He next turned his attention to the guns. He disassembled the M16 with practiced speed, cleaning the bore and checking the firing pin, the familiar weight of the parts a comforting anchor.
"Liri," he said, handing her a plastic bag. "You will be in charge of Payloads."
"Payloads?" she asked.
"Ammo," he clarified, pointing to the spare magazines. "We never let these drop below full. You count them. You secure them. You know where every round is. It's life insurance. You understand how important that is?"
Liri nodded, taking the heavy magazines and clutching them carefully. The responsibility seemed to calm the last remnants of her fear.
The remaining supplies were packed into two military-grade backpacks: water bottles, foil-wrapped energy bars, thermal blankets, and a comprehensive trauma kit.. the tools of a quick, desperate escape.
As Marcus worked, Eira watched, and the tension in the diner.. the sexual tension, the tension of the unknown.. slowly began to bleed away, replaced by the grim, focused necessity of tactical preparation.
"We need a name for this," Marcus said finally, snapping the last magazine into the M16, which he then slung across his back. "A name for the plan."
Eira looked at the locked front door, then at Liri, who was carefully stacking energy bars by weight.
"It is not a siege," Eira said. "It is a preparation for the inevitable breach."
"The breach," Marcus mused. "Right. The world keeps trying to tear a hole in my home."
He looked at Eira, his gaze holding the deep intimacy they had just shared. "The Mark is in the box. The guns are loaded. The team is set. We wait for the signal."
"We wait for the Pull," Eira corrected, reaching out to gently touch the dark metal of the M16's barrel, the touch almost a reverence.
"And when the Pull comes," Marcus finished, "we don't run. We hit back. We turn the anchor into a tether."
He nodded, sealing the deal with himself as much as with his squad. The soldier was back, grounded by duty and anchored by a fierce, wild love for the elf who had taught him how to hear the world again. Now, they just had to wait for the world to try and claim them.
The silence that followed Marcus's declaration of the "Breach" plan was heavy, a physical weight that pressed against the eardrums. The air conditioner had cycled off, leaving only the low, electrical hum of the neon sign in the window and the rhythmic snick-snick of Liri stacking the rifle magazines.
Marcus leaned against the bar, his forearms resting on the polished wood. The M16 lay before him, a cold, black iron promise of violence, stripped of its mystery and reduced to pure function. He ran a hand over his face, feeling the grit of the day—sweat, dust, and the lingering, phantom sensation of the Mist. He looked at Eira. She was watching him with that intense, unnerving focus, her green eyes dark with the knowledge of what was coming.
They had a plan. It was a good plan. But in his experience, plans survived exactly until the first round cracked past your ear. They were still outnumbered. They were still reacting to an enemy they barely understood.
A scuffling sound broke his concentration. It came from beneath the vinyl booth nearest the kitchen—a soft, frantic scratching of claws on linoleum, followed by a hushed, aggressive whisper.
Marcus didn't flinch, but his hand drifted instinctively toward the pistol grip of the rifle.
"You can come out," he said, his voice flat, echoing slightly in the empty diner. "Or you can stay under there and get stepped on when the party starts. Your call."
There was a pause, a rustle of fabric, and then two small heads poked out from the shadows of the table legs.
Nix and Pearl.
The Glimmucks pulled themselves up onto the bench seat, then hopped onto the tabletop with a fluid, unnatural grace that made Marcus think of mercury spilling across a floor.
He had seen them before, of course—hiding under tables, stealing bacon, curling up on his lap in the dead of night. But he had never really looked at them with a soldier's eye until now. They weren't monsters. They weren't ugly little goblins or trolls.
They were breathtaking.
Standing on the table, barely three feet tall, they looked like the world's most perfect dolls brought to life by some dangerous magic. This was their armor, Eira had said. Their defense mechanism. They disarmed you with beauty before they robbed you blind.
