“On the plus side, I found a lot of walkie-talkies. They’re digital, and I can’t pick up any chatter from anyone else, but we can use them to communicate between one another.”
Mordred’s heart sang a little as Mac and Nabu walked out of the prison with Morgan, who was leaning on Mac for support. Mordred rushed over.
“Easy there,” Morgan said before Mordred could hug her. She looked pale and tired, and more than a little weak. “I’m not exactly healed.”
“But you are alive?” He looked at Mac. “She’s not a zombie or anything, right?”
“She’ll be fine,” Mac told her. “With rest.”
“We don’t exactly have a lot of time for resting up,” Remy said.
“Well, Morgan will need to rest for several hours before she can use her magic. Doing so beforehand could cause the venom’s damage to become irreversible.”
“Gargoyle venom is potent,” Nabu said. “But many people survive with an antivenom. I helped as best I could, but Mac has a much better bedside manner than me. There are some things it seems you can’t learn.”
“So, she needs to sit and rest,” Mordred said. “Looks like you get to sit in the backseats of the truck.”
“I have you to thank,” Morgan said to Wei.
“Little old me?” Wei said. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, the longer we stay here, the more likely it is that something unbelievably bad is happening up there, so let’s get moving. Morgan and Mac can stay in the truck and keep their heads down. That okay with you?”
Morgan nodded. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing much moving in the next few hours. I’m sorry, I should have been on the lookout for snipers.”
“You couldn’t have seen her,” Mordred said. “She was invisible to any senses, and she hid herself behind some rocks up there.”
“She’s dead, though,” Wei said. “Very dead actually. I made sure of it.”
“How can you be very dead?” Remy asked. “Surely dead is dead?”
“Things sometimes come back. I’ve seen it happen. More than one witch has returned from an early grave.”
The horn of a pickup truck sounded at the edge of the village, and everyone turned to see Fiona open the driver’s door and motion to the dark-blue-and-black vehicle. It was big enough to seat five inside the cabin, with enough space in the open flatbed to seat a few more.
“That’s a pickup truck,” Remy said. “I was expecting, you know, a fucking great truck.”
“You mean a lorry?” Diana asked.
“Yeah, a lorry. A big, building-crushing lorry.”
“The Mitsubishi is the best I could get on short notice,” Wei said. “You’re welcome to walk, if you like.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like the pickup truck,” Remy said. “I was just expecting something a little bigger. I call shotgun.”
“No,” Diana said as they all walked toward the pickup. “You don’t get to call shotgun.”
“I can see the vehicle; therefore I can call shotgun.”
“Let him have it,” Mac said as he and Mordred helped Morgan walk toward the pickup. “Morgan and I will sit in the back. Nabu, can you join us? Just in case we need some more medical expertise.”
Nabu nodded.
“I guess that leaves Wei, Diana, and me in the flatbed,” Mordred said.
“I’ll be going up front,” Wei said. “I move faster on my own.” Without another word, she turned into a fox and sprinted up past the pickup, moving faster than any fox had a right to move.
“How does she do that?” Remy asked.
“Nine-tails sort of exist between realms,” Diana said. “It means they can move in a way that no one else can, but only for short periods of time. Takes some getting used to.”
Diana picked up two more Sig assault rifles and placed them in the back of the pickup. “Just in case.”
“Can’t hurt,” Mordred said, helping Mac and Morgan into the rear of the cab. When he was certain Morgan was okay, Mordred climbed into the rear of the pickup and found that two small benches had been installed along with some straps to hold on to. He wrapped himself in tendrils of air, moving them around the rear of the pickup, anchoring himself in place.
“Feel better now?” Diana asked with a slight smirk.
“Not really,” Mordred said. “But slightly safer.”
Diana shook her head and banged on top of the Mitsubishi’s roof, and the engine roared as Fiona took them all up the path toward the mountain above.
Mordred found the pickup to be surprisingly robust and more than capable of handling the off-road dirt-track-like path, as well as the increasingly thick snow. They used the tracks of previous vehicles to stay on the right.
“There’s no one up there,” Diana said as they drove closer to the settlement in the mountains.
“You sure?” Mordred asked. “That witch hid from you.” Mordred removed the air tethering him to the pickup and banged on the roof of the pickup. Fiona slammed on the brakes, causing Mordred to fall down.
“Sorry, I thought you were banging because we were in trouble,” Fiona called out.
Mordred dropped down over the side of the truck and walked to the driver’s window. “I’m not sure yet. Diana can’t smell anyone. And we’re too far away for me to see anyone. Doesn’t mean there’s no one there.”
“We stay and wait for Wei,” Diana said. “She won’t be long.”
Fiona parked the pickup on the side of the trail. Once everyone besides Morgan and Mac were out, she placed her hands on the pickup and closed her eyes. The pickup vanished from view, as if it had never been there at all, and the new tracks that she’d created in the snow did the same, leaving no signs.
“It’ll last a few hours,” Fiona said. “It’s not one of my best illusions, but you do what you can with the time you have to work with.”
“Has anyone ever said how scary conjurers are?” Remy asked.
“My husband on a regular basis,” Fiona said with a smile. She looked up the trail and breathed out slowly.
“We’ll find him,” Morgan said from inside the pickup.
“The disembodied voice is going to take some getting used to,” Mordred said. “What happens to the illusion if they have to leave the truck?”
“It’ll vanish fairly quickly. It’s not designed to take many changes to its current state. They can move around inside as much as they like, but once a door opens that’s it.”
“You guys hear that?” Diana asked.
“Stay put, don’t piss around,” Mac said. “Yeah, we got it.”
A fox came running down the hill toward them, turning into Wei midleap. “It’s almost empty.”
“The settlement above?”
She nodded. “I sense one woman. That’s it. Whoever is digging up in the mountain carved a huge chunk of it out of the side of the rock up there. I got as close as I dared but couldn’t see anyone. There’s a notice board with a map of the mountain interior on it. It looks like the tunnels that go down into the mountain go much further than when I was last here.”
Mordred passed a walkie-talkie to everyone. “I’ll go up with Wei, Nabu, Diana, and Fiona. Remy, you stay here with Morgan and Mac, and if it’s clear, we’ll let you know and you can head on up.”