by King, R. L.
“There’s the turnoff,” Sykes announced, pointing and slowing down.
The others immediately turned to face in the direction he was indicating. Jason blinked and stared hard into the blackness. “Where? I don’t see anything.”
“I don’t either,” Verity echoed. From where she was sitting, the trees appeared to be growing uniformly along the side of the highway with no visible break.
“Told you it was hard to spot,” Sykes reminded them. Carefully edging the Jeep along, he turned the wheel to the right and only then did they see a narrow opening in the trees, only slightly wider than a single lane and covered with low-hanging branches. A snowy trail that looked more like a wide horse path than a road snaked off and disappeared into the darkness.
“You weren’t kidding about them not wanting to be found,” Jason said.
“It used to be wider—still unpaved, but a full two lanes wide. They’ve been working on it at this end to make it hard to find, I think. I’m guessing it’ll widen out a bit as we go.”
The other Jeep left the road and picked its way along close behind them. Both vehicles moved at no more than five miles per hour; the terrain was far too uncertain to risk going faster. A couple of times early on, Sykes had to get out and clear some healthy-sized branches out of the road, and once he called for Jimmy to help him move a large rock.
“How far do you think we’ll be able to get in the vehicles?” Stone asked. The road had widened somewhat as Sykes had predicted after a few hundred feet, but it was already increasing in its incline. They climbed steadily now.
“Not sure,” Sykes said. “Haven’t been up here in a long time. We’ve been pretty sure this is a bad place to be for quite a while, so we don’t get near it. We’ve tried hard to keep out of the Darkness’s way—no point in tempting fate and making them think we’re a threat. But in any case we shouldn’t get too close, or they’ll see our lights and it’ll tip ’em off. We’ll have to be careful with light anyway. Good thing it’s a clear night and the moon’s out—if they do have guns, we’d be sitting ducks for them otherwise.”
Jason leaned back and watched out the window as they crept along. The road grew more bumpy and winding as it continued climbing up at a fairly steep grade. “Getting out of here when we’re done is gonna be fun,” he muttered to Stone.
“We’ll worry about that when we’re there,” the mage said. “Another reason to leave the Jeeps and walk the last bit—hopefully the Evil won’t find them and disable them.”
At their current speed, the trip was excruciatingly slow. Everyone strained their eyes out the front window to spot any potential hazards in the road, but so far the view was nothing but snow and trees. Jason kept glancing nervously off to either side, as if trying to detect any Evil lurking in the forest. So far, he’d seen nothing—even the deer and small animals seemed to be avoiding this place.
When the obstacle appeared it wasn’t at all subtle or hard to see. Sykes hit the brakes and stopped the Jeep in front of a large tree, over three feet in diameter, that had fallen across the road, blocking the entire passage.
“We’re not getting past that,” he said grimly. “No way we can move it. Unless you can magic it out of the way,” he added, twisting in his seat to face Stone.
“Sorry,” Stone said, shaking his head. “I might be able to move it, but it would take a lot out of me. I want to be fresh when we get up there.” He too glanced around now as Jason had been doing, scanning for potential ambushers. “We should get the Jeeps off the road and hide them if we can. If they do have anyone lying in wait, this is where they’ll know we had to stop. At least the trees are a bit sparser out here.”
Sykes got on his radio and relayed the plan to Jimmy, who backed his own Jeep down the road as far as he could before he hit a turn, then pulled it off into the trees. Sykes did likewise, and soon the two vehicles were parked, lights out, about fifty feet into the forest. “Everybody out,” Sykes said. “We walk from here.”
They gathered at the back end of Sykes’s Jeep and he handed out flashlights. “Don’t use these unless you have to,” he told them all. “For one thing we don’t know how long we’re gonna be here so we don’t want to run down the batteries, and more important, once they see our lights, they’ll know we’re coming. They might already know. So we don’t want to give ’em any targets. Dr. Stone, any other things we should know?”
“Stay together in small groups once we get to the town,” Stone said. “Don’t ever go off alone, but going in as a big group will only tip them off, I think. Mr. Sykes, have you got any rope, or large zip-ties?”
Jimmy answered. “Plenty of rope,” he said, heading to the other Jeep. He returned with two large coils. “Why?”
“Cut it up into sections about three feet long and give two or three to everyone.”
They all looked at him, confused—even Jason and Verity. “Why?”
“Remember—everyone we’ll encounter up here is a normal human being like you and me—they’re just possessed by the Evil. So I’d really like to avoid killing them if we can. Don’t put your own safety at risk—if it’s you or them, obviously you’ll do what you must. But if you can get the drop on anyone, knock them out, tie them up, and stash them somewhere. I’m hoping that Verity here will be able to deal with a few of them, and possibly get us some other allies who will fight on our side, or at least run away.”
Jimmy was already cutting up the rope, and Jason helped him hand out the sections as he prepared them.
Stone continued: “This is a very small town, right, Mr. Sykes?”
