Julianne sent the answer in a series of images, thoughts, and memories. They were getting better at communicating this way—to Julianne, it was almost like talking to another mystic, though Marcus couldn’t initiate the conversation himself.
She showed him that Tabitha was a small, orange fox. The animal had adopted Rhea while she was practicing her newfound skill on it, their bond deepening while Rhea trained her nature magic with Mathias.
Now, the animal acted as Rhea’s familiar, though Mathias had mentioned the bond was different to those he’d seen back home.
Mathias and Jakob said a subdued farewell and left together. Once they were gone, Francis took in a deep breath, then gagged.
“Oh, Bastard. Shouldn't have done that.” There were still several puddles of regurgitated bile in the grass nearby.
“I’m just glad Jakob came back,” Bastian said. “Samuel wouldn’t have made it out if he hadn’t.”
“You were doing great!” Danil exclaimed, clapping Bastian on the back. “The level of skill and depth of power you displayed was… well, dare I say it… almost as good as I’d have done!”
Bastian punched Danil lightly on the shoulder.
“Just remember to take it easy for a few days,” Julianne reminded Bastian. “You were pushing right up against your limit there. I don’t need you burning out on me, ok?”
Bastian nodded, then winced. “With a head like this, I don’t think I’ll even be tempted to cast a spell anytime soon.”
“A head as ugly as that should ache,” Danil quipped. “Anyway, there’s nothing we can do here. I’m going back to Tahn before I lose any appetite I have left.”
He swung around and planted a foot down with a wet squelch. Danil froze.
“Uhh… guys?” A sickly green color washed over his face. “Tell me I didn’t just stand in Jakob’s breakfast.”
“What the fuck is that smell? Ye been guttin’ week-old fish here or somethin’?” Bette stomped up the trail towards Danil, Garrett following close behind.
She looked down. “Ye seem to have a bit o’ chuck on yer boots, lad.”
Danil fled, and Julianne had to shield against the wave of sympathetic nausea that trailed behind him.
“Bette, I’m glad you came,” Julianne said. “Sorry about the stink—Jakob’s breakfast didn’t agree with him.”
“Agree with him?” Garrett chortled. “It looks like it beat him up from the inside, then punched him in the face on the way out.”
“Please,” Marcus gasped, one hand over his nose and mouth. “I’ve been sucking in that stink for an hour. If we keep talking about it, I’m going to join him.”
“Just my luck to be stuck with a bunch of sympathetic spewers,” Julianne said. “But we do have more important things to talk about. Come and look at the damage to those posts.”
She led the rearick over to the chewed beams. “Do you have any idea what could have done this?”
“Beaver,” Garrett said proudly. “Did I get it right?”
Julianne shook her head. “Not this much damage. It was fine yesterday, and two have been cut right through.”
“Are ye thinkin’ our wee rift bastards are the culprits?” Bette asked. “Surely they’d be too small.” She chewed her lip, then darted a glance at Garrett.
Garrett caught the look and sucked on a wisp of beard, frowning.
“You know something,” Julianne stated flatly.
“Well… not really,” Garrett began.
Julianne raised her eyebrows. “Then tell me what you ‘don’t really’ know.”
“Well, we didn’t really believe him, ye see,” Bette began.
“Aye. Gerard was already toshed when he said he saw it—” Garrett butted in.
“And ye know how Gerard is, eh? Shitfaced an hour after his shift and can’t remember his own way home,” Bette finished.
They both fell silent.
“And what did Gerard possibly, but maybe not see?” Julianne prodded.
“A vark!” Garrett said.
Julianne frowned, waiting. When no response seemed imminent, she said, “Varks have been coming through for weeks. What was special about this vark?”
“Oh, yeah!” Bette exclaimed. “He said it were big as a wee dog. Or, he said a ‘wee little dog’ but he did this with his hands.” She raised her hands above her head to indicate an object quite a bit taller than herself. “That’d be a pretty bloody big dog.”
