The Returned (14 page)

W
raith stared up at the dark blue jet on the steel stand. She was wrapped in her cloak, invisible to the people driving in and out of the base. Her eyes moved from the yellow “1” on the tails, to the “US NAVY” under each wing, and forward to the elegant “Blue Angels” in cursive script on the fuselage. It was an impressive aircraft and the closest she'd ever been to one, even though it was clearly no longer operational. She could see why Ellie would be fascinated with them. Wraith thought this one was cool, and it was standing still. How incredible must they look in motion?

A quick glance at her phone as she skipped to the next song on the music player told her she still had a few hours before meeting Edward, Caitlin, and Henry at the hotel, which meant she had time to check out the base. She walked up the road to the gate. Reading the sign and noting every branch—including the Air National Guard—was based there, she couldn't help but feel nervous. It was one thing to take on a shadowy organization that was doing some truly evil things. But this was, essentially, invading a US military base. Would that make her guilty of treason or maybe sedition? Was she a terrorist now?

As she approached the gate, which was little more than a metal awning with the base's name on it, she felt an odd sense of familiarity.

She told herself it was probably just nerves, compounded by what Ellie had said.

Just before she reached the checkpoint, manned by two men in camouflage and wearing orange safety vests—which Wraith found comically ironic—something tugged at her brain. She was still wrapped in her cloak, and no one was taking notice of her, but something felt off. Turning slowly in a circle, she saw a couple of cameras, but there was nothing special about them. Cars went by in regular intervals, but none of the drivers even glanced her way. Even the sentries didn't look her way.

Then what was wrong?

Without thinking about it, she lowered her goggles.

“Holy shit!”

She stopped herself and checked to make sure the sentries didn't hear her. They still weren't looking her way. She let out a quiet sigh of relief and turned her attention back to what had caused her to react without thinking.

Lines of magic wove and tangled across the entrance to the base and extended out to the wooden fences that separated the base from what she presumed was civilian housing. There, the magic netting followed the fences down the road. She figured it probably circled the whole base. Carefully, she stepped up to the magic and examined the information of the spell.

It was obviously a ward of some sort; that much was obvious. It was also massive and incredibly powerful. Maybe there was a ley line that ran through the base and someone tapped into that. It had been a surprise for her to learn the lines of power circling and crisscrossing across the globe were real. The fact the military knew about them and was apparently using them was several orders of magnitude more surprising, and unnerving.

A deeper look into the magic told her it was old magic. Not that it had been there a long time, but it was an old spell. The quantum information had a definite feel of antiquity to it. There was no way she'd be able to undo this spell; that became clear as she saw how the lines of equations wove and interconnected, ignoring the sheer size of the thing. If normal wards were locked doors, this was Fort Knox, inside a force field, surrounded by a minefield, and robots, wielding sharks with lasers mounted to their heads.

She took a breath and reminded herself this was a military installation, then turned her attention back to the details of the spell itself. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like the magic was designed to both prevent entry and alert if someone tried. The prevention, or wall aspect of it, seemed focused on magic, which meant it was probably supposed to keep slingers out. The number men probably had some kind of talisman that served as a magical key card so they could pass.

She took a step back and considered her options. She couldn't cross it without forging a pass, which wasn't going to happen. Digging under it seemed impractical as well as utterly ridiculous. It looked about fifty feet high, which with the right kinetic spell she might be able to clear. The landing on the other side was a different matter though. Besides, what were the odds it was just a fence? She could use the entropic equation and cross through the universal junction point. Maybe, but it seemed unlikely someone would build something this complex and leave a literal gaping hole in the middle. Testing the theory was dangerous. If she set it off, it would tip off the number men, or whoever was watching, that she'd tested their defenses. No, she needed another way in.

When it dawned on her, she wanted to kick herself. The ward was looking for magic or, more simply, the particular equation in someone's quantum information that denoted magic ability. She already had an equation—her cloak—that altered the quantum information of photons that came in contact with her information and told them to ignore her. Maybe she could modify that same formula to tell the ward to ignore her too. It would have to be something specific to this ward. Magic was too fluid for her to make a permanent change to her cloak that would let her slip through all wards, though that thought was worth exploring.

Later, she told herself.

No, making some kind of charm or talisman would be the way to go. She could make it and let it run without her continued focus needed to keep it going. Odds were she'd run into more tricks inside the base. She'd probably need to hack some computers, pick some locks, and perform other larcenous acts that would need all the focus she could spare.

In the back of her mind, she began to tally all the laws she'd be breaking. Then, after giving the gate, and the massive ward, a last, regretful look, she turned and headed back the way she'd come. As she did, she reached deep inside herself, to a place where her friends had left pieces of themselves before they'd been freed from her and found peace. Her skill with crafting left much to be desired, but luckily one of her good friends, Fritz, had been a tinker kobold—well, half anyway. The urban legend of gremlins had been born from tinkers, but they were just as good at building and repairing as they were at destroying.

Once out of view, Wraith decided to skip being inconspicuous and instead drew up the entropic equation and stepped into the universal junction point. When reality stopped turning, she was in her safe house. Dropping her bag on the battered sofa, she went straight to the wooden workstation against the wall, the one that had belonged to Fritz.

Wraith drew in a slow breath and tried to clear her mind. Actually, that was impossible. What she did was just let every other thought and idea drift by without taking note of it. This wasn't easy either, but at least it was possible.

When the chaos of her mind faded to background noise, she turned her focus inward, into the deepest part of herself. She'd like to say she found her friends there, all of them, but she didn't. What she did find was more akin to a whisper or a lingering smell in a room. It wasn't the person who'd been wearing the perfume, but it did bring memories to mind that were so vivid they were just this side of real.

