Hunters in the Night (17 page)

“Doubtful,”
Newton said. “And you’ve said you haven’t even been in the west wing. I don’t
think it’s plausible that you subconsciously wandered over there.”

“Maybe
the range of my presence in the Rift spikes sometimes?”

Newton
shook his head emphatically. “No. I’ve got gigabytes of data on you and your
detectable signal range has never varied that much.”

“So
what does this mean?”

“There’s
only one thing it could mean,” Newton said. “There’s another nightcrafter
here.”

* * *

“Do
we have any idea who this new nightmare is?” Dominique asked.

Newton
dragged me to her office minutes after he put that heavy revelation on me.
Dominique took the news surprisingly well. I had expected her to freak out. But
her only reaction was a raised eyebrow then she went to work on solving this
new problem. I have to admit I admire her focus.

“We
don’t have any suspects yet,” Newton said, “but my scans show that they’re
always in the west wing. Lots of ambassadors there.”

“Could
it be one of the UN attaches?” Dominique asked.

“I
really doubt that,” I said. “Politicians and bureaucrats are all about gaining
power through deals and lies. Nightcrafters don’t need that. Their power is
inherent. No nightcrafter would go through all that political bullshit when all
the power they need is right at their fingertips.”

“Good
point,” Dominique said. “So what does that leave us?”

“Could
be a spy posing as one of the temporary staff,” Newton said.

“Well
let’s back up for a second,” I said. “Maybe we should first be thinking about
why
a nightcrafter would be here
and actively accessing the Rift. Then we can narrow down
who
it is.”

Dominique
rubbed her chin and stared into empty space. “It’s possible the nightcrafters
who captured you think that you got help from a government. Either foreign or
domestic.”

“Or
maybe they want to use government resources to find me,” I said, “Or maybe
they’re trying to find my parents. If your precaution was right and the
nightcrafters did want to use them against me, I’m sure they’d be curious about
their sudden disappearance. They might just be poking around to see if a
government operation has them holed up somewhere.”

Dominique
nodded, folded her hands, and rested her chin upon them. “We have two options:
find the mole and eliminate them, or move our operation to another location.”

“Finding
him may be difficult and dangerous,” I said. “This guy is most likely a pro. I
didn’t even detect his presence.”

“Don’t
assume it’s a man,” Dominique said.

“You’re
right,” I said. “It could be anybody. But my point stands. Whoever it is,
they’re pretty good at hiding their nightcrafting. Which means they’re probably
out of my league.”

“You
said Madison was out of your league,” Dominique said. “She’s still in our
custody.”

“Which
could be another reason why we have a nightcrafter here,” I said. “They could
be looking for her.”

Dominique
said, “And we certainly can’t let them find her, or you. So we have to act now.
I’ll get the plan sorted out in an hour.”

“What
plan?” I asked.

“You’re
leaving,” she said.

“What?”

“The
nightcrafters are proving to be very resourceful,” Dominique said. “They found
your apartment, which I went through considerable trouble to conceal. Now,
they’re apparently just down the hall. This is too close for comfort.”

“Yes,”
Newton said, “but that makes this a perfect opportunity to hunt a high-level
nightcrafter and get the answers we were after in the first place.”

“It’s
too risky,” Dominique said. “If we make the smallest mistake, we’ll reveal
NATO’s involvement in Madison’s capture. The fact that we haven’t all
disappeared yet shows that the nightcrafters don’t know anything. They’re just
looking. Let’s make sure they don’t find anything.”

“Where
do you want me to go?” I said. “I can’t go back to my apartment, I can’t stay
here, and I can’t go back to my parents’ place.”

Dominique
turned to Newton. “You said you had some ideas on how to figure out how the
nightcrafters are phasing into the Rift.”

“Yeah,
but they’re just ideas. I can’t—”

“You
can, and you will,” Dominique said. “You have a willing and able nightcrafter
at your disposal. Make it happen.”

“It
would be the toughest reverse engineering hack I’ve ever done,” Newton said.

