Are they here? mystics asked as they compared the real force of the wind to the memory of it of long ago. Apparently the air had thickened since they last had to plow through it with a solid body in tow.
Why don’t you go find out? I directed, suggesting that they go through the calmer air within the train so they didn’t risk being ripped away. A shudder raked through my soul as almost half of them streamed from me, some going through the hole Ivy was now snaking down, some through the skin of the train itself, some going through the soles of my feet. The mystics content to stay with me seemed to roll through my aura and settle in like a cat enjoys the sun. Promises to return eddied about me with the soft, binding force of a plant tendril, unexpected and worrisome.
Return to me, or their confederates still lodged in my soul? I wondered, then almost panicked when a twining of voices said it was the same thing. You are not mine! I shouted, trying to make my one voice louder than theirs combined. You are going back to the Goddess! That’s the entire point to this. We find the ones they stole, and you all go back!
But they didn’t seem to care, which scared the crap out of me. What if they didn’t want to go back? I couldn’t live my life as a mystic magnet.
“Rachel!” Trent shouted, and I blinked, looking down at his pale face and realizing that it was just Scott, Etude, and me up here. “Let’s go!”
He held out a hand, and I felt his strength as I slipped mine into it. I tried to pay attention, but a growing negativity swelled in me. It was the returning mystics with news of what lay below. The captives were not in the last car, nor in the hold below it.
Worried, I carefully maneuvered myself into the tight space between the rocking cars. The returning mystics were getting uncomfortably better at sorting themselves as they arrived, binding their myriad thoughts into one in such a way that I could understand them. Sure, it was unclear at first, with multiple perspectives making it a nauseating slurry of confusion, but by the time I’d gotten myself out of the wind, enough had returned to bring it into focus. They were adapting to me on an exponential curve, and whereas yesterday I’d been struggling to keep them from destroying my friends, now I could send them on a task and have them work together to find an answer—and it was scaring the hell out of me.
My feet hit the shifting surface as the returning mystics brought back with them a wave of free mystics, escapees that had lingered close to the captive splinter. They soaked into me, pulled by their kin and attracted to my aura. In a cascading wave, their confusion at the unfamiliar thought patterns and concepts curled like smoke and vanished. Where understanding and adjustment had once taken days, now it took seconds.
I had to get them back to her, and fast.
Jenks tugged at my hair, swearing at Tink, the stars, and the moon all in one breath as he fought with the snarls. I felt him give up and cut his way free, his angry red dust spilling down my front with the strands of my hair. Ivy was between me and the first car, and Trent beside me. The car behind us was mostly empty from a quick look through the milky glass. I was getting a better image from the mystics, dropping off their intel and leaving for more, their disappointment growing at their missing kin.
Trent leaned close to me in the small space, the scent of cinnamon and wine mixing with iron and oil. “Are you okay?” he asked as we rocked, and I nodded as I held his arm for balance.
“Neither Landon or Ayer are in the last car,” I said, then went over the memory again, concentrating on the faces since the mystics weren’t as keen on them. “This second car doesn’t look good either, but they haven’t searched it as diligently.”
Trent’s eyes widened, and Jenks—now on Trent’s shoulder—looked up from cleaning his sword. “Ah, you got that from the mystics?” Jenks asked, and I nodded, grimacing when I realized the mystics had probably done more in fifteen seconds than he could’ve with his first run through the train.
Realizing it, too, Trent looked over my shoulder at Ivy, something unsaid passing between them before he looked up at Scott. The vampire was still lying on the roof since there wasn’t much room between the cars. “Okay. We’ll assume they’re forward,” Trent said resolutely. “Scott, you and Etude have our back door.”
“Check,” he said as he pulled back, and I heard the ripping of duct tape over the wind.
A surge of adrenaline went through me. People. There were too many people. “Maybe we should disconnect the cars as we go through them.”
Trent was working the door, punching in a few codes to try to get it to open. “You can’t do that when the train is moving like this.” Giving up, he gestured for Jenks to figure it out. “At least, you can’t do it more than once,” he said, smiling.
Nothing, nothing, the mystics lamented, and then a single flash of fear and hatred—and recognition.
Where? I thought, almost losing my balance as a massive amount of them went to find out. Jenks’s brilliant flash of dust heralded the clicking of the lock disengaging. “First class,” I said, vision wavering as the first mystics began to return. Their hatred was like quicksilver, elusive as a sunbeam. “I think they’re in the first-class cab.” It was a short train with only three cars.
“I’ll go see,” Jenks said, tugging at the door. “No offense, Rache.”
“None taken.”
Eyes upward, Ivy reached for the torn panel. “Scott! Hold up!”
“You’re not coming?” I said to Ivy as Jenks vaulted through the crack in the door and was gone.
Already up a step, she turned. “You handle it,” she said, expression grim. “I want to see what’s going on in the engine. Etude can come with me. Scott has the back.”
“Ivy,” I protested as the wind scooped in and she levered herself out. I could find out what was going on in the engine, but as she poked her head back in, I decided she wasn’t doing intel, she was busting heads. “See you when I see you,” I said, reaching up, and for an instant, our fingers touched.
The luck of the Goddess goes with you, I thought, my fingertips tingling as mystics left me. They could bring me back visions if she got in trouble.
Trent cleared his throat, and I flushed. “What . . .” I muttered. “I’ve got enough of ’em. There’s plenty left.” Jenks was at the foggy window, waiting, and I reached past Trent again for the door. “You coming or not?”
“I’m coming,” he said, but his smile was tinged with worry.