Chapter 16

“What are we looking at Margaret?” Jomo asked as he scanned the steel-gray water of the lake. Nothing could be seen below its choppy surface though and the weather was deteriorating by the second. It was looking like a real possibility that they were going to lose this one. What they did after that, Jomo had no idea, but he doubted it would help keep their crumbling team together.

“Likely a single target,” Margaret said, sounding as if she were reading all of this off of her computer screen, “not as big as a tiger, but bigger than a wolf. I’d assume some sort of aquatic predator based on the gate location and the fact that nothing is floating around out there, but that’s all conjecture.”

“Allen thinks getting in a boat is our only option, but a bad idea, and I second that opinion. If we get out on the water with this thing I don’t think we’ll be coming back to dry land. Besides risking that, I’m not sure what we can do short of waiting to hear about an attack or sighting,” Jomo said.

“Those may be our only options Jomo,” she said distractedly. “Do whatever the two of you think is best, but don’t put yourselves in unnecessary danger. Losing both of you is not something we can recover from. Please keep me updated. The Arizona team has gone dark and we have no eye in the sky to monitor their movements. I need to keep all lines open in case they reach out.”

“Understood,” Jomo said, glad Allen was not privy to this information at the moment. The man was beside himself with frustration and Jomo had no interest in riling him up any more than the situation already had. “I’ll let you know if we think of something.”

“Good,” Margaret said distractedly. “I really do need to go, Jomo. Be safe.”

“I will Margaret,” Jomo said. “Keep up the good work.” Hanging up his phone, Jomo joined Allen farther down the water’s edge. The man was standing there, rifle in hand, gazing down its sight at some point out near the center of the lake. “Not my idea of a good plan,” Jomo said.

“None of this is anyone’s idea of a good plan,” Allen said. “These things tend to be pretty aggressive. Thought maybe I could coax it over here if I got close enough to the edge. Water’s shallow enough that I’d see her coming.”

“Her, eh?” Jomo said.

“Trying to get my Captain Quint on,” Allen said, a faint smile touching his lips.

Jomo tried to feed off the man’s moment of good humor but couldn’t. They were fairly secluded out here at the moment, but travel a few miles in any direction and family homes and public beaches lined the water. If they didn’t think of something fast, this thing would have more than enough feeding options and the EDTF would be forced to chase it from grizzly attack site to grizzly attack site with no real way of tracking their target or anticipating where it might pop up next.

Staring out at the place Allen was focused on with his rifle, Jomo tried to think of some way to avoid the scenario he’d just played out in his head.

He came up blank.

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Margaret let her face fall into her hands as she took deep calming breaths to steady herself as things fell apart around her. Arizona had started badly and only gotten worse since, and now Michigan was starting to look like more of the same. It was hard to think the high she’d been riding after their Florida operation could have given way so quickly to this overwhelming sense of defeat. Feeling more helpless than she ever had as an adult woman, she tried to see the path that would help her snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Like the many other times she’d tried this over the last twenty four hours, she came up with a whole bunch of nothing.

Letting her hands fall from her face, she opened her eyes and almost fell out of her chair from the shock of what she found waiting inches from her.

“Did I startle you?” the hollow voice of the Moon Eyed Prince asked her.

“Of course you did,” she said angrily, leaning back in her chair and putting a hand on her chest. Her heart was going a mile a minute. “You shouldn’t just pop up like that. It’s like walking through closed doors. Very rude.” She was rambling now as she took in the odd little figure on her desk. He didn’t look any different than when she’d last seen him, but he had picked up some interesting accessories. A tangle of twenty crystals hung from his neck by leather cords, making him look like either the world’s most granola rapper or a display at one of those hippy-dippy gem shops you found in college towns.

“I apologize,” he said, bowing so low that the mass of dangling crystals scraped her desk.

“What are you doing back so soon?” she asked, happy to have someone to distract her from her feelings of uselessness. “I thought you said this would take longer,” she added, fingering one of the crystals even as it hung from the small creature’s neck.

“I made a miscalculation I’m afraid,” the Moon Eyed Prince said. “The gathering of materials took no longer than expected, but when I began crafting them into wards, my timeline shortened considerably. My first time binding the numinous to the material outside the Kingdom was quite difficult I must admit, but with each successive attempt I became more comfortable with the process and my speed and efficiency grew exponentially.”

“That will happen,” Margaret said, bewildered by the little man’s ignorance of something as simple as the concept of practice. Sometimes he seemed to be ten steps ahead of them, almost omniscient, but other times he seemed like a child. How could the concept of practice be more foreign to him than whatever the hell binding the numinous to the physical was? “So what exactly will these things do?” she said, nodding at the crystals.

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“Nothing,” the Prince said. “Their abilities are entirely passive.”

“And those abilities are?” Margaret asked obligatorily. It was easier to just keep the conversation moving than explain to the little bastard how infuriating it was for him to be so goddamn literal all the time.

“I used six different spells to create each ward,” the Prince began. “Three are simply protection spells that will keep you from being held, compelled or controlled with another’s magic. This should prove very useful against creatures like the A’Sin and his ilk. Then I added another spell to keep your senses from being interfered with, a fifth to protect your memories and a sixth to keep magic based projectiles from harming you. These protections are not complete mind you, but they should keep your people far safer than they have been thus far.”

