The lack of any remnant of the thing that caused the devastation had made the subsequent investigation of the disaster all that much more intense…and ultimately ludicrous. An enormous number of military units, CDC teams in biosuits, DHS teams, and countless other mysterious investigators from agencies he didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, had descended on the city. They were too late to do anything about the carnage, but were zealously gathering vast amounts of evidence, including scorched grass, broken brick, shattered glass, and all the cell phone footage and pictures they could find. Large areas of town were still roped off. Vans and trailers with strange markings, or no markings at all, were arranged into makeshift villages of humming generators and blazing lights in the many town squares in the affected area.
In the beginning, there had been a brief effort to contain and spin what had taken place. But there were too many cell phones, too much news footage, and too many eyewitnesses of the beast and its horror. The authorities finally put out a vague statement that mentioned a “unique mutation event,” promising a “full and thorough investigation” and a careful sweep for any other anomalous creatures.
For the people of Savannah, on the other hand, the catastrophe had precipitated a different response: in the aftermath, they were pulling together as never before to rebuild the ruined sections of downtown. As it turned out, the body count was lower than initially believed; most of the dead were members of Senator Drayton’s advance team, rallygoers, and unlucky tourists who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of the town’s wealthiest residents were pitching in to fund the reconstruction, and that—along with disaster relief, and Savannans’ ingrained pride in their beautiful city—would see not only the damaged structures rebuilt, but also several historic sites that had been long awaiting conservation.
None of this shed any light on what had really happened. Coldmoon knew a lot more than most, but under Pendergast’s orders he’d kept his mouth shut. The two of them had been subjected to innumerable debriefings and meetings, of which this promised to be the last.
His thoughts were interrupted by Commander Delaplane, who slapped shut the folder that sat on the table before her. It had contained a list of the usual questions—What was the nature of the thing? Where did it come from? What happened to it?—which she’d been obliged, for the record, to ask one final time. Naturally, nobody had any idea, Pendergast least of all. It was with some relief that Delaplane pushed the folder away.
“Well, that’s done,” she said. “Sorry. I know we’ve been covering the same old ground.”
“Quite all right,” said Pendergast mildly.
Delaplane shook her head. “It’s remarkable, really: a week has gone by, and reports are still coming in. Just this morning, I heard that the entire team making that documentary had been killed in the, uh, apparent lair of the creature.”
“All except for the cinematographer,” Sheldrake added. “And she was so freaked out that she’s only now beginning to describe what happened. Incoherently. And that journalist found with her—Wellstone, I think?—they say he’s irrecoverably insane.” He consulted a notebook. “Akinetic catatonia, precipitated by psychogenic trauma.”
“Closer to home,” Delaplane went on, “what happened to Felicity Frost was particularly tragic.” She turned to Pendergast. “You got to know her, right?”
Pendergast shook his head. “That was Constance, my ward.”
Hearing her name, Coldmoon had to stifle an involuntary twitch. Over the last few days, Constance had been acting even more strangely than usual. When he’d been battling the creature atop the church, was it really possible he’d caught a brief glimpse of her on the balcony of the hotel penthouse, shooting at the beast with a tommy gun? Of course it was: he’d seen her do stranger things than that. She was as crazy as she was beautiful. And brave. She’d been the one to go after Pendergast and drag his ass out of that damned machine.
He reminded himself he didn’t know anything about that. He was done with Savannah. Back at the hotel—which, pending reconstruction, had been stabilized by heavy steel bracers, jack posts, and Lally columns—his bags were packed. He had a flight for Denver that afternoon, and no power on earth was going to stop him from getting on that plane.
Now Delaplane was looking nonplussed, and Coldmoon—tuning in to the conversation—heard Sheldrake congratulating her for the commendation on bravery she’d received.