heart.
As gently as I could, I said, “That would be really great, if it’s okay with your mom. But honestly, you look like you need some rest, Aidan. I know you want to be doing something. It helps a little, having something to do. But if you’re going to guide me through the mountains, I need you to be totally sharp so we don’t both end up lost.”
He thrust his jaw out and dared a glance at me, trying to determine if I was serious or just wheedling him into getting some rest. His eyes flashed gold, probably checking my aura for truthfulness, and his shoulders relaxed a millimeter. “I guess that maybe makes sense.”
“Yeah. k"-1thfulness, Ada? Is it okay if he takes me up into the mountains in the morning?”
Ada’s mouth thinned. “We’ll talk about it when we get home.”
In my vocabulary that constituted a yes. I smiled with relief at Ada, then looked hopefully at Aidan, whose shoulders relaxed just that little bit more. I guessed he thought it meant yes, too. Then we both turned to Sara, waiting to see if that was an acceptable solution.
Her eyebrows were drawn down. “Won’t the trail go cold? Isn’t every minute you’re sitting here losing us time in the manhun—”
She stopped before I had to say it, her scowl growing darker as I picked up in the silence she’d left off. “It’s not like setting dogs on a scent or following a predisposition toward certain brands of cigarettes or patterns of cash withdrawals that might let you find a suspect. Magic doesn’t leave a trail like that. It’s not going to get any colder by morning.”
“If we let it go tonight, can things get worse?”
“Oh, yeah. It could always get worse.” I looked skyward. “It could be raining.”
Sara smacked my shoulder, just like we were teens again, and muttered, “I can’t believe you said that. No, I meant is it likely to attack? Is it going to tear the mountain up? What was it, anyway? Not a demon.”
“No, not like the wendigo. This is a spirit creature. An evil ghost, kind of. It’s made up of all the hate and indifference and deliberation that slaughtered the First Nations, and of their pain and loss and fear and anger, as well. It’s like a ghost on steroids, and it’s been deliberately awakened and is being directed. At all of us in general and at me in particular.”
“What does it want?”
I shrugged. “To obliterate us. But it retreated for a reason. Either we were more than it expected, or more likely, it’s resting and getting used to its new strength. I think it’s not going to try anything again just yet.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then it’ll probably come looking for me, so with any luck everybody else will stay safe.”
“How often does ‘any luck’ come in to the equation?”
“Not often enough.” I got up as a familiar thup-thup-thup began echoing against the mountains. “Are those helicopters?”
A few seconds later, two Medivac choppers crested the mountains and maneuvered around each other to find landing space at the foot of the holler. Wind and dust and leaves kicked up, spraying everyone and sending arms over faces to block the updrafts. A fair number of paramedics jumped out and came running up the hill, bent double until they were well away from the choppers. Their expressions went unusually blank when they saw the bodies. I was sure they’d been briefed, but a briefing wasn’t the same as laying eyes on seven uninjured dead people sprawled in an otherwise idyllic setting. Sara got to her feet and met them, taking charge naturally. None of the people who had refused to talk to her earlier objected, either. I took an uncharitable moment to regard them all as hypocrites, then got over my judgmental self and went to see if I could help.
I couldn’t. I got turned away faster than a bad smell, and was left cold-shouldered by the men and women who carefully helped lift bodies onto the Medivac sledges, too. That, as far as I was concerned, wasn’t
As gently as I could, I said, “That would be really great, if it’s okay with your mom. But honestly, you look like you need some rest, Aidan. I know you want to be doing something. It helps a little, having something to do. But if you’re going to guide me through the mountains, I need you to be totally sharp so we don’t both end up lost.”
He thrust his jaw out and dared a glance at me, trying to determine if I was serious or just wheedling him into getting some rest. His eyes flashed gold, probably checking my aura for truthfulness, and his shoulders relaxed a millimeter. “I guess that maybe makes sense.”
“Yeah. k"-1thfulness, Ada? Is it okay if he takes me up into the mountains in the morning?”
Ada’s mouth thinned. “We’ll talk about it when we get home.”
In my vocabulary that constituted a yes. I smiled with relief at Ada, then looked hopefully at Aidan, whose shoulders relaxed just that little bit more. I guessed he thought it meant yes, too. Then we both turned to Sara, waiting to see if that was an acceptable solution.
Her eyebrows were drawn down. “Won’t the trail go cold? Isn’t every minute you’re sitting here losing us time in the manhun—”
She stopped before I had to say it, her scowl growing darker as I picked up in the silence she’d left off. “It’s not like setting dogs on a scent or following a predisposition toward certain brands of cigarettes or patterns of cash withdrawals that might let you find a suspect. Magic doesn’t leave a trail like that. It’s not going to get any colder by morning.”
“If we let it go tonight, can things get worse?”
“Oh, yeah. It could always get worse.” I looked skyward. “It could be raining.”
Sara smacked my shoulder, just like we were teens again, and muttered, “I can’t believe you said that. No, I meant is it likely to attack? Is it going to tear the mountain up? What was it, anyway? Not a demon.”
“No, not like the wendigo. This is a spirit creature. An evil ghost, kind of. It’s made up of all the hate and indifference and deliberation that slaughtered the First Nations, and of their pain and loss and fear and anger, as well. It’s like a ghost on steroids, and it’s been deliberately awakened and is being directed. At all of us in general and at me in particular.”
“What does it want?”
I shrugged. “To obliterate us. But it retreated for a reason. Either we were more than it expected, or more likely, it’s resting and getting used to its new strength. I think it’s not going to try anything again just yet.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then it’ll probably come looking for me, so with any luck everybody else will stay safe.”
“How often does ‘any luck’ come in to the equation?”
“Not often enough.” I got up as a familiar thup-thup-thup began echoing against the mountains. “Are those helicopters?”
A few seconds later, two Medivac choppers crested the mountains and maneuvered around each other to find landing space at the foot of the holler. Wind and dust and leaves kicked up, spraying everyone and sending arms over faces to block the updrafts. A fair number of paramedics jumped out and came running up the hill, bent double until they were well away from the choppers. Their expressions went unusually blank when they saw the bodies. I was sure they’d been briefed, but a briefing wasn’t the same as laying eyes on seven uninjured dead people sprawled in an otherwise idyllic setting. Sara got to her feet and met them, taking charge naturally. None of the people who had refused to talk to her earlier objected, either. I took an uncharitable moment to regard them all as hypocrites, then got over my judgmental self and went to see if I could help.
I couldn’t. I got turned away faster than a bad smell, and was left cold-shouldered by the men and women who carefully helped lift bodies onto the Medivac sledges, too. That, as far as I was concerned, wasn’t
Similar Books
