Beck had anticipated the question. “All of them. Twenty-seven, ranging from eighteen months to eleven years old.”
Halliwell slid his hand over his mouth and stared across the room at nothing.
“Hello?” Beck prompted.
“I’m still here. I’m sorry. It’s just . . . a lot to take in. I’ve been doing this a long time, but twenty-seven kids—”
“Thirty-three, if you count them all, including yours. Plus one adult. That seems odd, doesn’t it?”
Halliwell laughed, the sound hollow in his ears. “Odd? What the hell is odd, in this context? There’s no way one guy is doing all this. That means there’s some kind of conspiracy. Maybe it’s Internet-based, a bunch of psychos sharing ideas in a chat room or something, going out and doing this and then reporting back to one another.”
“Maybe.” Beck didn’t sound convinced. “I’d almost be happy with that as a solution. Except in every case there’s no sign of entry, no physical evidence. Your situation is the only one I’ve heard about where there are any witnesses. If there were multiple perps, you’d expect at least one of them to screw it up, to leave something behind that the investigating officers could use.”
Halliwell couldn’t argue with that logic. Neither one of them wanted to admit that they were baffled, but it was obvious in the conversation. It was only a matter of time before other agencies became involved, including the FBI. Once it began to look like a serial killer and the case involved more than one state, the Bureau would get into the fray. Halliwell would normally have bristled at the idea, but at this point, he thought he might welcome anyone who might be able to help.
And he knew that eventually they’d get around to focusing on him and the Wessex County sheriff’s department. Their case was the only one involving an adult, and the only one with witnesses. There were also missing persons to consider, an aspect that seemed unique to the Bascombe murder.
Yes, Oliver and Collette Bascombe seemed to disappear at will, with no known means of transportation, and in the brother’s case, in the middle of a blizzard. In that way, they were like the killer, leaving no trace of themselves behind.
When Halliwell was through talking with Beck, they exchanged information and he hung up. Sheriff Norris registered only a flicker of surprise when he knocked on the man’s door and quickly entered. Jackson had been getting several phone calls each day from Max Bascombe’s law firm, the man’s partners in the firm pushing hard for results from the investigation. Those lawyers wanted a quiet inquiry and quick results, and they wanted Jackson Norris to make sure that was what they got.
They were not going to be happy.
At the edge of the city of Perinthia, a patch of the world was on fire. It was not quite morning, nor even dawn, when Oliver and Kitsune rode toward the darkened towers that loomed on the horizon, thrusting up from the Euphrasian soil without any suburban preamble. There was only the Truce Road bisecting grassy plains and then the eruption of shadowy spires and formidable edifices whose shapes all combined in the dark to present themselves as a sort of wall or massive gate. Yet Oliver was surprised to discover, as they drew closer and the indigo sky lightened to cobalt, that there was no wall around Perinthia, only a series of watchtowers spaced perhaps a quarter of a mile apart from one another.
South of the road, twice that distance from the city’s edge, was that patch of fire. The earth was a volcanic pit there, black and riddled with cracks that glowed with the hellish red of burning magma. Streams of liquid fire shot upward with no warning, and all around the edges, where no grass grew, the circumference was a ring of flame burning several feet high.
A mile out from the city, Oliver let the horse canter to a stand of trees and then pulled the reins up to halt the beast as Kitsune joined him on her own mount. The horses snorted conspiratorially to each other as though decrying their treatment these past hours by the thieves who’d stolen them away.
“It’s nearly dawn, Oliver. We cannot afford to rest now. Once the sun rises we haven’t a hope of getting into Perinthia without being noticed,” Kitsune told him.
Her eyes were wide and alert and her face flushed with the exhilaration of the ride. The wind had blown her hair into a wild tangle that spread across her hood and over her shoulders. Though her tone was cautionary, there was that familiar light of mischief in her eyes, as though she couldn’t help it, despite their circumstances.
Oliver felt only trepidation. “I don’t think we have a chance in hell of going unnoticed. The watchtowers are too close. This is impossible.” He shook his head, but could not stop his gaze from drifting back to that patch of infernal, volcanic earth.
“And what the hell is
that
anyway?” he asked, gesturing toward the burning earth in the distance, troubled by the sight.
Kitsune knitted her brow impatiently. “I’d thought Frost had explained all of this to you. On this side of the Veil, nothing can exist unless it does so in a space parallel to public land on your side. When public land is sacrificed to development, it devastates portions of the land here. Our world diminishes. Often such destruction leaves a fragment of scorched ground behind, a wound in the Veil. Such wounds heal in time, but the world is diminished afterward.”
The horse shifted beneath Oliver, chuffing softly, as if something had unsettled it. He pulled the reins taut in his hands, surveying the dark, brooding shape of the city on the eastern horizon. The tallest of the towers were silhouetted now with diffuse light, the sun flirting just at the verge of showing itself. At this distance it was impossible to be sure, but the watchtowers seemed still.
“Shall we?” Kitsune asked.
Oliver nodded, but then he frowned and glanced around. “All right. But where is Frost?”
The leaves in the birch trees where they had taken cover rustled with a gust of wind and Oliver shivered as cold air swirled around him. He could see his breath, and a few flakes of snow fell as though shaken from the trees. The two horses stamped their feet and one of them sneezed.
“Here,” Frost said, even as the wind began a small, frigid twister of ice and snow. It subsided, and the the winter man stood before them.
Kitsune pulled her cloak closer around her against the chill of his arrival. “I wondered when you would return. I thought perhaps you had abandoned us.”
