He just looked at me like I was stupid.
“Spongebob Squarepants?” Vassago told him when he still didn’t say anything.
“Who’s that?” Rasmussen asked.
I turned to study the castle again. We were lucky, there seemed to be one tree nearby, and we’d gated just under it. Probably a deliberate spot picked out. If somebody were viewing from the castle in this direction, the foliage would have masked the visual cues of us gating in. Plus, the wards Vassago had talked about. I had the same set up all around my property, and it’d saved me a time or three already.
“I’m going to sight walk, tap me if I don’t respond when Rose comes back,” I told the two of them then sat in the soft grass and leaned against the tree and closed my eyes.
I ran, for all I was worth. Forward, to the castle. Right away I could hear the wards going off, and two large shapes lifted off from the walls of the castle.
Wrong thing to do.
I told Vassago to run with me to the castle for all he was worth, he asked me why and I told him I was exploring why the wards went off when I wasn’t next to him. He told me the reason was he had a pass through them due to a charm. I leave him behind, I set off the alarms, and the gargoyles beat me into bone meal.
Ok, never mind, that part I got.
We all walked nice and leisurely to the front gate of the castle keep. The gargoyles did not swoop down, nor did they engage at all.
Interesting. The last sight walk took us almost fifteen minutes to complete at the gate, yet in real life… I opened my eyes and saw Rasmussen and Vassago talking quietly.
“…Always known there was a mole and double agent somewhere,” Rasmussen said.
“I know, and I promise you, old friend, if it hadn’t been because they’d kidnapped my daughter…”
I closed my eyes again.
Back at the gate, Vassago reached into a recess in the rock and twisted his wrist as he grabbed something inside. The gate swung open and… Darkness.
“Note to self, don’t open the gate,” I said, standing up, feeling woozy after seeing my own death, something that hadn’t happened in a while.
It always shook me and this time was no different.
“What?” Vassago said.
“We can’t go in through the front gate. They have some sort of ambush set up there.”
“Of course we don’t go in the front gate,” Vassago said, “That way is trapped and always set up for an ambush. We go in the back.”
“Oh,” I said and sat back down.
Maybe this future looking stuff wasn’t all it’d cracked up to be?
I searched the futures where we all got into the castle alive. It took several heartbeats, but I found a way, the future looked like a shining thread in the darkness. I followed that thread until I saw we were going to follow along the stone wall to the left of us.
Vassago told us to step where he stepped, and after a moment I realized there were stones fitted in the grass, and he’d been pointing at them. We did as told, both Rasmussen and I casting worried glances around us. Nothing jumped out at us, and the castle soon passed us on our right shoulders, shrinking with the distance.
“Boss!”
I sat up and shook my head.
“Rose,” I said standing up, “What do you—”
“Don’t go in the front door,” she said. “They’ve got two gargoyles on the ramparts, claymores hooked to trip wires, and if that fails, there are about twenty fire mages in the first hut as backup.”
“Good to know,” I told her, knowing that the claymores were triggered with the gate’s opening already.
“On the back side of the castle, there are half a dozen people on horses. Looks like they were coming back from a hunt. Had several dead foxes and a ton of yapping dogs,” she said making a face. “Dogs could smell me, but the people can’t.”
“That’s because you probably gave yourself away with the excessive use of glitter,” I told her with a grin.
“Don’t make me bedazzle your schnoz!” Rose shot back.
“Hey? Easy killer, no Hakuna my mattattas,” I told her with a grin.
“That’s my line!” Rose shot back.
“Are they always like this?” Vassago asked Rasmussen, his voice dry and very… British?
“Unfortunately,” Rasmussen said and more than anything else, that snapped me back into seriousness.
When in life or death situations, it was easy to be flippant. Too easy to be slap happy and joke. Like yelling in the dark that you aren’t afraid of the dark. Fake it till you make it.
“We can enter the castle where the horses went in through in the back side, or it looks like there’s an old kennel entrance—”
“That’s the one I was planning on taking us through,” Vassago said, adjusting a black leather satchel he’d been wearing.
