Book 2: Chapter 98: Hunted (1/2)

Dan immediately dragged Abby down into a crouch, hissing, ”Body!” under his breath. His veil lanced out two-hundred feet in every direction, creating a lattice-work of thin threads that served as a spider's web. He tagged every living creature touching the ground in that radius. Another flex of will had threads winding their way up trees like vines seeking sunlight. They crossed over thick trunks and danced along thick branches to find birds and bugs alike, but nothing capable of killing an armed man.

Abby tensed beside Dan as he worked, her eyes flitting across the dense overgrowth. Her hand found his and squeezed tight as she asked, ”Where?”

”Fork of the river,” Dan said. His veil dipped below ground, checking for tunnels. He found what felt like a small rodent and more worms than he'd ever wanted to think about, but nothing that constituted a threat. ”I can't feel anything dangerous, but he's wearing a Coldwater uniform.”

”Are you sure he's dead?” Abby whispered, her voice tight.

Dan's veil brushed against cold flesh. ”I'm sure.”

Abby pulled him forward, staying low, ”I need to see the body. And we need to call it in.”

”Neither of us have a radio and I'm not leaving you here alone for a single second,” Dan hissed.

”There's a spare radio in the sole of my shoe,” Abby said tersely, ”but first we need to see how he died.”

They crept forward, keeping quiet. The sound of the forest had dimmed. The insects were quiet and the birds had fled. The only sound that remained was the quiet bubbling of flowing water, and the soft tapping of the body being jostled by the current. Dan's veil constantly swept his surroundings, ready to act at the slightest hint of danger. In the darkness of t-space, a chunk of steel began to fall.

At the fork of the river, they found the body. The Coldwater guard had been wedged unceremoniously between the floor of the river and a small outcrop that was just before the branching stream. The water around him was a murky brown that was slowly drifting downstream. The current was slow but steady, and a badly disfigured limb bobbed in and out of the water.

Abby sucked in a sharp breath, but her eyes did not flinch away. Dan fixed a scowl on his face as he ran his veil over the body. It was mangled, stripped to the bone in places, and twisted into a shape that humans were not meant to adopt. The Coldwater uniform had been shredded, and what was left of the vest exhibited a series of deep gouges through the reinforced chest plate. His weapon was missing, and his radio was not on his belt.

Dan turned his attention to his veil, this time searching for more than just living things. His threads quickly found what he was searching for: an assault rifle, twisted into a pretzel and discarded in the undergrowth. No animal could have done that.

”His radio is missing,” Dan told Abby, as she leaned down to remove her shoe. He pointed towards the woods. ”His gun is over there, bent into a knot. You need to raise the alarm.”

”If whoever killed him took his radio,” Abby said, ”then there are protocols we need to follow.” She turned her shoe over so that the sole was facing upwards and carefully extracted a narrow cylinder from below the heel. The device was smaller than a cigarette, with a button on one side and a speaker on the other.

Abby clicked it in a quick pattern, too fast for Dan to follow. She paused, then clicked another pattern into it and waited.

”That should signal the mansion guards that the radios have been compromised and to switch to our secondary frequency,” she explained quietly, her eyes flitting from tree to tree. Dan could see her hand trembling, and he quietly placed his own over it.

The tiny radio crackled, and a voice demanded, ”Status!”

”Alive and unharmed,” Abby replied. ”You have a man down. Savaged. He's missing his radio.” She paused, took a deep breath and then voiced Dan's fears, ”Prepare for Cannibal.”

Tingling jolts of lightning raced up Dan's spine and fanned out across his back, followed by crawling waves of gooseflesh. He fought down a violent tremor, brought out by the memory alone of the monstrous thing he'd faced in that cheap motel room. His veil snapped out, lashing around the base of a nearby tree. He flexed, and hollowed out the plant's flesh, dropping an enormous log into t-space and letting it fall.

”Understood ma'am,” the voice said. ”Are you in a secure location?”

”I'm in the forest, north side, maybe a quarter mile out,” her eyes glanced to Dan, ”but I think Daniel can get us through lockdown. Please secure my family immediately.”

”Copy that, ma'am. Beginning lockdown procedures.”

An alarm rang out across the mansion grounds. In the distance, Dan heard the sound of great shutters falling, slamming down against the earth. The mansion was built like a fortress, and it came with its very own portcullis mounted over every entrance. The windows were blocked off at a command, and each room would be methodically sealed as the inhabitants moved towards a safe room at the center of the building.

”We need to move,” Abby said, guiding Dan away from the body. ”There's a quarter-mile of thicket between us and the mansion.”

Gunfire erupted in the distance!