Chuckling, Helen said, “The where, of course, is as important as the when.”
Eyes adjusting, Cassie blinked.
A circle of sand-covered snow sat in the middle of a lush green forest. The chill she’d felt vanished in the warm breeze, bringing with it the sound of chirping birds and the crisp scent of pine.
Cassie jerked her head around, spinning in place. The incongruous sand and topography of Beaver Dunes were gone, replaced by a forest straight out of central casting. “What is this?” she demanded.
“I release you,” Helen said to the glowing spark. Its light was much diminished, either by the sunlight or the exertion of their journey. It flickered, then vanished entirely. “You’re not asking the right questions, dear. Welcome to Maine—the woods outside a small town named Randolph, to be precise. As for when? It’s March 20—the spring equinox. The moon is full tonight, and we have a lot of work to do before it rises.”
“Why?”
“Enough questions,” Helen snapped, and Cassie’s lips slammed shut.. “But the answer is a simple one. The police can’t catch if they can’t find us. As far as they’re concerned, we’re a cold lead four months old. Come along, now. We need to be ready for my son and his friends.”
Chapter Eight
Valentine—Sunday morning
Outside of Amarillo, Texas
As much as he wanted to continue the interrogations, an active lead on Helen’s whereabouts took priority. With Eliot in the hospital, he tabbed Anjewierden to accompany him, leaving Morgan and George to continue quizzing the detainees.
On the bright side, at least the young agent had the presence of mind to snag a box of donuts on their way out the door. The Air Force C-21 they commandeered out of Luke didn’t have much in the way of meal service.
The closest Division M field office was in Dallas. Rather than inconvenience any more agents than he already had, Valentine settled for renting a car at the Amarillo Airport. He doubted they’d be keeping it long. Locke had been keeping a low profile for weeks now. No matter what had caused her to lose her cool in Texas, she’d be in the wind again.
Valentine, though, had an ace up his sleeve.
Even without lights, he got the rental car up into triple digits as soon as he got out on the Interstate. The second time he whipped around an insufficiently-fast car in the left lane, he glanced at the younger agent and raised an eyebrow at his pale expression. “Problem?”
“For God’s sake, sir, the scene isn’t going anywhere. And we’ll never see it if you kill us in a wreck.”
Val smirked, then decided to drop down to ninety-five. He liked Anjewierden. The kid had spunk. And slowing down was simpler than telling him that he’d been driving since the kid’s grandfather was a glint in great-grandpap’s eye. Finally, he said, “The scene’s not going anywhere, sure. Her signature’s a different story.”
“How so?”
He signaled and whipped around a rusted-out pickup truck adopting delusions of grandeur in the passing lane. “You’ve been through the basic thaumaturgy classes, right?”
“Sure. But you know those just brush the surface, if that.”
He did. Val, in fact, had pushed for that policy long ago. Division M had a strange relationship with magic users. Those who’d proven reliable, like Morgan, were worth their weight in gold. The agency had a collection of material and artifacts sufficient to train an army of magic-wielding agents but refrained from doing so. There’d been a few incidents in the past, demonstrating that when it came to the supernatural, Lord Acton’s maxim about the corrupting influence of power held doubly true.
Val himself thought it was more the chicken than it was the egg. The type of person who sought to empower themselves was probably not the sort you wanted having it. His team was a perfect example of that—in various ways, he, Eliot, George, and Morgan were all victims of mystical circumstance.
But Anjewierden wasn’t cleared for that, so he moderated his answer. “Right. Look at it this way, a magic-user acts as a conduit for power from somewhere else, shaping its application. That act leaves a trace on the affected person or object. And we can track that trace.”
The junior agent hummed in interest. “Do I want to know?”
Despite himself, Val grinned. “No, you do not.”
“Fair enough.”
The site of the incident became obvious as they got closer. A couple of Texas DPS cruisers sat at the top with their lights flashing. A quick flash of Val’s ATF credentials got them waved around.
He’d been expecting bad, but the sight laid out before them as they cleared the roadblock made his jaw drop.
A burned-out frame was all that remained of the truck stop. The pavement in front of it had cracked and rippled in the heat. There was no sign that there’d ever even been gas pumps, though the huge crater in the blacktop in front of the ruined building made that obvious. The responding police and fire had cordoned the area off with traffic cones and yellow warning tape, for obvious reasons. The crater was deep enough that Val couldn’t see the bottom, even from near the top of the off ramp.
“Holy shit,” Anjewierden said finally, as Val pulled the rental up behind one of the dozens of official vehicles surrounding the site. “I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t this.”
“Never underestimate a witch with a burr in her saddle,” Val replied. He thought back to fights that over the years that he’d very much rather forget, along with men and women he wanted to remember and suppressed a shudder. Shivering in front of the kid would be bad for his image. “Let’s go.”
Most of the activity seemed on the downward slope. Looking at the site, Valentine could understand why. If there’d been any mundane clues left to dig through, the explosion or fire had taken care of that. The cops and firefighters were here to pick up bodies and keep prying eyes away. It was shit duty, but Texas cops were better than most. He scanned the immediate area until he saw a middle-aged man wearing a Texas Ranger uniform. It was more likely than not that he was heading up the investigation, so he headed that way with Anjewierden following in his wake.