“And he couldn’t even tell us if it were a wee dog,” Garrett said, levelling his hand as high as his knee, “Or a big fuckin’ beast.” He raised his hands like Bette had.
“So, what did you do?” Marcus asked. He had his hands on his hips and a stern expression.
Bette shrugged. “We went for a look. There was no sign of a wee-giant beastie. No footprints, but it was rainin’, so maybe they washed away. No branches broken, nothin’ disturbed.”
Garrett shook his head. “I don’t think Gerard’s imaginary friend was the cause of the damage here, lass. He’s a good man and was a fine soldier, but when a man has his snout in a vat of rum, there’s no tellin’ what he’ll think he sees.”
“He was a good soldier?” Julianne asked.
“Aye.” Bette’s face dropped. “It gutted the poor bastard, but he knew the bloody rule. No booze when yer on a shift. We don’t even allow it near the rift—last thing we need is a bunch of drunks stumbling around if a real wee-giant beastie pops through.”
Marcus sighed. “She’s right, Jules. Any soldier worth his salt knows not to mix drink and duty.”
“Fair enough,” Julianne said. “But I still think there might be something to this. I need to speak to Gerard.”
They headed back towards the horses, though Bastian took some coaxing to leave the flat rock he was comfortably leaning on.
“Come on, Bastian,” Julianne urged. “You’ll feel better once you’ve got a nice, soft mattress under you.”
He allowed her to help him stand but couldn’t resist throwing one last glance back at the carnage that had been the beginnings of his new school.
“Julianne…” he began, then shook his head. “Never mind.”
“What is it?” she asked, hesitant to dive into his mind after it had been so overworked.
He paused again, looking towards the chewed-up stumps. “The posts that were damaged… it was only four. And only the four that could cause an accident like that. Any other beam or post, and it wouldn’t have caused anything like that…”
A cold shudder crawled down Julianne’s back. “You think those spots were targeted deliberately?”
Bastian laughed nervously. “Crazy, right? Guess I lost a few screws when I pushed too hard.”
Julianne wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I trust your instincts, Bastian. You should, too.”
He gave her a wavering smile before climbing on her horse. Julianne mounted behind him and called to Marcus, who was waiting patiently ahead. “Ready to go?”
Marcus grinned and kicked his horse.
“Now,” Julianne muttered, glad to have a course of action ahead. “Let’s go speak to Gerard.”
Chapter Twenty
Gerard opened the door, his eyes bright and clear but shadowed by dark rings.
“Master Julianne! Master Bastian, please, do come in.”
He ushered the mystics past without greeting Marcus—to the soldier, he just ducked his head and scurried away.
Inside, Gerard’s little cottage was immaculately clean, if a little drab around the edges. His ageing curtains had moth-eaten holes in them, and the old table he gestured for them to sit at had scratches and bumps from years of use.
Despite the worn appearance of his decor, nothing sat out of place. A set of open shelves framing the window displayed carefully stacked crockery that sparkled in the afternoon light filtering through the spotless glass of the window.
Even the faded rug was free of dirt. The scent of fresh lemons prickled Julianne’s nose.
“Who does your cleaning?” she asked, impressed.
Gerard chuckled awkwardly. “Me, Master. Last ten days I’ve been… Well, I guess you know I’m off the guard. But I’ve been cleaning up, in more ways than one.” His eyes slid towards Marcus and quickly darted away again. Then, he heaved a deep and meaningful sigh.
“You’ve been keeping yourself busy, then,” Marcus said with an easy tone. He recognized the embarrassment on Gerard’s face—he’d seen it more than once on a recruit who’d screwed up badly enough to lose a position.
Gerard nodded.
“And you’ve been off the drink?” Marcus guessed.
Gerard nodded again.
“I’m sure Bette will be glad to hear it,” Bastian said. “But we’re not here for that.”
Gerard’s expression brightened. “You’re here about the beast! I knew you’d come.”
“You knew?” Julianne pressed.
Gerard nodded. “Beast that big can’t vanish forever. I knew it’d be back, and when it was, you’d come looking for me.”