“Well, there’s a problem with that, sunshine,” Rose told him, her snark suddenly turned up to a seven, maybe an eight. “There are dogs in there. Big ass Great Danes.”
“Yes, I’d planned for that as well. They do love their dogs here at the House of Shadows,” he said softly.
“Well, in case you weren’t listening, the dogs can smell me. If they can follow me by smell, what do you think they can do to stinky humans like you?”
“I’ve planned for that as well,” Vassago said patting his leather satchel, “trust me.”
“That’s the last thing she’s going to do,” Rasmussen said.
“Sadly, I think he’s right,” I told him. “What’s the plan?”
Vassago hesitated then pulled the satchel in front of him and opened it up. I was expecting charms, potions, magical elixirs—
“Gym clothes and towels?” Rose almost screeched loudly.
“It’ll mask our scents some,” I said softly, understanding.
“You’ve thought this out quite a bit,” Rasmussen said as we started following Vassago.
“Yes,” he said simply. “It’s my daughter. I will have her freed.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?” I asked him.
“It’s been two years,” he replied without turning around. “Follow me and step where I step.”
I knew how this was going to go, so I did my best to sight walk while I moved, finding after a while it wasn’t as hard since I wasn’t trying to look very far beyond where I’d gone before. I was learning a lot about my sight that had formerly been locked away from me. I knew I could aim and hit targets without missing if I chose, I could throw something and usually hit what I was aiming at just by looking forward and adjusting my aim… but now I was doing this while on the move, something that I hadn’t really done before.
Sure, I’d used my sight in fights plenty of times, but they were in pauses, moments, and this was different somehow. I was tempted to experiment more but held that in check. Getting too lost in my head was a good way for all of us to die. I was all about not dying.
The door to the kennels was actually another steel gate, one that swung outward. It was set into the hillside, a good hundred yards downslope from the castle. We’d approached it by walking along the leftmost western wall and then crossed when the terrain blocked out our view from any prying eyes. I’d been sight walking, so I’d seen the entrance before we got to it, but it was still amazing. You go to walk around what you thought was a small hill to find a gate in the side of it, with a torchlit tunnel going back into the depths of the earth, in the direction of the castle. Plus, it smelled like wet dog. Groovy.
“Boss, want me to…?” Rose asked.
“Only when you get Vassago’s gym socks rubbed all over you first,” I told her.
Rose wrinkled her nose and shook her head. Instead, she landed on me.
“Here you go,” Vassago said handing me a hand towel.
I held it up to my nose, and it smelled of work, sweat and… somebody else. I rubbed it across my arms, hands, and neck.
“Want it?” I asked Rasmussen.
“Your scent permeates it. For Ra
smussen…” Vassago pulled out a pair of… boxers with red hearts all over them.
“You speak one word of this,” Rasmussen said pointing at me, “and I’ll end you.”
Rose giggled quietly as Rasmussen did the same, then after I tucked the towel into the front of my belt, Sigmund looked as if he considered doing the same before angrily throwing the boxers back to Vassago.
“That’s more like it,” Vassago said, tucking them back into his satchel.
“You could have given me a shirt,” Rasmussen said angrily.
“Yes, but you must remember, I am a bad guy, it’s kind of what I do.”
Rose snorted.
21
The gate wasn’t locked, and I soon found out why. The stone passage beneath the ground was semi-circular, almost oval shaped. On one side, torches had been set into small alcoves, and they seemed to burn with an eldritch fire that gave off no smoke. I wanted to stop and examine that but knew better not to get too far away from Vassago, lest I set off the wards. That was also part of the same reason I’d kept Rose close. She hadn’t tripped the ones outside, but Vassago hadn’t warned me about her checking it out either, so she must have been safe.