The winter man fixed her with a hard look, mist rising from his eyes. Then he glanced at Oliver, the familiar chime of his icy hair tinkling together welcome after his absence.
“I went ahead to determine our best point of entrance. We’ll need to make our way around to the south side of the city.” Frost turned to Kitsune. “The guards change shift at sunrise, so that will be our best hope. But it means we must move now. And without horses.”
Oliver let out a breath. “Is that wise? What if we have to run?”
“Our approach will be less conspicuous on foot.”
“Don’t you mean
our
approach?” Kitsune said. “You can drift in on an errant breeze with no risk at all.”
“True enough. But once within the walls, the two of you will have to do some of the advance work. You might blend in in Perinthia. I will not.”
Oliver grabbed the pommel of his horse and dismounted. “Quit bickering. We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before the shift change. We’ve got to get going.”
The two Borderkind looked at him as though surprised he’d spoken so curtly to them. Oliver was amused. As amazed as he was with everything around him, including his companions, the awe he had felt upon first piercing the Veil was lessening with every hour. He figured that would be helpful. Awe might cause him to hesitate at the wrong moment and get him killed.
Kitsune laughed softly and climbed down off her horse. She leaned in to whisper something to it, and though he was curious Oliver didn’t bother to ask if she and the horse could understand each other.
The winter man stayed with them as they set out from the trees and across the grassy plains toward Perinthia. They took a diagonal path that cut across the Truce Road, moving as quickly as they were able across that mostly open space. The only sounds were Oliver’s footfalls, the occasional chime of Frost’s hair, and the wind. Their path took them right up behind the patch of burning, volcanic earth, and a sulfurous stink rose from that pit so powerfully that Oliver had to breathe through his mouth— and even then wished he could have stopped entirely.
All three of them watched the city as they ran, keeping low and moving through the areas of the tallest grass. More lights came on, the early risers greeting the dawn. Still the watchtowers were dark and quiet.
They’d been approaching at an angle but now with a gesture Frost turned them on a direct path that would take them between a pair of watchtowers perhaps a quarter of a mile apart from each other. The sky continued to lighten and Oliver thought he saw a dark figure in the upper window of the tower to their right. At the left, nothing stirred, but suddenly their error struck him.
“This is idiotic,” he whispered. “Both of you can be far less conspicuous than this. You don’t have to protect me right now. We’re going to get caught.”
“Oliver,” Frost cautioned.
“Get out of here. Kitsune, you too. Running is going to draw attention. Trust me. Just go.”
But he had not even finished speaking and already the winter man was gone, a swirl of snow and ice eddying away on the breeze that stirred the tall grass. Kitsune raised her hood and in a single fluid motion she transformed, shrinking down to disappear herself into the grass as a fox.
Oliver was alone, one hundred yards from the edge of the city, and the sun was beginning to rise.
Ignoring the watchtowers, he turned up the collar of his coat against the wind and bent against it, hurrying but not running— just a man out for a walk and regretting it. Not for a moment did he think any guard bearing witness to this would be convinced by it. There was no one else outside the city and no one on the road, so it was clear this sort of casual stroll outside of Perinthia was uncommon. The question was how emphatic the authorities had been about the search for this Intruder.
It would be better simply to not be seen at all than to rely on such a question, of course, so he kept his head down and he hurried and he prayed. His whole body tingled with the feeling of eyes burning into him, though that might only have been paranoia. His cheeks were flushed and his hands clammy where he’d shoved them into his pockets.
Despite the cold wind, he began to sweat. His throat felt constricted and his pulse raced. He ran out his tongue to wet his lips, staring at the ground, and it took him a moment to realize it when his boot heels first hit cobblestone instead of grassy sod. A surge of tentative hope sparked in him but he kept on for a count of twenty more steps before allowing himself to look up.
Oliver found himself on a street lined with well-kept row houses, mostly brown stone with granite steps and high, arched windows. There was an old European flair to the neighborhood that did not speak of any one country, though the roughness of the stone exteriors and the flower boxes outside many of the windows put him in mind of Holland. Their scent was so pleasant it stopped him in the middle of the street.
Lampposts lined either side, but they had burned out now.
The sun was rising, throwing a line of bright morning light on the left side of the street and casting the right side in shadow. Oliver longed for the light, but kept to the shadows.
From that street he could only see the tops of the watchtowers he had passed on the way in, and could not see the windows at all. He was tensed, alert for any shout or sign that he had been seen and was being pursued, but nothing came. When a door opened across the street he was startled, but took deep breaths and started walking again, alone on the streets of Perinthia, at least for the moment.
The woman who came out of the row house was old and stooped, dressed all in mourning black. Her nose was long and hooked and her eyes, when she glanced toward him, were tiny beads of white. Oliver shuddered to see them, and to be seen by her.
Her expression was less a smile than a sour twist that made Oliver swallow hard, throat dry. He was sure that she would speak to him, ask him what he was doing on her street— there were only homes here, so he had no reason to be here unless he was a resident or a thief— but she only eyed him curiously a moment and then tottered away northward, deeper into Perinthia.
Oliver slowed his pace so as not to catch up with her.
At the end of the street he found himself at an intersection not only of streets, but of styles. To the west was a narrow street, little more than an alley, between two pagoda-like buildings. Between them he saw a courtyard splashed with dawn’s light, where dozens of people knelt to face the rising sun. Some were women in pure white gowns with patterns in the fabric. Some— and this quickened his heart— wore the heavy garb of soldiers. Most of the people gathered there seemed to be Asian, but not all of them were. And there were those among them who were not people at all. At first he took the huge lizard with its strangely furred face and tiny wings to be some kind of statue, it was so still.