Sykes nodded. “Tiny. Even when it was normal, it only had maybe a hundred people. I’d be surprised if there were thirty up here now. They don’t come down often enough for supplies to support many more, especially in the winter, unless they’re going a lot further than the surrounding towns to get ’em. They can hunt up here and get water, but they’d need other supplies.”
“Perfect. So that means we won’t have that many of them to subdue. I’m hoping that at least some of them are at the cave since the portal is open. We don’t know how long it stays open, of course, but I’d imagine at least some of them would be interested.”
“What about the Evil coming through?” Verity asked.
“What about them? If I’m correct, they’ve got to have some sort of ‘protective coating’ that allows them to exist in our world until they commit to their first host. If that’s true, though, I don’t know how long it lasts. Either they’ll be hanging about or they’ll get out of there fast so they can go find somebody to possess. Either way they’re no threat, since we’ve all but proven that Forgotten can’t be possessed, and they haven’t had any luck with Jason or myself either. So their pickings up there will be slim. We’ll have to watch anyone you evict, though, Verity, to make sure they don’t get re-occupied.”
“Let’s get going,” Jason said. “It makes me nervous, just standing around here talking.”
They set off as a group, moving around the fallen tree. Sykes eyed it, frowning. “Yeah, this didn’t just fall. Look—it was cut, then pushed over the rest of the way.”
“How do they get to town, then?” Verity asked. “They can’t just move it out of the way, can they?”
“They probably have another way around it,” Jimmy said. “If we looked around a while we could probably find it and get the Jeeps in closer, but that would take time.”
“Let’s just hike,” Stone said. “The closer we get before they figure out we’re coming, the better. How far do you think it is, Mr. Sykes?”
Sykes considered. “Not too far. Maybe half a mile or so.”
Because the trees grew farther apart up here, they decided it would be safer to move off the road. It proved to be an unpleasant slog. The snow wasn’t deep, but rocks, fallen branches, and other obstacles covered the uneven ground, hard to see beneath the white blanket especia
lly in the moon’s scant light. The Harmony group mostly dealt well with it, but the three from California didn’t have it so easy.
“Careful, Jason,” Verity warned when he tripped over a root and nearly pitched headfirst into a tree. “You don’t want to mess up that knee again.”
Jason muttered something under his breath, but otherwise didn’t answer.
The night was cold and, aside from the group crunching its way through the snow, quiet. There were no sounds of birds or animals; it was as if the forest was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. Stone, Jason, and Verity trudged along, focused on the next steps, the spinning thoughts in their heads, and the constant low-grade stress of trying to look everywhere at once to spot potential ambushers. Jimmy and Sykes had taken the lead, the others falling into a slow, steady pace behind them.
“I think I see a light,” came Zoe’s soft voice after several minutes, from near the front of the group.
The others moved forward, spreading out and peering into the dimness in the direction she was pointing. “There,” Jason said, pointing, too.
“All right, then,” Stone said. “Let’s split up. Mr. Sykes, can you give us any idea of where the cave is from here? Will we have to go through the town to get to it?”
Sykes paused a moment to get his bearings, then pointed off toward the south. “It’s there,” he said. “If you skirt the edge of the town you’ll see a path heading off behind the church. Follow it up a hundred yards or so and you’ll get to the cave. Be careful, though. The trail’s pretty steep, and if they’re watching, they’ll be able to see you before you see them.”
Stone nodded. “We might be able to do this with minimal interaction with the town itself, then,” he said. “Here’s the plan: Jason, Verity, and I will head up toward the cave. Mr. Sykes, is the trail you refer to the only way up there?”
“Far as I know,” Sykes said. “Remember what I said, though—they could have made changes since I was here last.”
“Fair enough. The rest of you, come with us to the edge of the town, then spread out and find places to hide and keep watch with your weapons. If you see anyone trying to come up the path toward us, subdue them. Again, try not to kill anyone—aside from the fact that the vessels are innocent people, committing murder could cause quite a lot of trouble for your community. We’ll try to avoid that.” He paused, his gaze moving over the small group of Forgotten. “And listen to me: if things go badly awry, get yourselves out of there. I want your word on that. This isn’t your fight, and we’ve lost enough friends to the Evil without having to attend any more funerals. Get out—get help if you can, but don’t try to take them on yourselves if things go wrong. Do I have your word on that?”
Jimmy started to say something, but Stone cut him off. “Your word.”
Sykes sighed. “Yeah, okay. But we’re not gonna leave you here if we think there’s a way to get you out. And you’re not thinking of this: what if they’re all up there at the cave? There’s no way you’ll be able to handle them all on your own.”
“Well, we’re not planning on going up there with guns blazing,” Stone said. “We should be able to get close enough to tell whether they’re all there or not. If they are, we’ll come back down here and we can go up together. There won’t be much point in guarding the path up if they’re already there.”
That seemed to satisfy Sykes. “Okay, then. We’ll be down here if you need us. Any of you guys know how to do a bird call or something as a signal if you need help?”
“Er...no,” Jason said. “Sorry. Fresh out of bird calls.” Verity nodded agreement.
