My stomach settled, we moved towards the pen again, but I was already was certain of what we’d find. There hadn’t been a single living creature in the parts of the pen I’d been able to reach. A faint, familiar ozone smell began to itch at my nostrils, a tangy scent that made them itch with every breath. Magic.
As we drew closer to the fence, the feeling of revulsion started up once more, helped along by more than just the oily feeling in the air. Felix let out a dismayed cry as the first of his cows came into view, its large, still form motionless on the ground. I didn’t need to step into the pen to know that the results would be the same for the rest of the herd. It hadn’t been a single action this time. This had been a slaughter.
And I knew how it had happened. As Rocke’s face narrowed in grim determination, I realized he did, too. There was only one thing that left such an oily stain, only one type of magic that could be such an antithesis of life.
Necromancy.
* * *
“Ya alright?” I looked up from my glass as Felix slid into a seat across from me, his face creased with worry.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, slowly spinning the thick, cool glass I’d cupped in my hands. I took a sip, cold water rushing down my throat and pulling away some of the sick aftertaste left by my own vomit. “At this point my mouth feels worse than anything else. I hate that taste.”
Felix nodded, though he still didn’t look convinced. “You sure? That seemed like a pretty nasty, uh, whatever you’d call it.” He shifted in his seat, glancing through the kitchen window towards the back end of his property where we’d left the corpses of his herd. Rocke was still out there, poking around as the morning sun began to crest over the horizon. I couldn’t quite make him out at the distance we were at, not in the partial sunlight, but I could see the trail that led to the pens, a winding, tan snake that bent its way up the hill.
“What was all that, anyhow?” Felix asked. At his feet, Mercury let out a little whine. She’d smelled the scent of the pens on me as soon as I’d come into the house.
“Bad reaction,” I said, lifting my glass again. This time, I swished the water around in my mouth before swallowing, trying to pick up as much of the sour taste as I could. It tasted terrible, but I didn’t feel like walking over to the sink to spit it out. I was still too shaky.
“You heard what Rocke said, right?” I said before Felix could ask me to clarify. “Necromancy. Death magic. It’s the kind of stuff you don’t want to mess with. Did you feel that slimy, slick sensation moving across your soul, like a tarry oil that would never leave?” I took another sip from my glass as Felix nodded.
“That’s necromancy,” I said. “For Rocke, or you, the feelings not too bad. For me?” I rose up enough to tap myself in the chest. “I’m a shaman. Life is my specialty. Life and death, they’re opposites. You get something that twists the natural energies of things in such an unnatural way, and it’s … a bad reaction. We don’t mix.”
“Kinda’ like opposin’ magnets?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Except we don’t push against each other, just react. So, take what you felt and multiply it a few times.” Another sip, finally tasting more like water and less like sick. About time; my glass was almost empty, and Felix had given me the largest one he had.
“Well hell, Hawke. I’m sorry—”
I waved a hand and shook my head.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s not something I can’t handle. I just needed a bit to get over the shock.” I leaned back, resting my shoulders against the back of the bar stool as I searched my mind for a good analogy. “It’s like stepping into a walk-in freezer right from being out in the summer sun,” I said. “Or worse, jumping into ice-cold water—so cold it’s freezing—right after running and getting really hot and sweaty. Does that make sense?”
“Eeyup, I reckon it does,” he said with a nod. “A bit of a shock to the system, right?”
I nodded. “I’ve had it catch me off-guard before,” I said, thinking back to when Rocke and I had tracked down the rogue necromancer living near me. “Once I know what to expect, it isn’t so bad, but …” I shrugged. “It’s just a downside, I guess you could say. I’ll be fine in a bit.”
“Right,” Felix said, his stool screeching against the floor as he pushed it back and stood. “Ya want a refill?”
“I’m fine,” I said, shaking my head. The sticky, sickly feeling had mostly faded, along with it the shaking. It was mostly nerves now.
“I’m going back out to the pen, then,” Felix said, crouching and giving Mercury a quick scratch below the ears. “Damn whatever-it-is, killing my whole herd,” I heard him mutter as he headed out the back door, slamming the screen behind him with a bang. There was a lake of seething anger buried under his statement, one I couldn’t disagree with. Whatever we were facing had killed every one of his remaining animals in one swift strike. I’d have been angry, too.
As it was, I was more than a little scared. I hadn’t lied about shamanistic talents being the opposite of necromantic magic. I’d just … omitted a little. Like how strong the necromantic energies I’d felt were compared to what I’d encountered before. That, and that alone, was what kept my legs shaking. I’d only encountered necromancy once before, and the sense of wrongness there had been bad. This had felt far worse. If my one encounter before was a pond, this was a lake—a surging abyss of foul, black tar that wanted to sweep over everything around it and squeeze out every bit of good.
I’d already thought about calling the NSAU. In fact, it had been the first thing on my mind after I’d stopped throwing up. Well, next to getting away from the pen as quickly as possible. The only reason I hadn’t made the call yet was because Rocke was still out there. If anyone had the authority to make the call, it was him.
Even so … I downed the last of my glass, tipping the bottom end of the cup up in the air and leaning back in my seat. Part of me wanted to pull my phone out of my pocket right there, call the number on my license, and request some serious backup.