The tunnel seemed to stretch for a good five hundred yards, and when I looked behind me, I could barely see the entrance anymore, just a spot of light at the end, but ahead of me things seemed to brighten up, and I didn’t complain when Vassago slowed. The smell of dog was strong, but the closer we got to the larger open space, the more pungent the smell got. It was… it smelled like a kennel. Dogs, plus their inside toilet facilities.
“Gets rinsed out twice a day, still horrid,” Vassago said, a gloved hand pinching his nose. “There’s a door at the far end. We have to get past these dogs without them causing a racket. Most of these animals know me by sight and smell, but not you guys. Thomas?”
“I… sure,” I told him, pulling the necklace from my pocket and put it on.
“That’s been gone for years,” Rasmussen said suddenly, looking at the pewter pendant on the silver chain I wore next to my charm necklace.
“Found again, by me,” I told him.
“That piece disappeared from the Library,” Rasmussen said harshly, looking at Vassago.
“Once my daughter is safe, I will fulfill my promise to Wright. As it is, we have very little time. Do you have a way to conceal yourself?”
Rasmussen pulled the hood up on his dark council robe, then rolled the sleeves down.
“That might work,” Vassago said, “Rose, stay out of sight, you mustn’t stray from Thomas lest they smell you.”
“Sure thing, tall dark and spooky,” Rose said, and in my peripheral vision, she turned invisible.
My turn. I whispered the command word and then looked up. Vassago looked at the spot I was in, then his eyes wobbled, and he put a hand out. I put mine out and gave him a light high five, and he shook his head like I was a dumbass.
“I can still see you with my life sight. Keep that in mind. Death mages have the same sort of abilities if they know how to use it, and fire mages can feel your body heat. Don’t give them any reason to suspect you’re there if you run across them.”
That was news to me. I knew about the life sight portion, but I had no idea that mages like Vivian or her aunt had other ways to track me. What good was hiding under veil if you could still be found? Made me want a Deathly Hollow of my own.
“Let’s go,” I whispered.
“You guys stay as far from the kennels as possible. I’m going to greet each dog as a distraction. Meet me in the doorway and keep abreast of me.”
“Got it,” Rasmussen said softly, and I nodded before realizing nobody was seeing me do it.
“Dumbass,” Rose muttered.
“Somebody can see me,” I whispered back.
“Shhhhh,” Vassago said, a finger to his lips, then he moved out.
The room was easily forty feet long and twenty wide. The wall across from us was lined with kennels. They were more like horse stalls or paddocks, that were easily ten feet by ten feet. The doors were iron, almost like old jailhouse doors set into a wooden divider. The dogs… I knew they were mundane dogs, but the beasts all looked to be on the larger side of the scale even for Danes. They were easily pushing two hundred to two hundred fifty pounds of raw muscle and power.
Vassago walked to the first cage, and when Rasmussen stepped out into the opening against the wall, I stepped right next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder so he’d know where I was. I felt the trickle of magic from the necklace and marveled. I could feel it draining me, but it wasn’t horrible yet. The thing that stuck out in my mind though was that Sebastian was supposed to have worn this thing for days. It would exhaust my magics within hours, even with them untapped now. It made me appreciate my pistols. No matter how powerful magic was, a shot to the heart or brain leveled the playing field.
Since I liked matching gear, I’d left my M&P back in the bunker and had instead brought out my Colt Gold Cup 1911s. They were much larger than my smaller concealed guns, and I wore them on my hip gunslinger style. I’d had a custom belt made back in the 70s that I still wore. It had magazine pouches for the Colt lining it from the holsters all the way to the small of my back. It would sound like it would be uncomfortable, but it wasn’t really, just heavy. I had to fight the urge to pull up my pants. With that, I also had the Deathless blade I’d gotten during the zombie raid on headquarters, and of course, my Gerber folder.
I’d wanted to bring my H&K but then I’d have had to worry about it banging against something, and I was already overburdened. I’d worn some loose fitting dark blue jeans, and a black hoodie with my normal combat boots, which clicked softly on the stone floor.
“Somebody’s coming,” Rasmussen whispered to me as Vassago went from dog to dog.
