The smiles didn’t last long as the questions began to rain down on the twenty-some troops. I studied them as they tried to answer as quickly as they could. I didn’t see any of the usually scorched clothing that seemed to happen for most people who battled a warlock. They were all trained well, but at least one warlock in a group managed to get an energy blast through to its target, if said target wasn’t one of the strongest in our group.
Of course I didn’t really know how many warlocks we were talking about. I assumed it had to be an army to make our troops disappear, unless they had someone a little stronger than just an everyday warlock with them.
The people around me were asking for an explanation of what happened, but there was a bit of a question overload, making it so no one said anything of meaning. I was about to put a halt to the proceedings when Joseph’s loud whistle ripped through the air. If people weren’t left deaf from it, I’d have been surprised. There were times sensitive hearing wasn’t an advantage.
It did a good job of getting the crowd to fall into silence, which my ears were thankful for. At least they would be once they stopped ringing. I’d never seen the group so crazy about something.
“First, in case you didn’t hear it, the town is back to life and living it up at their little festival,” Joseph said directly to me, knowing that was a concern of mine.
The tips of my lips turned up as I nodded. “Thanks. I can hear the bustle of the town and assumed things had been righted, but it could’ve been an illusion. I was pretty sure the warlock wasn’t playing scared after I vaporized his friends.”
They rarely ever showed any emotion to me other than defiance, believing their “master” would swoop in and save them. Malphas’ demons really did pick out the stupidest people, or maybe they were just all really gullible.
“It’s nice to find a warlock who is newer to the ranks and hasn’t let the power go to their head. They tend to be a little more reasonable.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but Mak’s statement made sense. It made me wonder how new a warlock had to be to still have a conscience. The one from the day before had seemed a little young, but he’d also appeared to be the leader of the group I’d decimated. If they were all new, I was a little worried about how Malphas was stocking his troops.
“We can think about that more after we get things here figured out. Freya, why don’t you try to explain what went on here prior to yesterday. There were regular reports, but they stopped not long before we showed up. I should’ve realized something was wrong the first time you missed a check-in.
“Since all of them had been nothing more than all’s well, I thought you got tired of saying nothing. And I admit I had a few other things running through my mind, so I didn’t reach out.”
All eyes focused on Freya, even before Joseph finished his half of an apology. He never got around to saying he was sorry for not checking in, but it was clear he blamed himself for whatever they’d gone through.
Freya was standing to the left of Joseph, in front of the group she commanded. In the world of wolf shifters, it was difficult for a female to rise up to the ranks she had, which irritated me to no end. To move up in the hierarchy, you had to fight your way up, which was difficult for females because of how big the males got to be.
I respected the tall woman with bronze-colored skin. She kept her long, straight hair back in a bun and worked out in the gym more often than I did. All the working out had given her a body that a body builder would be envious of, which was probably the only reason she was able to get the best of the male wolves vying for her spot in the organizational chart.
“Sorry, sir,” Freya bowed to Joseph. Her voice was strong as she made her apologies for losing contact. “Things happened quickly, giving us little time to phone the problem in.”
“I do not blame you for that, Freya, I blame myself for not realizing what was going on.”
Joseph could be a hard-ass, but I knew how much his people meant to him. There wasn’t anyone to blame other than Malphas for the disappearance, but Joseph felt guilty. Some would’ve seen that as a weakness, but Joseph’s passion for keeping his people safe was why he was one of my most trusted friends.
“Let’s move past the issue of who’s to blame and figure out what happened. When we came here yesterday we didn’t feel you in the city. Was that because you were masked, or were you whisked off somewhere? I’m not seeing any evidence of a fight, so I’m a bit confused.” I had trained most of the troops personally, so I knew they wouldn’t have gone anywhere without a fight.
Moving on to our next location before worrying about what had happened might have been more productive, but I felt like we were missing something. The troops being returned as themselves, and not skin-walkers, had surprised me. With everything on the line, I didn’t like to be surprised.
“There wasn’t a fight. We were here one minute, somewhere else the next.”
I usually liked Freya’s way of being direct. In this case I wanted more information, and I had a feeling it was going to be akin to pulling teeth, something I didn’t like doing even when I had all the time in the world.
Joseph evidently felt the same way and took matters into his hands. “We need a full report in as few words as you can make it. I want to know all the details, but we need to evaluate everything you say before we make any decisions on our next move, so as contradictory as it is, please be concise.”
“Yes, Sir. As you know we were sent here to keep an eye on things. When we arrived there were thirty-seven warlocks in the general area. As instructed, we observed their movements and reported back at our scheduled times.
“There was no warning that anything had changed. All of sudden we just weren’t here anymore. I don’t know exactly where we went, but it was a cave of some sort without an opening. And it stunk like something had crawled up in it and died about a hundred years ago and the maggots were just getting around to helping out with the decomposition.”
She paused to cringe and take in a big whiff of clean air. The kind of smell she described was something I would’ve thought lingered, but I didn’t smell anything particularly foul coming from their direction.
“Sorry, sir. You wanted me to be concise, but since I have very little to report, I thought I’d expound on how wretched the place we were really was. We tried to break through the rock and searched for any means to escape the cave, but were unsuccessful.
“We were brought back to reality just before you arrived here. We had literally just got our bearings when we felt your presence. I’m not sure how much time has passed, but the last time we spoke it sounded like it’d be a little while before you showed up.”
