“Yeah, the impact was a couple of miles up so…”
“Yeah, I know about five seconds per mile,” I finished for him.
He chuckled. “If that doesn’t get Beast’s attention then we’re going to have to borrow Joe’s truck.”
“Unless you let him go through a portal, then he was bound to hear and see that. I think everyone between Pueblo and Castle Rock heard that blast and saw your firework,” Joe said as he walked down the steps from the porch to stand beside us.
“That’s the idea. Beast doesn’t normally go farther than he needs to in order to get a meal. With all the game around Cheyenne Canyon I would have thought he’d have heard the whistle,” Rafe said as he wound the hemp sling back around his left wrist.
“You never can tell about sounds up here. Some days I can hear trucks on the Interstate, and it’s more than five miles away. Other times I can’t hear anything but the wind in the trees. These mountains are old, and nature follows its own rules in their shadows,” Joe said.
Rafe turned and looked west toward Pikes Peak.
“There are our rides. I guess we won’t be needing your pickup, after all, Joe.”
I looked toward where Rafe had been looking and in a few seconds, I could see the shape of two hawks rising from farther down the mountains to our west. In a minute, the two hawks landed in front of us and dropped their glamours. Beast and Maia were here.
“What’s with the fireworks, Raphael? Is it time?” Beast growled.
“No, not our mission. A distraction. Someone has kidnapped Emily and Ashley. We’re going to get them back,” Rafe said.
I turned to Joe and stepped close enough to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Just in case we don’t get back anytime soon. It’s been great meeting you, Joe.”
The old Ute shaman smiled and then said something in what I took to be his original language. He touched the top of my head with his fingers, and I felt a small snap of energy.
“You two be safe now and come back to see me when you can. If I can help with the larger issue, I will. Now take care,” he said and turned toward his cabin.
I watched him for a moment, curious about the spell he’d cast and then set my saddlebags across Maia’s shoulders and mounted up. As soon as I was settled, Beast leapt into the night with Maia right behind him.
“Joe likes you,” Rafe said over the noise of beating wings.
“Oh?”
“That was a blessing he cast on you.”
“A blessing? Like when a priest blesses you?” I asked.
“Similar, except few priest can bless as effectively as Joe. You never know what form the blessing may take, it may be that you can’t get sick for the next year, but since Wanderers rarely get diseases, it probably won’t be that. It may give you luck or make you more charismatic until it wears off.”
“Charismatic? Like for instance…” I trailed off and waited for Rafe to explain.
He grinned at me. “Nah, couldn’t be that. You are already too charismatic for your own good.”
I waited, still expecting a better explanation, and then realized that Rafe had been paying me a compliment. Charismatic, eh? Well, well.
The flight across town took less than five minutes.
Landing behind my Aunts’ house, we dismounted our familiars. We climbed the steps to the deck, side by side, and at the top Rafe held out his hand. I clasped it in mine, and in a few seconds, we meshed. As our breathing, auras, and emotions merged, I saw through both our eyes, heard with both our ears, and smelled–you get the picture–Rafe already had his senses tat active and the night brightened to me until it was almost like daylight.
Lights were on in the house, but I heard nothing coming from inside. Rafe and I studied the back door and without warning, he triggered an energy blast into the lock. The steel core door bent as the lock tore free of the doorjamb.
“You could have checked if it was locked,” I said without malice.
Rafe shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me that your aunts’ would leave the back door unlocked. I guess next time I’ll have you check first.”
“Next time? You think we’ll be needing to break into their house again?”
“No, I meant the next time I’m going to force an entrance.”
He pushed the warped door the rest of the way open and stepped inside. I took a quick glance around the back yard, that blast wasn’t noiseless, but saw no sign of inquisitive neighbors.
“Holler if you see anyone,” I said to Maia.
“Yes, mistress.”
Mistress, me…it sounded weird, even coming from a hippogriff.
I followed Rafe inside. The back door opened into a mud room/laundry combination. Except for splinters from the doorjamb, the room was neat. No sign of a struggle. Rafe had already gone into the kitchen, and I hurried to keep up.
The kitchen had seen better nights. Several of Aunt Emily’s All-Clad pots and pans were strewn about the floor rather than hanging in their spots above the center island. A couple of jars had been shattered and flour decorated the side cabinet and part of the floor. I noticed the smell of cordite and then saw a Beretta semi-auto handgun against the molding on the left side of the kitchen. I bent to recover it while Rafe started down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
I sniffed the barrel. The Beretta had been fired recently. Pressing the magazine release dropped the thick, double-stack, .40-caliber magazine into my palm. I glanced at the back and saw that two rounds were missing from the ten it had started with. I decocked the hammer, clicked on the safety, re-inserted the magazine, and stowed the pistol in a jacket pocket.
Aunt Emily might find a use for it when we found them.
I took one more look around the kitchen, glanced into the living room–which was in a similar state as the kitchen–and hurried down the hallway after Rafe.
I found him in the master bath. He had two hairbrushes in his hands. It was obvious whose was whose.
“Either of these will work, but we’ll take both in case they aren’t being held together,” Rafe said as he handed me Emily’s brush.
