I lowered my hand as I realized what was missing from the scene. As I started to step forward, Sarah put a hand on my arm.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Shelby is inside the house. She needed to use the restroom. I guess the aversion to modern technology doesn’t apply to plumbing.”
“Where’s her anti-telepathy charm?”
“She gave it to Dee. She’s thinking about that now, along with what I think is an Australian variation on that song about monkeys jumping on the bed. It’s a pretty good way to keep me from digging deeper into her thoughts.” Sarah sounded grudgingly impressed. “Dee was afraid I’d start looking in her mind and judging her, so Shelby gave her the charm to help. And so that if you got separated, like you are right now, you wouldn’t be worried that something had happened to her.”
“I love that woman,” I said.
“Maybe you should finish planning the wedding,” said Sarah. “I bet I could attend now, as long as I was careful and had a private room that I could go back to when the people got to be too much.”
“We still need to find a venue that works for both our families and doesn’t attract the attention of the Covenant,” I said. “We’re not in a hurry.”
“I guess not,” said Sarah.
I gave her a sidelong look. “Why? Do you think we should be in a hurry?”
“I like cake,” said Sarah. “She’s coming out now.”
Shelby appeared on the porch, waving vigorously when she spotted us. We started toward her, and she met us halfway across the open space, a smile on her face and worry in her eyes.
“Only two kids missing here, both from the house nearest the wood,” she said, voice pitched low. “I think our kidnappers looked at the walls, looked at the security, and decided they had a big enough haul. But there’s no reason to have taken any kids from here unless it was on their way.”
I nodded. The fringe was farther from the main road, which we already knew the kidnappers hadn’t used: it was virtually impossible to get a single car in or out of the basin without being seen, and they would have needed multiple cars to manage their victims. “Did Walter have any thoughts about the paths they might have taken?”
“He swears the woods nearest the house where the kids were taken are impassable, and that if they weren’t, his people would have been able to track the intruders.” Shelby smiled mirthlessly, showing all her teeth. “That means we start there.”
I nodded. Impassable woods almost never are; there’s always a way to fight through the brush. Walter’s people were farmers, not hunters, and when they did hunt, they did it by walking into the clearer woods on the far side of the fringe and stunning deer with a glance. They had no reason to understand the finer points of woodcraft.
“Got it,” I said. “Dee coming with us?”
“It’s her or an entire patrol of Walter’s men; he’s willing to send them to search in the opposite direction if his sister goes along with us. They’ve been beating the bushes all day, not finding anything, but that doesn’t mean he’s giving up.” Her feral smile dimmed. “Can’t say as I blame him. Kids deserve better than this.”
“Yes,” I said. “They do.”
“How’re you holding up, Sarah?” asked Shelby, focus shifting to my cousin. “We really appreciate you coming out and giving this a go. You just say the word if you can’t handle it, and we’ll make sure you’re taken straight home.”
“I’m already here,” said Sarah. “Let’s find these kids.”
“I’ll get Dee,” I said.
“Good,” said Shelby, smile finally dying entirely. “Poachers don’t like to be the hunted ones. I don’t know how much time we have.”
Neither did I. I kept that thought to myself as I hurried over to where Dee was waiting. It was time for us to move; it was past time for us to bring those children home.
* * *
• • •
The woods Walter had identified as impassable and Shelby had identified as our best starting point for finding the kidnappers were the sort of dense, tangled woodland that Ohio excels at. It was easy to look at them and understand why Walter wouldn’t think they were an option, although I was willing to bet he’d thought differently when he was a kid himself. Kids never look at a thorn briar or a hedge and think “I can’t go there.” They’re a lot more likely to think “adults can’t follow me,” and charge full speed ahead.
Shelby and I exchanged a look. “Sixty seconds,” she said.
“I can do it in thirty,” I said.
“You’re on,” she replied, and we took off in opposite directions, both of us scanning the brush for signs of disturbance, or something we could use to make our entrance.
I was starting to think Shelby was going to win when I saw a single half-concealed footprint poking out from under a veil of scrub. I bent, tugging gently on the bush. It came away in my hand, revealing the beginning of a tunnel. “Over here!” I called and began pulling more brush away.
Someone had spent several days carefully cutting a tunnel through the wall of tangles that separated the fringe from the forest, making it as inconspicuous as possible. Walter and his people had probably walked past it repeatedly, never realizing how close the danger had come. Not for the first time, I wished Lloyd’s cockatrice hadn’t killed the lindworms that used to hunt around here. Gorgons don’t do well with dogs, and the lindworms had been the closest thing they had to an early warning system.
Shelby crowded up behind me, Dee and Sarah following behind her at a slightly safer distance. “What’ve you got?” she asked.
“A way in,” I said. “Sarah, you’re behind me; I want you scanning for human minds as soon as we go through the break. Dee, you walk after Sarah, and be ready to stun anyone who charges us.”
“And I’ve got the rear,” said Shelby cheerfully. “Anyone who tries to sneak up on us is going to get a taste of old-fashioned Australian hospitality.”
