Magic Tides

5

The sunset slowly burned in the west, cooling to dark red and purple. Dusk had claimed the fields of Eagles Island. Thomas and I rode down the same road that had brought us here. A lone vampire was trailing us through the corn, keeping a lot of distance.

“I know where the Emerald Wave is,” Thomas said. “Never heard of Aaron though.”

And that was strange. If Aaron was a deity, a prophet, or an avatar, he would proselytize. That’s how their kind powered up. How was it that Thomas who, by his own admission, was born and raised in Wilmington, had never heard of him or the cult?

“When was the last time you saw the Emerald Wave?”

He thought about it. “Years. The ocean in that area is strange and dangerous.”

“When did that start?”

“About three or four years ago.”

“Since the Night of the Shining Seas?”

He nodded. “Yes, now that I think about it.”

Hm. “Have you heard of anything specific? Any incidents involving people around the Emerald Wave?”

“There are always stories. Supposedly, that ship has a hole in it that can only be seen from inside of it and it’s full of monsters.”

Peachy.

Thomas checked my face, trying to see what I was thinking.

“The important thing is that Darin is probably alive,” I said. “Water breathing is relatively rare. This Aaron needs him for something.”

Unless he was sacrificing water breathers to some weird deity, but that wasn’t a possibility I would raise with Thomas now.

“Do you think he’s really a god?”

“No. Gods can’t usually manifest outside of flares. Typical magic waves don’t pack enough juice. Also, if the magic falls while a god is in our world in the flesh, they would suffer a lot of damage. They can’t exist in physical form during tech. It would take them decades, possibly generations, to build enough power through faith to manifest again.”

“But they could? If the wave was strong enough?”

“Theoretically. They won’t though. Gods are cowards.”

The blueberry bushes ended. Marsh hugged the roadway, clumps of the smooth cordgrass blending together into a wall of green.

Watching Onyx slide around in his own blood on the floor of the arena bothered me. He was a child trafficker. The grimy cages at Red Horn said that he deserved everything he got.

It still bothered me.

He wasn’t mine to punish. My aunt would have congratulated me on finally learning some discipline. My father would have turned it into a deep examination of his own altruistic impulses and how they eventually led to his downfall and then lectured me to not repeat his mistakes.

I had to let it go. Obsessing about it would only pull me back onto a very dangerous road. It led to claiming territory, and building towers, and people who pledged their lives to me in exchange for a promise of power and immortality. That wasn’t the future I wanted. For myself or for my family.

Something rustled ahead in the marsh. I halted Cuddles. Thomas followed my lead.

The cordgrass parted, and three men emerged onto the road. They moved with the familiar, easy grace of shapeshifters. One of them carried a bucket. And the shortest of them carried a claymore on his back.

Gods damn it all to hell and back. Don’t see us. Don’t.

The three shapeshifters caught our scent and turned to look at us in unison. Three pairs of eyes caught the light of the dying sunrise and shone, one green and two yellow.

The green-eyed claymore user stood up straight. He was short but muscled like a wrestler. “Consort?”

Of all people in the whole wide world to run into.

“Consort!” The shapeshifter dropped to one knee and smacked his fist into his chest. “It’s you!”

Why me?

The shapeshifter on his right dropped to one knee as well. The other guy, the one with the bucket, stared at me, wide-eyed.

“Get up, Keelan,” I hissed.

The claymore guy jumped to his feet from kneeling position and trotted over, his eyes shining.

“We’ve been over this. I’m not the Consort. Dali is the Consort now.”

Keelan smiled at me with slightly deranged devotion, his blond hair, wet with Cape Fear’s dark water, sticking to his face and neck. “You will always be the Consort to me.”

My left eye twitched. I slapped my hand over it.

His real name was Caolan Comerford, but he’d changed it when he came to the States. Other Irish people pronounced it as Kaylin or Kwaylan, Americans called him Cowlan, and correcting people got in his way, so he settled on Keelan because it sounded cool and was something he could live with.

Keelan claimed to have descended from the werewolves of Ossory, a mythical Irish shapeshifter kingdom that was said to flourish in Ireland pre-Norman invasion. For a while, I wasn’t sure he was even Irish, since he played up the charming Celtic-rogue thing so much. But according to Curran, there might have been something to his Ossory claims, because Keelan was abnormally gifted as a werewolf. He had a huge warrior form, could keep it up for a long period of time, could talk while in it, and was absolutely lethal in a fight.

