by Renée Jaggér
Roland’s eyes grew distant. “Yes. Once we knew what we had to do—fight them off or else—it was like everything calmed down. Not only us, but the place somehow started to make sense and play fair. And then our magic was weaker than usual, but easier to control. Yours in particular. You managed to summon just enough lightning to get rid of those things, but without overdoing it.”
Slowly, she nodded. “Yeah, that’s exactly right. I don’t…shit. I don’t understand what could have caused that, but I guess it’s a good thing. Saved our asses, and if I can figure out why it happened, it might be the key to using my magic properly.”
“Yes. Based on past experience, it was sort of like being young again and not having my powers fully developed, but having enough of a grounding in how to use them that I was able to get the job done. We summoned less but used it better. In the past, power has never been an issue for either of us, yet here, that’s the problem. But our control has improved. Our flexibility. Yours more than mine, though I suppose I learned something too.”
The girl used her elbow as leverage to hoist herself to her feet, surprised at how tired she felt after all that running at top speed.
“Well,” she remarked, “obviously we did something right. Just a matter of figuring out what now, not to mention finding a way out of this damn place.”
Roland stretched his lanky limbs, then he rose too.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Getting out of here is important, but I can’t imagine Marcus would let us step through unless there was an escape route within reach.”
The wizard frowned, then, as his thoughts raced ahead, he said, “And after we get back, there’s still the matter of Shannon and Aida and Callie trying to make our lives miserable yet again, and the Venatori. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do about them.”
Bailey snorted. “I don’t have a goddamn clue at this point. Fight back. Run away if we have to. Ask them politely, if all else fails, to leave us the fuck alone, maybe? But,” she took Roland’s hand, “whatever happens, we’ll face it together. We’ve made a pretty good team so far, right?”
She smiled when she saw something within him melt. To her surprise, he drew her into a hug, his arms around her shoulders and her head snuggling into his upper chest and neck.
He patted her back. “I’ll agree to that. I doubt either of us would still be around without the other. Either we’d both be dead, or you’d be in jail, and I’d be strapped to a wall with tubes hooked up to my balls or something. Sorry, not a mental image either of us wants right now, but you know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” She chuckled. “I do.”
They let each other go and stood normally again, though perhaps a few inches closer.
“For now,” said Roland, “I’d say we ought to explore a bit more. Find a place that looks and feels right to rest and keep training. That’s what we have to do, I suspect—‘level up,’ like video game characters grinding for experience points in an RPG. Something like that.”
Bailey shoved him lightly. “Dork. I mean, it’s a good analogy, but it’s more like we’re upgrading our ride. Lifted tires, subwoofers, bigger engine—all that good stuff.”
He shrugged. “If you say so. What are ‘subwoofers,’ though?”
She gaped at him in shock.
“I’m kidding,” he protested, raising his hands. “Juuuuust kidding. They’re those horrible…things people get installed so that they can vibrate the asphalt at intersections while showing off whatever is currently on their playlist. I’d rather level up my RPG character, personally.”
Bailey sighed. “Maybe I was wrong, and there isn’t hope for you, after all. Anyway, let’s get down off this damn rock.”
Carefully, but not wasting time either, they worked their way down the slope back to the mostly solid part of the bog, and spent a moment surveying the strange landscape, watching the eerie purplish sky through the curtains of mist and trying to make out any distinguishing features.
It seemed almost as though the landscape was shifting around the horizon, but it might just have been an optical illusion created by the ever-changing fog.
Roland sighed. “Uh, that way, maybe? Looks slightly less terrible than the other ways. More dry ground, at least.”
“Seconded,” said Bailey. “And I think I can see…I don’t know, a hill or something off in the distance over there? Maybe even a building. That might be a bad thing, but at least it’s not just the same featureless Dagobah-type shit.”
The wizard eyed her in an askew way. “Dagobah? Who’s the dork now? Though yeah, it does kind of look like that place.”
Bailey slapped a hand to her face. “Fuck. That idiot Kevin back at the shop must be rubbing off on me.”
Deciding to keep quiet until they reached their destination, they set off across the bog. The mist thickened around them.
This time Townsend did the driving, while Spall rode shotgun and handled tracking and the logistical stuff. It wasn’t a fair trade, as far as he was concerned.
“This place has to be one of the worst locations for driving I’ve ever seen or even heard of,” he grumbled.
Spall was focused on his mobile device and did not look up or reply, but sort of chuckled under his breath in empathy.
“And,” Townsend went on, “I used to work in Pennsylvania. Do you have any goddamn idea how shitty Pennsylvania’s roads are? I wouldn’t be surprised if Peru and Kyrgyzstan are better than that crap.”
Spall shrugged his shoulders. “That’s mountains for you. The road seems to be in decent condition. It’s just the route.”
There were no easy, direct routes east from Greenhearth into the Oregon High Desert on the other side of the Cascades, just a bizarre patchwork of winding paths that looked like they saw one, maybe two drivers per day, if that.
The witches—the other witches—might be gone by the time the agents reached them.
