“I’m surprised you even tried to fish,” I admitted. I wouldn’t recommend anyone eat whatever came out of that water.
He gave me a grin, showing off one gold tooth. “Life stops for nothing, not even strange magical earthquakes or whatever the hell happened. Interesting team you’ve got here.”
I glanced around. He must’ve been familiar with the soldiers who were stationed here and immediately recognized us as newbies. The Hellraisers had spent some time getting comfortable with the new location. The twins watched as Holt showed them something on a scanner, while Jones and Evans chatted with a handful of other soldiers. I tried to ignore how Jones was eyeing me every so often. I can handle talking to elderly men, thanks.
Greenspring was the town closest to where the disappearances had happened. Louis said it was at the far end of the lake, way down the road. They’d had three people go missing, which matched up with my latest report.
"The reports said a Mr. Johnson was pulled into the forest. It was witnessed by someone named Gloria Rodriguez. Is Ms. Rodriguez still in the area?" I asked, squinting at him in the bright light of the day. He smiled and nodded. He told me that she lived nearby, but it looked like we wouldn't need to seek out the other residents. The other neighbors were already walking up to our area of their own accord. News of our arrival had spread. As they reached us, Louis introduced me to Ms. Rodriguez.
“Oh, I saw it all,” Ms. Rodriguez told me, clutching a turquoise necklace tight around her neck. “No one new came through town after that. Usually, tourists love this area, but they avoid it like the plague now.”
I checked my notes. “You said that the last person was taken on the fifteenth?”
“Yes, poor Fred,” she said, and shook her head sadly. “He was so stubborn, you know. He was a retired engineer and thought he knew everything. I told him not to get so close to the line by the lake, but it was too late.” She launched into a tangent about Fred’s pottery hobby, and I slowly led her back to the topic at hand. It was a difficult line to toe, being gentle with people while simultaneously asking them about horrific experiences, but I found myself surprisingly good at getting people to talk.
“What happened exactly?” I pressed and leaned in conspiratorially. “We’ve been told that you’re one of the only people who really saw anything.”
Ms. Rodriguez nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, I was. It was the strangest thing. We heard this funny wail at night. The soldiers had gone farther down the road to do something with their scanners. I spotted Fred out there and ran after him. He’s such a stubborn neighbor, you know, always the one to mow his lawn too early in the morning and such. But we all try to look out for one another here. I begged Fred to leave it be—there was this funny smudge of mist in the air—but he kept going closer and closer to the woods around the lake. I stopped far away from it because the soldiers had told us not to get too close. And then it happened. Suddenly, a monster materialized right next to him, snatched him right off his feet, and dragged him into the trees. It was so terrifying. Poor Sheila’s daughter saw it from afar while she was out taking the dog for a potty break. She’ll need therapy for a bit; you know how impressionable children are. The soldiers gave us a strict curfew after that…”
Little Sheila’s daughter is gonna need a lot more therapy if her mom decided to stay after all that. I thanked Ms. Rodriguez, and she settled in beside Louis a few yards away to chat about how terrifying this all was. I was convinced these people were either incredibly brave, or just stupid… She could only tell me what she remembered, but hearing about invisible creatures made my stomach clench with worry. The invisibility part had been missing from the report. Perhaps the soldiers hadn’t believed her. We’d had experiences with invisibility in the Immortal Plane with the Coalition, but the invisibility had come from manufactured magic.
As I was thinking about asking Ms. Rodriguez if there was any smell accompanying the creature, my muscles tensed. My heart rate spiked with the familiar sensation of a new voice breaking through my thoughts—a voice I knew well. Why does he have to show up now, when I need to have my full attention on the mission? Is he okay? Part of me, deep down, wondered if it was truly him.
“I’ll protect you. Don’t worry,” Kane said. Once again, he was haunting me with his thoughts or words, and none of it seemed meant for me. My shoulders dropped with disappointment. Kane could handle a lot, but he sounded like he was in trouble during these snippets of connection. I wished he were here to tell me that he was alive and okay.
The twins loped over to join Louis and Ms. Rodriguez. I slyly stepped closer to them, just in case.
“You’re sure that your friend didn’t just get snatched up by a wolf?” Jessie asked. I resisted the urge to yank her back by the collar for asking such a blunt question. Thankfully,