I’d interacted with thousands of shapeshifters in my life, and Keelan was the only shapeshifter who fought with a claymore. In the warrior form. The first time I met him, we were in the middle of a skirmish, and he just kind of waded into it. His claymore was 55 inches long, and he himself was 66 inches tall. He had pulled it off his back, looked around, and suddenly this enormous werewolf spilled out and started swinging the claymore, one-handed. It was all offense. He had zero sword training until me. He had just whipped the claymore around like it was a club, and it hadn’t hindered him any, because when a giant werewolf waved around 6 pounds of sharpened metal, it cleared his killing field in record time. It took me almost two years to make him into a half-decent swordsman.

“What are you doing here, Consort?” Keelan asked, petting Cuddles.

“I should be asking you that question. Why are you sneaking into the Farm? Are you trying to start a war?”

The shapeshifter with the bucket hid it behind him.

“What’s in the bucket?” I asked.

“Umm,” Keelan said.

Keelan had come to us a few months after our trip to the Mediterranean. He had been looking for something to do with his life, and once he’d heard the story of the Beast Lord and his glorious quest to obtain panacea for his pack, he decided to check us out. The moment he had seen Curran in a warrior form, Keelan decided he had found his purpose for living. Somehow my husband was the answer to everything Keelan was searching for. Curran, recognizing talent, had admitted him to the Pack on the condition he would give us 10 years.

And then Curran and I walked away from the Pack. Curran was Keelan’s favorite person, and I was his second favorite person, because I taught him how to use his claymore and because I was Curran’s mate. Keelan tried to separate with us, but Jim wouldn’t let him go until his contract was up. He counted on Keelan to counterbalance Desandra, the alpha of Clan Wolf. Except Keelan wanted nothing to do with being an alpha of the wolves. One time Desandra lost her patience and straight out asked him if he would ever make a bid for her spot, and he told her that only an idiot would want that job, because life was far too short for that kind of bullshit. Both Jim and Desandra tried to pull him to their respective sides, but Keelan proceeded to half-ass every task they had given him and was insufferably apathetic about werewolfing in general and following their orders in particular.

Although headquartered in Atlanta, the Pack claimed a good chunk of the southern Atlantic seaboard as their territory. Wilmington, close to that territory’s northern border, was one of the most dangerous areas because of Barrett and the Farm. The Pack maintained a minimal presence here, less than 20 people total, but all of them were highly skilled combat shapeshifters. Almost every promising render did a tour here if they wanted to move up, so when the alpha in charge of the Wilmington sub-pack had gotten herself killed, Desandra nominated Keelan as her replacement to get him out of her hair, and Jim, who’d given up on Keelan by that point, shipped him off.

And now he was sneaking onto the Farm with a bucket.

“What’s in the bucket?” I repeated.

Keelan fluttered his eyelashes at me. “The thing is…”

The cow. The cow coming out of the arena with a big-ass paw print on its butt. “Is that paint?”

Keelan surrendered to his fate. “Yes.”

“Please tell me that you aren’t tagging Barrett’s cows with your paws. Tell me you are not doing it.”

“I’m not doing it.” Keelan nodded. “He is.”

The guy with the bucket gave me a small, hesitant wave.

“It’s tradition,” Keelan said. “When new people come here from Atlanta, they tag the cows. Just to remind them we’re watching. It keeps the navigators on their toes.”

“I just saw a tagged cow,” I growled. “Why are you still here?”

“That was Selina yesterday. Today it’s Hakeem’s turn. We got two new people this time.” Keelan held up two fingers in case I couldn’t count.

My face must’ve been terrible, because Keelan raised his hands up. “It’s perfectly safe. I’m going to grab a cow and run with it to the left and Andre is going to grab another cow and run right. While they are chasing us, Hakeem will tag what’s left. They’re not expecting us for a second night in a row.”

At times like this I wished I was still the Consort because I could just order them to leave, and they would. A bloodbath would be avoided.

“Tonight is not the night. I just pissed Barrett off, and there is an undead trailing us.”

