“Huh,” he said. “Let me see that.”
“I’m telling Jen,” I threatened as he took it from me.
“Ha ha.” Tom flipped it over and wiped some grime off the back. “I’m checking the address label.” He frowned. “Reave Mitchell, this address. Nothing new there.” He picked up another and looked it over.
“People seriously get this stuff mailed to them?” I asked, gingerly picking up another and looking for a mailing address.
“You can’t tell me you never subscribed to any of these,” Tom chuckled.
“Not any of these,” I said, giving the magazine a shake and letting the centerfold fall out for him. “And no, I didn’t.”
He tossed one aside and looked at me skeptically.
“I didn’t. I couldn’t,” I said. “My interests haven’t always been popular, you know. Nobody in my target demographic was subscribing to this stuff when I was younger. Hell, nobody was even willing to print it for half my life.” I checked another one and set it aside. “Besides, I wasn’t about to risk an incriminating magazine showing up on my doorstep once a month.”
“Oh. That’s…” He awkwardly tapped the magazine he was holding against one hand.
“Mm, it is what it is,” I said before he could apologize or something. “Fitness magazines were good enough.”
“Fitness magazines? Why would… oh.” He frowned for a moment, then his eyes widened. “You don’t mean like… like the ones you used to keep in your bathroom?!”
“Uh, maybe. Did they have mostly naked guys on the covers?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“I used to read those!” he cried.
“Yeah… I wasn’t buying them for the articles.” It was nice, in a weird way, to finally admit that.
He rolled up a magazine and smacked me. “Gross!”
“Hey, that’s what you get for using my bathroom! You think I want your bloody piss in my toilet? That’s gross.”
“It’s not blood! It’s digested!”
I blocked another smack with my own magazine and we scuffled playfully for a moment. Then, something on the spine caught my eye.
“Time out,” I said. I pulled away and turned the magazine. “These are dated! This one is from six years ago.”
He grabbed the discarded magazines and checked the sides. We quickly, silently worked our way through the pile.
“Okay, they aren’t all for Reave specifically,” he said, “but some are blank, I didn’t get any new names or addresses.”
“Same. And all of my magazines are between six and eleven years old.”
Tom frowned. “Me too. I have one from twelve years ago, but the rest are all older than six.”
“I think it’s safe to say that this place shut down six years ago.”
He nodded. “And Reave Mitchell stopped feeding at MES five years ago. So, he did… whatever this is. Then he hung around somewhere for a year and then…”
“Finding out whatever he did after that might be the key to putting this whole mess together.”
We searched the rest of the barn, but found nothing except more dust.
“What the hell is this place?” I asked in annoyance as we headed back to the car.
“I don’t think you were too far off when you called it a frat house,” he said. “It just looked like people used to go there to have a good time.”
“Dead end?” I groaned.
“Maybe,” Thomas said, swatting in annoyance at some tall grass as we wove through. “I mean, the name Reave only turned up once in our files. Could just be a coincidence. We honestly can’t be positive this is even the right place.”
“Or this was totally innocent fun – well, mostly innocent – and this Reave guy got mixed up in everything else by chance. Just because his name came up doesn’t mean he’s behind any of it.”
“On to Turner’s then,” he said somewhat reluctantly.
“Yeah.”
I kept an eye on the road behind us for a while, making sure we weren’t being followed. I half-hoped we would be, at least that would have meant we were on the right track.
“Get on 81 South,” Tom said.
“Where exactly are we going?”
“Turner’s a little west of Elmira.”
“Ew. When I picked you up, you neglected to tell me we were driving all over the freaking state.”
“I’ll buy gas.”
I chuckled. “Deal.”
He started to smile, then his eyes narrowed in concentration. I watched him in concern; something was up with TS.
“Field agents just got called out,” he announced.
“Park?”
“God, I hope not. Can’t tell.”
A minute or two later, the stand by text came in. I sped up a bit. We needed to get to Turner’s quickly, especially after another dead end.
We had to stop for gas around midnight, still with another hour to Turner’s. I was used to working the night shift and usually wide awake around this time, but after a few hours in the car I was feeling a bit drained. At least Tom was pretty confident TS was not at the park, which lifted both of our moods.
~~~***~~~
Not long after getting gas, his phone started ringing. “It’s Jon,” he said to me before answering. They conversed quickly in Japanese. I was fluent enough, but Jon was doing most of the talking and I couldn’t hear him well. I shot Tom a questioning look as he hung up. “Well, I know where TS is now. Secrecy breach,” he groaned. “It’s not huge, but it’s enough that Jon’s meeting has been disrupted. It sounds like the agents on duty are all going to be there for a while, which means you and I are going to be next on the list if something else happens. He wants us to skip Turner’s and just head back. He didn’t sound too disappointed, I think he was worried about us going there anyway.”
“Back home it is then,” I said. In all honesty, I wasn’t terribly disappointed about not having to confront a possible blood wizard either.
