“It’s not really that good of a picture of you. I’m sure I’ve seen better. In fact, I think the best picture I’ve ever seen of you was on a cave wall a few millennia ago.”
I didn’t know how Eva managed to do it, but she always knew the best things to say to add to my irritation, obviously she’d spent too much time with my mother too. We’d covered every inch of the small village, and no one had found anything that looked like a clue. We’d managed to drive the tourists all away, which made me feel a little bad for the merchants who relied on their business.
Those merchants did get the joy of dealing with dozens of hungry men and women who needed places to sleep, so we did add a little something to the local economy. The promise of money was probably the only reason the locals hadn’t taken off with the rest of the humans. They were extremely welcoming, but I could tell they were leery.
“To me it looks like she’s about to walk out of the picture and scold someone, which as we all know is how she looks ninety-nine percent of the time, so someone could’ve just found a picture of her and superimposed it in front of some corn.” No one was about to argue with Rick as far as the look on my face.
The watch had been passed around and it was unanimously decided that it was me and that it had to have been taken in Orange City. At least it was unanimous until Rick decided to throw in the photo manipulation angle.
The watch had been taken apart and searched for any clues, with no results. If it was meant to tell us where to go, we were going to need to find an expert cryptologist, and whoever that person was would have to pry the watch away from me. I’d gotten a little possessive of it for some reason and almost punched Nate when he suggested someone take it apart.
“It is weird how she looks three-dimensional. What kind of camera do you think he used to create that effect? I guess it could have been added after the fact, but it looks natural.”
“That’s a good question, Elan, but the more I look at it, the more I think it’s something more than a picture. I swear there was no one there, so he must have been viewing the scene from somewhere else and somehow captured it. I know that sounds farfetched, but I refuse to believe I wouldn’t feel him if he was close by. There would have to be some smut hanging in the air.”
A small group of us were hanging out in Nate and my hotel room. There were a couple dozen troops keeping watch on the town and the rest were eating or sleeping. Joseph had worked out shifts to make sure everyone got some rest, while making sure no one could sneak up on us.
The troops deserved a little relaxing after turning over every blade of grass in a ten-mile area. It’d taken us all day, and even though we had all the stamina in the world, the task was tedious.
“Hmm, speaking of remote viewing, I forgot there was a matter I needed to get taken care of today. Don’t wait up for me,” Eva said as she gave Liam a peck on the cheek. “I’ll see everyone in the morning.”
I’d been surprised she’d spent all day with us, so her taking off wasn’t earth-shattering. I tended to think better when she wasn’t around, and I was past due for some kind of revelation.
“You do know the only reason I put up with her is because I love you like a brother, Liam. If she hadn’t cast her spell on you, she’d be out on her ear as fast as I can flick my wrist. Even knowing how you feel about her, most of the time I wish I could kill her.”
“I know she can be abrasive, but she’s doing everything she can to help out.”
It would’ve been better if it sounded like he was trying to convince himself he spoke the truth. Eva had him so brainwashed that eventually I was going to have to get buckets of soap and take care of the problem.
“Well, if no one has anything else to add tonight, we should probably try to get some sleep and hope we dream of the next location. When we wake up, we can regroup and figure out where to go tomorrow. I don’t usually advocate bouncing around until we find the right place, but we’re going to go crazy sitting around here.”
As usual Nate was right, and our top advisors shuffled out to the room without having much else to say. Even Rick was a little sullen about the fact we didn’t have a plan. I knew Malphas wasn’t going to make things easy on us, but I’d thought he’d at least leave a decent trail of clues.
“I believe it was you who thought earlier that he was setting things up to his liking. I don’t like the thought of him being ready for us whenever we find him, but it beats an ambush. I guess he could be planning an ambush for when we get to the spot, so never mind my half asleep mumbling. You haven’t indicated, but I’m guessing this isn’t the right place for the battle either.”
Nate picked me up from my spot on the floor so he could carry me over to the bed. I was tired from having done a lot of running around for no good reason during the day, and he could tell just how depleted my reserves were.
He set the pocket watch on the table, and then carefully worked my various knives out of their sheathes and put them on the table next to me, with the one that could kill Malphas closest to me. I’d strapped on a few other weapons for good measure, so he went ahead and removed the various holsters. Most of the goodies were spells Mak and I had worked up that might come in handy.
It was hard to know whether magic or steel was the way to go against different warlocks, and I had no idea what would work best against the demons. It would’ve been nice if someone had tried to battle them before us, so we could have some sort of reference.
“No, the scenery isn’t right. I’ve shared with you the particular thing we’re looking for, so you shouldn’t have to guess when we do finally find it.”
“I know, but he could know you know and the delay in us finding him could be because he’s changing the location.”
He pulled the comforter up over me, and then walked around to his side of the bed, removing his shirt on the way. He put it on a wooden rocking chair next to the one window in the room. He slid out of his jeans to reveal a pair of black boxers, and his jeans joined his top.
“I don’t doubt he knows, but I don’t think he’s changing things around. There’s something about that spot. I can’t explain it, but I think it means something to him. I’m sure I won’t ever figure out exactly what that is, but I know he’ll be there.”