The old boy had skin the color of tanned leather, and he wore his steel-gray hair short enough to see scalp. He saw Val coming not long after they left the rental car, but his expression remained implacable until he navigated the now-corrugated parking lot and offered his hand while displaying his credentials. “Agents Valentine and Anjewierden, ATF.”
The Ranger’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two men. One of his eyebrows ticked up a fraction as he read Val’s name on the badge. “Valentine, eh? Been to Texas before?”
“More than a few times,” Val said. It was even something approaching the truth. He glanced down at the Ranger’s name tag and added, “Captain Murphy.”
Murphy nodded and shook Val’s hand. “Old partner of mine, Ernie Hidalgo, told me some wild stories about some work he did with the ATF. Mentioned an agent by the name of Valentine. I’m guessing that’s you.”
Val kept his face blank, though he did take a quick look at Anjewierden. The other agent, thankfully, was distracted by the blast crater and not paying as much attention to their interactions with local law enforcement as he should have been. He was of a mind to let that slide, especially since it would prevent any more questions from the inquisitive young agent. He considered his answer carefully. Division M didn’t like to go around advertising their existence. They were a black, off-budget line item in the ATF’s ledger. While a lot of what they did required close cooperation with local authorities, security requirements meant they couldn’t exactly advertise with every officer in every jurisdiction. They were more judicious—reading in those who had up-close and personal experiences, or often Federal retirees who moved down to local law enforcement to double-dip on their pension.
There were a couple of Texas Rangers in the know. Murphy, to his knowledge, wasn’t one of them. It seemed as though old Ernie had taken that upon himself. “Good man,” Val said, finally. “T
alks too much, though.”
“He did, at that,” Murphy allowed. “Been dead going on ten years now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Val said, and meant it.
The Ranger gave him a tight nod. “Not sure how much there is here for y’all. We’ve got witness interviews, but most of them were too focused on the fireball to see which way she headed.” He doffed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “No security footage, all the cameras melted in the blaze and there’s no off-site backup. We did put in a warrant to pull all the credit card transactions a couple hours before the event, and we’ll run down names and registrations as soon as it comes through. Might come up with something there.”
Val nodded. It was probably a dead end—Helen would either kill the driver or switch vehicles by the time they ran down which of the customers had given her a ride, but he wasn’t in the business of dismissing long shots. Sometimes they paid off, after all. “I’ve got some specialized equipment I’d like to try if you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest. You planning on taking this over on an official basis?”
With a shrug, Val replied, “There’s not going to be a trial. And you don’t want one of your men catching her.”
“’bout what I figured, from what Ernie said. It true y’all roasted up some of that critter?”
Val grinned. “I couldn’t choke much of it down. Sucker got big too fast, turned the meat tough.”
“And here I thought you were going to say it tasted like chicken.” The Ranger dipped his head in farewell. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Agent Valentine, but it’s not usually a good sign when your folk come around. If I didn’t see y’all again, I think I’d be much happier for it.”
“Understood. We’ll be out of your hair soon.”
“Good hunting, sir.”
He continued toward the blast crater. Anjewierden stepped up beside him and murmured, “What was that all about?”
“Ancient history. Don’t worry about it.” At the edge of the hole, he knelt and slipped a hard case out of the inner pocket of his suit coat. It was small, perhaps three inches by six, and right at an inch thick. “Got that compass ready?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Watch this.” He flipped open the top of the case with no fanfare. One of the most powerful artifacts in Division M’s possession lay nestled in the foam lining the interior. Roughly the length of an unsharpened pencil, the metal rod came to a sharp point on one end, with the opposite rounded over. Val braced himself and plucked it out. He’d kept the case close to his body for hours now, but the rod still held an unnatural cold that tugged at the skin of his fingertips. “It stays a good forty to fifty degrees below ambient. If you have to use it in the middle of winter, wear gloves. It’ll stick.”
He plunged the pointed end of the rod into the top rim of the crater, where the asphalt had blown away to reveal the dirt below. Val held his breath for a few nerve-wracking seconds. When the metal under his skin turned comfortably warm, he grinned viciously.
“Oh, Helen, you fool.” He pulled the rod out of the dirt. As soon as the point was clear, the tip swung up on its own volition and pointed north-northeast. Val took a quick look around to make sure none of the first responders were paying attention before fully releasing it. Powered by the residue of the magic Helen had used to cause the explosion, the divining rod hovered six inches above the pavement. When he prodded the sharp end with a finger, he might as well have been trying to move a brick wall. “Take a compass reading.”
For once, Anjewierden didn’t have any questions. The young agent leaned over, got his compass lined up with magnetic north, and compared lines. “Right between twenty and twenty-one degrees. Call it halfway.”
“Close enough,” Val said. He brought the opened case up underneath the rod. As soon as the foam touched it, the energy dissipated and it moved freely. “Let’s go.”