I stowed it in an inside pocket, and we headed back for our familiars.
Once outside, Rafe handed me his grimoire. I held it on my palms, and he spoke to the book. The pages flipped past until the locator spell was facing up.
“Now read along with me and concentrate on the hair in the brush,” Rafe said.
Together we read the spell aloud and at its conclusion, there was a snap of energy. All of the hair floated off Ashley’s brush and wove itself into a small thread of hair. Immediately thereafter, a glowing arrow appeared around it. The arrow spun around twice and then pointed to the southeast.
“There’s our target,” Rafe said. “Mount up.”
In less than a minute, we were airborne again following the glowing arrow as it led us toward the bright lights of the airport.
Chapter 23
Raphael
The lights of the airport grew larger and more distinct as we followed the tracker’s arrow toward Tess’s Aunt Ashley. When we reached the airport perimeter, I had Beast and Maia fly parallel to the fence while I watched the arrow to see if would narrow the location down without us flying directly toward it. Even behind the hawk glamours of Beast and Maia, there was always a chance of detection by either magical or some technological means that I couldn’t fathom. It was safer to fly an obtuse path and only bore straight in as we neared their location.
It was well after midnight, and the airport terminal was practically deserted. To the east, on the Peterson AFB side of the runway, back from some mission or other, a C-130 taxied toward Base Operations. The drone of its turboprop engines was familiar to me from my youth. We often flew from one fire support base in Vietnam to another or on rare occasions, even down to Saigon or up to DaNang for a few days of rest between missions. I noticed that only two of the Herc’s engines were running as the pilot had shut the other two down to conserve fuel.
We were passing the fr
eight terminals when the tracker arrow began to rotate sharply, indicating we were passing the location of its quarry. I raised a hand toward Tess, but she had noticed the deviation and was staring down at the building we’d just passed.
“Beast, start to circle left and drop lower, but stay above the rooftops,” I said as I studied the building and the arrow.
Yes, it was definitely indicating that building, a hangar with a high arched roof and a smaller one-story rectangular building attached to its west side.
Lights were on throughout the smaller portion of the hanger, but the hanger itself was dark.
I considered having Beast set down on the tarmac right in front of the hangar doors, but if there were guards posted they’d probably hear the heavy beat of wings and be alert. I pointed past Beast’s head toward a row of small airplanes parked in front of the next hangar over. “There, put us down on the east side of those airplanes.”
Beast nodded and banked sharply. Maia and Tess followed closely, and the four of us were on the tarmac a few seconds later.
Tess had already slid to the pavement by the time I swung a leg over Beast’s neck and dropped to the ground. Tess drew my Colt from an interior pocket and left her crossbow strapped to her back.
“Beast, you and Maia take high cover and watch for any reinforcements or people trying to flee the building,” I said.
“And if we see anyone leaving?” Beast growled.
“One of you follow them until you find out where they’re going, and then come back here.”
“Agreed,” Maia said.
I held out my right hand, and Tess took it in her left. We meshed without speaking.
As soon as the meshing was complete, I thought: *We want to go in quiet. Switch to the crossbow until stealth no longer matters.*
*When will that be?* Tess thought back to me.
*I think you’ll have no trouble deciding when. If we can, we need to find your Aunts before anyone detects us. I don’t want them to have a chance to hold them hostage.*
*Agreed,* Tess said as she released my hand. She pocketed the Colt and un-slung the crossbow.
She hadn’t had a lot of practice with the bow, but the beauty of crossbows was that they were aimed just like a rifle. Except for more drop at longer ranges, the bolts flew a nearly flat trajectory. She would have no trouble nailing a target inside the building’s confines.
I cast a glamour that would have us looking like a couple of security cops, and we started to stroll down the line of airplanes. We didn’t rush, that would interfere with the glamour since security cops didn’t run unless they were responding to something.
As we passed the last of the Lear business jets, I notice a couple of heat sources in the shadows of the open hangar doors.
*Do you spy what I see?*
*Two guards?* Tess asked.
*Looks like it. We’ll continue on our path and angle slightly toward them. My sleep spell is good for about fifty feet. When we get that close, I’ll drop them, and we’ll move directly inside.*
*Got it, Boss.*
I grinned. Tess was cute when she was being all serious like.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t concerned. The people who had ambushed us in Raton were as mundane as it gets. Unless they had hired some magical help, they wouldn’t be any trouble. We’d just stroll in, take the ladies, and be gone before anyone knew we were there. Once they were safe, I’d think of something to dissuade these people from ever interfering in Wanderer business again. It shouldn’t take much.
As we neared the open hangar doors, the two guards rose to their feet and became alert. They were carrying weapons that resembled my old M-16 and I assumed it would be some Colt variant of the original.
About fifty feet away from them, I activated my sleeper tat and focused on the two guards. As usual, they dropped instantly. The sound of their bodies dropping to the pavement was a meaty thump.
“Two down, I wonder how many to go,” I said cheerfully.
“We’re no longer being quiet?” Tess asked.