Almost of their own volition, her hands began to move. Drawers opened, and bins were emptied. Wraith watched, and it was almost like an out-of-body experience. She knew and understood the purpose of the clockwork that was being set together, and the metal housing around it, but only at the periphery of her mind. She found herself missing Fritz terribly, which meant she missed SK and Shadow too. It took effort, but she let the dark thoughts float by like gray clouds to rain somewhere else. Instead she wove the complicated formulation from the quantum information around her and threaded it into the charm coming into existence before her.

As always seemed to happen when she wasn't distracted or actively fighting against it, she felt herself drifting into the darker recesses of her mind. It was here that the memory fragments of her time after escaping the Order—those pieces she'd never been able to make sense of—resided. It was confusing, painful, and the home of her depression.

Fragments of memory drifted around her, but some of them were different from the others. It took her a moment to realize they weren't her memories but those of her friends: Shadow, SK, and Fritz—memories that had become a part of her when the Order had bound their souls to her. Wraith pulled the disparate pieces together, trying to form something coherent. The tatters joined, and a scene unfolded in her mind's eye.

The room was small and nondescript, cinder block walls painted a neutral beige. In the middle of the room, at the center of an incredibly intricate magical circle, she saw herself lying in a hospital bed. SK, Fritz, and Shadow stood around the bed, looking down at her still form with sadness and worry in their eyes.

Strange machines were hooked up to her body, and a man in military garb whom she didn't recognize was standing over her, inside the circle. On his shoulder was a circular patch. It bore two overlapping triangles—forming a Star of David—within two circles. The space between the circles was filled with Syriac script. In the center was the number
4
.

There was a flash of realization, followed by anger—Ovation? But this Four wasn't Ovation. This guy had dusty-blond hair and was at least ten years older.

“They're active,” the man said.

“Then shut them down,” a familiar voice said.

Wraith looked over and saw One, also in a uniform, watching from near the door to the room. He motioned to another guy, this one with a
2
on his patch. Two went over and injected something into the IV that fed into Wraith's arm.

“I've almost got it,” Four said.

“No, you don't,” said a gravelly voice.

Wraith looked over and saw a tall, thin man in the corner leaning on a wooden walking stick. Nightstick, the self-proclaimed and magically manifested protector of Wraith's mind. He was drenched in heavy shadow, defying the bright lighting of the room. His black suit and tie were rumpled, and he wore a flat wide-brimmed hat. The only contrast to the inky blackness were the exposed white cuffs of his shirt, the accents of his two-toned wingtip shoes, and the lenses of his round, curiously opaque spectacles. He looked like something out of a comic book.

“Who the hell are you?” Four asked, his eyes wide.

Nightstick stepped across the room and through the circle as if it weren't even there.

From the confused looks on One's and Two's faces, only Four could see Nightstick.

“I'm the guard dog,” Nightstick said in a low, threatening tone. “Woof.” He swung his walking stick up and cracked it across Four's skull.

The man stumbled back but stayed on his feet.

“You can't separate us!” Shadow said, and the lights dimmed. “She needs us!”

“
Terran!
” SK shouted, and the room began to shake.

“
Hexan!
” Fritz screamed, and the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling began exploding as a techno version of “Carol of the Bells” played over a loudspeaker.

“What's happening?” demanded One as he braced himself against the wall. “How is she fighting back?”

“She isn't,” another man, this one with a
7
on his patch, said from his knees, frantically trying to add to the circle around the bed. “The other souls are.”

“GET OUT!” Nightstick roared, and reality itself seemed to shudder around him.

“What the hell was that?” One asked.

“I've got this,” Four said through gritted teeth as he drew equations in the air, leaving glowing marks, but they evaporated almost as quickly as he could draw them.

“Sedate her!” One said to Two.

“Any more and I'll kill her,” Two said.

“Jane, you have to calm down,” Four said in a gentle tone to the unconscious Wraith in the bed, sweat rolling down his face and blood beginning to drip from his nose. “We're trying to help you.”

Wraith sensed that Four wasn't lying. But that just meant he believed he was trying to help. But his idea of help was probably vastly different from Wraith's.

Four drew still more equations in the air, but Nightstick gleefully destroyed them with a wave of his hand.

“We've got to get her out of here,” Shadow said.

“Four, do you have her or not?” One asked.

“I do, but I can't hold her,” Four said. “She's too powerful.”

“But she's sedated and behind a circle,” One said.

“It's the others,” Four said, his voice wavering. “It's not just the three. There are hundreds in there.”

“And then there's me,” Nightstick said and slammed his walking stick down into the ground, causing it to crack.

“Dear God,” One said.

“I'm losing the circle,” Seven said.

“Evac, now!” One shouted.

Everyone but Four sprinted for the door and slammed it shut behind them. There was a heavy thud as some kind of locking mechanism went into place.

“Thanks for playing,” Nightstick said and swung his shillelagh at Four.

Four's head snapped back with a crack. He drew in a gasp, fell to the floor, and didn't move.

“Time to go, kid,” Nightstick whispered into the ear of Wraith's sleeping body.

The walls of the room began to shake harder, and the last of the lights exploded. But the glass didn't rain down. It hung in the air for a moment before some kind of pressure wave radiated out from the hospital bed and into the walls, causing them to flex and crack.

Wraith watched as the debris in the room began to swirl. The entropic equation came together, and everything vanished.

Wraith opened her eyes and drew in a breath. On the worktable sat the finished charm. It was circular, a little bigger than a half-dollar. Brass and copper housings partially covered the intricate clockwork mechanism inside that ticked away rhythmically. As the gears turned, they wove together a complicated equation that spread out from it in a large circle.