“Okay, they won’t be using these again,” I said. I motioned Tess to follow.
We were half way across the hangar floor, just passing beneath the wingtip of the C-130 when I noticed my vision darkening. It was a warning. There was no way my vision should be darkening when my enhanced senses tattoo was active. Something was seriously wrong.
I felt no other sensation of danger, but I hadn't survived so many fights without recognizing when I was screwed.
I moved my shield to a tight oval around me and raised my right palm to face Tess. Her eyes widened as I triggered my force tat and yelled, “Run!”
My blast caught her shield, and the last thing I saw was her flying out of the hangar before the concrete floor rushed up to meet me.
Chapter 24
Therese
Airborne, my shield switched from a hemisphere to a complete sphere in time to protect me when I struck the tarmac twenty yards outside the massive hangar doors. I rolled off the tarmac and onto the brown grass that grew between the taxiway and the runway. Getting my feet under me, I stared back toward the hangar.
I’d lost the meshing with Rafe, but it wasn’t his assault on me that caused it. He’d blacked out. My nerves were jittery, and my pulse thundered in my ears. Without his enhanced senses the interior of the hangar was nearly pitch black. I raised the crossbow to my shoulder and started back toward the hangar. I stumbled a little. I was woozy, and I couldn’t understand why. I took deep breaths, filling my lungs with the cold night air. I could smell diesel and JP-4 or -5, but nothing else that could have caused my sudden wooziness or Rafe’s collapse.
There was an electric whine inside the hangar as huge fans began to spin up.
I took another step toward the dark hangar and stopped. Green pulsing lasers played off the C-130 and then concentrated on a spot beneath the starboard wing.
Frak!
Turning, I followed Rafe’s last instruction and started to run back down the line of airplanes toward Beast and Maia.
My steps, ragged at first, grew stronger with each stride. By the time I reached the disguised familiars, I was running smoothly with no sign of my earlier trouble.
“What’s wrong?” Beast asked as I reached them. “Where’s Rafe?”
“He’s down,” I answered, canceling my shield. I grabbed Rafe’s saddlebags from Beast and then taking a handful of Maia’s neck feathers in my left hand, I swung onto her shoulders. “It was a trap. Some kind of gas knocked him out. He blasted me out of the hangar and told me to run.”
“And you left him?” Beast growled.
“Maia, up,” I ordered and held on to both our saddlebags and her neck feathers as she blasted into the night.
Beast launched immediately behind us, and by the time we reached a thousand feet of altitude, he was flying beside us.
“That’s high enough. Circle the hangar where Rafe is and watch for movement,” I said. I slung the crossbow and stared down at the flight line.
“I don’t see anything outside the building, but the hangar doors are closing,” Maia said.
Maia had much better eyesight than either Beast or I.
As we curved farther east, she added, “There are multiple humans inside the hangar. They’re all carrying weapons.”
“Can you see Rafe?”
“No, there’s no sign of him. He must be farther back,” Maia said.
We circled the building, half gliding for at least five minutes. There was still no sign of movement on the outside. It had taken the doors at least half of that time to close, but now the building looked dead except for the lights in the small annex at the rear of the hangar.
“How are we going to rescue him?” Beast growled.
“I don’t know. I need to think,” I replied.
What the hell could I do alone? If Rafe could be captured by these people, then what use was his apprentice? I needed help. A lot of help. The only people I knew were in in that building, except for Joe, but Joe was an old man. Could he really help? Well, if not help, maybe he could at least advise me on what I could do.
“Beast, you stay here and watch. We’ll go see Joe. I’m going to need his advice,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just break into the building and get Rafe?” Beast growled.
“With Rafe unconscious, there’s no way the three of us can get him out. They must have wanted him alive so we have some time before whatever gas they used wears off. That should give me time to consult with Joe and plan a rescue. Beast, is there any way they can hold him if he’s conscious?”
“Very few. If they are all mundanes, there is nothing that they could have that would hold him. However, if they have a powerful magic user, they could trap him inside a circle. His own magic will be severely dampened inside someone else’s circle.”
“That’s what I thought. So if they don’t have a magic user, then he will get free as soon as he wakes up. If they do have one, we’ll have to plan on breaking him out of a circle. Can do you do that?”
“I’ve done it before. You have to neutralize the magic user.”
“Frak! How am I supposed to neutralize a magic user strong enough to hold Rafe?”
“We’ll help,” Maia offered.
“Thanks, I appreciate that. Beast, we’ll be back as soon as possible. Keep a close watch.”
“They won’t take him anywhere while I watch,” Beast growled.
“Maia, let’s go back to the cabin,” I ordered. Immediately, Maia broke out of her gentle circling of the hangar and accelerated toward Cheyenne Mountain.
Maia was amazingly fast when she put her mind to it. We crossed the south side of Colorado
