse than they thought.

They burst into Will’s house, and there was the big oversized puppydog, sitting on the sofa in the main room of the house with half a dozen halfdrunk men and women sitting on the floor around him. A merry fire roared in the fireplace and they were all laughing and waving glasses.

“Oh-ho!” Will called as the three of them stepped into the house. “He’s here! Give them all glasses and let’s drink a toast to my companion-in-arms and rescuer.”

Someone shoved a glass into Alec’s hand. Someone else filled it eight centimeters deep with whisky. Everyone except Will stood and faced Alec as the big redhead intoned, with enormous seriousness:

“To Alec, who brought me back alive.”

“To Alec,” they all repeated.

The whisky was beautiful, smooth as free-fall and warmer than sunshine. But then, “What is all this?” Alec asked, slightly dazed. Angela looked puzzled too, but happy.

Will sat there grinning happily. He was fully dressed, but Alec could see the bulk of the bandaging under his shirt.

He said, “My medical colleagues have finally admitted that I’m out of danger and can be up and about...”

“In a few days,” said one of the older men, trying hard to look dour. “In a few days, Will.”

“Right. In a few days,” Will agreed. “So I thought to myself, if I can be up and about in a few days, that means I can go back to Utica and hunt for more whisky. So why don’t we celebrate my miraculous recovery with the bottles we already have on hand?”

“Sound strategic thinking,” Douglas boomed, and the party was officially launched.

It went on all night. Toward dawn a few of the women disappeared, murmuring about getting breakfast together and hot, black coffee. Douglas was slouched on the sofa beside Will. Most of the others had bunched into little knots of conversation in corners of the rooms. Douglas pounded the empty space on the sofa alongside him and said to Alec, “Come here, son. Sit down.” It was a command.

They were all drunk enough to drop most of the pretenses that people live with. So Alec, knowing that his grin was as unsteady as his walk, made his way past a quartet of men sitting cross-legged by the dying fire and dropped onto the sofa next to his father.

“Well,” Douglas said, in the nearest thing to a quiet conversational tone that he could muster, “you’ve been with us for almost three months now. Still think I’m an ogre?”

Alec could see Will watching him, beyond Douglas’ bulky form, grinning hugely as if he’d arranged a reconciliation between David and Absalom.

“No,” Alec admitted, “I guess you’re not a monster. I still don’t agree with you, but I think I can see why you did what you did.”

“Good!” Douglas raised both hands in the air, like a victorious gladiator. One of them held an empty glass instead of a sword.

“Now then,” he went on, letting his hands drop, “there are a few things to be settled. First, I think you ought to marry the girl. She’s like my very own daughter, and I’ll admit I had mixed feelings...”

“Wait a minute,” Alec said. “Marry Angela?”

“Of course.”

“That’s between her and me. You don’t have anything to say about it.”

“The hell I don’t!” Douglas exploded. “She’s practically my daughter. You are my son. If you think you’re going to go fucking around and leave her pregnant, you goddamned better well think again.”

“Now wait...”

“No, you wait,” Douglas insisted. “You’re going to marry her, and then head a delegation to meet Kobol. There are a few things I want you to make clear to him.”

“I’m not sure I want to!”

“Not sure? What the hell do you mean, not sure? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. You’re either with us or against us. There aren’t any neutrals around here. You just said you’re on our side.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“Then you’re against us!” Douglas roared.

Will put a hand on his shoulder. “Hold on, Doug... just a...”

But Douglas shrugged him off and lumbered to his feet. Alec stood up beside him, barely coming up to his father’s shoulder.

“Now you listen to me, son,” Douglas said, his voice low and threatening. “I’ve let you sit around here and have your fill of food and warmth and shelter for three months. You’ve sneaked around behind my back to make it with my virtual daughter. And what have I asked from in return? Nothing! Not a goddamned thing. Except loyalty. And you refuse?”

Trembling white hot inside, Alec answered in a voice so choked and low that he himself could barely hear it. “That’s right. I refuse.”

“Then get out!” Douglas roared, pointing to the door. “Take whatever you own and get the hell out of here!”

“That’s just what I’m going to do.”

Alec started for the door. Everyone else in the house was staring at him now, all pretense of polite disinterest vanished. Will looked worse than when he had been shot.

“Just a minute,” Douglas snapped as Alec reached the door. “You can take whatever you please from this base. But you leave Angela alone. You’re not good enough for her, no matter how cleverly you’ve tricked her.”

“I’ll take what I want,” Alec said.

“Try taking her and I’ll have you hunted down like an animal and killed. I promise you!”

BOOK FOUR

Chapter 24

Alec stormed blindly out into the frozen night. He passed Angela’s house, saw the lights and glimpsed a bustle of women inside. He guessed that they were preparing breakfast, talking together, laughing and gossiping.

He went on past. By the time he had put together his own few belongings and saddled a horse, dawn was streaking the eastern sky. But it was a dull, overcast day that arose, with a sky as grimly sullen as Alec’s own thoughts. He rode beyond the checkpoints and the guarded fence gates, away from Douglas’s base.

Riding most of the day, he camped up in the hills under a stand of firs. Their branches made a poor fire that burned too quickly, then smoldered without heat. By morning he was shaking with bone-deep cold. And hungry.

The only weapon he had brought with him was the automatic rifle he had come in with originally. It was heavy and cumbersome to use on small game, even when choked down to single-shot action. And Alec quickly discovered that his shooting was not good enough to hit a rabbit or smaller rodent as it scurried across the frozen ground. His dilemma was painful: squirt a clip of rounds at a rabbit and you might hit the animal, you might even have enough of it intact to gnaw on, but you’d be out of ammunition in a day or two.

On his third day of wandering it snowed, a heavy fierce blizzard that howled through the woods and blotted out everything except the very nearest trees. Alec was lucky enough to find a cave and enough hardwood to make a fire that lasted through the night. The horse needed it as much as he did. There was no forage to speak of, and the animal was weakening rapidly. Briefly he thought of killing the animal for food, but then he would be on foot in the middle of this snowy wilderness.