But I didn’t, the more rational part of my mind holding onto what I’d told Felix a few moments earlier. It was like jumping into ice-cold water—and in my case, for the first time in almost a year. There was a pretty good chance that I was just taking it hard.
My glass empty, I pushed it aside and began to tap my fingers on the countertop. The last traces of oily wrongness had faded from my system, but the nervous energy remained, a quivering need to do … I wasn’t sure, but anything to get my mind to relax.
Something warm rubbed against my leg, and I looked down to see Mercury press her head up to my leg, her big round eyes filled with worry. I bent down and stroked her head, feeling her quiver under my palm. She was terrified.
I glanced toward the pen once more, catching sight of Felix as he made his way up the path. I didn’t see Rocke coming down yet, and I didn’t know how long he’d be up there. But if it was much longer, I would probably have to head back up myself.
Felix had already called the mine and told them he wouldn’t make in. He’d phoned the local authorities, too, though I hadn’t been privy to what he’d told them. They hadn’t come screaming up the drive, though, so they were probably busy with their missing person anyway.
There’s something here, I thought as I pushed myself away from the kitchen island, Mercury sticking close to my feet as I carried my glass over to the kitchen. Something we’re not seeing. Chupacabras, missing people, a dead client, Rocke tied up in the desert, cows drained of every drop of blood. There has to be some link here, something we’re missing. And then there was everything going on with Henderson Mining. Was it related? A coincidence? I couldn’t even start to see Henderson as the one behind everything, but could he have some idea of where the chupacabras were coming from? If he did, why hide it?
We’re missing some clue, some little detail. Something! I thought as I stepped back over to the table. We had to be. Unrelated or not, nothing we were seeing made sense, but
it had to at some point.
I didn’t see Rocke heading down yet, so I decided to make myself useful—or as useful as it was possible for a humane pest control worker to be in the situation—and take a look at our maps. I wouldn’t be much good up at the pen, so I could try to do something, at least.
Mercury waited by the door as I made my way down to the Rover, half-grateful for the leftover bits of adrenaline in my system but also half-wishing that they were gone so I could calm down. I grabbed the maps and started back toward the house, my mind racing.
One question that was still on my mind was what had happened to all that blood? My internet search a few days ago had turned up the interesting tidbit that a cow had around twelve gallons of blood. Whatever had attacked Felix’s herd had killed and drained five. I did some quick mental calculations as I spread the maps out across the table. Whatever we were facing had taken roughly sixty gallons, an incredible amount of blood, especially considering the amount of time that had transpired. And I was willing to bet my Rover that Rocke wouldn’t have found a drop when he came back down.
One more mystery to answer, I thought as I finished spreading out my map of the valley. Dozens of circles stared up at me, and I dutifully picked up a nearby pen and wrote down the date next to Felix’s home. What was the pattern?
When nothing jumped out at me, I turned my attention to Rocke’s map, the one with the locations of all the mineshafts that the city knew about. The map had changed since I’d last looked at it—red X’s had been drawn over a number of the exits, although there was no explanation noted anywhere. Rocke must have made the modifications the night before, after we’d finished with the police. The opening we had found on Mrs. Fimmlewit’s property didn’t have an X, so I assumed that they probably denoted shafts that were sealed.
From there, I started comparing the attacks I’d recorded on my map to the open shafts. It wasn’t exactly the most accurate work. The maps were both drawn to different scales, which led to a bit of guesswork on my part, and Rocke’s map was only a record of the shafts presently known. I had no way of knowing when or where any of the shafts near old attacks in the city had been sealed off.
Still, if I assumed that our mysterious predator and the chupacabras were both making use of the mineshafts, things matched up pretty well. There were quite a few older attacks near shafts that were marked as sealed, but since I had no way of knowing when they had been closed up, it was safest to believe that the closest shafts were the most likely culprits.
I finished my analysis but didn’t feel as if I’d accomplished much. All I’d really done was confirm that the closest mineshaft to Felix’s home was the one at Mrs. Fimmlewit’s. I began to drum my fingers on the countertop once more, staring down at the tangled string of crisscrossing lines in front of me. There had to be something I could do, some angle to consider …
The back door opened with a metallic squeak and Rocke walked in, his boots leaving small puffs of dust on the tile. He met my stare and gave his head a small, side-to-side shake.
“Nothing,” he said as he walked over to the sink and grabbed his own glass from the cupboard. “Absolutely nothing.” He took a long drink of water, gulping down the whole glass before setting it in the sink. “Five dead cows, no blood, a stink of necromancy that’s already fading, and nothing else. No footprints, no runes. Nothing.” He let out a sigh as he turned and leaned against the counter. “Got any ideas?”
“Call the NSAU?” I suggested.
To my surprise, Rocke gave me a slow nod.
“I think I will, regardless of what we’re into,” he said. “I’ve seen some interesting stuff before, but that?” He waved his empty glass toward the far-off pen. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I’m not sure I’d call it ‘interesting,’” I said, my stomach making a little twitch at the reminder. “‘Horrifying’ is more like it.”
