Authors: L. J. Kendall
Commander Stone, who was only a little bit taller than Leeth but still somehow looked like she could take down
anyone
in the room, pursed her lips as several people around Leeth sniggered like she'd just said something funny.
But Commander Stone only said, 'I'm pleased that you agree.'
More people sniggered, and Leeth felt her blush grow stronger.
Several of the female agents looked across at her, one or two even shaking their heads. Like they disapproved of her. No doubt because she wasn't a trained agent.
Leeth just stared, hard, at Commander Stone. Kind of thankful for the anger that was beginning to build. At least it was a distraction from what lay ahead. She had a bad feeling there wouldn't be much more laughter tonight.
Commander Stone's eyes narrowed in turn, staring right back at her for long seconds, before she spoke again. 'No, seriously, I am pleased. You are on the spot, and although every indication is that all this planning is merely an exercise in paranoia, the reason for all these support operations is the
possibility
that something we don't understand is happening. You have been included to help cover such possibilities. In that unlikely event, your intuitions could be valid.'
Leeth blinked, astonished as she worked out that the Commander was actually taking her seriously. Sort of.
'All the same, having a non-magical, untrained civilian on the scene makes me extremely uncomfortable.'
Leeth wanted to snap back that she
had
Unfolded, that Keepie had
made
her magical, but even from the corner of her eye his stare practically scorched her with its intensity, and she bit down on the words.
'Especially a seventeen-year-old girl,' the Commander continued. 'This is not a game.' Her intense green eyes flicked down and up Leeth's body as if making some kind of point about her choice of clothes, or maybe her bare feet. Which just showed how Commander Stone didn't know
everything
. This was practically identical to what Ninja Swift wore in
Dark Hunters
.
'If in my opinion you begin behaving erratically or disruptively, I will have you removed, Sara. Is that understood?'
That would be bad.
'Yes, Commander. Understood.'
Wow. That had actually sounded very grown up! She sat up straighter, pleased with herself.
'Very well. Let's move, people.'
By “eighteen thirty,” a full two hours and five minutes before sunset, everyone was in place, waiting.
They'd only been there ten minutes before Leeth started fidgeting. The waiting was going to drive her nuts, if she didn't do something.
No one else seemed to be twitchy; from Mr Smith scowling to one side, his hair starting to gray, now; to the male and female FBI agents; to her uncle – who was the only one smart enough to bring a chair to sit on; to the three shamans.
I wonder why they always send three
, she wondered? Was three a magic number, or something? No tall, cute shaman this year, though. This time, all three were women.
Why did that make her think one of them should have long, white hair down to her waist, and milky eyes? She chased the memory, but it vanished.
This waiting was already making her nuts!
'Commander, permission to pace?'
'No.' Finally, though, when Leeth didn't argue, she seemed to unbend slightly. 'I don't want you moving around, complicating the tactical situation.'
'But I need to be able to check everyone, and there are lots more people this year. And it's not like they can shoot
Her
.' From the way the agents' expressions shifted, most of them seemed to think they had
two
mad people to worry about: one contained in his cell and the other one outside it, with them. 'So that must mean you're really here in case
Godsson
somehow gets free, right?' she continued, first checking that the light on the intercom showed it was just monitoring, not in two-way mode.
The Commander looked at her as if she'd managed to surprise her.
'But I look at all these people and kinda wonder, what if it just gives Her more targets to choose from? She's real sneaky.'
'Come here.'
She went, expecting the Commander was about to really let loose on her, but instead the woman just inclined her head, indicating she should take up a position alongside her. And there the two of them just stood, side by side at the place where the “T” junction used to be, watching the room full of tense men and women.
It was kinda nice.
After a while, the Commander spoke, so quietly that only the very closest agents would have been able to hear. Well, and Leeth, of course, even if she'd been upstairs. Not that the Commander could know that.
'All the magician types say they can't see anything when “she's” around. Even with that “Imaginal sight” of theirs. So how do
you
see it, Sara?'
'I… it's hard to explain. It's a pattern.
She
looks like a pattern, I mean. It's almost like imagining. You see things line up and make edges that show some of Her outlines. Curvy outlines. It's a little bit like when you see shapes in clouds. Have you ever done that?'
At the Commander's nod, she continued. 'But it's not the same. I've looked, but I've never seen Her in clouds. Or anywhere except in the J-, uh, in the woods, outside.
'The way the branches bend, or the ferns, or the flower stems. And always moving, and flowing, and always kind of… female curves. Sexy.'
'It sounds very like just your own imagination, Sara.'
Leeth looked sideways at the Commander. But the way she'd said it, she wasn't being mean. Just asking a serious question. Like she was still willing to consider the possibility that it wasn't just “Sara's” imagination. And it was a good question, actually. She'd wondered the same thing, herself. She tried her best to answer.
'It is, actually,' she admitted. 'Quite like that. But when the shape moves – the
pattern
– slipping from one branch to the next, or swooping down to sort of undulate – you know, like a snake – in the grass, or dance in the ferns…'
'That still sounds like imagination.'
'Except it goes on too long. For everything to move just right, for so long, so you could imagine it… That doesn't happen except when She's around.'
She looked up: the Commander still looked unconvinced.
Reluctantly, she continued, and her own voice dropped lower, a bit embarrassed now by what she was going to have to share. 'Yeah, but she also makes the
spirits
do mean stuff, sometimes. If they don't run away in time.'
'The spirits. What spirits?' The Commander's voice had gone flat. Clipped.
'Well, I don't know, exactly. I can't See them, like magic people can. It's more like how I can see Her.' She almost added,
'or not-Robo,'
but thought that might be one step too far. She thought maybe the Commander was already beginning to doubt her.