As if sensing his partner’s thoughts, Spall offered a report on the situation. “We’ve still got them. Unless they’re onto us and have used a dummy signal, they should be right up ahead. They’ve been there awhile. Must have stopped to recharge the batteries up their asses or however it is they power their magic.”
“Good,” Townsend replied. “I’m getting pretty tired of this fuckery.”
They were coming into flatter country, where the roads made more sense, although the night was so dark that the going was still slow. Nonetheless, at a crossroads just ahead was the unmistakable bulk of an SUV parked beside the road.
“That’s it,” Spall stated.
Townsend parked about two hundred feet away. Both agents checked for their weapons before they climbed out of the car. They were not authorized to kill paranormals except in the direst of circumstances, but they had ways of protecting themselves that were more than sufficient.
Townsend cracked his neck as they walked toward the vehicle. “This ought to be good. Been a while since we’ve had to deal with the Venatori.”
Halfway to their goal, the SUV’s headlights snapped on, flooding the barren plain with light and illuminating the two suited men. They kept walking. A light within the vehicle came on too, disclosing two women in strange leather outfits.
Spall grunted. “There were supposed to be four of them. Either the other two are hiding in the trunk, or they’ve split up.”
“Of-fucking-course,” Townsend replied.
The woman behind the wheel, a tall brunette with her hair in a bun, rolled down her window. “Who are you,” she demanded, “and what are you doing here?”
“That’s supposed to be our line,” Townsend replied.
Spall smirked. “We were just about to ask you the same thing, only in your case, the word ‘here’ means ‘in the United States.’ You have your passports on hand, ladies?”
Scowling, the passenger dug around in the glovebox and produced the documents in question. Townsend gave them a cursory look-see and handed them back.
“Right,” he said. “Now,
let’s cut the shit before it even starts. We know who you are, and you probably know who we are—the organization that monitors supernatural activity. Might we ask what your business in Oregon is?”
Both witches smiled, their faces extending slowly in a way that would have chilled anyone not familiar with their kind.
“Yes,” responded the driver, “you may ask, and we will tell you in no uncertain terms. Our Order has decided that Bailey Nordin represents a threat to our existence, and we have come to remove that threat. We mean to take her out. That is our business, and your organization would do well not to interfere.”
Spall nodded. “Refreshing candor. Thanks for not wasting our time with lies. Not that we’re very surprised by the truth.”
Townsend grimaced. “Interference is our business, ma’am, to some extent, although we are not the police. And at this point, all you’ve done is make a vague threat. We’re here to prevent the public from learning about the paranormal, not to dispense or enforce conventional justice, even with regards to attempted murder. Therefore, whether we interfere is a matter of whether you force us to. Understood?”
The witch rolled her eyes in an arrogant expression of disdain. “You are saying that we must do the job quietly? Do you think we desire to attract undue attention, either? That is part of why we’ve come.”
Townsend didn’t like the thought of that girl being killed, and he doubted Spall did either, but given how much was at stake, and how much trouble she’d been involved in…
Spall sniffed. “Quietly, or not at all. If things get out of hand, we will have no choice but to intervene, and on Bailey’s behalf. You are guests in our country right now. No one likes foreigners prowling around and instigating problems.”
“Yes,” Townsend confirmed. “For all her reckless sloppiness, the Nordin girl isn’t the one precipitating the conflicts. If your activities create a mess, that makes you the bigger threat, and the one that needs to be expelled.”
Both pairs were still, then, staring each other down, unspeaking.
The lead witch broke the silence. “We are professionals,” she asserted. “There will be no mess.”
The agents nodded.
“Very well,” said Spall. “Don’t make us warn you again.”
The Venatori driver smiled. “Don’t make us angry.” The disdain was gone from her demeanor now. She was simply informing a fellow professional of the reality of the situation.
Townsend and Spall turned and walked back to their vehicle. Townsend started the car and sat in place for a while as the witches set off down the road—west, toward Greenhearth.
Spall watched them go. “Think they’ll fuck it up? For that matter, do they know where Bailey is?”
“I don’t know.” Townsend shrugged. “But if they do find her and we have to step in? Well, at least we finally have ourselves some worthy opponents.”
Chapter Four
From where Bailey had stood at the base of the ridge where they’d had their first confrontation with the wraiths, it had looked like the hill was only a mile or so away at most. Yet somehow, as they bore toward it, it never seemed to get any closer.
“What,” Roland muttered, “is that thing? I’m starting to wonder if it’s really a mountain and it’s, like, half the world away, only it looks closer because this place is even more humid and foggy than Seattle is.”
“Could be,” Bailey admitted grudgingly. “Or maybe it’s like one of those stupid dreams where the hall keeps getting longer as you run toward the door or whatever. Hell if I know. This place makes even less sense than Seattle does.”
“Har-har,” Roland grumbled. “Anyway, if we don’t make any progress in, say, fifteen minutes, I say we stop and practice where we are. I’m having trouble guessing how long we’ve been in here.”
It was true. From moment to moment, depending on their mood and how tired they were, sometimes it felt as if they’d been in here for twenty minutes tops. At other times, it felt like they had been trapped here for years, and they were starting to forget the lives they’d once led back on Earth.
