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"Stop," I said. "Nobody move. "
Warren and Owen both froze in their tracks.
After a moment, Owen frowned. "Is that . . . Fire magic?"
Owen had an elemental talent for metal, which was an offshoot of my own Stone power, so he could sense magic just like I could.
"Yeah," I said. "I feel it too. Now, let's see if we can find out where it's coming from. "
We peered into the woods around us, eyeing the trees, leaves, rocks, even the dirt under our feet.
"There," Warren said.
He pointed at a slender poplar about three feet ahead on the faint track we'd been following. It took me a few seconds to realize that a small rune had been scorched into the tree trunk a couple of inches off the ground, a small circle surrounded by several dozen wavy rays. A sunburst, the symbol for Fire.
Runes were more than fancy familial symbols or flashy business logos. Elementals could also imbue runes with their magic and get them to perform specific functions.
Lots of folks used the sunburst symbol for magical trip wires and booby traps.
Warren got down on his hands and knees, laid his rifle and satchel aside, and carefully crawled forward. "What do we have here?"
He hooked his finger under something and gently pulled it up so Owen and I could see the thin, translucent fishing line that had been strung ankle-high between the poplar and another tree on the opposite side of the track.
The left end of the line was wrapped around a wooden peg that had been driven into the ground, while the right end was merely taped to the tree, right on top of the sunburst rune. As soon as you walked through the fishing line, the tape would rip off the rune, and the sunburst would flare to life and explode with elemental Fire. Simple but effective.
Warren pulled out a pocket knife and carefully cut through the part of the line that was attached to the peg, disabling the trap.
"From what I remember, we'll run across more than a few of these. Best to clear a path now," he said. "While we're not being chased. "
"Agreed," I said. "But let's also leave a few of them intact. We don't want Grimes's men realizing that all of the traps have been disarmed and that strangers are near the
camp. They probably know where the traps are, but if
we're lucky, they might forget about them in their haste to get to us. And wouldn't it just be a shame if they tripped them and got a face full of elemental Fire instead of us?"
"Sneaky. " Warren's face creased into a devilish grin.
"Fletcher would have done the exact same thing. "
I grinned back at him. "I know. "
Warren was right. We found several more traps after that. Most were set dozens, if not hundreds, of feet apart, but some were clustered together so tightly that if you tripped one, you'd set off three more in rapid succession. You wouldn't even realize what was happening until the multiple jets of elemental Fire hit you from all sides and scorched you to ashes on the spot. I had to admire
Grimes's slyness, if nothing else.
But not all of the traps were magical. In fact, many were crude, simple devices. More fishing line strung ankle-high between two trees that would send a spiked club swinging in someone's direction. Snares hidden under piles of dry leaves that would haul you up into the air when you stepped into them. Even a six-foot-deep pit lined with sharp, pointed wooden stakes, complete with a body lying at the bottom of it.
At one time, the body had been a young woman, judging from her slender form and the pale purple dress she wore. She'd run right into the pit, which was hidden behind a bush, and had fallen stomach-first onto the stakes, one of which had driven all the way through her body and punched out her back. Like she was a piece of meat skewered on a kebab. Really, that's all she was now.
I didn't know how long she'd been dead, but the stench of rotting flesh wafted up out of the pit, turning even my stomach. The bright sun only intensified the putrid scent, making it shimmer up like sickening heat waves. Flies swarmed all over the woman, and bits of her flesh hung in tatters on her arms, where the crows and other carrion birds had picked and raked at her skin with their beaks and talons. Other animals had been nibbling on her too, judging from the bits of bone that peeked out here and there among the rest of her decomposing skin.
All around her, the rocks in the bottom of the pit alternated between shrieking with all of the terror, fear, and agony the girl had endured and chuckling with the sly, dark malice of the people - the monsters - who'd done this horrible thing to her. Both sounds made me sick to my stomach.
I wondered if she'd been one of the college girls Grimes had kidnapped, how long he'd tortured her, and if this grisly death was her reward for finally escaping him. Well, at least the poor thing wasn't suffering anymore - but I was going to make damn sure that Grimes did. For her and all the others he'd done this to.
Owen stared down at the body. "Eva has a shirt that same color. She had it on the other day when she went to class. "
Warren and I didn't respond. We all knew that ours was a dark, dangerous, violent city, but this - what Grimes did to these girls - was cruel, even by Ashland standards.
