As soon as she set foot in the meeting house, Josette noticed something was wrong. No one was there. The heater was still blazing. Blankets were spread out where Beth and Emily had lain, and damp clothes hung over chairs by the heater. Everyone’s bags sat in the first place she looked—meaning they hadn’t been touched. The room was warmer than it’d been when they left. If they’d all gone somewhere, or made good their escape, it had to have been a good while ago. Or had they simply disappeared? The phrase spirited away flashed through her brain.
Where could they have gone, leaving all their baggage behind and not even bothering to turn off the heater?
Josette shifted the high-caliber minigun down by her hip. While flicking off the safety, she simultaneously activated the box of ammunition on her back, creating some slack in the ammo belt so she could fire without it jamming.
The strangeness of this occurrence drove deeper into Josette’s heart with each passing moment. If the group had encountered some hostile force, her husband wouldn’t have gone without leaving some signs of a fight.
Were they really spirited away after all?
Bolstered by her impatience, Josette’s ears caught a faint thump. Turning on reflex, she ended up facing the door that led to the adjoining room. It was closed. She heard something again. Footsteps. She listened intently. They were approaching the door. They stopped just shy of it. And didn’t move.
“Who’s there?” Josette asked in a low voice.
There was no reply.
“It’s me,” said the woman. “I’m back now. Nothing’s wrong, so come on out.”
Shifting the barrel of her weapon from the door to the wall about a yard away, Josette hit the firing button. Even the touch of a baby’s finger would’ve been enough to trigger it. The minigun shook. The flexible arm absorbed the vibrations. Even at the full auto setting of two thousand rounds per minute, she could keep a bead on a foe a thousand yards away—although the enemy would be shredded.
The ten-round burst opened a ten-foot-wide hole in the wall. Through it, a white figure could be glimpsed bolting to the right.
“I saw that!”
The words were accompanied by another barrage, but it had already occurred to the woman that she shouldn’t kill whoever this was. Relenting after a second ten-round burst, she returned the minigun to her back and drew the pistol from her hip. She was facing the back of the meeting house. Nobody was there. No one at all.
“Whoever you are, come on out!”
Although Josette didn’t notice it at the time, on the floor about six feet to her right a pale man’s hand appeared stealthily, and it slowly began knifing across the stone floor as if it were water, bound for her ankle. Opening and closing in an unsettling manner, the hand’s fingers were just about to touch her boot, but grabbed empty air instead.
There was a man’s cry from the hall, and Josette began walking in that direction, saved by the veritable hair’s breadth.
The hand curled its fingers in regret, and then once more sank through the stone floor.
“What’s going on?” asked the pale-faced Bligh.
“See for yourself!” Josette replied, going on to tell him of everyone’s disappearance. On hearing that the target of her fire had been a white figure, Bligh looked as if he’d been run through the heart.
“What is it?”
“Er, nothing,” the man replied. There was no point in telling her about it now.
“We were brought here because they needed people, weren’t we?”
“Could be,” the man conceded.
“So, what happened to D?”
Seeing the way Josette’s face fogged over with rapture, Bligh wasn’t disgusted, but rather acknowledged that it was only natural.
“I ain’t never seen anybody so pig-headed before. Even after hearing the gunfire, he just kept right on going.”
Josette heaved a sigh. Bligh sensed this was due not so much to the disappointment of him not joining them as to his failure to say goodbye.
“We ain’t safe here, either. Think we oughta relocate to a house somewhere?”
“Would we be safe there?”
“Nope,” Bligh said with a grave shake of his head. “Still, it’d be better than here. Let’s get going. Luckily, our bags are still here.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Josette replied with a nod, acquiescing with startling ease. But such was to be expected from a warrior’s wife.
Gathering up everyone’s baggage, the two of them went outside. Josette, who stood at the fore, drew a deep breath.
A black figure was approaching through the blurry curtain of rain.
“I’ll be damned,” said the woman, her voice carrying tension and fear—and expectation.
That expectation was met. About six feet shy of the pair, the figure took shape as D.
“You folks moving house?”
Josette was about to lose her mind. D’s voice had been so hoarse, he sounded like a hundred-year-old codger.
On seeing how she was looking all around, Bligh felt a small sense of satisfaction.
“Everyone’s vanished on us. Only their bags were left. I saw something white and opened fire on it, but it ran off before I could find out what it was. So we figured we’d hole up somewhere else.”
“Got someplace in mind?”
Now, it was relief that nearly drove Josette out of her mind. For D had spoken in his normal voice.
“No, but I was thinking maybe we’d pop in to a nearby farmhouse or something.”
Saying nothing, D turned.
Following his lead and noticing what it was he faced, Josette and Bligh gasped and swallowed hard.
Due to the increased impetus of the rain, they could make out no more than a hazy shape, but it was—the fortress.
“Oh, come on! That’s a Noble lair!” Bligh said, and he spoke for Josette, too.
“If you’re talking about their lair, the same could be said of the entire village,” D said before eyeing the two of them in silence.
Josette shut her eyes. She felt so sad she could die.
“Hey!” Bligh exclaimed, elbowing her and giving her a look of contempt. “You’re a real sucker for pretty boys, ain’t you, lady? I’ve been giving you too much credit!”
“Watch how you talk about me,” she shot back, jabbing him with twice as much force. “And I’ll thank you not to keep calling me lady. The name’s Josette, mister.”
“Gotcha,” Bligh replied with a hearty nod. This was no time for squabbling. “Anyway, D’s right. Still, I don’t know if I could just go up to a Noble’s castle and—”
“To get outta this village, you gotta learn the Nobles’ secret. Isn’t that why you two went up there?”
Feeling like she was about to lose her mind again, Josette rubbed her temple. It was that damned hoarse voice again.
“It would save a lot of trouble.”