“Escort duty,” a girl named Gretchen muttered. Her nose wrinkled.
The smallest girl of the bunch said shyly, “We were all noobs once. I came off one of those trucks.”
Bethany nodded. “They’ll be scared. They’ll cry. It’s our job to get them here so Aggie can fix them.”
Simple was good. He understood his part. Watch the prey. He was unhappy he had to let others do the maiming, but he understood why it had to be so. This was to prove them worthy hunters. He was there to protect them, like cubs. Understandable, if very un-lion-like. But humans were odd, not always practical.
Bethany ordered, “Move out!”
NINETEEN
Pen closed her eyes as the spray washed over her face.
The boat wasn’t fast, but the wind kicking up from the southeast threatened a hurricane’s bluster. Dark, mottled clouds lined the evening horizon as if the sky were bruised. Another week had passed in preparations that had taken on a fearful tinge. A big storm had the potential to wipe out the island. The shelters could only protect so much of the resources they’d hoarded and scrimped.
But that wasn’t her job. Arturi had outfitted her strike team with the best weapons in the settlement. She wore her cloak despite the heat, knowing its concealment would be invaluable when night fell. Or when the rains came. Beneath that protective layer of wool, she wore her complement of knives and a hip holster. The gun was refurbished, maybe a Beretta. Names meant less than functionality.
In the boat were troops. Her troops. Seven people. Seven names she’d learned by drilling their faces, voices, mannerisms, fighting styles, and family situations into her head. Reynard would scout as a turkey vulture with Jack as his heavily armed human backup. Miranda, always reluctant to shift to her baboon self, carried weapons as well. Koss, the marmot, never used armaments, and neither did two identical witch sisters. Last but not least was Zhara.
But no amount of preparation made a dent in Pen’s nerves. She didn’t enjoy leading under the best of circumstances, especially when the point of the operation was to test everyone’s loyalty. Knowing whom to trust was as valuable as any sidearm.
And Pen dearly wanted to trust herself. She needed to know that in a moment of crisis, she could still protect her friends. Arturi had said as much. If she wanted him to make war, she had to be ready to do her part—as more than just a symbol.
He knew what she’d done. And he wanted to her to lead anyway. Time to put that ghost in its grave for good.
“Queue up,” she called over her shoulder.
Technically, as the most senior among their number, Zhara should be in charge, but this run, she served merely as a silent observer. If her runes had whispered any hint of events to come, she kept that knowledge close. Jack and Reynard sat side by side, faces turned toward the gathering storm. With his broad features and bulky frame, Jack was the most physically robust. He also carried the largest weapon—some automatic rifle that would’ve suited Mason years ago.
But the last Pen saw of Mason, he’d been carrying baby Mitchell in one arm and leaning the other against an upturned shovel. Jenna had been the one to wave good-bye. He’d been as big as ever. Only, much like the cabin he’d built into the side of a mountain, he blended with the Changed world. The weapons he and Jenna carried within them were far more powerful and resilient than guns.
Pen only wished she carried a portion of their strength. If they battled doubts,
ever,
they’d never let on.
But then, they had each other. They had perspective and trust, and someone always at their back. She wanted that more than she could stand. And those thoughts led her straight back to Tru.
After navigating the rowboats to shore, Pen and her crew made fast time. She checked each soldier trudging up the sandy beach. Her head count came out right, so it was time to get moving.
“We need to hit the highway by evening,” she said, “or we’ll never make the rendezvous. If that truck slips our net, those kids wind up in hell.”
“Never happen, boss,” Reynard said with an easy smile.
His aura glowed with sunny amber opulence. For Reynard, life meant taking every challenge and turning it into a dance. All laughter, at least as much as she’d seen—no matter the gruesome scar that cupped his face.
Pen nodded. “Good. Let’s move out.”
Before he shifted, Reynard called to the others, “You heard the lady.
Allons-y
!”
She fell into step beside Zhara. Despite the woman’s obvious distrust—a distrust Pen didn’t fault her for in the least—she was oddly companionable. They walked in silence. First up the beach. Then into the dense semitropical overgrowth that separated the ocean from the north-south highway. Zhara kept a long stride that never seemed to tire.
No one stopped walking. Strong legs on all Arturi’s soldiers. Funny how Pen had come to think of them as belonging to her old friend. And she included herself in that number. Was it possible that some people were better at leading in crisis, while others were better at building quiet stores of hope? She liked to think that was possible. Then maybe the burden of command wouldn’t seem so heavy.
“How did you meet him?” she asked Zhara. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“You don’t know? I assumed you knew everything.”
Pen blushed. As if she’d peeked in on their wedding night. She wondered then how much of the connection Arturi had actually revealed. Its intimacy, but also its limitations.
“I haven’t been in contact with him for years. That’s why I thought he wasn’t real.”
Zhara lifted her chin. “He told me you come and go. That he’s seen your fight for years.”
“That can’t be,” Pen said, brushing a heavy clump of stringy moss away from her face. “He doesn’t have any magic. I keep looking, but I can’t see a single shimmer.”
“I know. He’s an odd one.”
“And you just . . . accept that?”
A shrug lifted the taller woman’s shoulders as she walked. “I have to. He’s my husband and I love him. When no one else would even look at me, he made me his own. We keep each other safe.”
Pen was more puzzled now than she had been when first asking about their relationship. Zhara seemed to take even more on faith than the rest of Arturi’s people. It seemed almost . . . cruel. And to the woman he claimed as his helpmeet.
“I was General O’Malley’s soothsayer,” Zhara said softly. “His personal pet.”