I shrugged. “If they have two guards on this entrance, odds are there’s a central security desk somewhere where someone is watching cameras. They’re bound to notice these two falling asleep on the job. I expect we’ll have company shortly.”
I felt Tess activate her shield tattoo and nodded in approval. It was good to see her thinking ahead. I activated my own and placed it outside the hemisphere of Tess’s.
“You can switch back to the pistol if you’re more comfortable with it,” I said.
“I’ll keep the crossbow ready for now, but I’ll switch to the Colt if this becomes a firefight. Faster firing speed,” she added.
We reached the hangar doors, and I raised a fist to have Tess hold up until I had a chance to study the interior before venturing inside. After all, this could be a trap. The hangar held one C-130–a G model, I thought–a couple of black SUVs and a limo that had once been a Hummer. Assorted rolling equipment–APUs, HVACs, and the like–lined either side wall. I examined the far wall, half expecting more guards to show up at any second. As far as I could tell, we were alone except for the two sleeping men.
I bent down next to the guards and collected their rifles and the sidearms that were in kidney holsters.
I stacked the weapons together on the concrete floor and then activated my force tat. The blast of energy that struck out from my right palm slammed into the weapons. The sounds of shattering plastic and bending metal echoed through the large hangar.
“Okay, they won’t be using these again,” I said. I motioned Tess to follow.
We were half way across the hangar floor, just passing beneath the wingtip of the C-130 when I noticed my vision darkening. It was a warning. There was no way my vision should be darkening when my enhanced senses tattoo was active. Something was seriously wrong.
I felt no other sensation of danger, but I hadn't survived so many fights without recognizing when I was screwed.
I moved my shield to a tight oval around me and raised my right palm to face Tess. Her eyes widened as I triggered my force tat and yelled, “Run!”
My blast caught her shield, and the last thing I saw was her flying out of the hangar before the concrete floor rushed up to meet me.
Chapter 24
Therese
Airborne, my shield switched from a hemisphere to a complete sphere in time to protect me when I struck the tarmac twenty yards outside the massive hangar doors. I rolled off the tarmac and onto the brown grass that grew between the taxiway and the runway. Getting my feet under me, I stared back toward the hangar.
I’d lost the meshing with Rafe, but it wasn’t his assault on me that caused it. He’d blacked out. My nerves were jittery, and my pulse thundered in my ears. Without his enhanced senses the interior of the hangar was nearly pitch black. I raised the crossbow to my shoulder and started back toward the hangar. I stumbled a little. I was woozy, and I couldn’t understand why. I took deep breaths, filling my lungs with the cold night air. I could smell diesel and JP-4 or -5, but nothing else that could have caused my sudden wooziness or Rafe’s collapse.
There was an electric whine inside the hangar as huge fans began to spin up.
I took another step toward the dark hangar and stopped. Green pulsing lasers played off the C-130 and then concentrated on a spot beneath the starboard wing.
Frak!
Turning, I followed Rafe’s last instruction and started to run back down the line of airplanes toward Beast and Maia.
My steps, ragged at first, grew stronger with each stride. By the time I reached the disguised familiars, I was running smoothly with no sign of my earlier trouble.
“What’s wrong?” Beast asked as I reached them. “Where’s Rafe?”
“He’s down,” I answered, canceling my shield. I grabbed Rafe’s saddlebags from Beast and then taking a handful of Maia’s neck feathers in my left hand, I swung onto her shoulders. “It was a trap. Some kind of gas knocked him out. He blasted me out o
f the hangar and told me to run.”
“And you left him?” Beast growled.
“Maia, up,” I ordered and held on to both our saddlebags and her neck feathers as she blasted into the night.
Beast launched immediately behind us, and by the time we reached a thousand feet of altitude, he was flying beside us.
“That’s high enough. Circle the hangar where Rafe is and watch for movement,” I said. I slung the crossbow and stared down at the flight line.
“I don’t see anything outside the building, but the hangar doors are closing,” Maia said.
Maia had much better eyesight than either Beast or I.
As we curved farther east, she added, “There are multiple humans inside the hangar. They’re all carrying weapons.”
“Can you see Rafe?”
“No, there’s no sign of him. He must be farther back,” Maia said.
We circled the building, half gliding for at least five minutes. There was still no sign of movement on the outside. It had taken the doors at least half of that time to close, but now the building looked dead except for the lights in the small annex at the rear of the hangar.
“How are we going to rescue him?” Beast growled.
“I don’t know. I need to think,” I replied.
What the hell could I do alone? If Rafe could be captured by these people, then what use was his apprentice? I needed help. A lot of help. The only people I knew were in in that building, except for Joe, but Joe was an old man. Could he really help? Well, if not help, maybe he could at least advise me on what I could do.
“Beast, you stay here and watch. We’ll go see Joe. I’m going to need his advice,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just break into the building and get Rafe?” Beast growled.
“With Rafe unconscious, there’s no way the three of us can get him out. They must have wanted him alive so we have some time before whatever gas they used wears off. That should give me time to consult with Joe and plan a rescue. Beast, is there any way they can hold him if he’s conscious?”
Wanderers 3: Garden of The Gods (The Wanderers) Page 25