He’d cajoled a regional map out of the clerk at the car rental agency. It took him a moment to unfold it on the trunk of the rental car to highlight the panhandle and Oklahoma to the north. “Compass,” he said shortly. The other agent laid it on the map and he poked it around a bit to get it lined up. It was a pitiful thing, really—clear plastic, stamped and mass produced on an assembly line somewhere. Probably put together by machines. He’d had something to put it to shame, back—
Val shook off the thought. The past was moot. The mission was everything, now, and if he couldn’t respect the craftsmanship of the compass, he had to admit that it was accurate.
He snagged a pen from Anjewierden’s shirt pocket without asking, then used the case as a straight edge to line up their location. The revelation was anticlimactic for Val—as soon as the rod pointed north, toward the eastern side of the Oklahoma panhandle, he’d known in his gut. “Shit,” he said, as the line slashed through the legend ‘Beaver Dunes Park’ printed on the map. “Let’s move. We don’t have much time.”
Chapter Nine
Aleister—Monday morning
Leesburg, Virginia
New Kristin pulled old Kristin’s sedan into the parking lot of a Harris Teeter grocery store. The shopping center sat in a convenient location off the main highway on the road leading to the building the American government used to conceal the Menagerie and, more importantly, their secure vaults of various eldritch artifacts.
Rolling hills surrounded the Division M facility. Developers had planted high-end houses and business developments on postage stamps of land throughout most of the surrounding area. Enough wooded area remained for Aleister to stroll through. In recognition of the fact that people didn’t usually go hiking in business casual, Knight had forgone his usual ensemble in favor of a plaid shirt, khakis, and low boots. The stiffness of the new fabric combined with their unfamiliarity doubled down on his discomfort, but if all went well, he’d be changing into traveling clothes sooner rather than later.
He pulled a pair of items from his satchel and presented them to his partner. The first, a glossy 8x10 photograph, pictured an age-darkened section of wood lying next to a ruler for scale. A series of numbers in Knight’s own, mechanically-precise handwriting lined the back.
“The artifact should be identical to the one in the photograph,” he said. “If you have any difficulty extracting its location from the men in the vault, the lot number on the back should help you to find it.” He’d expended an immense amount of capital, both mystical and monetary, to gather intelligence about the facility and its contents. The payoff would be more than worth it.
Liliana studied the numbers with a frown, then flipped the photo back over. “This isn’t a wand,” she muttered. Her eyes went a little wide, and she stared at Knight. “This is a piece of the Spear, isn’t it? I thought it was a myth.”
“There are myths, and then there are myths,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Don’t try to renegotiate terms now—we have a deal.”
“I’m not looking for a sweetener. I’m concerned about my own skin.”
Knight grinned. “You’ll be able to touch it. You shouldn’t need to. It’ll be in a storage case.”
She considered that with a predatory gleam in her eyes. Knight felt certain that her duplicate had never worn such an expression. For all her bravado, dear departed Kristin had been a kind, trusting soul by all accounts.
It made her an excellent target.
“Fine,” Liliana agreed. “Anything else I happen to bring along is mine and mine alone.”
He frowned. That was a change in the terms of their bargain, but not an enormous one. “Fair enough, so long as it doesn’t impact your timetable.” He nodded to the second object. About the size of a hardback book, he’d wrapped it in burlap secured by twine. In spite of the innocent appearance, she handled it as though it were a live bomb.
Which wasn’t too far from the truth.
“How long do I have?”
“There’s enough energy bound up in the building to put an aircraft carrier on the moon. As soon as you ste
p inside, the spell in the package will begin to siphon some of that. After about twenty minutes, the vessel will reach capacity. I’d advise you to be out the door by then if nothing else.”
“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll see you in the woods, Aleister.”
He stepped out of the car and waited for her to drive off. As soon as her taillights joined the flow of traffic along the secondary rode, he slung his satchel over one shoulder and set out himself. There was a well-situated hill less than a quarter mile from the Division M annex.
Knight grinned. He’d never understood the American fascination with fireworks, but he found himself looking forward to the show.
Kevin—Monday morning
Leesburg, Virginia
“We need to put batteries in the thing,” Kevin Menard insisted, trying not to pound the workbench with his balled-up fist. The unruly piles of high-end electronics and priceless artifacts guaranteed he’d knock something off, and that was more paperwork than he wanted to deal with right this moment. The spectacular failure of Division M’s pride and joy in the field had put enough scrutiny on him and his department.
His counterpart, research partner, and constant foil folded his arms across his chest. Doctor Hans Schantz was Kevin’s opposite in almost every way. Where the lead engineer was short and muscular, the physicist was tall and slender. Menard was blunt and to the point—Hans was far more diplomatic. The only point of commonality the two men shared was their dabbling in realms far outside the boundaries of what most would call science.
The blueprints on their table described the subject of their debate. In person, the massive suit of armor measured ten feet from the bottom of its broad, cross-shaped feet to the top of its barrel chest. It had no head to speak of, but Menard and Schantz had mounted a pair of optical sensors approximately where eyes would be. Piloted by Division M agent George Patrick, they’d designated the creation ‘Troll-1.’
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