Plague Cult by Jenny Schwartz

see it from their house. They put the new driveway about a mile on.”
    They reached the bridge, small and ordinary, that crossed the Bideer River. No one fished from it. Shawn slowed the truck.
    “On your right.”
    He bumped the truck along the short, bumpy track and parked in the clearing. With the engine off, they were near enough to the river to hear the frogs, but the water wasn’t visible through the trees. Nor was the bridge. “Good spot.”
    She flushed, ridiculously pleased by the terse praise, and hid her response by getting out of the truck. She jumped the last couple of inches to the ground and fallen leaves crunched under her boots. It was good the weather was dry. They had a hike in front of them, and it would be both easier and pleasanter without rain.
    “Here.” Shawn handed her the truck’s key. “If anything happens, don’t worry about me. Just go.”
    “Okay.” She’d over-ride her instincts and do as he said. He was a Collegium guardian as well as a hollerider, and freed of the need to protect her, he could unleash magic enough to make anyone who attacked him regret it.
    They cut across country with Shawn in the lead and Ruth doing her best to tread where he did. She could feel his magic, not unmasked, but active as he scanned for wards or other spells. It was a low level vibration at the edge of her aura; something she suspected she sensed only because their magics meshed.
    She didn’t feel as if her presence or magic was masked, but she trusted that Shawn had done whatever it was that generally hid him.
    Since the Moonlit Hearts Club had taken over the old river resort, they basically followed the river to reach it. The quiet burble of water was comforting. As a healer, water strengthened her magic. It purified and cooled, quieting fever and easing pain.
    “Containment ward.” Shawn halted by a cypress pine, its twisted trunk oddly beautiful in the darkness.
    “Where?” Ruth couldn’t sense it.
    “Ahead.” He clasped her hand. “We’re going to cross it. I’ve masked us and as long as you stay close, no one should sense that we’ve entered the compound. However, we’re not invisible. So move quietly and stay in the shadows.”
    “Will do.”
    He squeezed her hand before releasing it and moving forward.
    Since she watched him so closely, she saw him stiffen. He turned to look at her, and there was a warning in his stance, but not a gesture to run. She centered her magic and crossed the containment ward.
    Oh God. It was a prayer, shaken from her heart.
    Death magic crawled over her skin.
    No wonder the witch who’d placed the ward had gone with containment over a look-away or keep-out spell. She or he had needed to hide the evil they’d done.
    Death magic in Bideer!
    Shawn gripped her shoulder, a question in the tilt of his head.
    She nodded once. She was okay. She could cope with this. In mage sight, she could discern the sludgy darkness of the containment ward. It lay behind them, apparently unbroken, which meant Shawn’s ability to mask them was powerful; stronger than whoever had set the ward. That was reassuring. She could see his magic at the edge of her aura, the silver shining in mage sight. It was like a shield.
    Possibly he was even protecting her from the death magic, keeping it from her and keeping her healer’s aura unclouded. She was grateful. Ironic to find a hollerider’s magic a protection, but its terror didn’t touch her. That terror was directed outward, masked at the moment, but if Shawn unleashed it…
    She had to trust he wouldn’t. The cult had gathered vulnerable people. If they weren’t guilty of participation in the death magic, then they really shouldn’t suffer the fear of the hollerider’s passing. It was likely they lacked the emotional resilience to survive it.
    Ahead, a light blinked through the trees. Actually, the light was steady. It was the tree branches that swayed in the night wind. She stopped near Shawn and he put a hand on her