Mountain Echoes

Chapter Twenty-Four

I think the only thing that kept Danny from shooting us right then was the probably unbased fear the rifle’s report would be heard above the chopper’s blades. We all hit the ground, dampening our heat signals with leaves and mud. I folded my white coat under myself, cringing at the exhaustion that left me unable to protect it with the thin magic sheen I’d used before. The chopper skimmed past us, treetops whipping and snapping with its passage. Danny snarled, “That’s an excuse,” but my father snaked a hand out and wrapped it around the rifle’s muzzle.

“We’re not your enemies, Dan. You know that.”

“Maybe you’re not, but all this trouble started when Joanne came back to town.”

That was entirely untrue. It had started several days before I’d come back, but I didn’t think Danny would appreciate the distinction. “Is Aidan with you?”

“Of course Aidan is with us,” he snapped. “Who do you think is keeping the military off our backs?”

We hadn’t been being loud to begin with, but all three of us got really quiet. That was not an angle I’d expected, and it shot a spark of hope through me. Maybe Aidan had thrown off the wights’ influence. Maybe he was the hero of the hour, and we were just coming late to the party to offer our congratulations. My head throbbed with relief at the idea, even if I didn’t so much as half believe it. I was happy to hunt wights and fight the Executioner if Aidan was already safe. I’d happily fight them every day for the rest of my life, if he was safe.

Morrison broke our silence. “When did he join you?”

“He came and got us,” Danny spat. “Sunday evening, right before the CDC showed up. He came down to the school and said they were coming and that we’d all be quarantined if we didn’t get into the hills.”

Sunday evening. If Aidan had been here Sunday evening, then he hadn’t lost days and days to his time travel stunt. He’d been able to land back where he came from, which just wasn’t fair. I wanted to rail at Renee for that, but at this juncture, it seemed useless. Instead I took a deep breath and tried to focus on something far more important: “Danny, did you burn the bodies? The ones who’d been keeping vigil, did you burn them?”

I felt his blistering glare through the darkness. “Sara said we should. She got outvoted.”

“Jesus. How many more people died when they rose?”

“How do you know what happened!”

“I think,” Morrison said under our increasing volume, “that we should take this discussion elsewhere. The helicopter is gone. This is probably our best chance to move.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Michael Morrison, and I’m with Joanne. If you don’t like that, fine. But the longer we stay here, the better our chances of being discovered are. If I were searching these woods I’d be doing more than one pass, but they’ve got a lot of territory to cover and we may be able to get out of their sweep range if we move now.”

“What are you, military?”

“Police.”

Dan said a word his grandmother wouldn’t have approved of and rolled to his feet. The rest of us followed, mouths shut and ears sharp to listen for the chopper coming back. Dan led us into an old mine shaft when we heard it, taking us deep enough that there wasn’t a hint of moonlight to illuminate the way. He stepped up beside me and breathed, “I could drop you in here and nobody would ever know,” in my ear.

I said, “Don’t be absurd,” out loud, because if nothing else, drawing attention to a threat frequently removed it. Women weren’t good at that, as a rule. Societal convention told us to not raise our voices, even when we felt threatened. Police academy had done a good job of breaking that training, and I wasn’t about to lend credence to Dan’s theatrics by whispering back. “First off, Dad and Morrison are here, and they know you don’t like me, so if I fell in the shaft they might be suspicious. Second, I’m the shaman here, Dan. I can See perfectly clearly in the pitch dark. If you try throwing me down a pit, you’re probably a lot more likely than I am to end up in it.”

That was obviously not how Danny had planned for the conversation to go. He made a sound of impotent rage and stomped a few feet away. Only a few feet—I bet he wasn’t kidding about the dangers of the mine, and that there was indeed a shaft close enough to get thrown down.

My father said, “Dan?” incredulously, but Morrison only chuckled. Apparently he wasn’t too worried about me being pitched into pits, which was heartening.

After a few minutes we ventured out again, this time avoiding any further chopper passes. Within half an hour we were in a moonlit vale that, from ground level, had the faintest signs of human habitation. I thought they must be less visible from above, and wondered how far from modern civilization we were.

The cave system Dan led us into was natural and deep. I was astonished it hadn’t been exploited for minerals, but even the most assiduous explorers sometimes missed things. There could’ve been a rainstorm the day they went through this valley, who knew, or maybe somehow they’d just never come this way. Whatever the reason, he led us a fair distance down, stopping to turn a flashlight on once we were well past the cave’s mouth.

The light caught attention down below. A number of people came to greet us, most of them expecting Dan and wary when they caught sight of the rest of us. Some relaxed at Dad’s presence, but more of them tensed up at mine. I was not exactly endearing myself to my former townspeople.

Les’s grandfather pushed through to the front, shaking Dad’s hand, patting Danny on the shoulder and subtly ushering them both into the crowd behind him, which necessarily left Morrison and me on our own. Dad realized what had happened about half a step too late. I splayed my fingers when he made to come back, trying to stop him. If they threw us out, we, and probably they, would be better off with Dad in there. At least he had some idea of what was going on, and they might listen to him if we were ejected.