“But
you like challenges,” Dominique said. “And we don’t really have a choice.”

“All
my equipment is here,” Newton continued. “A lot of it is custom.”

“We’ll
move it,” Dominique said. “Equipment gets moved all the time. No one will
notice. Are you done trying to find ways out of this now?”

“I
guess so,” Newton said, his shoulders sagging. “So where are we going?”

Dominique
gave him a wicked grin and said, “I have just the place in mind.”

* * *

Dominique
called in some favors with a few Canadian friends and got us a nice little
cabin in a remote part of the island of Newfoundland. The only connection to
the rest of civilization was a single highway that snaked through the thick
forests on the island. When we drove to the cabin for the first time, I didn’t
see a single person along the way. No cars. No stores. No houses. Nothing.

“This
is going to be boring,” I said when it became obvious that we were going to be
in the middle of nowhere. I was a city boy, born and raised, and this little
trip into the country made me nervous. Newton, on the other hand, was happy as
hell and drove at a leisurely pace so he could take in all of the forest.

Dominique
had chosen the location for its remoteness, but there was an additional benefit
that was just as important. Newfoundland is in the easternmost province of
Canada, and our cabin was located on the easternmost part of the island. In
fact, we were about as far east as you could get in North America if you
excluded Greenland. We were far on the extremes of the Atlantic coast, and
twelve hundred miles from New York City. The Rift had spread to this place at
least two hundred years ago by Newton’s estimates, and hardly anyone lived
here. It was a perfect location for unhindered nightcrafting.

But
that’s all I could say in favor of the place. At first, I wondered why
Dominique had been so sure that no other nightcrafters would be here. It seemed
like an ideal training spot if nothing else. But then I saw the vast, raw
wilderness and the long vacant roads we took to get to our destination.
Nightcrafters are all about power and influence, and there’s no point if
there’s no one else around to exert that power on. A nightcrafter would have no
interest lording over rocks and evergreen trees.

Our
cabin was a simple thing; a little two bedroom house with a gray roof, white
window frames, and hunter green siding. It rested on a windswept hill with lots
of tall grass and heavy gray stones, but no trees. The tree line was a quarter
mile west, and the open ocean was a quarter mile east.

“The
locals don’t come around here,” Newton said once we stopped and got out of our
cargo van. “There have been too many tales of odd things happening at night;
creatures coming out of the ocean and such. The region’s folklore is full of
the stuff. We’re guaranteed not to have another person around for miles.”

“And
nothing else either,” I said.

“It’ll
be good for our focus,” Newton said. “No distractions, and no interference for
my equipment.” Newton patted the side of the van. Inside was a large collection
of his favorite gadgets, and all of them were meant for deep study of the Rift
and my ability to manipulate it.

“Should
we start tonight?” I asked.

“Nah,
let’s get settled in first,” Newton said. “It’s been a long trip.”

We
unpacked the van quickly. Newton had tons of stuff but most of it was
machinery. His personal items fit in an Army-style duffel bag. But I had packed
even lighter. I had one tiny suitcase and an old tablet computer full of
digital books I’d been meaning to read for years.

The
equipment Newton brought was heavy, and I wished that we had arrived at night
so I could cast some featherweight spells to ease the pain. But it was midday
and the sky was still bright despite a thin layer of clouds masking the sun. My
back ached by the time we got all the stuff into the cabin.

I
took a nap after we were done unloading, and night had arrived by the time I
woke up. I looked around for Newton but didn’t find him in any of the rooms. I
took a quick look out the patio windows and found him out on the small deck
behind the cabin. He was stretched out on a blanket with his duffel bag beside
him. I stepped outside and shivered a little as my bare feet touched the
weathered wood of the deck.

The
features of the landscape were blotted out by the night. There were no lights
for miles around except the electric lantern Newton had placed on the deck
beside him. It emitted a soft glow that provided him protection from whatever
Rift-kind might be lurking in the shadows without ruining the nighttime atmosphere.

