“I don’t know, I’ve never tried, mistress.” He shook his head. “But arrows bounce from monsters.”
“These don’t.” I pulled one out and showed him the incantation written on the arrowhead. One of the Military Supernatural Defense Unit’s mages wasn’t averse to moonlighting. He was expensive but worth it. “But if you have doubts, why don’t you go stand over there. I’ll shoot you and we’ll find out if it hurts.”
“No thanks.”
I picked up the spare bow and the second quiver and handed it to him. “Then shut up and carry this.”
I started forward at an easy jog, skirting the road. Ascanio followed a couple feet behind. The glass swallowed all footsteps and we glided like two shadows.
A flicker of movement appeared in the corner of my eye. Something crouched atop the glass ridge to the left. Something with a long tail that hid in the shadows. I kept running, pretending I didn’t see it. It didn’t follow.
A muted roar announced water engines being put to good use. We passed under another glass overhang, running parallel to the road. Ahead the ribbon of asphalt turned, rolling through the opening between the glass peaks into the sunlight. I slowed and padded on silent feet to the nearest iceberg ledge, about fifteen feet off the ground. Too smooth to climb. I gathered myself into a tight clump and jumped. My hands caught the glass edge, and I pulled myself up. Ascanio bounced up next to me. We crawled along the ledge to the opening.
A clearing stretched in front of us, about half a football field long. To the right the ground climbed up slightly, the slope studded with pale green glass boulders. A large construction shelter perched on top of the raised ground, its durable fabric stretched over an aluminum frame. To the left a mess of glass bristling with shards curved away, deeper into the glass labyrinth. The tail end of an overturned railroad car stuck out of shards.
An enchanted water engine sat nearby, powering up a massive jackhammer that two construction workers with hardhats and full facial shields pointed at the glass encrusting the train car. Eight other workers, wrapped in similar protective gear, pounded away at the glass with hammers and mining picks.
Three guards milled about the perimeter, each armed with a machete. The nearest to us, a tall, broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties, looked like he wouldn’t hesitate to use his. With the magic up, guns wouldn’t fire, but the security seemed too light for a reclamation in the Glass Menagerie. They must’ve had something else up their sleeves.
“You see what they’re doing?” I murmured to Ascanio.
“They’re trying to salvage that railcar,” he said.
“Why is it illegal?”
He thought about it. “It doesn’t belong to them?”
“Technically the railroad has gone out of business, so this is abandoned property. Try again.”
“I don’t know.”
“What are we sitting on?”
He looked down at the turquoise surface under our feet. “Magic glass.”
“What do we know about it?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Exactly. We don’t know what makes it grow and we don’t know what would make it stop.”
“So anything they take out of that rail car could sprout glass,” Ascanio said.
“Precisely. They’re going to sell whatever they reclaim and they won’t tell the buyer where they got it. And when another Glass Menagerie sprouts someplace, it will be too late.”
“Shouldn’t we do something about it?”
I held up my empty hand. “No badge. We can report it when we get out of here and see if PAD wants to do something about it.” Besides, it wasn’t our job to report it and I was pretty much done with acts of civic responsibility. It wasn’t my problem.
“They have to know that what they’re doing is illegal,” I said. “And this area is dangerous, so they should have more than three bruisers walking about with oversized knives. They have some security we’re not seeing. Be ready for a surprise.”
Ascanio’s eyes lit up with an eerie ruby glow. “Can I shift now?”
“Not yet.” Shifting took a lot of energy. Change your shape twice in rapid succession, and you would have to have some downtime. I needed Ascanio fresh and full of energy, which meant once he shifted, he’d have to stay that way.
We jumped off the ledge and walked down the road straight into the guard. He saw my face and drew back.
“What in the bloody hell are you?”
“Andrea Nash,” I said. “This is my associate, Robin of Loxley.”
Ascanio saluted with the bow. Thankfully no Latin spilled out.
“I’m investigating a murder on behalf of the Pack. I need to talk to Kyle.”
The man stared at me. This was clearly outside of his normal duties.
“You got some sort of ID on you?”
I handed him my ID—a miniature copy of my PI license endorsed by the Georgia Secretary of State with my picture on it.
“How do I know it’s you?” he asked.
“Why would I lie?”
He mulled it over. “Okay, you’ve got something that says you’re from the Pack?”
Ascanio coughed a bit.