“Good idea.” Especially since no one would hold Friar accountable if she disappeared. Arjenie had a dreadful suspicion that making her go away permanently would be at the top of Friar’s list of options if he caught her here. “You’ve got the prepaid phone I brought. You remember how to use it? Mobile phones are a little different—”
“I can use it, but I won’t. Do not be thinking things are bad if I don’t call you. I don’t want you in danger.”
Big sisters never stop thinking of their little sisters as little, Arjenie supposed. At least Dya had called when she really needed to. “I’ll be back. Love you, Dya.”
“Not unless I call. Love you, Arjenie-hennie.”
The pet name made Arjenie smile. If the smile wobbled, well, she was the only one who knew. She twisted so she could start easing out from behind the bush and … “Ow!”
“What is it?”
“Stupid, vicious bush,” she muttered. “It stabbed me.”
“Is there blood? Arjenie, if there’s blood—”
“Can you fix it?” There was certainly blood on her hand, so there was probably some on the bush.
“Pass me the part that wounded you.”
Arjenie felt for the branch, being more careful this time. She snapped off the offending portion and froze at the crack, instinctively pulling on her Gift—and winced at the stab of pain in her temple. She was too close to the window’s glass to push that much power through her Gift.
No one came to investigate, thank the Light, the Lord, and the Lady. Arjenie leaned forward awkwardly so she could push the thorny twig through that open inch of window.
For a long moment she waited, breathing as quietly as she could. Then: “Done,” Dya whispered. “No one will track you from it now.” The branch slid back outside the window and rustled faintly as it fell to the ground.
“Dya—”
“Go! And don’t bleed on anything else.”
Arjenie made it out from behind the bush with no further injuries, then paused, still crouching, to suck on the side of her hand so she wouldn’t drip blood anywhere. Cursed thorny whatever-it-was. No wonder Friar thought no one could get near his guesthouse. He’d stationed attack plants around it.
Of course, he had the guards, too. And the wards.
The guards wouldn’t be a problem, she told herself firmly. She wasn’t depleted—not too depleted, anyway. They’d never notice her. As for the wards … she’d made it here without tripping any, hadn’t she? She just had to make it out again.
Slowly she stood. There was nothing but fifty feet of path and some low-lying plants between her and the pool—and beyond it, the house. She felt horribly exposed. Her heart pounded. Her mouth was dry.
Stupid, she told herself. No one would notice her, so there was no point in being a scared little bunny. But all the glass in the house worried her.
Her heart kept up its double-time beat as she walked slowly down the stone path that led to the back of the little log cabin, so out of place in southern California. But Friar went for the rustic look. The version of it he’d employed on the main house was far more sophisticated—lots of wood, lots of glass, a gabled roof pitched to repel snow that never fell.
Stupid glass. It buzzed at the edge of her awareness, a low-level but irritating static. Glass disagreed with her Gift. It was too far away to be a real problem, though, she assured herself.
However inappropriate for its setting, Friar’s house was beautiful. She wished it wasn’t. She knew evil didn’t go around fingering its mustache and twirling its cape, but it just seemed wrong that someone like Robert Friar could recognize and appreciate beauty.
The house’s setting was lovely, too, in a rough and wild way. She’d driven past in the daytime … not all the way to the house, which sat well off the highway on a private road. But close enough to appreciate the peculiar beauty of these scrubby mountains … or was she still in the foothills? Where did one end and the next begin?
Never mind, she told herself sternly, aware of her tendency to lose herself in the pursuit of interesting facts. Whatever she called it, the land around Friar’s home was all ups and downs. Not too steeply pitched, thank goodness, since she’d had to make her way over one of those ups to get here. She might be able to hide herself, but her ability didn’t extend to her rental car, which was parked on a dirt road that wasn’t on most maps of the area.
Arjenie was good at finding information that wasn’t readily available.
The cabin didn’t have a backyard. There was a little deck and then trees—pines, mostly, and they were spindly things. She supposed this was what passed for woods on this side of the country, where things were so dry. It wasn’t much like the woods she was used to, back in Virginia.
Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go … no river here, and no grandmother, but she did have to go through the trees and over the hill. Or mountain. Whatever.
She’d just left the path for dirt crunchy with pine needles when she heard voices. She froze, her heart doing its frightened rabbit thing. With an effort, she managed not to pull harder on her Gift. The voices were on the far side of the cabin, and she’d been using her Gift continuously for two hours. She wasn’t that powerful. She couldn’t afford to run out of juice.
The voices were male, the words indistinct … something about having a beer later. A moment later she heard the cabin’s front door thud closed, and the voices were cut off.
Her breath shuddered out. She wished she’d stop panicking. This was no different from hundreds of other times she’d used her Gift for fun or practice … except, of course, for those militia guys. Guys with guns. Multiple guns. Handguns holstered at their hips and rifles slung over their shoulders.
Assault rifles, she thought, and she moved cautiously into the trees. Arjenie had never actually seen an assault rifle, but she’d researched them, and she had an excellent memory. Assault rifles were capable of selective fire, which meant they could be set to fire automatically. The M-16, for example, could fire up to 950 rounds per minute, depending on the model. Of course, those were intermediate-power cartridges, not as powerful as the load in a regular rifle. But 950 rounds per minutes of anything did a fine job of turning a person into bloody hamburger.
How long were those rifles the militia guys carried? She frowned as she began heading upslope, trying to remember. Assault rifles had shorter barrels. But she hadn’t been close to the guns—thank goodness—and she’d been scared spit-less. And she was used to seeing stuff like that on a screen or on paper, not in person.
Maybe they’d been battle rifles, such as the M-14. Arjenie didn’t know as much about them as she did assault rifles, never having researched them specifically, but she knew they were longer in the barrel and fired high-power cartridges. Military units used them to hit targets at ranges up to 1000 meters—which was roughly 1100 yards—but she didn’t think—
A ward—a ward right there, and she was about to step on it. She stumbled back, away from the line she knew but couldn’t see.
Her left foot turned under her. Her arms flailed. She landed on her butt in the dirt with a prickly pain shooting up the side of her ankle.
Her breath came fast. She patted her pockets. Both glass vials seemed intact. She checked the stoppers—still snug—exhaled in relief, and rubbed her ankle, scowling as her eyes teared up.
When would she learn? She couldn’t just walk. She had to pay attention. She really had to pay attention while clambering around on a big hill or small mountain in the darkness—a hill with wards and men with guns who’d come running if she set off one.