Despite the hot, humid dusk, Pen’s heart iced over. She had never met the man in person, but she’d glimpsed his face in the minds of his countless victims. One memory she’d gleaned showed him standing on two bodies, his boots between their motionless shoulder blades. He’d looked about sixty years old, with white hair and a chunk missing out of his lower lip; and he radiated . . . absence. If the Changed world permitted something as antiquated as a soul, O’Malley had long ago sold his.
To think of spending any amount of time with the man . . .
Zhara glanced her way. Her dark eyes remained calm despite the way her voice deepened. “I can tell by your face. You know him.”
“
Of
him. I’ve never seen him.”
“Distrust will be the end of us. Hence exercises like this. When Arturi led a raid where I’d been held for years, he rescued me. But no one else would have me. They all feared that O’Malley had replaced my will with his. The magic I practice didn’t end their suspicions. Voodoo. Witch. It was all the same to them.”
“Arturi vouched for you.”
“Yes. Always has.”
And that’s why you don’t ask anything of him.
“And since then, we’ve been building,” Zhara said. “No more battles unless we’re forced to. I think . . . I think he’s been waiting for this. For you.”
A corner of Pen’s heart ached for the woman. What sort of man did they all follow? Although she didn’t think of herself as blind, willing to take orders from any old savior for the sake of releasing the burdens she carried, she felt seduced by Finn. By the lilting voice in her head she’d carried since childhood. Despite a plain exterior, he carried a charisma that had her trudging through the bushes in the dark. On the verge of a hurricane.
If she survived this, she was going to have a nice long chat with Finn. And she wasn’t going to do it while repairing fishing nets.
An odd shiver crawled up her spine.
She stopped.
Tree branches whipped in the wind; clouds obscured the moon and stars. But Pen noticed magic all around, flickers of silver light. At such moments, she wondered how everyone else saw the world. Surely it didn’t look like this. Like fireworks.
Reynard circled overhead, calling a warning. Unfortunately, she didn’t speak turkey vulture.
“Koss? What can you tell me?”
“They’re coming. Diesel stinks.”
“And in the trees?”
“We have company,” Koss answered. “Backup, I think.”
Ah, so that’s what she felt. What she saw. She should’ve known that Arturi would never put a plan in place without another to back it up. Why risk lives because of one disloyal follower? Or one doubt-ridden leader, for that matter. With a secondary team in place, he could do it all.
He probably had another reason for sending Zhara along, too. Pen could only guess.
But that wasn’t her job. Much as she wanted to dissect Arturi’s methods and learn from them, she couldn’t while completing the assignment at hand.
Rain pattered on the leaves long before she felt the water on her upturned face. “All right, fan out. You know your positions. Jack and Miranda up front with me. The rest toward the back with Zhara. A dozen meters between everyone. Be ready to move as soon as the truck stops.”
They crept over the road, half of them remaining on one side. Far, far in the distance, Pen saw an approaching light. She blinked, intending to banish the silvery glow if it was magic. She needed her earthy senses in full working order. But no, the light came from an approaching truck.
Two hundred meters to the north was a rest stop of sorts—just a flat place where the trees shaped a semicircle off the highway. Arturi had drawn the map that Pen emblazoned on her brain. The men behind the wheel would be tired. The guards would be hungry and restless, eager to take a piss. They would be in no mood to fight. That lack of vigilance would mean their defeat.
Still, she took nothing for granted. And she would’ve felt a whole lot better had one of her crew been a sharpshooting skinwalker who hid a lion within his lean muscles.
Tru was probably halfway to the plains by now, roaming as he longed to do. The gleaming edge of want that gnawed at her, day and night, explained why he felt so close. Just pure . . .
want
.
She shook free of that numbing refrain and positioned herself by the side of the pitted asphalt. There she started her ritual. Unable to see the driver’s eyes, she took a stab in the dark. Face up to the turbulent sky. Down to her chest. And the words of thanks that fueled her power. The glare of the oncoming headlights penetrated her closed lids. She stretched out to find where a man’s mind might be. Waiting. Waiting for the moment to strike.
A shot rang out.
Her concentration shattered, Pen rocked back on the soles of her feet and pushed to a low crouch. Mini bursts of light spouted from a machine gun where the others had crouched to wait. More gunfire followed.
“Halt!” she cried. “Cease fire!”
But the panic triggered the guards’ return assault. The huge truck lumbered onward, driving at only a few kilometers per hour. And it wasn’t stopping. Headlights shone twin beams of blinding light down the highway. They’d never be able to catch up if it continued northward.
Pen’s mind ran ahead six chess moves. “Shoot the tires, engine block, whatever it takes to stop it!”
She sped through her ritual despite the fighting and gunfire. Even the pop of exploding rubber didn’t distract her this time. Holding to her calm, she found the driver and replaced his thoughts with her own. It was a more aggressive move than she liked. Confusion was better. Less . . . disgusting. Because in giving the man her impulse to slam on the brakes, she gathered up the residuals of his base needs.
Their minds touched, the slither of a snake through her thoughts. He’d sampled the merchandise that morning, taking turns with another guard. Keeping each other’s secret as they molested a pretty brunette.
Swallowing her bile, Pen released him and shoved her anger into his mind.
The truck ground to a halt, not ten meters distant. She shook free and shouted, “Go! Go!” Puddles splashed her shins as she ran.
Her team pounced. They traded fire with the guards positioned atop the trailer, six in all. Pen sped past the cab, knowing what she’d find there. A man with brains the consistency of mashed bananas.
She’d committed murder again. With her mind.
No, no, no—
But dwelling on it would get her colleagues killed.