Bailey tried not to entertain the latter notion. Every time it popped into her head, she thought of Jacob, and Kurt, and Russell, and Gunney, and Sheriff Browne. Hell, even Kevin. Anything to maintain that connection to the real world.
They walked for perhaps another five or ten minutes—probably—and the trees around them grew larger and denser, as if they were reaching up intentionally to blot out more of the sky and darken the path before them. The sky stayed the same weird color, but the growing shadows made it seem like dusk was approaching.
Roland reached out, and, to Bailey’s surprise, and even his, a green light grew just above his hand, as though he were holding a magical torch.
“Huh,” he quipped, his face twisted in puzzlement, “I didn’t mean to do that, and it’s not very bright, but it’ll do.”
Bailey walked beside him, contemplating what he’d just said. “You know,” she began, “back on that ridge with those things around us, I can’t remember thinking much of anything, or meaning to do anything in particular. It was like it all just became automatic. Kind of like physical fighting, only, you know, with magic.”
“Hmm.” The wizard’s eyes glazed. “Yes, you might be onto something. My brain kind of went on autopilot also. Maybe that’s part of the lesson we’re supposed to learn here. Something about, say, how the strangeness and stress of this place is forcing us to rely on our magic in a more instinctual, or even physical, way than we have before.”
The girl gave a sharp nod. “Yeah. Maybe. I was wondering if that’s how Weres are supposed to use magic. When you were instructing me, you made it sound intellectual. Don’t get me wrong, you obviously know what you’re talking about, but maybe there are different ways to learn the same thing.”
She half-expected him to get defensive about that, but his mood remained neutral. He was lost in thought.
“Almost certainly,” he said after a pause. “I showed you the way of understanding magic that made the most sense to me, but there are plenty of stories of people who came by their abilities through other means.”
From up ahead, in the direction of the mysterious hill-like structure, came three bloodcurdling howls in quick succession.
Bailey stopped and planted her fists on her hips. “You know, I think we should keep going toward that sound.”
Roland raised an eyebrow. “I don’t like the idea, but it would be an opportunity to test our hypothesis.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “Yeah. It’ll be fun. Another scary-as-fuck, life-or-death situation. We’ll have no choice but to figure out how the hell our magic works—again.”
Taking deep breaths, they strode in the direction of the howls.
Only a few minutes later, unnerving black shapes started to coalesce out of the shadowed nooks around them, or rose from the dark pools of stagnant water in the lower-lying parts of the swampy woods.
“Crap,” Roland muttered. “I guess we have to level up now since they’re around us on all four sides instead of only three.”
Bailey’s abdomen clenched; it was true. In the more forested area, it was easier for the wraiths to surround them with a simple ambush.
The screams and howls started again as the glossy sable humanoids glided out from between the trees, their almost-liquid arms extending toward their would-be victims.
Bailey felt her mind going blank again, and once more, she reached out with both hands. She did not disappoint herself. Red sparks and a small, controlled arc manifested once more, striking the phantoms closest to her and driving them away.
She and Roland stood back to back, with him using disciplined bursts of fire to blast the ones closest to him while also subtly manipulating the earth and tree roots to block or trap the creatures who were more distant.
Two wraiths slipped through their magical defenses, appearing only a few feet away. Bailey didn’t panic but instead tried something different.
&n
bsp; The entities seemed almost to be made of fluid, some kind of ectoplasm or ether or something. Concentrating on them, Bailey imagined the temperature around them and within them dropping to absolute zero.
The wraiths froze. They stopped in place, stiff and unnatural, a rime of frost coating their undulating bodies.
With them taken care of, Roland was able to drive off the others. Bailey helped, casting small bolts of lightning at some of the stragglers. Somehow, it went smoothly, even as it sapped every ounce of available energy from them. It was a task that came naturally despite being monumentally difficult.
The reason for the strain was clear. Not only was it harder to summon sufficient levels of magical force, but Bailey and Roland both had been concentrating intently on their feelings and mental states, trying to pin down the right frame of mind for such a sustained usage of their powers.
Soon the wraiths fled. The path through the boggy forest was empty of anyone save the two humans and the pair of icebound phantasms.
“Nice,” Roland exhaled. He wiped his brow, looking exhausted, then turned to examine Bailey’s handiwork.
“Now, this is interesting. How did you freeze these things without knowing what their body temperature is? When I punched a couple of them, they were cold as…I don’t know, a really cold thing. Wait, I’m over-analyzing this in a scientific way again.”
“Exactly,” Bailey agreed. “I just thought about making them, well, cold enough to freeze. Seems like it worked.” Even though she’d been exerting less effort than usual, she felt like the battle had taken as much out of her as running a marathon.
Nodding, the wizard raised a foot and kicked one of the wraiths over. It rolled down a gentle slope and broke into pieces against a tree. “Hah!”
Bailey picked up the other one—it weighed almost nothing—and threw it into one of the pools of water, where it bubbled and sank out of sight. “Now let’s keep going,” she offered.
They strolled ahead, cautious but not overly afraid, and talked.
Roland went first. “Whatever is going on here with our ability to fight these things,” he remarked, “I think it’s leading us in the right direction, even if we don’t have all the answers yet.”