Keelan’s eyes flashed green. “Do you need us to…?”

“I have no right to tell you what I need. I’m not part of the Pack. But I would appreciate an escort off the Farm.”

“Oh, we would be delighted.” Keelan’s voice came out as a guttural snarl. “Protect the Consort.”

The shapeshifters formed up around us, with Keelan by my side and the two others bringing up the rear in a triangular formation. We started down the road.

“So what brings you to the Farm, Consort?” Keelan asked.

How could I put this to keep consequences to a minimum…

“She’s helping me find my son,” Thomas said.

“So sorry he’s missing,” Keelan said. “How do you two know each other?”

Mayday, mayday…

“We—” I started, trying to make something up.

“My brother is remodeling their home,” Thomas said. “They bought Fort Kure.”

Damn it.

Keelan’s eyes blazed. “Does that mean the Beast Lord is here?”

There was no point in lying. “Yes.”

“Here in Wilmington?”

“Yes.”

Keelan nodded. “And this house this man’s brother is remodeling, will it be a permanent residence?”

“Yes.”

Keelan hopped in place and darted into the corn. We kept riding.

Thomas looked at me.

“He needs a moment,” I told him. “Please let me answer the questions next time.”

“You didn’t tell me you were the Consort.”

“I’m not the Consort,” I growled. “I haven’t been the Consort for 9 years.”

“I didn’t think you were a shapeshifter, but now I see it,” Thomas said. “You sound like one.”

Behind me Andre made a strangled noise that sounded a lot like an aborted snicker.

Keelan jumped out from the corn and trotted over to his spot by Cuddles. “Why is the Beast Lord not with you?”

“Go ahead, tell him,” I told Thomas.

“The Red Horn gang is going to attack Fort Kure tonight,” Mr. Loose Lips said.

Keelan smiled. The moon slipped out from behind the clouds and filled his eyes with its light.

“Thomas’ family is hiding at Fort Kure,” I said. “If you help us across the river and take Thomas back to the fort, you might get there in time for some action.”

Keelan smiled, showing me all of his teeth. “It will be an honor.”

Yep, I totally passed the buck to Curran. Nope, I didn’t feel any guilt about it.

“I thought we agreed I would come with you,” Thomas said.

“Things changed. Onyx was a trafficker, but he was also Barrett’s journeyman. He was good enough to be part of the Farm’s cadre, his permanent staff. Onyx understood power because he witnessed it daily. When he told me about Aaron, there was reverence in his voice. That man may or may not be a god, but he must be packing some serious magic power. If you come with me, I will have two targets to protect, you and Darin. You’re going to have to trust me.”

Thomas’ mouth turned into a hard, flat line.

“I’ve seen her kill a dragon,” Keelan told him in a confidential tone.

Thomas jerked, startled.

“Oh, it was glorious.” The werewolf raised his hand, drawing a wide arc across the sky. “The world was smoke and fire. The dragon spat flames like a jet of napalm to and fro. People died where they stood, and their bodies turned to ash. And she ran up its head and thrust two swords into the dragon’s eyes while her husband tore out its throat.”

Thank you, Keelan, for stabbing my last hope for anonymity through the heart. “You should talk less.”

Keelan winked at Thomas. “If anyone can get your boy, she is it. And he’ll be overjoyed that his dad is in one piece. Trust in the Consort. I do and I haven’t regretted it yet.”

Getting across Cape Fear proved to be surprisingly easy because the ferry was now running. According to the captain, a juvenile Sargasso Sea kraken had come into the river, probably due to inexperience, and some fool had blown it clear out of the water, causing a feeding frenzy. Nobody knew how. Crazy what people got up to nowadays.

Thomas had given me detailed directions. I was to take Market Street heading northeast to Porter’s Neck, then make a right at the old Walgreens that now was half-pharmacy, half-apothecary, onto Porter’s Neck Road. Then I’d make another right onto Edgewater Club, then a left onto Bridge Road, and another left onto Siren Call once I got to Figure Eight Island. About 22 miles. Give or take 3 hours, with some delays built in. The sun had finally set, so it was around 8:30 pm or so. I should get there by midnight.

