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Narrow charcoal-gray eyes almost met mine. Gazing at a point on his forehead, I could still see his eyes were shadowed, and his face had gotten bonier over the past month. “This is important, Alys. You need to—”
“Play the part of a middle-class girl from a rich territory trying to break into the upper class by service if I’m observed. Find out if Tuuli Lahtinen lives; see if anyone witnessed Melissa Cohen-Rossi’s possession. If I’m able to, copy records that will support the case. Check out the veteran’s hospital and make sure the battlemages there aren’t being mistreated. Contact the spirits in the area to see if they remember the Wendigo manifesting there.” I cut him off.
“Survive long enough to report,” he snapped back. “Be careful.”
This was out of character for Silver. He seemed more worried and shorter-tempered than usual. Normally, he took my needling in stride. Since I really didn’t want to know how he was feeling, my magic decided I needed to know, feeding me concern and affection, much like how Ethan had felt toward me.
Ugh. I didn’t want to know Silver liked me, even in a platonic way. I refused to feel bad about being obnoxious; it helped me cope with creeping fear. Something was making me uneasy, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. The last time I’d felt this way was right before I met Silver for the first time and my life changed.
“You really think the mission’s that risky? You send me to deal with pissed-off spirits and murderers regularly.” I switched my gaze to a point on the wall past his shoulder.
“Yes, Alys. Family of the president, in an area that hasn’t been inventoried in decades, that’s made money, that’s had the non-aligned population move away over the decades in a steady drift. Populations that refuse to talk about why they left. Money, and space to experiment quietly with spirits in an area rich with them, that had a good-sized rural population.”
He had a point. There was money involved here, and people had died over this eight years ago. And, probably, since then. Since Cohen’s brother ran the place, there must be a lot of pressure not to investigate and make the problem vanish. Or, when I got there, makemevanish. My guess was they were trying to make their own agreement with spirits, and feeding people who wouldn’t be missed to them for possession. Which would be ugly, but once I broke it open good things might shake out. This close on the scandal about Greene abusing his people might make their government put real protections in place for the people who lived Outside
On the other hand, Silver needed me to push back against all that concern, otherwise, he’d think I was up to something. I was, but that all depended on Robert and Walker now.
“Silver. I’m leaving my baby, and now you’re telling me this is a deadly mission. What’s the point? They’re all deadly. If I’m posing as a student I want this off.” I pointed at the onyx.
Silver stood, gesturing me to the middle of the room. I eyed him as he came within arm’s reach of me and did whatever it was Walker had done. The magic was so fast, I couldn’t get a good idea of what he was doing.
He pocketed the onyx. “The only venomous reptile in that county is protected; please don’t bring me any presents.”
I snorted.
Silver inscribed symbols on the air around me. They hung, glowing a soft gray, then he started to chant, setting the coordinates. This wasn’t the Road, he was going to teleport me to the target area.
A seam formed in the air as he continued the ritual and the magic pressed against me, ticklish and uncomfortable when I forced my way through. Walking through splits in reality—even when they were merely portals between fixed, physical locations—was a discomfort that never got easier. It was safer from what Walker had done to get me to Dmitri, but not by much.
A snap, and darkness surrounded me, alleviated by thin shafts of early morning sunlight. Massive trees grew around me, conifers with some hardwood. The faint scent of wood-smoke drifted on the chilly breeze.
I pulled a map and compass from my bag. The compass was an old-fashioned magnetic type, so if anyone was looking for comm signals, I wasn’t visible. I had a one-use comm in the bag which was powered off. Coordinates were marked for several sites Silver wanted me to look at before the settlement. The nearest was several miles to the northeast.
It was a hospital for battlemages suffering from traumatic stress. The second site I was to visit was the ruins of the original hospital, established closer to the settlement. The third was Ross Cohen’s residence.
This place was quiet, other than a few birds chirping. I moved forward, taking care to remain silent. The feel of the woods, the area, made unease creep across my skin, like finding a mouse in my clothes. I worked my way in the direction of the hospital, concealed by the close growth of trees.
Since I’d spent the majority of my childhood playing hide and seek in the hills of Kalderon, I didn’t get lost in the woods.
The dim forest, strangely still as the sun rose higher, fed my unease. It didn’t feel right; it lacked the texture and change of animal life I’d felt around me in other forests. The trees thinned as the hospital site grew nearer, and I climbed a tree to move closer with a better view. It took a little while, but I found a nice thick branch maybe fifty feet up that overlooked the entire hospital. I laid belly down on it and started examining the place.
The skin between my shoulder blades crept for no good reason as I gazed down from the outer fringe of trees. The place was overgrown and wild. The structure remained in good repair and was still sound and under power, since lights shone in several windows. Around the building, the grounds were covered with tall grass, crisscrossed with tracks. Far to my left, the remains of an old grav landing site were covered with creeping yellow-flowered growth.
Why was the exterior neglected? Why weren’t the patients outside getting nature therapy or something?
An oval rock dominated the lawn a handful of feet from the hospital, large and flat enough for an adult to lie down on it. It reminded me of another altar, and that really made my skin creep.
As I waited… the tension in the air stretched tighter and tighter. For some reason, I didn’t want to move and snap it. The sun reached its zenith, and I heard the whirr of a grav. I froze among the thick leaves. Below, a rabbit covey I’d missed stared up at me.
The grav landed. The markings on it indicated it was an official vehicle for the territory, and it was the style that most governments in the outer areas used- large enough for cargo and not long on comfort to keep the cost down. Unless something even stranger was happening, it would be locked to the biometrics of officials and employees of the territory to keep outsiders from trying to steal it.
I held my breath as twigs crackled below me.
A gaunt man with burning eyes walked out of the forest. A faded red and blue battlemage tattoo twined on his cheek and around his eye. His lips parted; I saw the shark-like teeth that accompanied the sharp cheekbones and narrowed face.
Ridden. No, worse. A mage Ridden. The kind who devastated battlefields.
Cold sweat dribbled down my back as I forced myself to relax muscle by muscle, to keep as quiet as possible, because I wasn’t suicidal. Normal Ridden were killable. Whenever I’d see them rise, they’d just possessed a body and while physically they were tough, they didn’t seem to be much more intelligent than a dog.