We turned around and cut onto a smaller highway. We drove for a while through the middle of nowhere, with just a few scattered homes and businesses. In the distance I could see some trees on the outskirts of Allegany State Park, I almost wanted to ask Tom to see if we could take an alternate route, farther away from the park.
“Hey, check out that sign,” he said.
“Free firewood?”
“The other sign,” he groaned.
“Cavaliers Bar and Restaurant, all you can eat fries?”
“No!”
“Open 24/7?” I asked, deliberately avoiding the sign I knew he was talking about. “Karaoke every Tuesday?”
Thomas leveled a glare at me. I chuckled and turned into the parking lot and nearly drove into the sign that indicated the place was magic-owned.
“You deserved to actually hit that,” he told me.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re the one who suddenly wanted all you can eat fries.”
“I was uh…” He winced. “I was supposed to feed tonight.”
“What?! And you didn’t?!”
Thomas shrugged awkwardly. “Well, the MES blood drive hadn’t started yet, so I was going to get some at Erin’s, but there was a long wait time, so I just had them add a couple of extra shots to my coffee.”
“So, you were all ready to rush in and fight a blood wizard on an empty stomach?”
“In my defense, you’ve done things that are just as stupid.”
I laughed. “At least you admit it was stupid.”
“You’re buying though,” he said as I parked.
“I don’t have any cash.”
“Neither do I and I already bought gas.”
I rolled my eyes, but handed over my credit card. “Get me a gallon of whatever is fresh.”
“Done, be right back.”
I fiddled around on my phone for a couple of minutes and soon he was back.
“1928,” Tom announced as he got back in the car.
“Um… yes?” I asked.
“1928,” he repea
ted, holding out my credit card.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s the year I was born. And?”
“No,” he snorted. “Nineteen dollars and twenty-eight cents.” He waved my credit card at me. “That’s how much it was.”
“Oh.” I took my card back with a frown. “For a pint of blood and a gallon of water?!”
“Two pints,” he admitted. “I also got us both a coffee,” he added, as he set a couple of giant to-go cups in the cup holder.
“Fair enough.” I accepted the jug of water he was holding out and examined it. “If this is from anything local for that price, I’m going to be pissed.” I uncapped it and got a whiff of ocean water. “Mm.” I took a careful sip, then a bigger one. “North Sea? No… it doesn’t have the same…” I took a few more sips. “Norwegian Sea!”
“Is that good?”
“It’s not bad,” I chuckled. “It’s no Ionian, but it has a more…” I paused, trying to think of how to describe the difference between the sea where I grew up and this one in English. I decided it couldn’t actually be translated, so I just switched to Panthalassish instead.
When I was done, I decided to keep going and just started narrating everything we passed. It was actually somewhat challenging; despite the endless ways to talk about water, there weren’t a lot of words for things like trees, and roads, and powerlines in Panth. My creative descriptions probably would have raised a few water elemental eyebrows.
I did it mainly to annoy Tom, but he took advantage to somewhat discreetly turn away and feed. I couldn’t resist glancing over. It didn’t bother me when he drank blood from bags, it was seeing him bite people that still made me uncomfortable. Of course, just thinking about it sent a shiver up my spine and I quickly redirected my attention back to trying to describe land-based objects in Panth.
“Are you still talking about the water?” Thomas demanded after a few minutes.
“Yes,” I lied, switching back to English.
“Guess it was worth twenty bucks,” he chuckled, balling up his discarded blood bags and tucking them out of sight.
I laughed and drank some more. “It’s pretty fresh and I do enjoy some more exotic waters now and again.” I switched to coffee and was pleased to find it was brewed with the same water. “Full now?”
“Yeah. Sorry to do it in the car.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Bags don’t bother me.”
“If you say so. Just, you know, let me know.”
“I will.”
His phone started ringing and he answered. “Agent Clark.” His eyes narrowed and I watched him in concern. “Actually, I’m with Agent Pelagos right now. We’re um…” He looked out of the window. “Yeah, yeah we can be there in an hour. Less with the way Pelagos drives.” He waved his hand at me and I hit the gas. “What else do we know? Okay.” Tom hung up and briefly looked like he was considering throwing his phone. “Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, pressing my foot even harder on the pedal.
He blew out a long breath, then sucked in a deep one. “We’re going to the park,” he said tightly.
“Shit,” I groaned. “What happened?!”
Thomas shook his head. “Couple of weres are camping. They were running around and one of them never came back to camp for a snack.”
“Never known a were to miss a snack,” I joked weakly.
“No,” he agreed. He heaved a sigh. “There’s… more.”
“What?”
“We’re short because of Fletcher, so everyone on duty tonight, field agents and special agents, is wrapped up with the secrecy breach. You and I are the closest ones; we’re going to be the first on the scene.”
“Great,” I spat. “Lucky us.”
His phone buzzed. “Coordinates for the parking lot.”
“Just tell me where to go.” I chugged the last of my water, then downed half of my coffee. “Glad we stopped for drinks.”
“Me too.”