Bastian leaned forwards. “How can you be so sure you saw anything?” He left the last part off—how could Gerard be sure of anything if he’d been steaming drunk?
“I know what you think.” Gerard leaned back, hooking his fingers in his belt. “I know I did wrong, but I wasn’t drunk! Even I wouldn’t stoop so low.”
“You… weren’t?” Marcus asked skeptically.
Gerard shook his head. “Oh, I smelled like I was. And yeah, I was late for my shift, and after I saw the bastard creature I was too busy pissing myself to talk sense—but I wasn’t drunk!”
“Why wouldn’t you tell Bette that?” Suspicion creased Marcus’s brow into a frown.
Gerard shrugged. “I wasn’t drunk, but I was hungover. Not much better, is it?”
Julianne narrowed her eyes. “There’s an easier way to go about this.” She held up her hands towards Gerard’s face, expecting him to pull away.
Instead, his eyes lit up. “You’ll read my memory?”
Julianne nodded. “With your permission.”
She didn’t need the physical contact, but over her many years as a mystic, she’d found people accepted her magic easier if they didn’t have to think about how easy it was for her to slip into their minds from a distance. Julianne’s eyes glowed softly.
Marcus watched, arms folded. Though his first instincts told him Gerard was lying, something didn’t sit right. The man was too eager to let the mystic investigate him, and besides, this was Gerard—Marcus knew he drank like a fish, but he’d never seen him turn up to patrol drunk.
Julianne’s eyebrows shot up, and she gasped in surprise. Then, grinning, she turned to Marcus and Bastian. “He spilled rum on his shirt and forgot to wash it. He wasn’t drunk… a little hungover, but not drunk.”
Her face fell slack again, and she probed further. Marcus tracked the set of her face—smooth and young, and trained to hide emotion, she still read like an open book to him.
There it was—the barest twitch of a brow, and the tiniest pull to one corner of her mouth. Julianne was worried. A brief, shallow flicker of her jaw made Marcus’s heart speed up. She was really worried.
“What is it?” he asked a bare moment before her eyes cleared.
“Gerard did see something,” she said quietly.
She waved her hands and whispered. An image appeared in the middle of the room. It was Gerard, watching the rift. Soft rain made the image hazy.
He was distracted, pacing and looking towards the trees. Twice, he stopped and placed a hand on his stomach.
“The others were patrolling for remnant,” Julianne explained softly. “Three burst into camp. Gerard was supposed to go with them, but his hangover was making him feel ill. He bribed Lewis to swap stations.”
Gerard—the real one—nodded. “If I’d sucked it up and gone out, Lewis would’ve been the one to see the beast. They’d have believed him.”
Julianne touched his arm. “What’s passed has passed. All you can do is learn from it.”
Marcus jabbed a finger at the still-moving illusion. “Look, something’s coming through.”
Image-Gerard had turned to rest his head against a tree trunk. The rift flickered and swelled, edges puffing out and twisting into impossible shapes.
The weapon came out first. A sharp, jagged blade, wickedly curved and shimmering like finely polished glass.
The beast that followed was more man than animal. Oddly proportioned and clad head to toe in armor, it shoved through the pulsing doorway and tumbled from the rift, landing on hands and knees in the mud.
Gerard watched, awe-struck as the invader stood on two feet and turned back to the rift. It reached in, then heaved back, pulling something with it.
A terrified Gerard scurried back into the trees, then fled. The image dissolved.
“How?” Gerard whispered. “I didn’t see all that. I was too scared, too hungover.”
“You saw it,” Julianne said. “But terror and a healthy respect for your sanity made you forget the details, blurred out the worst parts.”
Tears shined in Gerard’s eyes. “I knew I wasn’t crazy. But I swear on the honor of the Queen Bitch herself, I’m never going to touch a drop of alcohol again.”
Bastian cleared his throat. “This is bad, Master Julianne.”
Marcus nodded. “It’s world-ending. If Gerard gives up drinking, who am I going to spend my nights with?”