“Right,” Rocke said as he pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’m going to call it in, then let the cops and sheriff’s department know. See if you can’t think of anything we haven’t checked into.” I gave him a nod as he walked back out of the house, the screen door slamming shut behind him. A moment later he started speaking, his words muffled. He must have called the emergency hotline.
Think of anything else? I thought as I turned back to the maps. Like what? We had a complete mystery on our hands, something unheard of. Something that struck like a ghost—Or maybe a wraith. But not just a wraith. What about the Wraith? The town’s urban legend?
But that didn’t make any sense. The Wraith was just a story, something passed down as a spooky story to make sense out of the people that disappeared from time to time. Based on a legend from the natives who had owned the land.
A legend.
There were a lot of legends out there in the world, most of which you could dismiss as outright fiction. But if you dug deep enough, there was usually a grain of truth to them. I stared down at the maps, too wrapped up in my thoughts to think much of the various lines and paths. What if this was one of those cases? What if there was a grain of truth to all those stories, to the old native legend?
I shook my head. No, I thought. That can’t be it. First of all, if the Wraith was real, why would it be attacking people so brazenly now? What was different? What had changed?
My eyes flitted over the maps once more, searching almost aimlessly before settling on one of the lines marking property that had been sold back to the city. I followed the mine’s southward expansion, my eyes jumping miles down the map.
“The mine …” I said out loud as I bent down over the map. The expansion of the mine! How had I never looked? I began to pore over the map, following each line marking the mine’s territory. When Cynthia had first given me the map, she’d scrawled down dates marking the years that the company had purchased the land. And, like a fool, I’d never once looked at them. I found one of the earliest purchases, noted the date in my head, and checked the dates of the older chupacabra attacks.
The years matched. My fingers darted downward, my eyes moving back and forth as I searched for the next major land purchase. There! I marked the date with my finger, and jumped back up to the city with my other hand, checking the next row of chupacabra attacks. I found the date and checked back against the other map, eyes jumping between the two, double and triple-checking the years. The dates were the same.
“Of course!” I said, smacking the table with my palm. “Of course!” I felt like an idiot for having never compared the dates. “Habitat disruption!” There was a metallic squeal behind me as someone came through the door.
“What?” Rocke asked, stepping up alongside the map. “What disruption?”
“It’s habitat disruption!” I said, tapping my finger against one of the property dates. “I never thought to look, but the dates match. Look!” I tapped the earliest arc of attacks. “This whole time I was distracted. I was looking at the wrong pattern! The attacks don’t just move south with the growth of the city,” I said, moving my finger to the matching date where the mine had annexed another piece of the valley. “They move south every time the mine does!”
For a moment Rocke stared down at the map, eyes narrowing as they darted between the two dates. Then he took a step back, shaking his head in disbelief. “Holy freg.”
“I know,” I said, nodding. “We completely missed it.” Rocke’s eyes continued to dart up and down, checking each set of dates. “That’s the cause. The mine expands, moves south, disturbs the chupacabras, and they start looking for food. After a bit, things settle, and they stop bothering the town. It adds up. Every year the mine claims new ground, there’s an attack.”
“Except this time.”
“What?”
“Check the dates,” Rocke said, tapping the map. “The mine hasn’t expanded since the last attacks seven years ago. If they’d bought this land this year, then we’d have a reason for the attacks. He moved his finger to the three sections marked “pending survey rep
ort.”
I frowned. He was right. The theory matched up in everything save the latest case. “Maybe it’s the survey that disturbs them?”
Footsteps thumped across the back porch, and Rocke and I paused as the back door swung open once again, admitting a sullen-looking Felix, his glower speaking volumes through his silence. He glanced at us, then stepped over to the fridge, his boots landing on the floor with a far heavier tread than necessary. He opened and closed the fridge door, the sharp crack of a soda can opening splitting the room as Felix turned to face us.
We must have been staring at him, because he raised one eyebrow at us. “What?”
“You work at the mine,” Rocke said.
“Not today, I don’t,” Felix said, his drawl making his words sound—however impossibly—a little rougher than they would have been otherwise. “I called in and told ‘em I couldn’t make it, on account of all this.” He leaned to one side and spit into the sink, the loud, wet smack rolling through the house. “I’ve gotta get each of those cows either frozen or butchered.”
“But you know about how the mine purchases new land, right?” Rocke asked, not missing a beat.
“Sure,” Felix said with a shrug. It musta’ been about a decade or so last they did it. Why?”
“Are they getting ready to buy some more?”
Felix shook his head, an amused grin on his face that quickly vanished. “Nah, they’ve been puttin’ it off for a while now. Course, I only hear what comes down through the grapevine, but from what I’ve heard, they haven’t even started the survey work yet.”
That caught my attention. “Hold on a second.” Both Rocke and Felix looked at me. “When I was at the mine the other day, Henderson had a bunch of survey reports on his desk.”
“So?” Felix asked with a shrug, crouching to give Mercury a scratch behind the ears.
“So if the surveys haven’t been done, why are there reports on his desk?”
Felix offered me a second shrug. “No idea. Maybe my info is out of date. Or maybe they were old reports.”
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