Chapter Twenty-Seven
October 30
Waxing Gibbous
It was midnight by the time we made our way out of the city. The moon was at our back over Lake Erie, but in the rearview it loomed like a neon warning. Out here in the rural area east of the city, electric lights were scarce. The moon’s light cast the fields and wooded areas bordering the highway in an otherworldly silver glow.
Before we’d headed out, I’d called Baba again to ask her to stay with Danny. She didn’t ask why. She’d heard the tension in my tone. The promise of danger. “Watch your ass, Katie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Now we were speeding away from Baba and Danny and safety. Inside the SUV, the air was heavy and thick with tension.
“Shadi, what did you find out about the winery?” Morales asked.
She was in the backseat with her laptop, pulling up everything she could from online city records. I sat beside her while Morales and Gardner took the front seats. Mez was dialed into the car through the phone speaker. The wiz was in a van behind us that would serve as the command post for the mission. Gardner decided the wiz needed to stay back while we went in so he could monitor all of the sensors and amulets we had strapped to our bodies.
“According to the real estate records,” Shadi said, “the place was foreclosed upon about ten years ago. A couple by the name of Daniels bought it three years back with the hopes of reviving the vineyards and restoring the buildings to serve as a bed-and-breakfast. They reopened eighteen months ago under the name Babylon Cellars.” She clicked a couple more times. “I just pulled up the website and it has a banner announcing the B and B is temporarily closed for the month of October.”
“Interesting,” I said, “considering this should be peak time for them with the grape harvest and all.”
“Question is did Dionysus kill them when he took over the place or brainwash them like he did the others?” I asked.
“Be ready for anything,” Gardner said, her tone tight as piano wire. To Morales, she said, “Your turn’s coming up.”
He leaned forward in the seat. The lights from the dashboard controls lit up the determination in his expression. A few moments later the car slowed. On the left a single-lane road veered off into a stand of trees. “You sure this is it?”
I tried to see down the dark throat, but the darkness was as impenetrable as a black hole.
Gardner nodded. “This will take us around the outer perimeter of the vineyard. We’ll be able to approach from the back of the building this way.”
“Everyone go ahead and engage their bio-monitors now,” Mez said. I turned and saw the headlights of the stopped van a few feet behind our vehicle. “I’ll go camp out toward the entrance of the winery and monitor you all from there.”
Turning back, I reached down and flipped the button on the monitor at my waist. About two inches round, the contraption sent a signal to Mez’s computers with my heart rate, temperature, and whatever other biorhythms he thought it necessary to watch. Using the pin that attached my badge to my wallet, I pricked my finger and milked a few drops from the skin. The instant I touched the amulet with my blood, it warmed and started glowing in my hand. The magic inside allowed the wiz to track us without the need for satellites. The blood also engaged the magical force field of sorts that helped dampen potion attacks. When I put the amulet back around my neck, it felt heavy, and my skin crawled like someone had walked over my grave. I hated the sizzle of magic on the skin, but I reminded myself that if I hadn’t agreed to this compromise, Gardner never would have let us move forward with the raid.
Pen’s voice nagged at me, ticking off yet another principle pushed aside in favor of duty. I pushed it aside ruthlessly. Refusing magical protection when I was about to face down a psychotic wizard was damned near suicidal.
“Everyone good?” Morales looked back. I nodded despite the nausea roiling in my gut. When we all confirmed we’d engaged our defensive items, he told Mez we were a go.
“I see everyone on the monitor,” Mez said through the speaker. “Happy hunting, guys. See you all in a few.”
With that, the van pulled out and continued down the highway. I watched the taillights recede like two red eyes in the distance.
“All right, everyone,” Gardner said. “Radio silence starting now.”
Morales cut the lights and turned into the dark. The lack of light and sound created a dark vacuum in the car. The visceral pressure built in my chest and head until I wanted to claw my skin off and run through the woods like a night thing.
I wasn’t sure if the journey took five minutes or fifty, but eventually a sliver of light up ahead signaled our exit from the tree tunnel. Morales pulled the SUV to a stop at the border between dark and dim light. Without speaking, we all exited the vehicle, bringing with us the tools of our trade: salt flares, S&P spray, hawthorn wood wands, potion bombs, and lots and lots of guns.
A wide field was the borderland between the woods and the first rows of vineyard. Grapevines snaked up wooden spikes in row after row after row. Far to our right, dim lights identified the winery’s main house. And straight ahead, over the tops of the vines, the moon danced off the serpentine waters of the Steel River.
Crouching low, I jogged toward the fruit-heavy vines. My heart trotted in time with my steps, and a fine sheen of sweat coated my skin despite the smoky autumn chill. Out here in the countryside, the air smelled of yawning earth preparing for a winter’s hibernation. The silence was broken only by the repetitive crack of my defensive wand against my cuffs and the creak of leather. Toads sang night songs along the riverbed, and the occasional hoot of an owl punctuated the night with a question mark.
Gardner and Shadi ran into one row of vines, which would dump them out toward the right of the winery house. Morales motioned toward me to follow him down a left-facing row. This course would bring us almost directly to the back door of the building. As I entered the track, I pulled my Glock and prayed Mez’s detection amulets would warn us before we stumbled into a trap.
The uneven ground forced me to feel my way slowly across the terrain. Up ahead, Morales’s shoulders filled my vision, and their width was a reassuring sort of shadow, blocking my view of what was coming. But just like he trusted me to go forward with the raid, I trusted him to warn me of danger.
We were almost at the end of the row when his left fist came up. I halted immediately and listened. At first, my ears were buzzing too full of adrenaline to hear it. But soon the noise in my head was drowned out by the sound of a shouted argument from somewhere in the compound.