Chapter Twenty

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Of course, I wasn’t a fool, and neither was Caleb. It would seem our encounter wasn’t quite as happenstance as he’d initially led me to believe. Even this brawl was likely for my benefit, to give me the illusion that I could sneak away undetected. It was something he said earlier, that he knew of my connections in the magical community. He likely figured Ann to be such a person, and he was hoping to follow me to his bounty. He had the components, but not the means to use them, whereas I had the means, but not the components. And since just asking me for my help was likely to be out of the question, Caleb killed the competition and made a show of how much he was an honorable outlaw, only doing what he needed to get by. Clever as he may have thought he’d been he also had no idea that I just gave his idea of a bloodhound a potion to send her into a state of perpetual slumber.

He’d left me with very little choice at the moment in any case. Indeed, I had the most useful means of tracking Debbie in the palm of my hand, perhaps even the only way of doing it in time in a worst case scenario; but if I didn’t get to Ann right away, she’d be unable even to make the attempt.

I pocketed the baggie and walked out of the bar, making a note of Caleb along the way. Anyone could tell that he had no issue handling himself. He was quick enough to make the punches of the gang members look outright sloppy, and he immediately disarmed anyone who approached him with a weapon. He always kept his back to a wall, preventing the others from circling on him. But I could also tell that he was dragging it out, peppering with jabs and playing keep away. The reason was apparent: He was waiting for me to leave.

Ann was mere moments away as I dashed across the highway and made it to our room. I entered into a darkened room lit only by the glow of a laptop screen; the music from the playlist was coming from someone called Tame Impala. Or the song had Tame Impala for a title? It wasn’t important. For her part, illuminated by the screen, Ann had left her glasses on the nightstand and somehow managed to cocoon herself within what appeared to be the sheets and blankets from both beds. Her head bobbed rhythmically but weakly to the psychedelic tunes, though her body was immobilized.

“Thank the creators, you’re still awake,” I mumbled to myself as I switched on the lights. “Ann! You’ve got to wake up!”

Ann squinted in my direction with a jerky attempt to free her arms from the bedding. “Oh shit,” she slurred. “Chally, you came back. But why didn’t my Dad come with you? He loves me, and you, and Velveeta which is what I was supposed to be named as a baby. I am supposed to be Velveeta Bancroft, it’s true. Look it up.”

“I need you to focus,” I instructed her, doing my best to unravel her enough to make use of her arms and handing the glasses to her. “I need you to scry for me.”

“Listen!” she insisted with an urgency usually reserved for telling a stranger where you hid your medication. “So, like, animals are our friends but like, also? All our friends are animals!”

I ignored her and removed the baggie from my jacket pocket. “Ann, listen to me. Time is critical. I don’t know how long you’ll remain conscious and you’re the only one who can help me. I need you to—”

“Fireworks!” she exclaimed, sending harmless crackles of magical energy away from her fingertips and toward the ceiling.

I had to remind myself that while frustrating, this was not Ann’s fault and she was, in fact, the victim here. It helped to keep me from shaking her like a new can of paint. “You. Ann. Scry.”

I thrust the bag into her, and she studied it for a moment, seeming for a moment like she understood. Then, beaming she said, “Oh, because I’m dying!”

“Yes, and we don’t want that. So what do you need?”

“A map?” she asked, poking the bag. “And a pendant. Did you bring mine? Not going to lie though, this probably won’t work. I am super high right now, and I think they’re waiting for me at my fifth-grade birthday party. I was drinking Hawaiian Punch and talking to a turtle who told me I needed to believe in myself and the cake promised to tell me secrets, but it sounded like if Oscar Isaac was evil so I didn’t trust it and then Celeste opened up one of my gifts, and it was—”

While she was babbling, I was doing my best to put together the makeshift conditions for her to scry. There was no paper map in the room and not one in any of the drawers, but I opened up a satellite image in one of the browser tabs on the laptop and zoomed out from our local area just enough to make sure it would cover anything within a reasonable distance of us. And her pendant, the one she’d used before, wasn’t in any of the bags, so I ripped a length of fabric from one of the sheets and made a makeshift necklace with an arrowhead I snapped off one of my arrows.

“Okay, try this,” I interrupted, abruptly cutting her off.

“Okay!” Ann replied cheerfully, squeezing drops of blood from the bandage over the arrowhead.

