by R. L. King
“But we can’t count on that,” Amber said.
“No. But we can hope. Let’s move on to mundane tactics. Jason and Amber, you have the floor.” Stone moved back to the window and leaned against the sill.
“Okay,” Jason said, indicating a pile of duffel bags on the floor nearby. “We didn’t have a lot of time to get gear, so we won’t have everything I hoped to get for us. We picked up some light upper-body armor for everybody. I know it won’t be much use against magic or guns, but it’s better than nothing. We’ve also got radios for everybody, keyed to the same frequency so we can keep in contact if we get separated.”
“Don’t want to depend on cell phones,” Amber added. “Don’t use your real ones, since they can be traced.”
Jason picked up one of the duffels. “We’ve got some guns in here, bought with our fake ID. Handguns, a shotgun, and a couple of rifles. Who knows how to shoot, besides Amber and me?”
“Me,” Tani said.
“Me, sort of,” Verity said.
“Okay, we’ll get you set up when we get there.”
“We shouldn’t be shooting unless we have to,” Amber said. “Last thing we want is to cause trouble with law enforcement. The best plan is to get in and out with as little noise as possible.”
“Tell that to them,” Verity said sourly. She looked at Stone. “If they are in the middle of the ritual and we get to them, what do we do? Is it safe to disrupt it, or will we blow up the whole place?”
“Good question. Won’t be able to tell until and unless we see it. Best bet is to leave it alone and let me handle it. Hopefully it won’t be an issue.” He swept his gaze around the room. “Remember, everyone needs to keep our priorities straight at all times. Number one is to rescue any prisoners. If they’ve got Grider and Lu, we need to get them out of there, along with anybody else they might have. Second priority is disrupting whatever ritual they’re doing. Third is to take down Brathwaite’s echo, Richter, Padgett, and Lane.”
“You mean kill them?” Amber asked.
“Brathwaite and Padgett are going down,” Verity growled. “Don’t anybody try to stop me. I owe them big.”
“Well, Brathwaite’s already dead,” Ian pointed out.
“Yeah, but he needs to get kicked off this plane of existence for good this time.”
“All right, you lot, hold on,” Stone spoke up. “As I said, those are our priorities—but there’s one I didn’t mention, and it’s the most important one of all: Keep yourselves safe. No heroics, no going off on your own. This isn’t a military operation, and there’s no such thing as acceptable losses on our side. If we fail, we retreat. I don’t want to risk any of your lives over this. Got it?”
“What about Orville and Frank?” Maisie asked.
Stone sighed. “We’ll do everything we can, Maisie. That’s all I can promise. I honestly doubt either Lu or Grider would want anyone getting killed trying to rescue them. Do you?”
The young ghoul shook her head reluctantly. “No. I guess they wouldn’t. But we have to try.”
“Don’t worry, Maisie,” Verity said. “I know this bunch. They aren’t going to give up unless things go seriously bad.”
Stone looked them all over. They were looking to him for leadership. Jason and Amber might have the mundane portion of the plan under as much control as possible, but they all knew this wasn’t going to be a mundane raid.
He wished he knew what was going on with what he’d seen during the ritual. There had to be some reason why he was seeing the world through Miriam Padgett’s eyes, but he had no idea what that reason was. He suspected it would prove important before the night was over.
“All right,” he said briskly. “If there’s nothing else to discuss, let’s get moving. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can be done with this. If anyone’s the praying sort, this might be a good time to do it.”
34
Few things in modern life are more desolate and depressing than a dead mall.
When operational, they function as places where people gather and shop, eat and drink, surrounded by bright lights, happy music, and all the latest flashy merchandise. The customers include all sorts of demographics: suburban families, teenagers looking for a place to hang out, couples, seniors seeking a safe location to walk and meet.
But when a mall dies, it tends to go downhill fast, and in a reasonably predictable progression: the big anchor stores bail out, many of the popular chains leave, and local or seasonal stores move in, attracted by lower rents. Eventually, though, even these smaller stores can’t survive on the diminished customer traffic, and they leave or die too. In a surprisingly short time, what had once been a vibrant hub becomes nothing but a cleared-out hulk full of empty holes where the stores and restaurants used to be.
Sometimes such malls are torn down promptly, which is probably merciful. But some, due to snarled legalities regarding ownership, political pressure, misplaced hope for resurrection, or simple apathy, are allowed to remain until their corpses are nothing more than a deserted blight on the nearby landscape, hosting homeless people and anyone else who can manage to break in needing a place to hide.
The Springvale Mall was one of these latter types. After three years of neglect, it was still structurally sound but obviously too far gone to ever be refurbished. Every sign of light or life around it had been either extinguished or allowed to languish until they faded.
Stone pulled the large, plain van they’d rented around the back of the mall, away from the road. He had a disregarding spell on it, but still didn’t want to take chances on being seen. The group stared out the front window, taking in the scene.