“I don’t know exactly when you disappeared, but I know you weren’t here when we arrived yesterday, so it’s probably been over a day, which would explain why I keep hearing stomachs grumble. The heathens should’ve at least fed you.”
Joseph wasn’t the only one able to hear the roughly two dozen stomachs. It was a little surprising they hadn’t reappeared missing some arms and legs. Uniques, wolf shifters in particular, weren’t people you kept food from. It probably didn’t help that the rest of us smelled like breakfast.
“Since we know where we’re going, why don’t we let everyone refuel,” I suggested.
I was still trying to figure out why the group had been abducted in the first place, and who had worked their magic to make it happen. It was easy to tell they were who they were supposed to be, and not imposters. I hadn’t been around a lot of skin-walkers, but they couldn’t mimic everything about the person they were pretending to be, especially not the special tingle I felt when someone was a unique.
“What are the chances the next place will be the one we’re looking for?” Joseph asked.
“Absolutely zero. I know the area enough to know that the scene I’m looking for isn’t there.”
The more I thought about the location, I could picture parts of it that I didn’t know I knew were there. I could see a gas stat
ion that I was fairly certain wasn’t there when I’d wandered through the area. I wanted to close my eyes and focus in on what my mind was trying to show me, but I didn’t like the idea I was picking up someone else’s memories of the area.
I shouldn’t have been able to focus on what was in front of me and whatever I was picking up, but I could see the two sights easily. As strange as seeing modern buildings was in the view of the grotto area, seeing people wearing modern clothing was even stranger.
I looked over to Nate to see if I was picking up something from him. He had his head tilted slightly to the side as he thought about something. I was getting ready to ask him why he looked concerned, but Joseph continued the conversation we were having.
“Then if you don’t mind, I’d like to get out of this town. Something doesn’t feel right here and I prefer not to find myself in a cave with no chance of escape.”
“I think we need to discuss what you just said and what Avery’s seeing. I believe something feels off here, but I think that’s something we should probably investigate, not immediately run from. We’ve been dedicated to human relations for a while now, and if there’s any danger here, we need to deal with it before we leave.”
Nate wasn’t leaving any room for arguing. I agreed with him, but I didn’t want to leave the rows of corn. My issue with the place was that I had the feeling I was being watched, which I hated. I doubted what I was feeling was the same thing that made Joseph think something was off.
The odd part about the feeling was that I didn’t feel any malice behind it. I couldn’t feel an actual person, so it was hard to know where to look to find out what the person’s problem was, other than they had a staring problem.
“We can all hear the humans having a good time, do we really need to stay because it feels funky?” Rick wasn’t the only one grumbling thoughts along those lines. He was the most articulate, though. The majority of the rest of the group wasn’t going to question Nate’s decision.
“Avery’s seeing what seems to be a live view of the place we’re going to next. Has anyone been there recently enough that you’d project current gas prices? She’s usually really good about not picking up stray thoughts, so someone’s feeding her that information.”
The price I’d seen wasn’t what it was in New York, but I supposed it could’ve been a reasonable price for the middle of the country; we hadn’t run into any gas stations to know whether that was true though. I closed my eyes and decided to go ahead and focus on what I was being shown.
I figured if I walked along with the person, then I’d get some grand clue about what in the world I was doing hopping around from place to place. We’d barely started the game, but like Rick had already said, the sooner we could find a way to bypass it, the better.
Nate grabbed my shoulder, causing me to open my eyes before I could get a good look. I glared at him and let him know why I wanted to let things play out. He was connected enough with me that he already knew, but he seemed to need me to spell it out for him.
“I understand why you want to figure things out, but you don’t know who’s sharing.”
“I know it’s no one here, and I’d like to know why someone is giving me a tour. I’ve been trying to block it out, but I can’t. That doesn’t leave me a lot of options.”
“I’m pretty sure every option leads to not following him down a rabbit hole, baby girl. You know you’re stronger than basically everyone out there. If he’s trying to connect with you, we need to figure out a way to put a stop to that. What exactly are you getting?”
Rick acted like I didn’t understand who was sharing the images. I was well aware that only one person had the power to do it. Scratch that, because I was pretty sure Eva and her sisters could, but I knew it wasn’t one of them. I knew it was Malphas, and if I thought he was actually in West Bend, I would’ve zipped right over and taken the battle to him.
Malphas wasn’t stupid, sadly. He was messing with me, and I didn’t understand what he hoped to gain from showing me around town. Seeing the faces of happy humans going about their business didn’t really give me a lot of information.
“I’m not getting anything interesting. It’s like I’m walking along taking a tour of the city. I don’t see anything threatening, and I don’t think he’s actually there.”
“Did he pack a picnic lunch for this stroll?” Kyle asked.
I looked over my shoulder and gave him a glare that would have him thinking twice before asking something that stupid again. Of course I’d given him the look many times, and it never helped.
“He’s not really there, so I doubt he was kind enough to provide something to eat. Mak, would you be kind enough to get a buffet lined up? We should probably stick around for a few minutes to figure out what funk is hanging in the air.”
I didn’t want to sit around and analyze what was going on in my head with everyone else. I didn’t think I was in danger. I thought I’d discover something useful if I could just sit in a quiet place and let things play out.
Then again, chances were good that it was just something to waste my time and quite possibly drive me insane.
CHAPTER 11
Figuring out the enemy is difficult when you’re not sure how many there are