If I thought her babbling was terrible before, now she seemed to be chanting a mixture of what sounded like names of soda brands, car companies, and what each of those might sound like in Latin. I watched intently as the arrowhead began to first spin under its own power, then it hung in the air as if attracted to the laptop like a magnet to steel. And as her chanting reached its bubbly crescendo, the arrowhead zipped towards the screen, dinging it lightly before both it and Ann collapsed devoid of energy.

I checked on Ann first, and she was now fast asleep. The energy she must have spent to pull off that scry was all she had left. With my friend secure, I turned my attention to the laptop. There was a dent in the LCD where the tip had struck it, now distorting the colors around it. The location wasn’t too far away, maybe thirty miles east there was a town called Aquila and maybe twenty miles due south there was nothing but the mark made by the scry. A direct route was made impossible by a mountain range. It looked like the only way there was to follow the highway into Aquila and then take a service road until I either tested the off-road capabilities of our rental SUV or I went in on foot.

That was the compound. It had to be. Close enough to a populated area that getting supplies wasn’t too big of an inconvenience but not close enough that any of the locals might become too curious. It also meant that going in during the day may prove to be impossible without being seen.

But for now, I had time. Ann was safe for the moment. I knew how to find Debbie. I didn’t know what to do with her when I did, but I was heading towards a conclusion either way. She didn’t deserve to die, and I didn’t deserve to make that choice. Just like Ann didn’t deserve becoming collateral damage. We don’t always get what we deserve, but sometimes if we’re brave enough, and strong enough, we can make sure the right people get what they’re due.

In more than a couple of ways, I would have an advantage if I left right then and there, stormed the compound in the dead of night and took the whole damned cult by surprise. But I’ll never know how that would have turned out for me because for the first time since this all began, I didn’t feel like I was sinking. Ann’s pulse had slowed to such a rate that she could be mistaken for dead. Birdie had met an ignoble end, but in another way, even she was resting. Caleb couldn’t make a move without me. Alistair and Skip and the rest of them could go sit on a cactus for all I cared. And Debbie wasn’t going anywhere. And neither should I. I was through with rushing in unprepared, and I was happy to recover and be smart about this.

Some of my time was spent drawing myself a map in case the GPS coordinates weren’t wholly accurate. Some more of my time was spent making sure my gear was ready to go when I was. But most of it was spent falling asleep next to my friend. I’d had enough trancing for a little while, and slumber felt like an act of solidarity. It felt good to know who I was fighting for.

* * *

I had a dream that night, but that’s all it was—just a dream. Sleep is not my default, but I’ve become fond of it the way one slowly develops a coffee addiction. I tried to limit the amount of sleep I got for the very same reasons one might avoid making four cups before noon a daily habit.

Dreams are unusual for me. When I trance, I can experience perfect recall. Between that and waking life, mine is not a life balanced by the fantastical and the grounded. There was just what there was. Nightmares for that reason are worse for me than they might be for humans since humans are accustomed to them. The thought of facing deep fears that not only could I not comprehend but could not predict or control was one that I did not wish to confront.

But when they’re done right, they’re beautiful and they make sleeping worth the risk. The other side of living a life so grounded in reality is that you don’t know how much you needed the joy of your mind flooding with the images you need to see, the ideas you didn’t know you’d forgotten, the worlds that were too amazing to exist—and knowing that all of that beauty came from within you.

This was one of those dreams. I saw my mother, and she was proud of me. She missed me dearly, but she adjusted even if she still thought of me every day. She told me that I had something special inside of me, something I was afraid to share, but it was something that would keep me safe. Always. She was beautiful, and it was beautiful, but it was not real. And all too quickly it had passed, and only the fleeting memory remained, replaced by a poorly insulated motel room and the gentle warmth of my slumbering, dying friend beside me.

I was awake and out the door a few hours after I had shut my eyes. It was still dark outside, but dawn wasn’t far off. I didn’t leave anything in the hotel room that might have come in handy later, especially considering there was no certainty that I would return. This time, however, I wore the cloak while I drove. Ann wasn’t around to tell me it wasn’t allowed.

I allowed the dream to linger and keep me company through the first leg of my trip. It wasn’t real, but hearing my mother say those words, seeing the pride in her face, I don’t know that it mattered. That dream came from me and knowing that my mother loved me was wonderful. And if I could tell her one thing, it wouldn’t be that I love her. She knows that. It would be that I miss her too.

