had another five hours, more or less, before we reached our target.
We rode in silence. After three hours, Captain brought out a cooler and slid it to Annalise. She took out four bags of fast-food burgers, fries, and soda. The drinks were watery and the food was cold and greasy. I was hungry enough not to care.
I kept my eye out for patrol boats, but no one approached us. The trip was smooth and easy right up to the moment Captain pointed out our landing spot, and Annalise took out the guns.
CHAPTER TEN
They were revolvers, old Magnum .44s like the ones Clint Eastwood used to carry, and they were sealed in gallon-sized Ziploc baggies. There were two speed loaders in the bag, too. Talbot looked at his as though he’d been asked to dig a grave with a soup ladle, but I took mine without comment. I didn’t expect it to be much use, but I appreciated the thought.
There were only two, of course. Annalise didn’t need one.
Captain killed the engines and let momentum carry the boat toward the shore. There was a steep beach ahead and a line of trees at the top of the hill. Captain turned the wheel, letting the boat swing around. Annalise, Talbot, and I jumped off the port side into water up to our thighs—on Annalise it was up to her navel. Damn, it was cold, but no one else complained, so I kept my mouth shut.
Talbot ran ahead, yanking the gun out of the baggie as he left the water and charging up the sand as if he was storming the beach at Normandy. I hissed at him, but he ignored me.
I was surprised to come out of the water onto a flat, grainy tan rock. In the starlight it had looked like a stretch of sand, but it was actually solid and smooth like a boat-launch ramp. Annalise and I walked slowly up the hill, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, and Talbot came out of the trees to join us.
I took the gun from the baggie, folded the plastic and put it into my back pocket, then stuffed the speed loaders into my hip pocket. I wasn’t wearing a jacket, and no way would I slip this blaster into my waistband. Life was too chancy. I carried it by the barrel instead.
It was about three hundred feet to the road, then we turned toward the south. It was almost midnight, and of course there were no streetlights. The starlight was bright enough for what we were doing, but flashlights would have been better.
We jogged along the side of the road. Talbot ran ahead, although I’m sure he thought of it as taking point. There was no sidewalk, of course, so we trotted along the asphalt. I turned around every ten steps, watching for headlights behind us. Not that it mattered: the gully along the road was choked with bush and brambles. We couldn’t exactly dive for cover.
We didn’t need to. No one came. The moon rose over the trees, lighting the roadway. I ran toward my own faint shadow.
At the mouth of a driveway, Talbot stopped and looked back at us. He made some sort of hand signal I didn’t recognize, but Annalise beckoned him toward us impatiently. When he came close, she said: “This is it, isn’t it?”
I’d forgotten that Annalise was hopeless with maps. Talbot said: “Yeah. Shouldn’t we get off the road?”
Annalise shrugged, and the three of us started moving up the drive. I felt a twinge on my right collarbone.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Talbot suddenly said, rubbing the top of his breastbone with two fingers. “This is the wrong place.”
I felt it, too. I was suddenly sure this was the wrong path. Why hadn’t I studied the map better? My iron gate throbbed.
Talbot began backing down toward the road. “Let’s try somewhere else.”
“Talbot,” I said, “are any of your spells hurting?”
He was still rubbing the spot on his chest. “Yeah.”
“There’s a spell on this place,” I said. “Some kinds of magic can make you think or feel certain things. Pay attention to the spells on you. They’re painful for a reason.”
Talbot looked embarrassed and walked with me toward Annalise. “Want me to lead the way?” he asked.
A cloud moved across the moon, and things were suddenly very dark. “Is that how you want it?” Annalise asked. She took a scrap of wood out of her pocket and lit a Bic lighter. I recognized the scrap as one of her Geiger counters for magic, but the sigil was dark and inert.
The cloud moved away from the moon. I looked around. Everything seemed completely normal. “Shouldn’t you be getting a reading from that thing, boss?” If magic was making my iron gate throb, her detector should show it.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Unless I’m not.”
“Boss, let me take the lead here,” I said, without even realizing I was about to speak. “I owe this guy.”
“No offense, Ray,” Talbot said. “But I was the one kicking down doors for Uncle Sam. I should lead the team into the house.”
Annalise turned to him. “We don’t work that way. We don’t bunch up; we don’t charge in together.”
“But … what about covering each other?”
“These are sorcerers,” she said. “Taking them down is like taking down a suicide bomber, except without the suicide. This is how we do it: one wooden man comes at them from the front, and the others hit their flank.”
“Boss, you know I have history with this guy. I want him.”
“Ray, if you have history with him,” Talbot said, trying to be reasonable, “if it’s personal, you should probably not even be on this mission. Just saying.”
Annalise waved that off. “With Ray, everything’s personal.” She turned to me. “Go ahead.”
I started up the gravel driveway, wondering if I should feel stung. I shifted the gun to my left hand, holding it