We parted ways. Keelan, Thomas, and the other two shapeshifters headed south. They would swing by their secondary HQ in Veteran’s Forest and pick up more “friends,” as Keelan put it, before heading to our place. I wished Keelan good luck, he somberly told me to “stay safe,” and I went east on Market Street.

According to the archival records, pre-Shift Market Street was a busy place, a typical small-southern-city kind of road. Hotels, auto parts stores, restaurants, little plaza strips, most buildings one story, maybe two, flanked by generous parking lots. Some of that was still there, but the landscape had changed. Buildings occurred in clumps, with wide killing zones around them in case something weird crawled out of the encroaching woods and decided to sample some two-legged cuisine. A lot of parking lots had fences.

I reached a Food Lion with a large parking lot defended by a guard in a tower. The place was probably about to close—most stores didn’t stay open after dark. There was a small restaurant adjacent to it, lit up by blue feylanterns. The sign on it said, “7 to 11.” A smaller sign offered breakfast all day. Perfect.

I rode into the parking lot, tied Cuddles to the rail put in front of the restaurant for that purpose, and walked in. The restaurant was tiny, only five tables, all empty. A fast-food style counter cut the kitchen off from the dining area. Above it hung pictures of the dishes with prices: eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns…

A middle-aged woman, with black, curly hair put away into a round bun and cool tint to her brown skin, came to the counter and gave me a friendly smile.

“What will it be?”

I put $50 worth of silver onto the counter. “Can I use your phone?”

She picked up the silver, reached below the counter, and set the phone onto it. “Got a long night ahead of you?”

How did she know? “Probably.”

She nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

I tried the phone. Dial tone. Score.

I dialed Hugh’s number. The phone rang. And rang. And rang…

There was a click and Hugh’s voice said, “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Did you know the bone-breaking command can explode krakens?”

“Yes.”

What the hell. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“Did you blow up a kraken?”

“Maybe.”

He laughed into the phone. “Is Wilmington still standing?”

“Last I checked.”

The woman returned, put a cup of coffee with creamer in front of me and a plate with a small apple Danish, smiled again, and went away.

I took a whiff of apple, cinnamon, and coffee and almost cried with happiness. I’d have to remember this place.

“I went to see Barrett.”

“Why?”

“Something came up.”

“Does he know who you are?”

“No.” I bit into my Danish, poured too much cream into my coffee, and took a big gulp. “I might have pretended to be one of your people.”

“Run that by me again?”

“I let Barrett think I was a former Iron Dog.”

He guffawed.

“Laugh it up, why don’t you?”

“Why?” Hugh managed finally.

“He ran a vampire at me at full speed and I forgot to flinch.”

“Aha. And why did you leave my stellar leadership?”

“Apparently I have a problem with authority.”

“That checks out. I’ll add you to the roll. Lennart or Daniels? Or make something up?”

“Make something up, please.”

I took another bite.

The humor drained from Hugh’s voice. “Barrett is only dangerous when he smiles and when he doesn’t.”

“Ha-ha.”

“I mean it. Stay clear if you can.”

“How good is he?” I took another bite.

“Better than a few Legati I knew.”

During my father’s rule, the Golden Legion consisted of the best Masters of the Dead, the most talented and deadly, and the Legatus that led it was the strongest of all of them. My father promoted rigorous competition and prioritized strength and talent. The position of Legatus had large turnover, and nobody had yet to retire from it.

“Your buddy Ghastek,” Hugh said. “Powerful but too smart for his own good. He thinks too much, and it makes him predictable. Barrett’s a thinker too, but nobody knows what makes him tick. He doesn’t form alliances. He doesn’t respond to threats. It’s very difficult to provoke him on purpose, but sometimes he reacts with overwhelming violence to minor shit. If he found out who you are, it might be ‘you killed my master, prepare to die’ or ‘the King is out, long rule the Queen.’ I have no idea which he’ll pick, and I wouldn’t bet a dime either way.”

I sighed and drank more of my coffee.

“What does he say about it?” Hugh asked.

“Nothing. I haven’t asked him. I try to not involve him in my business.”

“That’s for the best.”

“Does your wife know of any water gods active around Wilmington?”

“Why is it that any time a freaky deity pops up somewhere, all of you call my wife?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?”

“…Good point. Hold on, I’ll ask.”

I held the phone away from my ear.