A chain-link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the perimeter, posted every fifty feet with NO TRESPASSING and PRIVATE PROPERTY signs. Beyond the fence lay a wide stretch of desolate-looking parking lot. Scrubby weeds poked up through the asphalt all around, and the few remaining trees looked droopy and disconsolate. From where they were parked, they could see one side of the mall’s rear area, up to the point where the dogleg veered away from them. Two of the three-story anchor stores were visible, but the signs indicating what they’d been were long gone.
“See anything?” Ian asked.
Stone had already switched to magical sight and was scanning the area. “No. No magical traces—aside from the ley line running through the place. That shouldn’t surprise me, though. That’s probably why they chose it. You?”
“Nothing else either.”
“Nope,” Verity said. “Looks pretty deserted.”
“How are we getting in?” Tani asked. She and Maisie were seated all the way at the back. “If they’re watching from the rooftops, that’s a killing zone if we just run across.”
Stone scanned the roofline, but still didn’t see any sign of lurking auras. “Let me go first. I can levitate over there with invisibility up and see if anything’s on the roof. If not, Verity and Ian can levitate everyone over.”
“Let me go,” Ian said. “I can hold invisibility longer than you can.”
Stone didn’t want to agree—the idea of sending his son alone into potential danger filled him with dread—but Ian had a point. He’d spent the last several months being trained in magic by a dragon, after all, even if he didn’t know it. “Are you topped up?”
“Yeah, before I came back to your place. Got an arrangement with some mundane friends.”
“All right, then. Let’s get that gear handed around, so you’ve got a radio.”
Jason and Amber dug into the duffel bags and a few minutes later, everyone had shrugged into the light upper-body armor. Each person also had one of the radios, along with a powerful flashlight and spare batteries. Jason, Amber, Tani, and Verity had guns.
“All right,” Ian said, jumping out of the van. “Let’s do this.”
Stone and the others remained inside, watching as he faded from view. Even the mages couldn’t follow his progress with magical sight, because his aura disappeared along with the rest of hi
m.
“Damn,” Verity said. “He’s gotten good.”
“Bloody right,” Stone said, impressed. He could do the same thing if he had to, but combining that level of aura masking with levitation and invisibility would have quickly exhausted even his Calanarian strength.
They all waited tensely for several more seconds, and then Stone’s radio crackled.
“I’m on the roof. No sign of anybody up here.”
“Okay,” Stone said. “Wait there, and keep watch. We’ll head for the entrance on the left, near the center anchor. Come down when we get there.”
“Got it.”
Invisibility wasn’t practical for a group that large, so Stone and Verity levitated everyone over the fence and then settled a disregarding spell over all of them.
“Stay close together, but not too close,” Stone said. “If anyone is watching, we don’t want to present an easy target.” Into the radio, he said, “Everything still all right, Ian?”
“I don’t see any sign of anything. Come on over.”
They hurried across the parking lot, all of them looking around nervously. Stone kept magical sight up as they kept up a fast walk, but so far Ian was right: no threats appeared, not even a mundane security guard. Were there any mundane security guards? If Richter and Company were actually here, chances were they’d either frightened them off or killed them, perhaps even turning them into undead.
It seemed to take forever to cross the lot. Stone felt exposed from all sides, and he could see his friends were experiencing the same nervousness, but after only a couple of minutes they reached the closed door that was their target. It had probably been glass at one point, but now it was covered by plywood like all the other ground-level windows and doors they could see.
Ian floated down, not bothering to use invisibility now, and landed next to them. “It’s completely quiet up there,” he said, pointing to the roof. “I don’t think they’re expecting anybody.”
“Good thing something’s going our way,” Stone muttered. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
He used magic to pop the lock on the door, and a moment later all of them were inside.
They stood in a wide hallway with solid walls on either side. Faded posters hung limply at intervals on both sides, advertising some of the shops, and ahead of them was the remnant of a directory.
“Anything?” Stone asked, turning to Amber, Tani, and Maisie.
“Smells like something died in here.” Amber wrinkled her nose, looking queasy. “It’s pretty strong—making it hard to get a bead on much of anything.”
Tani nodded. “Yeah, I’m getting the same thing. It’s fairly recent, too.”
“Great,” Jason said. “So they’ve killed something in here, and we can’t tell where it is.”
“Possibly more than one thing—or person.” Stone crept forward, magical sight up. That took out one of their best tracking methods, if Amber and the ghouls couldn’t get past the smell. He reached the end of the hallway and peered in both directions.
The mall stretched out on either side of him. A long, brick-bordered planter that had at one point included a fountain divided the wide center walkway, but the water was long gone and the plants had died, leaving a clear view across. The center atrium area reached all the way to the second floor, where dirty skylights let in filtered late-afternoon light. The stores he could see from his current vantage point were all empty, their signs either gone or vandalized, their entrances yawning open since there was no longer anything inside for thieves to steal.
The others came up even with him, taking their own looks. “What now?” Verity asked. “Do we split up?”
“I think we’ll need to,” Stone said reluctantly. “We’ve got to figure out where they are before they realize we’re here, or we could be in trouble. But I don’t want to split into more than two groups.” He studied his friends. “Verity: you, Jason, Amber, and Maisie go to the left and check out the big store down there. Keep your magical and other senses up, and stay in communication. You’re most likely looking for a way down to the underground area if there is one, but not necessarily, so look sharp. If you see anything out of the ordinary, let us know immediately.”