“What does that mean?” asked Dee.
“Means I’m going to smash their teeth in,” said Shelby.
Dee blinked. “You’re not this terrifying at work,” she said.
“Eh, I try to follow the rules about not creating a hostile workplace,” said Shelby.
“Come on,” I said, before the two could go any farther down the path of their digression. “Stay close, stay quiet, and do whatever Sarah says.”
“That should be the rule for always,” said Sarah, sounding amused.
I stepped into the woods, pausing only to hang my anti-telepathy charm on a nearby branch. The odds of encountering another cuckoo out here were minimal, and I needed any advantage I could get.
The nice thing about tracking people through places where people don’t usually go: every little motion cuts a trail. Better still, when our kidnappers had gone back to their hideout, they’d been weighted down with panicked, probably squirming children. There were broken branches. There were smashed plants. Best of all, there were footprints in the muddy earth, all of them scuffed and layered over each other, but still clearly made by human feet. There were two directions these people could have been going. We already knew they’d been to the gorgon settlement, and that they weren’t there anymore. That only left one reasonable direction.
We were going the right way.
It was a good thing, too, because Walter had been right about these woods being wild and difficult. The brush grabbed at our feet and legs, and I would have been worried about ticks if not for the fact that Shelby and I basically bathed in insect repellent, while Dee and Sarah weren’t tasty targets. The branches overhead shut out most of the ambient light, leaving us to move through a dim, dangerous world filled with inexplicable sounds and half-seen motions.
We had pressed almost half a mile into the trees when Sarah stopped walking, putting a hand on my shoulder to signal me to do the same. I turned. Her head was cocked
to the side. That was fine. Her eyes, always a blue so bright that it looked a little fake, were glowing white, bleaching the color almost entirely away. That was less fine.
“Which way?” I mouthed, thinking the words as loudly as I could.
Sarah pointed, not straight ahead, but off to the left. They’d been smart enough not to draw a direct line to their hideout. I didn’t know whether to be impressed by their forethought or disappointed that this was going to be harder than it had to be. Then she held up both hands, fingers spread wide. Ten kidnappers. It wasn’t an unreasonable number, considering how many children they’d snatched. I still winced.
Okay. If we were doing this, we needed to do it. I motioned for Sarah to step in front of me, then waved the others closer. Shelby produced a handgun from somewhere inside her shirt, holding it low to her hip, so that she could quickly raise and shoot if necessary. The snakes on Dee’s head silently writhed into a strike position. They weren’t hissing. Rudimentary as their minds might be, they understood that now was a time for stealth.
Sarah began to drift through the brush, stepping lightly, somehow skirting the worst of the snags and tangles. I followed close behind, drawing my own gun and holding it in front of me. If we could do this without shooting anyone, that would be great. I wasn’t counting on things being remotely that easy.
We’re almost there, whispered Sarah’s voice. I opened my mouth to reply before I realized her words were in my head. She was talking in my head.
She hadn’t spoken in my head since her accident.
The situation was dire, and there were endangered kids somewhere up ahead, along with ten kidnappers we’d have to evade or defeat, and for a moment, none of that mattered, because I was smiling too hard to care. Sarah was talking in my head again. Sarah was getting better.
She stopped in the shadow of a large bush. Voices drifted from the other side, low but audible in the overall quiet of the forest.
“—telling you, we can’t go back.” The first voice was male, and agitated, like he’d finally realized the scope of what they’d done and didn’t like it. “Make no mistake; we kicked the wasp’s nest with this one. We need to be miles away from here.”
“Eggs, Carl. There are more eggs.” The second voice was female, quietly calculating and unruffled. The mastermind of the pair, clearly. “We couldn’t get them all last night, not with the brats to manage, but we can get them tonight. Do you have any idea what a gorgon’s egg goes for on the open market? Fuck, we have six offers in already, and that’s just on the nonviable ones.”
Dee put her hands over her mouth, eyes wide and horrified.
“We go back,” said the woman. “We go back, we get the rest of the eggs while the parents are looking for their kids, and then we never have to come back to Ohio. This funds us for years, Carl. We can’t turn our backs on that.”
The bush we were hiding behind extended in both directions, but there had to be a way around it. I pointed and nodded to Shelby, who nodded back and started moving. I beckoned for Dee to come closer, then held my hand out to Sarah in the classic “stop” position. Both of them nodded. Sarah stayed exactly where she was as Dee and I worked our way around the edge of the bush.
Sometimes people get the clever idea to carve picnic grounds into the local woods, encouraging “back to nature” tourism by serving up visitors as a buffet to the mosquitoes, ticks, and bears. This had clearly been one of those installations: the rotting remains of a creosote-soaked picnic table greeted us at the bush’s edge, half-consumed by the undergrowth. On the other side was a large, manmade clearing, into which our kidnappers had jammed three RVs, their windows covered in tin foil and their doors sealed with padlocks that would probably raise a few eyebrows if they got spotted by the highway patrol.
