She raised her hand and pointed to an area in the distance. “There. It’s in the center of that place.”
He peered at it. Remains of some industrial complex, and a large one—at least two dozen big buildings, maybe more, some almost whole, others down to broken stretches of walls connecting to nothing. An accidental urban labyrinth. The soil around it was darker, the texture of it different, rougher somehow. Odd shapes rose among the ruins, some glowing with pale pink and blue. He couldn’t quite make them out.
His instincts told him the place was unlike anything he’d seen before. And it felt bad. Pillar Rock made him wary, but this place felt worse. He didn’t want to go in there, but most of all he didn’t want her walking into it.
Like the dark soil around the ruins, Adams was a blight, a corruption that had already cost the Iveses their lives. The blight had to be purged. Curran had told him once, “Every time you see a problem and walk away from it, you set a new standard.” The problem was right there, and letting Caleb Adams butcher a family to get his hands on a magic rock wasn’t a standard he cared to set. They would take care of it. It was time to cut the warlock’s little power trip short.
He still didn’t like it.
They circled the former industrial park, drawing a wide arc around it. Adams would expect them to come from the southwest. They approached from the north instead. The wind blew from the south, and he liked being upwind of his prey. They hid Peanut in the nearby ruins. With her backpack gone, Julie resorted to her backup bag, a small satchel she carried on her back.
From above, the walls looked shorter. Up close, some rose as high as ten feet. Giant mushrooms shaped like five-feet-high bay boletes, with pale blue caps the size of large umbrellas, clustered by the walls, their pores radiating a pale pink glow. The odd dark texture he’d seen from the top of the crumbling building turned out to be leaves—strange, purple-black plants no more than five inches tall, each a bunch of triangular leaves on short stalks. They blanketed the ground completely, spreading from the ruins like a puddle of spilled ink in an almost perfect circle, and they had to pick their way through thirty yards of them to get to the solid asphalt. He’d almost stepped on a rusty jagged spike sticking out of the dirt. Julie followed his footsteps, trusting his senses and another walking stick she picked up. Even so, they were barely ten yards in, and she’d stumbled once already.
The plants stank too. A heavy metallic scent that sat low, pooling near the ground. His nose would get used to it eventually, but for now he went scent-blind.
“Stop,” Julie whispered.
A needle of alarm pierced him. Derek froze in midstep, his foot hovering above the ground, carefully stepped back, and raised his hand. She put the walking stick into it. He crouched and used the stick to push the leaves aside. A metal bear trap lay open among the leaves, the old-fashioned kind with a pressure plate and heavy-duty steel jaws armed with metal teeth. A chain stretched from the trap, snaking its way between the leaves. He glanced in that direction and saw an old, concrete power post. It had to be fastened around it. He’d seen these traps before. They weighed over fifty pounds, and the metal teeth would go straight through the bone.
“Adams did something,” Julie whispered. “There is a blue stain of magic on the trap. It’s faint and hard to see, but I’ve got it now. It’s not witch magic; it’s something else. Something really old. The whole field is seeded with them. Let me take the point.”
They were sitting ducks out there. The faster they went through, the better.
He nodded.
A whine tore through the air, and a sharp spike of pain punched into his chest, exploding into white-hot, mind-numbing agony. Silver. The poison bloomed inside him, the agony ripping at him, spreading too fast. He didn’t waste time glancing at the wooden shaft protruding from above his heart. Dropping flat would do no good. No cover.
The second arrow whined, only half a second behind the first. He thrust himself in front of Julie. It sank into his stomach. Silver exploded inside him. The detonation of hurt almost took him to his knees.
“Run!” she yelled at him.
If he tried to run back, they would be finished. Too much open ground behind them. They had to run forward, toward the bowman and to the shelter of the brick walls. If he pulled Julie behind him, she couldn’t keep up. If he carried her in front of him, she would get shot. All of this flashed in his head in a torturous instant. He dropped, his back to her, grabbed her legs, shoved her on his back, and dashed forward to the ruins just as the third arrow sliced into the ground where he’d stood a moment ago. That was the only way the bulk of his body could shield her.
“Right!”
He turned right, sharp, almost falling, and sprinted. The pain ate at him from the inside, devouring his innards with burning fangs.
Another arrow whined and missed.
“Left! More left! Right! Straight!”
He shot out of the field of leaves into the shelter of a brick wall and smashed into it, unable to stop himself. The old bricks shuddered but held. He barely felt the impact. The fire inside him consumed all other pain. The silver poisoning spread as the virus that nourished his body died in record numbers. His legs shook, and he couldn’t stop the trembling. The pain was spreading too fast. The arrows had been coated with silver powder.
He grasped the arrow shaft in his chest, focused on the brilliant spike of agony inside him, and pushed, forcing his dying muscles to obey. Julie’s hand closed over his. He let go, and she pulled the arrow gently, carefully. His body fought him, trying to escape the pain. The world hovered on the edge of blackness. He snarled. The white spike vanished.
“Next,” she said, grasping the second arrow, but he was already pushing with clenched teeth. It came free, but the suffering remained.
“Derek?” She looked into his eyes.
“Powder,” he ground out.
Her face went white.
They had to move. They were too exposed here, and the shooter knew exactly where they’d fallen. He forced himself to his feet.
“Wait.” She dug in her bag.
“No time.” He pulled her up and leaned to glance around the wall. The night was empty. He moved, running quiet and fast. The silver burned its way through his veins. There was no time to expel it now. His body would either overcome it or die trying.
He ducked into the shadows, weaving his way through the maze of half-walls, aware of Julie next to him. They had to get to shelter, a higher ground, somewhere he could collapse for the few minutes he’d need to bleed himself. Somewhere hidden.
He smelled pungent smoke of burning herbs, too layered to parse into components. A thicker odor, dirty and hot, overlaid it. Some sort of animal, and more than one. Three, no four distinct scent trails, and below it all another scent. He took a whiff of it and recoiled. The scent was pure fear. It hit him deep in the gut, squeezing. He breathed in shallow quick breaths, trying to get a grip against the thought-killing primal panic.
Julie gasped. He turned. They’d come far enough to see around the corner of the larger wall. Beyond it, in a clearing, a circle smoldered on the ground, the scorched ground still smoking. Julie moved toward it before he could stop her. The revolting scent grew thicker. He followed, trying to shut down the terror snarling in his mind. The wall on their right ended, and Julie darted across the space. He cursed inwardly and followed.
She knelt by the circle, sheltered from view by the corner of the building. Charms and bundles of herbs hung from the bricks, each strung by a wet thread that smelled like flesh.