while being fully human was so drop-dead gorgeous it counted as a lethal weapon, especially around guys. We’d been brought together, mostly by coercion, to see if individuals like ourselves who had some extra abilities could go up against the truly nasty non-humans.
So far we’d survived . Mandy was still recovering from a small echo-demon mishap that happened when I’d been practicing calling forth demons for training purposes. She still hadn’t forgiven me for a broken arm.
Shaking myself back to my current mission, I focused on the ramshackle hut where Stone was embedded with the bad guys. I repositioned myself again, reminded that there was no way packed earth was going to feel like anything but hard. That was me, an incurable optimist. Not.
The Kagera River behind me cut us off from Tanzania, safely hidden by a hillock of dusty yellow grasses. The Akagera National Park, a swath of green on the eastern sleeve of war-recovering Rwanda, lay dead ahead. Giraffe heads bobbed like misshapen balloons twenty meters out. A hunter’s moon had given way to a blood-red sun, still creeping over the horizon.
“You can show yourself any time, Stone,” I mumbled under my breath. The sooner he reported in and we extracted him, the sooner we could leave to start hunting for my brother.
"You say something?" buzzed in my commset. Jaylene Smart, my only backup on the ground, helped focus me on why the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
“You think the Yoruba witch doctor inside the hut is hinky?” I asked.
Jaylene sounded only partially awake as she mumbled, “As if a witch doctor wouldn’t be hinky?” Then seemed to remember who she was talking to. I might not be a witch doctor, but I sure as hell was a witch. “Didn’t see that much of him last night. Why?”
“Just a gut feeling. Something’s not right here.” I shook my head, as if Jaylene could see the movement. "Any motion from inside the hut?"
"Not yet." Jaylene perched on a limb in a stand of acacia trees across the lone dirt roadway leading into a compound of wood and mud-packed cottages, one of which held Stone. The others were too decrepit to count. She’d earned her position by losing the coin toss last night. Mighty uncomfortable for a night's stay, twice as unbearable for a Chicago born and bred woman like Jaylene.
Massaging a kink in my right hamstring, I cast a glance at the hand-held tracking device I carried as the sun crawled over the horizon. Stone had disappeared into the crumbling mud hut last evening and the damn piece of equipment was supposed to give me a reading on his movements.
"Time to rise and shine," I muttered again, not that he could hear me.
No movement. Because he was sleeping? Or because he had a bullet buried in his skull?
Not a good visual.
Stone had chosen to enter the hut without another team member. Not that we’d be allowed such an action, but then Stone was leagues ahead of us in experience and authority.
All team members wore a special silver ring . If we were within ten feet of a non-human would give us a heads-up as to the fact we faced some kind of preternatural danger. Sort of like one of those radioactive badges folks wore who messed around with nuclear waste material.
So far the device hadn’t warmed the skin of my fingers; but then I hadn’t been close enough to any of the bad guys rubbing shoulders with Stone to give me a strong reading.
Dawn's gray light filled with shifting shadows. Foggy mist, cooking smoke, a dry-season fire set by poachers to flush game from the Park, all hung low and heavy against the savannah landscape of browns and muted gold. Somewhere nearby a herd of elephants bludgeoned across the earth, their footsteps like heartbeats, the sound of trees ripped and devoured marking their passage.
I stretched stiff muscles and ignored the creepy crawly feeling of fear cat pawing across my skin. I had n’t gotten the most ideal stakeout location either. What little sleep I'd
So far we’d survived . Mandy was still recovering from a small echo-demon mishap that happened when I’d been practicing calling forth demons for training purposes. She still hadn’t forgiven me for a broken arm.
Shaking myself back to my current mission, I focused on the ramshackle hut where Stone was embedded with the bad guys. I repositioned myself again, reminded that there was no way packed earth was going to feel like anything but hard. That was me, an incurable optimist. Not.
The Kagera River behind me cut us off from Tanzania, safely hidden by a hillock of dusty yellow grasses. The Akagera National Park, a swath of green on the eastern sleeve of war-recovering Rwanda, lay dead ahead. Giraffe heads bobbed like misshapen balloons twenty meters out. A hunter’s moon had given way to a blood-red sun, still creeping over the horizon.
“You can show yourself any time, Stone,” I mumbled under my breath. The sooner he reported in and we extracted him, the sooner we could leave to start hunting for my brother.
"You say something?" buzzed in my commset. Jaylene Smart, my only backup on the ground, helped focus me on why the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
“You think the Yoruba witch doctor inside the hut is hinky?” I asked.
Jaylene sounded only partially awake as she mumbled, “As if a witch doctor wouldn’t be hinky?” Then seemed to remember who she was talking to. I might not be a witch doctor, but I sure as hell was a witch. “Didn’t see that much of him last night. Why?”
“Just a gut feeling. Something’s not right here.” I shook my head, as if Jaylene could see the movement. "Any motion from inside the hut?"
"Not yet." Jaylene perched on a limb in a stand of acacia trees across the lone dirt roadway leading into a compound of wood and mud-packed cottages, one of which held Stone. The others were too decrepit to count. She’d earned her position by losing the coin toss last night. Mighty uncomfortable for a night's stay, twice as unbearable for a Chicago born and bred woman like Jaylene.
Massaging a kink in my right hamstring, I cast a glance at the hand-held tracking device I carried as the sun crawled over the horizon. Stone had disappeared into the crumbling mud hut last evening and the damn piece of equipment was supposed to give me a reading on his movements.
"Time to rise and shine," I muttered again, not that he could hear me.
No movement. Because he was sleeping? Or because he had a bullet buried in his skull?
Not a good visual.
Stone had chosen to enter the hut without another team member. Not that we’d be allowed such an action, but then Stone was leagues ahead of us in experience and authority.
All team members wore a special silver ring . If we were within ten feet of a non-human would give us a heads-up as to the fact we faced some kind of preternatural danger. Sort of like one of those radioactive badges folks wore who messed around with nuclear waste material.
So far the device hadn’t warmed the skin of my fingers; but then I hadn’t been close enough to any of the bad guys rubbing shoulders with Stone to give me a strong reading.
Dawn's gray light filled with shifting shadows. Foggy mist, cooking smoke, a dry-season fire set by poachers to flush game from the Park, all hung low and heavy against the savannah landscape of browns and muted gold. Somewhere nearby a herd of elephants bludgeoned across the earth, their footsteps like heartbeats, the sound of trees ripped and devoured marking their passage.
I stretched stiff muscles and ignored the creepy crawly feeling of fear cat pawing across my skin. I had n’t gotten the most ideal stakeout location either. What little sleep I'd
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