Pearl stood in front. She was a miniature perfection of femininity, a pocket-sized screen siren with skin the color of pale, luminescent gold. Her hair was a cascading wave of platinum blonde that fell over one shoulder, framing a face that would have launched a thousand ships if it were human-sized. Her eyes were large, heavy-lidded, and a shocking, molten amber, framed by lashes so long they cast shadows on her high cheekbones. She wore a scrap of silk—stolen from God knows where—tied like a toga that barely contained her curves. She looked at Marcus, lips parted, radiating a potent, confusing mixture of innocence and raw, ancient hunger.
Nix was her counterpart in every way. If Pearl was the siren, Nix was the rogue. He had the chiseled jawline, the tousled sun-streaked hair, and the devil-may-care grin of a leading man on a movie poster. He was lean and wiry, muscles defined under his golden-tan skin, moving with a restless, athletic energy. He wore a vest made of stitched leather scraps that showed off his chest, and his eyes held a sharp, calculating intelligence that betrayed his scavenger nature.
They were beautiful. And right now, they looked terrified.
They looked at Eira, then at the gun, and finally fixed their gaze on Marcus.
"We heard," Nix said. His voice was a melodic tenor, surprisingly deep for his size, though it trembled slightly. "We listen. The big human talks loud. 'Breach.' 'Anchor.' 'Fight.'"
"We heard the fear too," Pearl added. She stepped forward, her bare feet making no sound on the Formica. She moved with a sinuous roll of her hips, hopping from the table to the back of the booth, then leaping across the gap to the bar top. She landed in a crouch next to the M16, close enough that Marcus could smell her scent—vanilla, ozone, and old coins. "You smell like iron and sweat, Marcus. You smell like a cornered animal."
"I'm a prepared animal," Marcus corrected, crossing his arms and resisting the urge to step back from her intense, golden gaze. "There's a difference. What do you want? If you're looking for sugar packets, the supply is cut off until we survive the night."
Nix hopped up beside Pearl, his movements jerky compared to her languid grace. He hissed, a sharp sound that exposed rows of perfect, white teeth. "Sugar is good. Breathing is better."
He looked at the rifle, then up at Marcus. "We have reached a... conclusion," Nix said, straightening up and tugging at his vest. "The Circle of Logic."
"Oh?" Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Do tell."
"It is simple math," Pearl said, sitting on the edge of the bar, legs dangling. She ran a hand down her own thigh, a gesture that was entirely unconscious and entirely distracting. "The Pig Men want you. They want the Mark. If they get you, they tear this cave apart. If they tear the cave apart, the cold air box stops humming. The food box stops opening. The safe place... ends."
"And the Hunters," Nix muttered, shivering as he wrapped his arms around himself. "They eat the small ones first. Crunch. Gone. No bargaining. We are tasty to them."
"So," Pearl continued, gesturing with a long, elegant finger tipped with a manicured nail that looked hard as diamond. "If Marcus dies... we die. Our fate is tied to your heavy boots."
Marcus looked at them. He had dismissed them as non-essential, charming little thieves who were part of the supernatural baggage he'd inherited. But looking at them now—seeing the desperate, razor-sharp intelligence behind those beautiful faces—he realized he had underestimated them. They sat at the bottom of the food chain, yes, but they survived because they were smarter than the things trying to eat them.
"Self-preservation," Marcus said, nodding slowly. "That's a motivation I can work with. So what are you offering? Moral support?"
Nix let out a sharp, barking laugh. "Moral support is for things with full bellies. We offer... distortion."
He scampered closer, his eyes gleaming. "You are big. You are loud. You fight with thunder-sticks. But you are a straight line. Hunters understand straight lines. They charge. They smash."
"We are not straight lines," Pearl purred. She reached into her small satchel and pulled out a single, glittering object. It was a gold cufflink, battered and old, probably scavenged from a booth cushion weeks ago. She rolled it between her fingers, the metal catching the light.
"Hunters are hungry," she said. "But they are greedy first. In the Weald, gold is not just shiny. It is trade. It is power. It is the blood of the earth. A Pig Man will step over a fresh kill to pick up a nugget of heavy yellow."
Marcus leaned in, intrigued. "You think you can bribe them?"
"Not bribe," Nix corrected, his ears twitching. "Distract. Confuse. Lead away."