Nate had crawled under the blankets next to me. He rolled me over on my side so he could cuddle me from behind. When his fingers brushed across my stomach I felt a little of the loss I’d been feeling throughout the day. Keeping busy had helped my mind from thinking constantly about what I was missing.
It was wrong that I hadn’t been allowed to carry my children. Out of all the good I was expected to do for the world, a job I hadn’t signed up for, creating all of my children was what I was most proud of, and I didn’t think defeating evil would change that.
“Should we call your mom for an update? It might make you feel better to know everything is okay at home.”
I nodded. I’d wanted to call about every five minutes during the day, but once I started calling for updates, I didn’t think I would’ve been able to stop. I could sense the babies in a faraway way, but it wasn’t the same as hearing from someone they were okay. And that definitely wasn’t the same as seeing it with my own eyes.
Nate got back up and fetched his phone from his pants, dialing the number before he handed it to me and made his way back in bed beside me. He was just as worried as I was, but he knew if he showed it, I’d start really freaking out.
“Hello,” Mother answered the phone, sounding a little groggy.
My instinct instantly went to the idea that she’d been drugged and someone had made off with my kids. I sat up in bed and threw the covers off. Nate managed to keep me from grabbing my knives and heading home via the Teleportation Express.
“Try talking to her for a second before springing into action,” he suggested.
“Avery?” a little less suspicious voice asked. “Is there a reason you’re calling at one in the morning? I expected to hear from you earlier today, but didn’t wa
nt to call and bother you if things were heating up on your end.”
“You were sleeping,” I said as I sighed in relief.
“Yeah, your father had to hit me over the head to get me to go down, but we’ve let the others keep watch for the last hour or two while we’ve tried to reenergize. I suppose it’s good you called, because I think he shut off my alarm.”
“I thought you were only going to check in a few times during the day. We left a full guard schedule.”
“Do you really think I’m going to let those barbarians, and I use that word in the nicest way possible, be the only ones watching my grandchildren? They weren’t even bothering to read stories to them. How are the babies supposed to learn anything if they’re stuck in there listening to the grunting of wolf shifters?”
I smacked my hand to my forehead and let it slide down my face. I could imagine my mother lying in bed in a smock of some kind with her hair in curlers as she scolded me about who I left in charge of my children’s protection. Off the top of my head I didn’t know how long it was until her next resurrection, but it couldn’t come soon enough. I was tired of the fifties housewife persona she was stuck living.
“There’s a good reason why I left those barbarians in charge of keeping the kids safe, and you know that. I take it since you aren’t acting anymore nutty than you usually do that the kids are all okay. Has there been any disturbances at all?”
Malphas wanted the next oracle, I wasn’t really clear whether he wanted her alive or dead, but I expected he knew where to find her. The thought caused shivers to crawl up my spine.
“All’s been quiet here. How have things been going for you? I haven’t seen anything on the news to indicate a massive fight has broken out in the middle of the country. I don’t trust those human reporters to be on top of a big event like that, but I figured at least one would’ve stumbled upon the scene.”
I was so happy to hear things were fine I almost hung up the phone then. I didn’t really want to get into the fact we’d accomplished nothing, but knowing my mother, she would’ve called back until she got an answer.
“Things are slow from our side of things. We went to the first place, but it just ended up leading us to a second one. We’re trying to figure out where the next one is, but the clues aren’t exactly lining up.”
I figured I didn’t need to sit up anymore, and leaned back into Nate’s waiting hold. He propped us up so we were half sitting and half lying down.
“So you didn’t rush out of here this morning to head right into battle? I thought you guys would be gone one day and the problem would be solved.”
“If you want to get technical, we left yesterday morning since it’s after midnight. I thought whatever Malphas had set up for us would be quick, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In the first town we were given a riddle, which didn’t seem that hard. Once we got to the second town we found a pocket watch with a picture of me from the first town, but we haven’t found anything else to indicate where we should go.”
“Why would you need anything else? Isn’t that a good enough clue for you?” My mother sounded like she did when she helped me with my homework when I was a kid, like the answer was obvious and it shouldn’t be that hard for me to figure it out.
“As far as I can tell it isn’t a clue at all.” I glanced up at Nate to see if he understood what she was talking about, but he shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t good when the person I used as an interpreter didn’t have a clue.
“If it’s a picture of the last place you were, don’t you think maybe you should head back there and see if there’s something else there that you missed?”
Since I knew the battle wasn’t going to be in Orange City, I hadn’t thought the scavenger hunt would head back through there, but it did kind of make sense given what we had.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give that a try. I don’t know why he’d make us go back there, but we can check it out since we haven’t found anything else here. I’d love to talk more, but I’ve gotta go.”
I hung up before she could go into how brilliant she was. We weren’t even sure she guessed right yet, so I wanted to save all the gloating until I had something to show for her wisdom.
“I know you’re thinking we’re just going to gather everyone up and head out this second, but let’s let everyone get a shift of sleep in, and then head out. It will be the middle of the night there anyway, so finding anything isn’t going to be easy.”
“Quit being logical,” I said as I put the phone on the table next to my side of the bed.
He was lucky I was actually tired. If I’d been wide awake, his suggestion wouldn’t have stopped me from making a move.