“HEY, HONEY? DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ANY WATER GODS IN WILMINGTON?”

How Elara put up with him I would never know. Then again, I married a man who occasionally turned into a lion in his sleep, so I had no room to judge. I finished my Danish.

“She says she doesn’t know of anything recent. With Wilmington being an international port, it’s hard to say.”

“Please tell her thank you.”

“A lot of Irish in Wilmington,” Hugh said.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that.”

“It could be a god or it could be something else, and either way, it’s likely dangerous. Watch yourself.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Whatever you do, don’t feed it to Curran.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Call me if you need help. Gods know you could use it.”

“If I did call you, what would you do? You’ve gone soft in your country lord life, in your keep, with your wife baking delicious desserts for you and your gang of children.”

“That’s good. I’ll remind you of that next time you call. And by the way, you can call even when you don’t need something. And you can visit.”

“I know. Take care.”

“You too.”

We did visit, eight months ago. Which was why Paul had had to work extra hard to convince Curran that there was absolutely no way to put a moat around our new residence. He still wanted it and swore he’d find a way somehow.

I finished the last swallow of my delicious coffee and went on my way.

As soon as we left the Food Lion parking lot, Cuddles picked up the pace, clopping her way on the crumbling highway like she had some place to be and needed to get there. Horses could be convinced to go faster or slower, but donkeys had a mind of their own, so I gave thanks to the donkey gods and enjoyed the ride.

Eventually we left the city behind and entered the wooded stretch that separated Wilmington proper from the little town of Porter’s Neck. Before the Shift, they were part of the same metro, but the hazards brought by the magic waves made the towns contract to their own boundaries. Here woods hugged the road, birches, maples, magnolias, all magic-fed to record size. Keeping the forest at bay was a constant fight, and the humans didn’t always win it.

The moon lit my way, its light pouring from the sky. The road ahead almost glowed. Things tracked my progress from the gloom between the trees, their eyes shining in every color. Sometimes instead of a pair, it was one giant eye, sometimes three, set in a triangle. One time it was eight, high in the tree, glowing with eerie magenta. If a giant spider decided to jump onto my head, I’d have a devil of a time convincing Cuddles to keep going in the right direction.

The eyes blinked out on both sides of the road, as if snuffed out by a gust of wind. Hurried rustling announced several furry creatures beating a very fast retreat. I glanced behind me. A vampire crouched on the road. This one was old, gristled and leathery, with claws the size of curved paring knives. Its ruby eyes stared at me with unblinking focus.

About time. It had followed me all the way from the Farm, its presence an annoying red spark on the edge of my mind.

The undead stood up straight. Cartilage crunched as the joints realigned themselves to a posture that was no longer natural. The vampire walked over and took a knee.

“Sharratum,” the undead intoned in Rimush’s voice.

Sighing wouldn’t have been politic. “Just Kate, son of Akku. I renounced that title. And all that went with it.”

“It’s who you are. You cannot renounce it any more than you can renounce being human.”

This would be a complicated conversation. “Join me.”

The undead shifted back to all fours, and we started down the road side by side.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To serve you.”

“But I don’t want to be served.”

Rimush’s voice was slightly mournful. “Some rulers wear the crown with pride because they see it as a prize they have won. Some take it as their due, never doubting that it should be theirs. Yet others chafe under it, for it is heavy and the weight of many souls clings to its gold. It is those who push away the power who end up benefitting their people the most.”

“I’m not fit to rule.”

The vampire sighed. “And yet, rule you must.”

“Why?”

“Because your people need you.”

“How are you my people?” My people were back at Fort Kure.

“Your father brought us into this unfamiliar, new world. Everything we know is gone. Our kingdom is a distant memory. Our temples and monuments are gone. The resting places of our ancestors have vanished, and their names are lost to time. Even the land is not the same. He promised us he would rebuild our nation, that he would be our shelter and our guide, and now he is gone.”

And he was gone because I made it happen.

“We didn’t ask for this. We didn’t choose to awaken. We were called to serve and dedicate ourselves to something greater, yet we’re left with ashes. We are alone, abandoned and adrift in this new foreign age. You are born of it. Who will protect us and lead us? Who else will guide your people and give us a purpose so we do not become lost?”

Every sentence was an arrow loaded with guilt.