Julianne thwacked his arm, and he winced. “Gerard, you’re doing the right thing, and if anyone—” she darted a glance at Marcus “—fucks this up for you, I’ll rain fire on them.”
Gerard swallowed and nodded. His awed expression suggested he was just a little afraid that fire might rain on him if he fucked it up himself.
“As to that?” She waved a hand at where her illusion had stood moments before. “We need to close the portal and hunt down that alien creature, and whatever it brought through with it.”
“Sure,” Bastian said skeptically. “We’ll just shut it. No big deal. It’s only a doorway formed by impossible technology and powered by Bitch-knows-what, manned by giant clobbering monsters who want us all dead…”
Julianne grinned. “Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
Marcus chuckled. “This is going to be a blast.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I appreciate you both coming to warn me,” Annie said. “I just wish there were something I could do to help.” She patted Ardie, who was nestled in a small bowl full of paper scraps on the table.
“You’re more than welcome, Annie,” Danil said. “But are you sure you won’t move in closer to town for a bit?”
Annie darted a glance to the window, then wiped her hands nervously on her apron.
Julianne eyed the apron curiously. Something very unusual was going on.
“Annie,” she asked. “Are those frills on your apron?” She didn’t mention the lacy trim on Annie’s dress.
Annie coughed, cheeks pink. “And what if they are? A woman’s allowed to have a frill here and there if she wants.”
Danil looked bewildered, then startled when he realized Julianne was blocking her thoughts from him.
“Your curtains are new, too,” Julianne commented. She darted a look at Danil, then slipped a thought in his mind. Don’t interfere. This is girls’ business.
Danil slunk down in his seat, sighing. He knew he wouldn’t get a word in edgewise in this conversation.
“And,” Julianne continued, “I noticed that your herb bed has a few flowers ready to pick.”
Annie was known for her uncanny ability to grow things, but her garden was usually as practical as the woman herself—nourishing foods, medicinal herbs, and the occasional culinary spice grew all through her gardens, but never had Julianne seen bright flowers sprouting up from freshly turned beds.
Annie turned around and stomped away without a word. A corner of Julianne’s mouth turned up, quickly stifled as the old woman returned, untied he
r apron, and sat.
“Fine. I should have figured on you working it out.” Annie stopped and chewed the inside of her lip.
Seeing she was struggling to open the conversation, Julianne reached over to touch Annie’s hand. “I’m very happy for you,” she said.
Annie’s eyes popped open, and she scowled. “I thought you’d have more manners than to read a mind uninvited, young lady!”
Julianne laughed. “Oh, Annie. I didn’t read anything—come on, dressing up? Planting flowers, prettying up your house? There has to be a man involved.”
“A what?” Danil yelped, jolting upright.
Annie’s scowl persisted a moment, then softened into a girlish smile. “I suppose you’re right. Cavill does like it when I wear the gifts he brings.”
“Cavill?” Julianne prodded, leaning closer with a conspiratorial grin.
Annie nodded. “He’s a trader. Came out this way because he heard I have the only white peppers in the region.”
She stood, wandering over to the window. “He started coming by every few weeks, sometimes for spices, but then because he’d found a little lace trim, or a pretty bow he thought I’d like.”
When she turned back to Julianne, her eyes glowed. “Damned man should know he doesn’t need to spoil a leathery old bird like me!”
Danil opened his mouth but shut it when a boot connected with his shin under the table.
“And you should know you thoroughly deserve it,” Julianne told her. “Has he met Francis and Harlon?”
Annie’s face fell. “He has, but they don’t know he’s been visiting me. I’d planned to tell them, but all this business about portals and monsters… I just haven’t had the time.”
“And you’re nervous, too,” Danil pointed out, ignoring Julianne’s warning glare.
Annie shook her head in protest, then sighed. “Alright, fine. I might be a little reluctant. Those boys loved their father, though it’s been long enough since he died.”
“Annie, I’m sure they’ll want you to be happy!” Julianne stood and went to Annie, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing happily. “And so do I. Do I get to meet this special man?”
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