We drove in tense silence. Something started nagging at me, like a distant sound I couldn’t quite make out. I focused on it for a second and then cursed. Tom shot me a questioning look.
“It’s going to rain.”
“When?”
“Soon.” I focused back on it, trying to figure out how far away and what direction it was in. I double-checked my compass, but I already knew. “It’s heading east. It might already be raining at the park.”
Thomas cursed too. “How heavy is it?”
It was a little too far away to tell, but I could sense something big in the distance. “It’s going to get bad.” I rarely described water as a bad thing, but in this case… I gunned it. “How long til we get there?”
“The GPS says thirty-six minutes.”
“Time to play beat the estimated arrival,” I muttered, speeding up even more.
~~~***~~~
The rain had indeed started by the time we got there. I parked quickly and we hopped out. There were a couple of nervous looking guys standing around near the trees. Tom nodded in their direction.
“Both werewolves,” he whispered as we approached. “That’s probably them.”
“Are you from MES?” one called, taking a few steps closer to us.
“Yes,” I said, flipping out my badge. “Special Agent Pelagos. What’s going on?”
“We were out running,” one said, gesturing to his companion. “Griz was just hanging around, he’s a werebear, so he doesn’t really go running, you know?”
“Which way did he go?” Thomas asked.
“Our camp is over that way,” the werewolf answered. “We hung around after we got back, but he was supposed to meet us back there over two hours ago now.”
“Let’s go,” said Thomas, starting off. “So, you were out running and when you got back he was gone?”
“Yeah.”
“How long were you gone?” I asked.
“Not too long. Maybe half an hour?”
We followed them into the trees and they led us to a clearing with a couple of tents.
“This is where he was supposed to meet us. His scent goes off that way. I wanted to follow it…” He shot an annoyed look at the other werewolf.
“MES issued a warning about people going missing. I figured the right thing to do was call.”
“It was,” Thomas said quickly, before the werewolf could argue. Then, he turned away and sniffed. “I smell him, but the rain is already starting to affect the scent. How long do we have before it gets worse?”
I looked in the direction the rain was coming from and focused on it. “Not long.” Some heavy feeling rain wasn’t too far away.
“I’m going to follow the scent before we lose it.”
“Tom,” I said in warning. “Not alone.”
“We don’t have time, this is the freshest scent we’ve had. Five minutes, then I’ll come back. You take care of getting the info.”
“Is Griz going to be okay?” asked one of the werewolves. “Do you know what’s happening here?”
I bit back a groan. Field agents usually handled this crap and I arrived well after the witnesses were taken care of. I knew it would be a bad idea to let him know that nobody had been rescued yet. It would probably also be a bad idea to imply that his friend might be on his way to being ritually sacrificed by blood wizards. But what the hell was I supposed to say?
“We’re going to do everything we can,” I said. Which included following the scent. “Five minutes,” I growled to Thomas.
He nodded once, then spun and took off as fast as he could go.
I turned back to the werewolves, ignoring the nervous knot forming in my gut. “So, Griz is a werebear? What’s his last name?” I asked, pulling out my phone to take notes.
“Well, Griz is just a nickname,” one said.
Of course it was. I deleted the very first line of my notes. “So, what is his name?”
~~~***~~~
I quickly wrapped things up as my phone stopwatch went off after four minutes and thi
rty seconds. I sent them to go wait in their car and called Thomas.
“You said five minutes,” I snapped as soon as he answered. “I don’t suppose you turned back around after two and a half?”
“I’m coming back now.” He sounded reluctant.
“As in, literally heading this way?”
“Just a second, his scent is so fresh here…”
“Tick tock, Clark,” I snarled. “Get your ass back here. Now.”
“I don’t smell anything else,” he said. “No blood magic, no other people… it’s like he just wandered away and… Oh my God. There’s another one!”
“What?”
“Hang on, I just want to see…”
“See what? What do you mean there’s another one? Another what?! Silence. “Thomas?”
I checked my phone and saw that he had hung up on me.
“You asshole!” I spat. I quickly hit redial and started cursing as it went straight to voicemail. “Are you kidding me?!” I yelled. Before I could dial again, my phone started ringing. “What the hell is your—” I stopped as I realized the frantic voice on the other end wasn’t Tom’s. “Wait, what?”
“Are you with Thomas? Right now? Yes or no?!” TS shouted.
“Um… sort of?”
“Yes or no?!”
“No.” My throat clenched up and for just a second I couldn’t breathe. I forced out a choked, “Why?”
“I can’t sense him,” cried TS. “He’s gone.”
Chapter Four
Jen
The lobby of MES was chaos; I was pretty sure every single employee was here and I knew there was at least one non-employee as well. Shannon stuck close to my side as we wove our way through the crowd, looking for the others. I was relieved when I spotted bright red hair across the room. I tugged Shannon by the arm and we hurried over to Charlie and Ember.
“What happened?” I asked. The normally bright red flames in their eyes had died down to dark flickers.
“I’m not sure,” Charlie said, giving me a too-hot hug. “I don’t think we know any more than you do.”
Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6 Page 19