'By how they move. Sometimes, the wind does funny things. It'll twirl among the flowers, then swoop across a puddle and spin back, then swirl around some fronds, playing with them, you know, just kind of dancing around. Not like wind just blowing. Actually
playing
. You can tell, by the way it hangs around, swirling and diving and circling and swooping. Just having fun.
'Sometimes I'd dance with them.' She smiled, remembering. 'At first it surprised them, then they kind of seemed to like it.' She didn't add that since she'd Unfolded she could even feel them, when she touched them. But she had to be careful to be gentle, or else she hurt them.
The Commander was looking at her strangely.
Commander Amanda
. Her name had almost made Leeth giggle until she'd looked into her eyes the first time. Leeth figured no one laughed at Commander Amanda Stone's name twice.
'But sometimes,' Leeth said, '
She
would be there, and sometimes a spirit didn't realise and run away fast enough. Then, She'd make them do bad stuff.' Noting the Commander's expression, she added, 'like puffing leaves right into the middle of a huge web that'd taken a spider a whole evening to do. Or just gusting, or blowing sticks right through it, to tear it. I saw her make two spirits fight, once. That was awful.'
Commander Stone just looked at her, for a long time.
'How about if you moved, slowly, through my people? You think you could see “her” if she gets out of that cell?'
For several seconds Leeth just blinked at her, shocked at not being ignored by a grown up. And an important one. Then nodded, definitely. 'Yeah!'
She didn't think, though, she should point out that She didn't really come
out
of the cell.
'All right. But keep out of my people's sight lines to the cell. Understand? And try to do it
lightly
, if you know what I mean? Don't be putting them off.'
Leeth thought she did. She nodded.
'Okay, people,' the Commander said, turning and raising her voice, 'listen up. Just in case Sara
can
sense this thing, she's going to be moving around. Looking at everything. Don't shoot her, okay?'
Leeth grinned, and nodded her thanks for the trust. She decided she liked the Commander. She hoped the older woman would be all right.
Chapter 51
For the first time ever, Leeth thought she sensed it before Godsson did.
It was still an hour till sunset, and she realized everyone had sort of hunched-in on themselves. Slowly, the room outside Godsson's cell had become somehow creepy. Like they were all actors in some scary movie, waiting for the monster to appear and kill the guy who least expected it.
In the new, open area, the narrow oblong window of Godsson's cell peered out at them like a gateway they were all expecting monsters to pour through. Looking around carefully, though, eyes unfocused, between the fifteen men and women spaced out, she could see no trace of Her.
But as the seconds piled slowly and patiently one on top of the other, like weights pressing down harder and harder, Leeth was certain She was there. The creepy-movie feeling was the sort of mean trick She enjoyed. She caught the Commander's eye and nodded, once.
The Commander didn't
say
anything at all, but a moment later all her men and women seemed to snap more erect, coming to full alert. Several of them caught Leeth's eye, and she nodded to them to be ready, just as she had to the Commander.
And then Godsson cried out, golden light blazing through the small aperture looking into his room. She saw the intercom light flip into two-way mode, and Leeth, about to dart across and look in, paused to check first with the Commander. Who inclined her head, and then her agents stepped aside, making a clear path to the cell.
Godsson cried out again, a note of dismay Leeth had never heard before, and then she was squinting in against the glare.
Godsson staggered, tearing at his hair, at his cheeks; then the golden glare winked out.
There was nothing in the room with him. Nothing to see.
But I wouldn't be able to see
Her
even if she
was
in there right now!
Leeth realized:
there was nothing to see her
with. Then Godsson's flesh started glowing as if lit from within, brighter and brighter. His skin shifted from red to golden as he
screamed
. Then light flared out from every inch of him, snapping back out into the usual thick golden dome, and he shouted in triumph.
For just a moment, Leeth thought she'd seen
curves
thrust out on the expanding surface of the spell. Then she felt Keepie's hand on her shoulder, pulling her away as he and then the shamans arrived to peer inside, their eyes already with that strange unfocused sort of glaze to them.
She let herself be moved back, even as Godsson began grunting with effort, the tone of dismay gone, but already a note of desperation that usually only crept in right near the end. In the bad years.
Something was Wrong. Something had already gone wrong.
There were too many people.
Since they'd gotten the new-generation service bots, the only people in the Institute normally, apart from the patients, were her and Keepie, Faith and Mr Shanahan, dopey Dr Simmons, and Professor Sanders.
Godsson's cries and shouts continued, and she forced herself to look, at all the men and women here,
certain
that something had gone badly wrong.
Her uncle and the three female shamans were stepping away from the small window with slight head shakes, but still somehow like they too knew that something was different this year.
Then she heard it – under Godsson's cries, the sound of gunfire. From above. Then machine guns. Then the dull roar of a truck engine. The soldiers, up above, outside!
But the Commander's head had tilted up, and then she and several of her men and women began swearing. 'Lewis. Ferguson. Warne.' She said. 'Take a team and get up there. Take down anyone using lethal weaponry. Stay in contact.'
Without a word, seven people sprinted across the room and down the corridor to the stairs.
She only said that aloud for our benefit,
Leeth realized. She was about to explain to the puzzled magicians about Her making the soldiers shoot each other, when the Commander herself spoke.
'It appears that several soldiers have just attacked their comrades. It's not clear if it's a terrorist action, or if something else is at work.'
Leeth felt her heart sink strangely, as if the whole room was a lift that had just started falling.
Godsson's cries intensified.
Then she saw it. Saw Her. Everywhere, in every twist and curve in the shape of a sleeve, the sweep of a ponytail, the angle of an arm. The arc of a nasty smile. Lily
was
all through the room
; coiled around
everyone!