“Got it,” Jason said. “What are the rest of you going to do?”
Stone pointed toward the center anchor. “Ian, Tani and I will go right and check the middle store. If neither group finds anything in fifteen minutes, we’ll regroup and check the one at the far end together.” He gave them a hard stare. “Remember—no heroics. We’re not in a horror film here, so nobody should be going off on their own.”
“Don’t worry,” Amber said. “We got this.” She glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes. Go.”
Immediately, their group jogged off toward the left end of the mall. They stayed close to the wall, checking the interior of each store as they moved past. A few moments later, they disappeared into the anchor store.
Stone, Ian, and Tani, meanwhile, mirrored their actions to the right. “I’ve got a disregarding spell on us,” he told them. “It won’t help much, but it will hide us from casual glances long enough that we might get the drop on anyone lying in wait.”
They passed several empty stores, following along the edge of the center planter, until it opened onto a large, wide food-court area surrounded by fast-food restaurants in a horseshoe shape. Like the shops, all the restaurants had long ago been stripped of any of their fixtures and potential valuables, but several of the tables and chairs still remained. Some were still bolted to the floor, while others lay broken on their sides. In the center of the food court, a pair of broken escalators led up to the second floor. Beyond them, at the back of the mall, was the wide-open entrance to the middle anchor store.
They crept along next to the food court, staying low, their heads swiveling around in all directions as they looked for anything moving, but so far nothing appeared.
“I played a video game like this once,” Ian whispered. “It was even in a mall. No magic, but lots of zombies.”
“Well, let’s hope the zombies are kept to a minimum in our case,” Stone muttered back.
His radio buzzed as they reached the opening.
“We’re about to go in,” Jason’s crackly voice said. “Everything looks fine here.”
“So are we, and same. Be careful.”
“Yeah. You too.”
Stone, Ian, and Tani moved silently inside. The light wasn’t as good in here since they didn’t have the skylight, but nobody used their flashlights. Stone switched to magical sight, watching for signs of living beings, but still saw nothing.
Tani moved a short distance away, crouched low, stalking like a hunting animal. She had her gun out.
“Are you even sure they’re here?” Ian whispered to Stone. “Seems weird that we haven’t seen anything at all.”
Stone was wondering the same thing. This was where the ritual had pointed, but they’d taken nearly a day between its end and when they’d left to come here. Could the group have moved in the meantime? Perhaps finished the ritual and returned to Europe?
“Wait,” Tani hissed.
Stone and Ian immediately stopped. “What is it?” Stone asked, peering forward into the dimness.
“Something up ahead. On the ground.”
Stone didn’t see it, but heightened vision was another ghoul trait. All around them, the broken remnants of counters and display cases made it harder to see anything.
Tani moved ahead, and Stone and Ian followed more cautiously.
“I think they’re here,” Tani said, pointing.
On the floor was a huddled form. In the faint light it looked mostly humanoid, but something about the way its limbs were splayed at unnatural angles gave an immediate sense of wrongness. The smell rolling off it was a horrific combination of rotted meat and blood.
“I think we found what’s messed up my sense of smell.” Tani wrinkled her nose and backed off. She didn’t sound disgusted, though.
Sto
ne and Ian moved closer. Stone tried to ignore the smell, but that wasn’t possible. “Keep a shield up,” he told Ian. “And keep watch.”
“Yeah. Go ahead. I’ve got this.”
Holding his breath, Stone held up a hand and directed a faint light spell at the figure.
It was human—or had been, at least. Dressed in the ragged clothes of a homeless man, it lay in a puddle of blood, one arm ripped free, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Its gray pallor didn’t look like natural death.
“What happened to it?” Tani whispered. “Something’s wrong. It doesn’t smell like a normal body.”
Of course she’d know that, as a ghoul. Although the non-feral ghouls normally didn’t eat rotting flesh, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t do it if it was the only thing available.
“Maybe it’s a failed necromancy attempt,” Ian said.
“Or they left it here to throw us off.” Stone rose, switching off the light spell and looking around. “Could be a trap. Come on. Let’s keep going before they—”
All three of their radios squawked, loud and discordant in the eerie silence.
“Al!” It was Jason’s voice, and he sounded agitated. “We got trouble here! I—” The transmission cut off in a burst of static.
35
“Jason!” Stone yelled into his radio. “What’s going on?” He was already running back toward the store’s entrance, with Ian and Tani in pursuit.
The radios crackled again, and this time the voice was Maisie’s, puffing with exertion. “Ambush!” she rasped. “They—” Her voice rose in a scream, so loud Stone and the others could hear it coming from the other end of the otherwise silent mall.
“Maisie!” Tani cried, picking up speed.
“Wait!” Stone barked as she tore past him, but she ignored him and disappeared out the door. He pulled a shield around him and increased his pace, heart pounding. As he ran, he yelled into the radio again: “Jason! Verity! Amber! What’s going on?”