“There’s a problem, Joanne.” Les Senior looked pained but determined. Me, I only nodded. I was sure there was a problem. It was just a question of whether his interpretation of the problem lined up with mineanne.ine. “We’ve been warned, you see,” Grandpa Les went on. “Wasn’t much of a surprise, what with all this trouble starting just before you came back, but it’s coming from a source I trust, you see?”

I waited. He would nerve himself up to the confession soon enough, but I wasn’t going to make it any easier for him.

“It’s Aidan, you see,” Grandpa Les said after a moment, and my heart dropped. Aidan hadn’t thrown off the infection after all. He was still the source of the CDC’s hunt, maybe imprisoned by, or worse, damaging the Cherokee who had retreated into the woods. I was about to ask to see him when Grandpa Les finished, “He says it’s you who’s been taken by Kolona Ayeliski.”

Of course he does. I didn’t think I said it out loud, but the thought rocked me back on my heels and shuttered my eyes for a moment. Of course he did. I should have seen that coming. I really should have, and I really hadn’t. Clever damned child. Clever Master, manipulating him. I heard Dan bark a triumphant sound, and my father and Morrison start to protest.

I raised a hand, trying to silence them, and met Les Senior’s eyes. “It’s not true, but obviously that’s what I would say. I’m afraid that Aidan’s been taken by Raven Mocker, but obviously I would say that, too. And I’m completely flat, totally out of power right now, so I don’t even think there’s any way I could use magic to prove myself to you. I was going to ask for a drum circle,” I said wearily. “I was going to ask for your help, so I could try to protect you and this valley from an evil that’s coming.”

“We know about that evil,” somebody growled. “We hear their helicopters and know they hunt the hills for us.”

“The military is not the problem.” That was grossly untrue. The military was potentially a huge problem. But there were other problems on the plate first, like “The wights are part of the problem. Will someone tell me how many there are now?”

Somebody else muttered, “She oughta know, if she’s Kolona Ayeliski,” but another person hawked in disbelief. “She wouldn’t let on if she knew, would she.”

“We burned them.” Sara pushed her way to the front, red spots high on her cheekbones. Her gaze darted from me to my father and back again, but she focused on answering the question. “After the first ones rose, we burned the ones they killed, but the seven got away. They spread out and we don’t know how far they got. When we found bodies, we burned them, too, but we only found a few.” She looked between me and Dad again, then focused on me with cold fear in her eyes. “Where’s Lucas, Joanne? You found your dad. Where’s Lucas? Where’s my husband?”

“I’m sorry, Sara.”

She went white, making the hot spots on her cheeks stand out all the more. She wasn’t surprised: she’d known, really, from the moment Dad and I showed up without him. “What happened? Where is he? What happened, Joanne?”

“The Nothing pulled him into another time, onto a battlefield. Dad followed, but it was too late. I’m so sorry, Sara. I’m so sorry.”

Even the red faded, now, though she kept herself bolt upright. “Another time? There’s not even a body?”

“I’m sorry.” Dad spoke this time. “I did the rites. I bathed him and I buried him so no sorcerer could steal his soul. I don’t know if it’s what people would have done, but it was all I could do.”

Sara’s attention snapped to him, but she was so rigid that the motion unbalanced her. I reached to support her and she slapped my hand away, swaying. “You’re sure it was him? It could have been anyone—”

“He was wearing jeans and a Lakers T-shirt, Sara. We were out of time. No one else was dressed that way. It was Lucas. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t there sooner.”

Sara made fists, shoulders high as she stared at the ground. “Would it have helped if I’d called Joanne sooner? Would it have made a difference?”

Dad shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’d have had to have gone through the Nothing together for him to have a chance. I just wasn’t soon enough. Joanne couldn’t have made a difference.”

“You said through time.” Her voice was turning harsh with swallowed sobs now. “Can you...can you go back? Can you rescue him?”

“I can’t.” Dad looked at me this time, and Sara’s entire body filled with tension.

There was really only one thing I could say. “I’ll try. I can’t right now, Sara, I really am wiped out, but I’ll try as soon as I’m powered up.”

To my utter surprise, she stepped past Les Senior and took up a place by my side. “Then I’ll drum for you.”

“Sara...” Grandpa Lester’s voice carried a warning note.

Sara’s head came up, color high again as her eyes flashed a warning of their own. “What, maybe I’m siding with the enemy? I don’t care, Grandpa Les. If it gets me my husband back, I don’t care. Besides, Joanne’s a lot of things, including dumb, but she’s not evil. I’ve seen her at work. She’s the thing evil runs from. If she thinks Aidan’s the problem here, then he probably is. Don’t say she didn’t warn you, when it’s all over.”

She was the last person on earth I expected to defend me. A hundred times over the past year I’d thought I didn’t deserve the quality of friends I had. Right now I didn’t even deserve the quality of nemeses I had. Sara outshone me on every level, and I swore to God I would do everything I could to get Lucas back for her.

One more person pushed through the crowd, her dark eyes haggard. “How sure are you? About Aidan. How sure are you?”

“Pretty sure. We saw him caught up in some bad magic. He’s got it in him to fight it, but it’s going to be bad. I’ve got to help him. Dad, me, anybody who’s willing.”

Ada Monroe nodded once, and stepped to my side of the line.