With only the occasional gas station open, the town of Aquila was still dead quiet as I passed through, no house lights or passing cars. And by the time I reached the marker on the GPS, the sun was barely beginning to peak over the horizon. Tire tracks leading out into the middle of nowhere confirmed this was the spot. Driving up seemed out of the question, but I couldn’t very well leave the car on the side of the road either. The compound was roughly four miles from the road and, assuming I didn’t see anything to prevent me doing otherwise, it would be a safe bet to take the car halfway and make the other half on foot.

There would be a few things to consider when I arrived. That woman who had been an apprentice or lieutenant to the Abbot was capable of significant magic, and I got the impression that she hid her potential from everyone, the Abbot included. That concussive blast leveled me and seemed as effortless to her as flicking a crumb from a table. She had also potentially managed to cloak the people of the house from my view. It technically could have been the Abbot or the other man who’d been ready to sacrifice me, but it didn’t add up. For one thing, even now I don’t believe the Abbot had the power to pull that off. And even if he did, illusionary magic wasn’t in his wheelhouse. The Abbot was a one trick pony, but the trick he had learned was devastating. And the other man, he unquestionably had power of his own, but when it transferred into Ann, it had been gone in an instant. There’s still much I don’t know about what happens when a violent death releases power, but I know enough to spot the level of one by the impact the transference has on another. That man had been a campfire, not a house fire. I couldn’t rule out the possibility of a fourth user in the home, but the most straightforward solution pointed towards her.

Then there was the matter of the other cult members. They were no longer under the influence of the Abbot, which worked in my favor only so far as knowing they wouldn’t blindly attack without reason. Scarier though was the knowledge that their home, their way of life, their very identity; all of it had been threatened and this compound was their last stand. Leaving and taking back a life in society might have become too frightening for some. If this was all they knew and their backs were against the wall then, well, that’s how zealots are made. When the possibility of any other way is gone, people can become more vicious than anyone would like to imagine.

And I had to deal with all of that and finding a way to drag Debbie out of there without killing her. I know how implausible that seems, but Ann was right. Debbie had done nothing worthy of a death penalty, and I wouldn’t be her murderer. And now I just had to see how she felt about that proposition and how to turn that into saving Ann’s life.

Elana’s penchant for improvisation must be a bad influence on me.

As I approached the spot on my map, the reason why I hadn’t seen the compound from the road became clear to me. An unsteady-looking rock mound, maybe twenty feet high, created a perfect natural camouflage for whatever was behind it. The tire tracks leading to and away from the compound circled the mound, meaning that while I was on the right track, I also didn’t know who could be waiting for me on the other side.

My fingers were stiff from the lingering cold of the desert night, and it took a couple of seconds to warm them up in preparation of what was ahead. I took that moment to pull an arrow and ready it as I hugged the rocks as safely as I could manage and poked my head around the corner.

And I saw the blood.

The compound was surrounded by a wall that covered its perimeter and had two wide doors and a watchtower to control who came and went. Currently, the doors were splayed open to reveal a massacre. Dozens of bodies at the very least were torn asunder. Something nightmarish had happened here, and it was all recent. The cold desert air had kept the blood from drying, giving the air as I approached something of a copper scent.

I kept my bow drawn as I crept inside purely as a cautionary measure, but in my heart, I knew it was pointless. Something inhuman had done this, and it was long gone by now. At a certain point, I stopped counting the bodies or even trying to figure out which limbs belonged to which person. But I made a thorough search, all the same, because I could only think of one person capable of this, and I needed to find her body, because if I didn’t, I was afraid of what that would mean.

I never found it. Because Debbie was gone and there was no evidence of another creature or evidence of evocations. There were gashes and tears, but also blood-soaked sharp objects. This was no work of an animal, at least not in the literal sense. But maybe it was in the way that counted.

I was furious. With her, but more with myself. I’d questioned myself, I felt sympathy for her plight, and I hesitated. But no more. No more excuse, no more silver linings, and no more distractions. This was the mass murder of a defenseless people and if that doesn’t deserve the harshest of punishments, then what else can bring justice for this senseless depravity?

I wasn’t trading Debbie’s life for Ann’s anymore. I was taking Debbie’s life for the ones she stole from those who took her in. Debbie had to die. And I was going to kill her.

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