Newton
turned around and smiled at me. “The sleeper has awakened. Care to join me for
some stargazing? It’s beautiful out here.”

I
looked up and saw what he meant. The sky was full of pinpricks of light, with a
soft cosmic haze in the background. And there was a bonus feature among the
stars tonight: long, brief streaks of red and green flashed in the darkness.

“Meteor
shower tonight,” Newton said. “One of the best in a long time.”

I’d
never seen a meteor shower. Never really could. Years of city life, smog, and
light pollution had prevented that. But now I was seeing with my own eyes how
beautiful shooting stars could be. The heavens were putting on a light show for
the ages. Every few seconds, streaks of light shot across the whole sky. Sometimes
there were a few at once, all traveling in the same direction. It almost looked
like they were chasing each other. I hadn’t seen a night sky so awe-inspiring
since my trip to Europe with Newton’s cartography team. But this time Newton
and I were alone, and with no set work schedule to force us to toil through the
night. We could just relax and enjoy the evening, something I couldn’t recall
doing in quite some time.

I
sat next to him and watched the show. He handed me a pillow and we just watched
in silence for a long time.

“Are
you scared?” Newton asked, after maybe twenty minutes.

“Should
I be?” I said. “No chance of one of these meteors hitting us, right?”

“Not
what I meant,” Newton said. “Are you scared about these . . . recent events?”

“Why
would I be scared?”

“You’ve
got a bunch of angry wizards on your tail,” Newton said. “Sounds like grounds
to be scared shitless to me.”

“They
won’t kill me as long as they don’t know what we’re trying to do,” I said.
“Right now they’re just pissed that I kidnapped one of their junior members.
That’s all.”

“But
if they find out we’re trying to destroy the very thing that gives them all
their power . . .”

“Yup,”
I said. “They’d be livid.”

Newton
gave me a sideways glare. “So again . . . why aren’t you scared shitless?”

“Training,”
I said. “Nightcrafter training rips fear out of you. It throws you right into
the darkness with no preparation, like teaching a kid to swim by throwing him
in the pool. You sink, or you swim. If you come out of it alive, the fear isn’t
in you anymore.”

“What
about your parents?” Newton asked. “Not afraid for them?”

“I
am
concerned
for them. Not
afraid. Big difference.”

“I
suppose so,” Newton said, returning his attention back to the shooting stars.

“Are
you
scared?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

“You
shouldn’t be,” I said. “The nightcrafters won’t find us out here, and Dominique
is smart. They’ll never learn about your involvement.”

“That’s
not what I’m afraid of,” Newton said. “I’m afraid that they’ll win. I’m afraid
that we won’t be able to figure out how to stop them.”

“I
get a sense there’s more to it than that.”

“Like
what?” Newton asked.

“Well,”
I said, “maybe you’re afraid of what life means now that you don’t have a neat
and tidy explanation for everything in the universe.”

“What?”
Newton said with a laugh. “No, not even close. First of all, I’ve already been
able to apply a number of scientific principles to nightcrafting. The ELF
frequency is one of them, and the whole point of our little trip here is to
figure out how the nightcrafters phase into the Rift. Yes, there are still a
lot of questions to be answered, but just because I haven’t found answers
yet
doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

“Point
taken,” I said.

“There
are plenty of things we don’t have pitch-perfect science for,” Newton
continued. “But all the mysteries fall away given enough time and research. We
didn’t know how bumblebees are able to fly until we invented high speed
photography. Isaac Newton pioneered the concept of gravity over three hundred
years ago, but we
still
don’t
know how it really works. We know what it does, we have a fair idea of what
generates it, and there are all sorts of equations for it based on centuries of
analysis and observation. But the question of what exactly it is remains
unanswered. There have always been these annoying gaps in our knowledge. But,
just like the flight of the bumblebee, each of those mysteries will be answered
in time.”

“And
how much time do you think you need to answer the phasing problem?” I asked.

“How
much do I
need
? I have no
idea. How much will I get? Probably three weeks. Then Dominique will start
demanding answers. We have to do this before her mood changes.”