If I could have gotten my hands on my father right this second, I would have shaken him until his teeth rattled in his head, while pointing at the vampire and yelling, “Look what you did!”

“You would be better off paying your respects to my aunt.”

“Errahim has her own people. We’re not welcome there.”

True. Even before my father and aunt had gone to sleep, they maintained separate administrations and staff. Namtur and co. wouldn’t react well to Akku and his family butting in.

“Besides, your aunt has chosen to bow her head to a different power. It’s not a power we wish to serve.”

They knew. How in the world had they found out? Erra’s involvement with the federal government was so well hidden, those closest to her didn’t even think about it.

“I’m sorry that my father brought you here and left you to fend for yourselves. He is a flawed man, who felt crushing guilt over the demise of his kingdom and became blinded with power and desperation. You’re right. He is gone now. This is a new world. The time of our fathers has passed. You don’t need to serve me, Rimush. You don’t need to serve anyone. The Shinar is over.”

Rimush smiled with the vampire’s mouth. “The Shinar we knew was over when your father took the throne.”

“Then why are you here? Why are you trying to follow our faulty bloodline? Don’t you want to be free?”

The vampire looked up at the sky. “It is because I’m free that I’m here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Shinar began in a time of great darkness, in a land torn by war and besieged by monsters. It was a beacon of hope and light, where the weak were protected and the strong found the purpose of their lives. I grew up with legends of that time, of heroes who selflessly fought, sacrificed, and struggled to find a better way to live. They were everywhere, in our lullabies, in our great poems and sagas, in our paintings, in the stories told to children. And here we are again, in a time of great danger and encroaching darkness, when the weak are suffering and the strong prey on the rest.”

Well, he had me there.

“My father told me that when your father was young, he was not the same man I knew. The Shinar had become warped long before I was born. Before he left for the final battle with the dragon, your father had written your name in the Book of Kings as the Heir, the one who came after him. My father and I and ten others witnessed it.”

Yet another thing Dad neglected to mention.

The vampire turned to look at me, its eyes glowing with ruby fire. “That means nothing to me.”

Oh.

“You’re right. The old kingdom is gone. Dittalim ushemi.”

Gone to ash.

“I understand it, and so do my father and my siblings.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I want my life to matter. I want to be the one who holds back the darkness. I want to dedicate myself to something greater. Every man must have a purpose. I have found my legend. I have found a person who is a beacon of light.”

Uh-oh. I needed to put an end to this once and for all.

“Look, I’m not qualified to be a queen or a legend. I don’t want to rule. I don’t wish to impose my will on anyone. I don’t need fame or lullabies with my name attached to them. Right now, I just want to get to where I’m going and rescue a kid from some dickhead who may or may not be a god.”

The vampire gave me a big smile.

“What?”

“Asul, the Revered One, the first Sharratum, was the guardian of children. Parents lit incense and fragrant oils in her honor, for when a foreign invader had raided our lands and taken an entire generation of children for their slave pens, she rode into their capital, plunged her sword into their king’s heart, and brought the children home.”

I groaned.

“Fight against it, rage against it, it doesn’t matter. You cannot stop people from following you, no more than you can turn down people who come to you for help. Everything you have done exemplifies the standard to which a queen should aspire, for you are the servant of your people. You help them selflessly without restraint.”

“For the last time, I do not have a ‘people.’”

“The nephew of a craftsman who is working on your house is taken. You will recover him asking nothing in return, and his family will be loyal to you for all eternity…”

“You are seriously misinterpreting this.”

“They will tell stories about you to their children. You will inspire them, so when they see injustice, they will choose to make a stand just as you have done. Try as you might, you cannot change who you are.”

“Watch me.” Oh, that was a clever comeback. What did I even mean by that? I liked who I was.

The vampire scuttled a few steps ahead and bowed. Cuddles stopped, unsure if she should deliver a stomp to the head.

“I, Rimush, son of Akku and Saile, the Seventh Blade, pledge myself to you, Sharratum. I will serve you in all things, for I have witnessed your deeds and you are worthy of my loyalty.”

Great. Just great.

“My family are your eyes, ears, and blades. Call on us in your time of need.”

The undead lifted its head, bowed again, and took off down the road back toward the Farm.

Damn it.