I looked into the futures to see two men were headed our way, arms loaded with large bones with meat chunks hanging off of them. I scanned the room and saw a table ten paces ahead, something we were going to have to avoid anyway, which pushed us closer to the dogs. I needed to make a plan. Quick.
“Walk normal, when we get to the table, take a seat, grab the empty wine bottle and put your head down. Act like you’re passed out.”
“I…”
“Do it,” Vassago hissed over his shoulder.
Rasmussen hurried, making two of the dogs growl, and the chair scraped as he pulled it out and sat down. I pushed two of the empty wine bottles and a plate full of crumbs near him, and he grabbed a bottle and put his head down on the table. The hood covered his bald head, and he let his other hand fall limply to his side. I stood behind him, crouched and waited.
The voices were speaking Dutch or some other Germanic language, not one of my specialties and walked in. They saw Rasmussen first and then they saw Vassago with his hand inside one of the paddocks, petting a Dane on the head.
“Here to feed my babies?” Vassago asked.
“Das Khrystiana’s war hounds,” one of them said in broken English, and the other spat on the stonework next to them.
“Mind if I?” Vassago asked walking in their direction.
“Stay back,” the one carrying the bin full of bones and chunks of meat said. “No, is my job watch you. Who that?” he asked, nodding at Rasmussen.
“Devlin. Poor fellow can’t hold a drink, like you bastards.”
“You dare?” the other man asked.
I used my sight to see what would happen if I stood up. They looked right through me, so I did.
Both of them were wearing modern day clothing, jeans and cotton button up shirts, with sensible walking boots. I couldn’t sense anything magical about them, but they were talking to Vassago like they were his betters, or more powerful. What was going on here?”
“You know, I’m getting tired of being treated like these guys back here. Do you know,” he said, pulling one glove off, fingertip by fingertip. “I have more power in one finger… I could end both of you with a mere touch.”
&nb
sp; The one holding the bones laughed and then walked forward, throwing a bone through the first opening. The dog lunged for the bone, and the others started barking in anticipation.
“You no scare us. You cowed, you should be in a cage like dogs. You are dog. You are Empresses dog. Bah,” he said, walking past Vassago, bumping shoulders to continue emptying his bin.
Vassago shook with impotent rage and then walked to the table, pulling out a chair and plopping down across from Rasmussen.
“You know, one of these days I won’t be beholden to the empress, or she’ll remove my shackles. You should remember that,” Vassago said softly.
“They mean to bait him into a fight or jump him,” Rasmussen said softly, his face to the table.
Vassago made a confused face, not hearing everything, so I walked quietly, heel to toe and whispered the message to him. His eyes didn’t show anything, and he leaned back, one elbow on the table, picking up an empty bottle by its neck.
“What is das?” the second man asked.
“Just making sure if you try any of your shenanigans like you did last time that it’s going to hurt you. I can cut you up, I can stick this in your eye, then I can heal you and do it all over again, and it’s your word against mine.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” the man said, throwing the last of the bones into the cages.
“Oh, but I might. How about you try me?” he asked and smashed the bottle on the edge of the table, startling me, and making Rasmussen twitch in surprise.
The men stood there a second and then left the way they’d come in.
“That could have been bad,” Rasmussen said quietly, “Is it safe?”
I checked the futures, “Yes, for a good while now, if you stay right there.”
Rasmussen sat up and then got to his feet, leaving his chair out. “Good, that table hasn’t been scrubbed in a long time.”
“Let’s go,” Vassago said, putting the broken bottle on the table, mindful of the glass shards that were scattered everywhere.
The dogs were too busy to notice our departure and were happily gnawing away at the large bones. Something about them made me think of a cow’s leg bone but that seemed wrong, the bones didn’t have the right diameter I didn’t think. I didn’t dwell on it and followed until we passed into the arched doorway the men had gone through. I saw it opened into a landing with what looked like stone steps, spiraling upwards, nearly six feet wide between the stonework.
Second Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles Page 20
