“Acacia can give you all the details,” Dr. Cassidy continued, when Tessa didn’t answer. “She’s helping organize it.”
“Okay,” said Tessa, beaming back at them both. “I’d love to.”
CHAPTER 14
Roleplaying
When Justin fell asleep later that night, Mae took out the dagger from his luggage and moved as far away from his bed as possible, hoping that whatever mixture of prescription sleep aids and Carl’s liquor he’d taken would keep him knocked out for a while. She didn’t know for sure how to activate the knife’s powers and could only make a best guess at it, based on the happenstance way things had transpired before. After one last, anxious look at Justin’s sleeping form, she gripped the knife’s hilt in both hands and made a silent plea.
Whoever is master of this, please complete the vision you showed me before and help me to find my niece.
She had no idea if that was the right way to address a god. Justin had taught her a great deal about the academic aspects of religious studies but had little to say about practical worship. For all she knew, maybe the dagger’s deity couldn’t even hear her in Arcadia, where Nehitimar reigned supreme. Nothing happened, and she started to despair until a burst of inspiration hit. Opening her eyes, she drew the blade across the palm of her hand, watching as a line of red appeared . . .
. . . and the world dissolved around her.
The walls of the guesthouse melted, and she stood outside, on the land of Carl’s now-dark compound. Then that shifted, and she stood in the middle of an empty road that looked vaguely familiar. Yes—it was the country highway that led into the city. She recognized it from the car ride this morning. Again, the world went fuzzy, and now she stood next to a nondescript rural building with no noticeable features—except a red velvet flag, its color barely discernible in the fading light. Thick trees stood around it, and she saw no other buildings or notable land marks. Then, in her periphery, she caught sight of a light that went away as quickly as it had come. The highway! She hurried in that direction, afraid the vision would fade. As she got closer, another car went by, its lights briefly illuminating a sign stating that Divinia was ten miles away.
Frantically, Mae tried to convert that to kilometers and then contrast that with what she knew about the distance from Carl’s place. The intersection wasn’t that far from where she was staying. How was this possible? What crazy coincidence had landed her this close to the salon that might be holding her niece? As the vision materialized back into Justin’s room, Mae heard a female voice say, You’re too entrenched in mortal thinking if you think this is a coincidence. Don’t you know I’m looking out for you?
Mae’s heart was racing as she stared around the darkened bedroom. Her hand was smooth and uncut. The moon visible through the outside window hadn’t shifted far, so she hadn’t lost as much time as before. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Based on what she’d seen in the vision, it might take her . . . what, an hour to walk to the salon? If she could get out. Hannah’s desperate words came back to her: There’s an underground exit in your bathroom that I could sneak in through tonight.
Was there? Mae quietly slipped out of the bedroom and out to the common area. There were three bathrooms adjacent to it, and a search of the second one found what she needed: a small door in the back of a linen closet. The door was unlocked, revealing a cramped tunnel, low enough that Mae had to duck when she entered it. At least she didn’t have to crawl. The walls and floor were packed dirt, and she had no lights to guide her, only touch. She followed it to its end, discovering an earthen wall with ladder rungs that led up to a trap door. Cautiously, she climbed up and lifted the door to get a peek. It opened up outside, underneath some dried brush someone had packed on top for concealment, in what appeared to be the back of Carl’s property. After a few more moments to get her bearings, Mae slipped back down and returned to Justin’s bedroom.
He still slept deeply, allowing her to sort through his clothes and put on pants and a three-quarter length coat. It was too big for her but clearly masculine, which was what she needed. She pulled her hair up into a tight knot and added a wide-brimmed Arcadian style hat Carl had gifted each of the Gemman men with. No one would mistake her for a man up close, but she hoped, in the dark, that the illusion would hold. Her last task before leaving was to scrawl on the notepad she’d used at the temple. It was a quick note, in Mandarin, one she hoped would calm Justin if he woke up but not alert anyone else: Wait for me. With that, she set out.
The back of Carl’s property was flanked by an electric fence, and in the distance, she saw a man patrolling with a dog. Whether it was a son or hired help she couldn’t say, but she thanked her luck that they were too far away to notice her. An overhanging tree gave her the opportunity to climb up and drop down on the other side of the fence, which would have been a jarring fall for anyone else. Her ramped up implant let her handle it easily, and she soon got her bearings and headed for the country highway that led into the city.
She kept to the side of the road as much as possible, again hoping any passing cars who noticed her would think she was male. Her calculations proved correct, and after an hour of brisk walking, she saw the sign from her vision and the small road that branched off from the highway. Down it, she spotted a building identical to the one in her vision, save for one thing: no red velvet flag. Justin’s words came back to her: When they’ve got some girls ‘for sale’ that have reached puberty, they hang a red velvet flag outside their door. The vision had shown the salon for what it was, but in the real world, the girls must still be of an age where they were safe—if anyone was in one of those places. She left the road and traveled through the woods, approaching the back of the salon. The proprietors had opted for slightly less sophisticated security than Carl’s: a thick perimeter of nasty barbed wire. They’d also had the foresight to trim away any overhanging trees. Mae had no tools to cut the fence and instead had to take the unpleasant but inevitable approach: climbing it by hand.
The upside to that too-big coat was that it provided fabric to protect her hands, and the thick-soled shoes kept her feet safe. The trick was patience, and she finally managed to land on the other side with only minor discomfort. Unlike Carl’s, there didn’t appear to be any dogs, which was a blessing, but she soon found another obstacle to entry. Aside from the front door, there were no other points of entry. Was that to keep the girls in or intruders out? It was hard to say, but Mae hoped they never had a fire.
She crept up to the front door, which was actually open. A second screen door kept insects out while allowing air in. Peering inside, she immediately realized these people lived in a much different demographic than Carl’s family. The walls were rough wood, the floors concrete. Aside from basic electricity, the house lacked even Carl’s basic nods to technology. At a knotty pine table, she saw two men playing cards, with an arsenal of weapons lying within arm’s reach around them. The sight of the guns was a jolt until she reminded herself that Arcadia didn’t have nearly the weapons laws her homeland had. The guns the men had lying out were older, but her hand still itched for the feel of a trigger. It would solve a lot of her problems.
No. No violence. I just need data.