“Interesting” Margaret said, suddenly back in her element, if only for a short while. “Can you explain how they work in a little more depth?”

“I can,” the Prince nodded. “The wards are always active, though they lay dormant when not in use. I suppose I should clarify something though. Say I was to hurl a tree at you using magical abilities; you would still do well to move since the tree will still crush you whether you wear one of my wards or not. If something tried to compel you or invade your mind however, they would find themselves unable to complete their intended objective. Had your people had these, the A’Sin could not have held them, though he would not have been helpless. These wards can buy you time and spare you the most debilitating of your enemies magical attacks, but they do not make you invincible.”

“So it only protects us from fully magic-based assaults? Any exceptions you can think of?” she asked.

“Hard to say, but I get the sense that what you mean to ask me is if they work on me and my abilities,” he said with no hint of anger or annoyance in his voice. Their fear of him did not seem to phase him at all.

“In part,” Margaret said honestly.

“They would block me from immediately invading your minds, yes,” he said, a surprising answer, to Margaret anyway, “but as their creator I could obviously undo my own work given enough time. I stand by my earlier promise though Margaret Wynters. I will not betray your trust or the trust of your kind in this manner. I have no reason or want to lie to you. I am your ally until your task is complete or you prove yourselves unworthy.”

“Well I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Margaret half-scoffed.

“It was not meant as a slight, Margaret Wynters,” the Prince said, bowing slightly. “It is simply the truth. I will not follow you or any other into darkness. I assumed that was understood between us.”

“It is,” Margaret said, wiping all annoyance from her face. She really needed to figure out how to deal with this little bastard soon. These meetings of theirs were getting more and more one sided in his favor. She was not used to operating on a deficit, in any sense of the word, and the glowing princeling standing on the desk before her was no exception. “Now that you’re back though, I think we need your help again. You aren’t tired from your journey I hope? Do you even get tired?” This would be good to know down the road. The last thing she wanted to do was burn the little guy out.

“Not in the way you mean,” he said, “though my powers have been drained. It will be a few nights before I’m back at full strength, but I may be able to assist you. What do you need?”

From the moment the Prince had arrived on her desk, she’d known he might be her ace in the hole as far as getting everyone home safe was concerned, but reality had changed her plans yet again. The Prince might not seem like it when he was droning on endlessly in his hollow monotone, but he was apparently a formidable warrior. He’d killed the A’Sin without help from the team and even the Raven seemed wary in his presence, which was something in and of itself. She’d originally wanted to send him to Arizona to clean up the mess she and the fucking Raven had made, but if he wasn’t at full strength that might go terribly wrong. She knew many people saw Allen as their team MVP, but in her mind the Prince took that title with no other contenders coming close.

Pivoting quickly to a new plan, she said, “Something came through the Michigan gate. Our guess is some sort of animal, probably predatory based on our experience and luck thus far, and right now it is in the lake. Allen and Jomo say conditions are worsening and that they currently have no way of finding this thing short of getting in a boat and using themselves as bait. It has been almost an hour already and if we don’t find this thing soon, I’m not sure we’re going to. Do you think there is anything you can do?”

The Moon Eyed Prince did not respond but the blue light within him dulled and he slouched where he stood, suddenly looking like a marionette being held up with invisible strings. He wasn’t in this state long though and soon he seemed to come back to life. “I can try,” the Prince said. “I’ll need to see where the beast has been lost to know how much I’ll be able to help. I imagine there is something I can do though. Do you want me to leave these with you?” he said, using one of his shockingly twig-like hands to indicate the host of crystals around his neck.

“Take two for Allen and Jomo, but yes, I’ll keep the rest,” she said.

Without a second word or any indication that he was about to leave, the Moon Eyed Prince disappeared. The only sign that he’d even been there at all was the small pile of crystals that now lay in a heap where the Prince had just stood moments before.

With nothing to do but wait to hear from her people in the field, Margaret picked out one of the smaller talismans, she hated clunky jewelry, and put it on. The warmth was faint, but noticeable as the crystal came to rest an inch or so below her collarbone. She hadn’t known just how vulnerable she’d felt until she put the thing on. It reminded her of the few times she’d been forced to wear a bulletproof vest, though this experience was far less alarming on the whole.

If she could just get everyone back in one piece, this all might just turn out ok, she thought as she got used to the new addition to her wardrobe. However, that was a big if right now and if things didn’t go well, if someone came back in a body bag or not at all, then this was probably the end of her involvement in whatever the hell this was, whether she liked it or not. The team would likely move on with someone else taking her role as de facto leader, but god dammit she wanted it to be her. Whatever was happening here was a once in a lifetime occurrence and she didn’t want to end up watching from the sidelines.

Too anxious to sit behind her computer any longer, Margaret got out from behind her desk and decided to do a walk of the facility. This was a half legitimate operation after all and she had her responsibilities. Leaving her office behind, she tried to put what was going on hundreds of miles away out of her mind. She would hear what had happened whenever it was already over with, so what was the use in waiting around worrying about it? This was all totally out of her hands now.