“I’ll send up a flare,” Stone said, holding up his hand so it glowed faintly with bluish magical fire. “If you see a blue flare, come up and help us. If you see a red one—get the hell out. Understood?”
“Got it,” Jimmy said. The others nodded.
They all set off, moving through the trees with Sykes in the lead. It wasn’t long before all of them could see the lights—just a few, dotted here and there among the dark rising forms of the town’s few buildings. Sykes held up his hand and motioned them farther south; they spread out more and kept hidden behind trees as much as possible. They couldn’t hide themselves completely—even those who were used to the area didn’t move noiselessly—but so far no one had heard or seen any sign of human habitation.
Jason half-wondered if they were on a wild-goose chase and the Evil had vacated this little town a long time ago—if they’d ever even been here in the first place. He realized how much hearsay and guesswork their plan depended on: most of what Stone hypothesized wasn’t based on anything more than educated guesses and his limited understanding of the information in Daphne’s notebooks. Not a lot to go on. More than we have otherwise, though, he reminded himself, trudging on.
“There’s the church,” Sykes whispered after they’d worked their way around about half of the town’s perimeter. He pointed at a single-story building with a steeply pitched roof and a tall steeple on the front. “The path should be close.”
He waved the others back, and he, Stone, Jason, and Verity moved forward, skirting the edge of the church. Sykes took the lead again, moving slowly and scanning the area for any sign of the narrow pathway. He stopped and touched Stone’s arm to stop him as well, then pointed. “There.”
They had to look hard to spot it: a narrow path leading up between some bare trees. “All right,” Stone whispered. “We’ll head up and see what’s going on up there. Look sharp and fire your gun if there’s trouble down here. Jason, Verity, move in close. I’m going to use the disregarding spell. It should allow us to get closer before they see us.”
“Good luck,” Sykes said, looking worried. He clapped Stone on the shoulder, nodded, and then moved off back toward the others.
Jason took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes,” he said. He and Verity moved in next to Stone, and the mage cast the spell over them, using one of the crystals he’d gotten from Madame Huan to help him maintain it. Together, they crept up the narrow path, keeping careful watch for anyone approaching from the sides.
The going was steep; Jason was glad it wasn’t far. His knee twinged a bit—not sufficiently to qualify as pain, but he could see how it might get that way soon if they had to walk too far up this rock-strewn ascent.
Verity seemed more stressed than the other two—her breathing came fast and she clutched Jason’s arm tightly. “You okay, V?” he whispered.
“Feel—weird.”
Stone stopped. “Weird? What sort of weird?”
“Hard to explain. Stressed. Like something’s trying to get into my head.”
“Are you okay to go on?” Jason asked, concerned. “Maybe you should go back down—”
“I don’t think that will help,” Stone said. “It’s probably from the portal. Verity, are you blocking?”
She nodded.
“Can you deal with it? I think it will get worse before it gets better, unfortunately.”
She nodded. “I—think so. It’s not too bad, just distracting.”
“All right, then.” He turned back and began creeping his way up the path again, and the others followed.
After about fifty more feet the trees opened up, revealing a clearing. “That’s it,” Jason whispered, pointing at something on the other side of it.
Stone nodded. It was hard to see in the dim light, but it was clear that on the far side of the small open area, the hillside began climbing at a much steeper incline than the one they had just ascended. A black opening loomed ahead of them, about half the height of a tall man and partially hidden by brush, skeletal tree limbs, and the remains of the boards that had been used to close it off from visitors.
“What’s that flickering?” Verity whispered. As the other two focused on the opening, they noted that she was right: something inside the cave indeed flickered faintly in the black mouth.
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“Good news,” Stone whispered back. “I think that means the portal’s still active.”
“Great,” Jason muttered.
“Well, it is great,” Stone said. “It’ll be a lot easier to close it if we can find it.”
“How are we gonna get in there without attracting attention, though?” Verity asked. “They’ve got the bottom part of it boarded up. What do they do, climb over?”
“I’m guessing they’ve probably rigged something with the boards,” Stone said. “We’ll—”
“Wait!” Jason whispered, cutting him off. “I saw something move!”
Stone fell silent and all three of them searched the area where Jason pointed, trying to spot movement. It didn’t take long. Crouched over near a large rock on the side of the cave opening closest to them was the tall, thin form of a man. As they continued to watch, a tiny light flared, moved upward, and then settled near the man’s head.
“Cigarette,” Verity whispered.
Stone shifted a bit to put more of the tree between himself and the man, peering out from behind it. “I wonder if there’s one on the other side as well.”
Jason looked around the other side of the tree. “Don’t see one—but that doesn’t mean he’s not there.”
“I don’t see any other auras,” Stone said.
“Can you knock him out magically?” Verity asked.
The mage nodded. “We’ll need to be ready, though—if there’s another one, we’ll have to get him before he raises an alarm.”
“Go ahead and do it,” Jason said. “I’ll keep a watch on the other side.”
Stone leaned out a little further so he could get a good view, then pointed his hand at the guard. In near silence, the man clutched his head and crumpled. As he dropped, Verity caught him and levitated him out of the way.