I lifted my own phone. “Testing, testing.”
“I hear you loud and clear,” Remy said, and I gave a thumbs-up that I could hear him as well before switching to speakerphone. Remy turned, lifting the glass disc with the glowing arrow pointed at the illusionary woods ahead. Falin handed Remy the backpack, and then the ghost piloting a corpse gave us a small salute. “Off I go.”
Chapter 24
There was nothing to do but wait as Remy vanished behind the illusion.
“Crap, guys. It’s a freaking clearing on this side. With a shack in the middle.”
“Not so subtle, Remy. You should probably act natural in case people can see you from that shack,” Briar said. She still had her crossbow in her hands, ready to charge forward past the illusion if she needed.
“Natural? I’m walking around in a dead girl’s body. Natural isn’t on the table,” he said, but his voice barely carried through my phone this time, so at least he was whispering.
“I guess I’m supposed to knock,” he said, and we heard a soft thudding as he did just that. It had only been a minute or two since he crossed the ward, so the clearing was small, the shack close to the tree line.
“You’re late,” a gravelly voice said, and I glanced at Briar and Falin. Could this be the infamous Gauhter?
Remy answered that question for me a heartbeat later. “Who are you? And who is she? Where is Gauhter?”
“Gauhter’s busy. He sent us to pick up his package. Did you get the book?”
So no, this was not Gauhter. Our necromancer was MIA. I sagged as disappointment weighed me down, but then I forced myself to straighten again. Remy could need help soon. There were still two unknown potential threats across those wards.
“I have the book, but I’m not giving it to anyone but Gauhter,” Remy said, his voice sounding petulant but determined.
“You are giving it to us. Gauhter has a new job for you.” This was a new voice. The unknown female in the shack.
“He told me if I brought him this book, he’d return my body.” Considering Remy knew he wasn’t getting his body, it was a pretty stellar performance.
Falin looked at Briar. “Gauhter’s not going to show. We should get Remy out and detain these two, see what we can find out.”
She nodded. “Agreed.” Then into my phone she said, “Remy, keep stalling, we’re about to raid the shack. When you hear us enter, hit the floor.”
Remy was smart enough not to answer.
The male voice on the other side of the line said, “And you’ll get your body back soon. Gauhter just needs you to run another little errand for him.”
Briar moved to just outside the ward, ready to rush it. I began to follow, and Falin caught my shoulder, stopping me.
“You stay here,” he said.
I cocked an eyebrow. Not that I was about to complain about not having to raid a bad guy’s shack. I did feel a little put out that he didn’t think I could pull my weight in this investigation, though.
Falin must have taken my expression as a preamble to an argument because he said, “You’re half blind and your idea of a fighting style is trusting your movements to the guidance of a dagger that likes blood and isn’t picky where it draws it. Just sit this one out, okay?”
“We need to move. Craft, stay,” Briar said, and then she charged across the ward. Falin followed her a moment later.
I didn’t.
“What the hell was that?” the man’s voice said over my phone as soon as Briar passed the ward.
“Someone is here. Two someones and one is carrying a crap-ton of magic,” the woman said. “We should get out of here.”
And then chaos exploded over the phone. It was hard to follow what was happening through the choppy bangs, yells, and crashes that crackled over the line. The line went silent a moment later. At first I thought the call had been dropped, but it was just that the fight was over that quick.
“Did you see the woman?” Falin’s voice asked, sounding distant and muffled through the phone.
There were some shuffling sounds, and then Briar’s voice came through the phone loud and clear, like she’d just reclaimed her hands-free set. “Craft, did anyone come your way?”
I opened my mouth to say no, but then I felt the magic coming straight toward me, fast. I couldn’t see anything move through the ward, but I could feel the spells surrounding the figure.
I drew the dagger from my boot. It buzzed in excitement, happy to be drawn and happier that I might use it.
“Stop,” I yelled, extending the dagger in front of me.
The knot of magic cloaking the figure didn’t stop. It turned, making an arc around my location. Damn.
I didn’t have any offensive magics. I should have made Briar leave me one of her potions, but I hadn’t, so unless I was willing to chase the figure down and stab her, I didn’t know how to stop her.
I cracked my shields, reaching with my grave magic. But the magic-cloaked figure wasn’t dead—which was a surprise in and of itself. What was even more of a surprise was that when I opened my shields and the Aetheric plane snapped into focus, showing the otherwise gray world with an overwhelming amount of color, the invisibility spell suddenly snapped into focus as well. It coated her form, creating a perfect glowing layer over her skin.
She glanced over her shoulder, and a jolt of recognition jolted through me. I knew her face, I’d seen it recently. But where? I didn’t have time to think about it. I gave chase, but if it had been hard to navigate the terrain at a walk when I’d simply lacked depth perception and color, it was nigh impossible trying to do it with those same issues combined with the fact that now I couldn’t see some of the fallen debris because it appeared rotted in the land of the dead. The second time I tripped, I ended up on my knees, my palms the only thing keeping my face out of the dirt. The dagger skittered out of my hand, and I scrambled after it.
Falin was suddenly by my side. He held out a hand, dragging me back to my feet.
“Did you see her?” he asked as soon as I was upright.
I nodded, lifting the hand clutching my dagger to point ahead of me, though while I could feel her, there was too much Aetheric energy clogging the space between us for me to still see the outline her spell created. “She has an invisibility charm. Best one I’ve ever felt.”
He scanned the area where I’d pointed, but only shook his head. “Let’s head back to the shack. At least we caught one of them.”
? ? ?
“I just had it,” Remy said as Falin and I walked into the shack. He knelt down on his hands and knees, looking under the table where I guessed he must have hid when the raid occurred.
“Just had what?” I asked, but my attention was on the body sprawled in the middle of the floor. The stranger looked dead. He felt dead. “Is he dead?”