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"Interference." Price's critter camouflage, writ in sixty-foot letters.
Valentine took Gail's wrist and pulled her to her feet.
"Hate this," she said. "I want to go to my room. Please? This endangers the baby."
He could feel them coming, but caution had slowed them, stalking lions reevaluating as the herd they'd been stalking scattered.
Gail's legs gave out. Valentine picked her up in a fireman's carry, hoping it was safe to carry an expectant woman this way.
"Those chain things sound like wind chimes. I like wind chimes," Gail said. "Are we going back to the Grands soon?"
"Very possible," Valentine said as he ran.
From a hundred feet away the legworm pile looked like a gigantic lemon pie with a lattice-top crust-baked by a cook who was stoned to the gills. The legworms had pushed banks of earth up into walls, forming the pie "tin," and had woven themselves at the top.
Valentine reached the bank and climbed up it, sending dirt spilling. He went down on one knee, set Gail on churned-up ground, and caught his breath.
They were coming again. After him. Fast.
"I don't want to run anymore," Gail said.
"Good. We need to crawl."
He pulled her beneath a smaller legworm's twisted body, back set to the elements, shaggy skin flapping in the wind like an old, torn poster. They descended into the dark tangle, and perceived a faint aqua glow from within.
Valentine felt like he was back in the ruins of Little Rock, negotiating one of the great concrete-and-steel wrecks of a building downtown. Legworms lay on top of each other everywhere, a sleeping pile of yellow-fleshed Pickup Sticks.
The air grew noticeably warmer as he pulled Gail deeper into the nest.
The legworms were not packed as tightly at the bottom. Valentine felt air move. He followed it, and the glow.
"Don't like this," Gail whispered.
"Don't blame you."
And came upon the eggs. The legworm bodies arched above and around, making a warm arena for their deposits.
About the size of a basketball, the eggs had translucent skin. The glow came from the growing legworm's underside; the soft "membrane" had blue filament-like etchings of light, transformed into aqua by the greenish liquid within the eggs.
"Smells like old laundry in here," Gail said.
"Shhh."
Valentine saw deep pock marks in the skins of the larger legworms at the center. The eggs must have dropped off. Black lumps, like unprocessed coal, lay scattered between the living eggs. Evidently only a few eggs made it to whatever stage of the metamorphosis they now enjoyed.
Stepping carefully, Valentine crossed the egg repository, hoping the baby legworms were giving off enough lifesign to confuse the Reapers' senses.
He heard-felt-sensed motion behind.
A string of Reapers entered the egg chamber, clad in their dark, almost bulletproof robes, the first staring about as if to make sense of the small glows and vast shadows.
Valentine shoved Gail toward an A-shaped arch in a legworm's midsection. She turned around to protest, and her big eyes grew even wider, until they seemed to fill her face.
Gail shrieked. She instinctively reached for him, putting his body in between herself and the others.
As one, six Reaper heads turned in their direction. Valentine drew his .22 target pistol.
The lead Reaper dismissed the threat with a wave, a grotesque wigwag of its double-jointed elbow. It had a burn-scarred face, making its visage that of a badly formed wax mask.