There were no gorgon children in evidence. There were, instead, five humans, all heavily armed and dressed in military surplus camo. Three were standing in a loose semicircle, including a woman with a long brown ponytail who I assumed was our aspiring egg thief. The other two were closer to the RVs, each with a large assault rifle slung over their backs. They hadn’t seen us yet. For one second, we had the element of surprise.
I motioned Dee toward the men with the big guns. She stepped out into the open.
“Hey!” she shouted.
All five kidnappers turned. The two closest to the RVs got an immediate eyeful of Dee’s gaze and froze, falling limply to the ground.
The gaze of a Pliny’s gorgon stuns but doesn’t petrify. Their venom does the petrification. If she didn’t bite them, they’d be fine. Honestly, though, I expected fangs to be in their future—and I wasn’t going to intervene. Protecting the cryptid world from humanity sometimes means looking the other way when protection involves killing in self-defense.
The other three kidnappers weren’t stunned, and they knew we were there now. I aimed my gun at them and shouted, “Freeze! Hands in the air, right fucking now!”
The two men complied. The woman laughed.
“Oh, please,” she said. “We have you outnumbered. I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish, monster boy, but this isn’t going to go your way. We’re in charge—”
She stopped mid-sentence, eyes going wide, as Shelby stepped up behind her and pressed the barrel of her gun to the back of the kidnapper’s neck.
“Howdy,” said Shelby. “I don’t think we’re that outnumbered.”
With five kidnappers unaccounted for, she was technically wrong, but from the look on the woman’s face, that didn’t much matter.
“Keys,” I said. “Now.”
“I don’t think you want to do that, friend,” said the woman. “Those little monsters are pretty riled up. They’re likely to strike first and consider their targets later.”
“Alex.” Dee’s voice was rich with horror. I risked a glance in her direction. She held up a small, curved object, her snakes writhing and hissing wildly, sometimes striking out at the air. I blinked, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Then I recognized it, and the fact that I didn’t immediately whip around and shoot the woman who’d been speaking was a testimony to the strength of my self-control.
“You pulled their fangs,” I said, voice soft and low.
“Only two of them,” she said. “Most of our buyers want the merchandise intact. Still, you have to show who’s in control.”
“True enough,” said Shelby flatly, and pulled back, striking the woman across the base of the skull with the butt of her gun. The woman yelped and staggered forward but didn’t fall. Shelby pouted. “Aw. That always works in the movies.”
“You crazy bi—” the woman began. Her words dissolved into a groan of pain when Shelby dug the muzzle of her gun into the back of her head again, right in the bruised spot.
“Language,” said Shelby primly. “I believe you were about to give him the key.”
“You’re making a mistake,” said one of the men. “Whatever these monsters are paying you, we can double it. Triple it, even.”
“Sorry, but I’m not in the mood to profit from the exploitation of children,” I said. “My mother would never forgive me.”
“Please,” said the other man—Carl. “We haven’t done anything yet.”
“You scared them, and you pulled their fangs, and you call us monsters?” Dee sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Get the keys, Alex. I want to go home.”
“Wait,” said the woman. “Alex? Alex Price. What the fuck, man? I thought your people were on humanity’s side.”
“We’re conservationists,” I said. “The human race is currently of least concern. Now give me the keys, before I make you extinct.”
Glaring, she dug the keys out of her pocket and threw them on the ground. Before I could move toward them, Sarah stepped daintily around the bush, retrieved them, and walked toward Dee. All three kidnappers watch
ed her go, looking confused.
“Do you see a woman or is it just me?” asked Carl.
“Sorry,” said Sarah. “I’m leaking a little.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
Sarah walked past Dee and stopped, tilting her head.
“Oh,” she said. “I found your other kidnappers.”
The woman laughed. Shelby hit her again, harder this time, and she fell. I trained my gun on one of the two remaining men, while Shelby switched her focus to the other. There was a click from behind me, as someone prepared to fire.
“I don’t know why you people thought this was a good idea, but I think you’re about to sing a different song,” said a man.
“Sure,” I said. “Dee?”
“I’m okay.”
“An adult female will fetch a pretty good price,” said the man. “For that, we’ll go ahead and kill you quick.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “How many of us are there? Right now, how many do you count?”
“Three,” said the man, and paused. “Three?”
“About what I thought.” Cuckoos are ambush predators. Psychic ambush predators. When they don’t want to be seen—when they feel like they’re in danger—they aren’t seen, period. Even Sarah, with her bruised edges and her uncertainty, could manage the traditional cuckoo trick of disappearing in plain sight.
There was a sharp snapping sound from one of the RVs, like a padlock being opened. It was followed by the sound of a padlock dropping to the ground. A swarm of underage gorgons erupted from the RV, falling on the kidnappers like the wrath of Medusa herself. A few shots were fired, but they all happened as the men were falling, their guns pointed at the air.
I didn’t have much time to waste. I advanced on the two remaining kidnappers, both of whom looked like they were about to wet themselves, and demanded, “How did you know about this place? How?”
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