Crow - The Awakening (28 page)

Sirel looked at the drawing, sober. She sorely missed Meruk. He had been her soul mate, her best friend. Lelana and Penipe were also best friends. Now they were gone, violently taken from them by the Sadari. Their mission had collapsed almost from the instant they arrived and now it was just the four of them, hunting a deviant and facing an immensely powerful foe.

Sirel looked at Penipe and smiled wistfully. "Focus, Penny. If we stay away from the boys too long they'll get into mischief." She giggled as she turned and rooted through more of Steven's wooden boxes, hiding her pain. Penipe frowned and rolled up the drawing, put it in her hip pack, and started helping Sirel look for hints as to where Steven would go. The more they sought answers to their questions, the more questions popped up.

Lohet stood examining the snag in the meadow. He measured the energy in the area with a small handheld device that looked like a pair of small brass tubes. Even though it was bright out there, the display for the data compensated, appearing clearly as if they were solid objects floating before him that he was able to read even in the sunlight. The scanner told him everything he need to know, and he found it disturbing.

From the drawing of Asherah, this was the spot where Steven and Asherah saw each other. This was where Lohet and the others originally arrived, and it was more than coincidence that Steven had been attracted to it. The fracture was very strong there. He wondered if Steven was even conscious of it. But if he was, why was he still on Terra?

The scorches and rifts in the ground and his attraction to the fracture were ample evidence that Steven was ready for harvest, but now he was gone, a boy who eluded a hunting force with many centuries of experience. They had sorely underestimated him.

Migalo emerged from the forest on the other side of the meadow, closing in on Lohet rapidly as he ran in large bounds. He stopped before Lohet with a large thud. Lohet looked over his sunglasses at the furry creature that appeared unusually distressed.

"They covered his tracks," he grumbled angrily, his teeth flashing in the sunlight as he growled. "I picked it up in several places but the forest is against us." Migalo crouched down, picking at his fur.

"His general direction?" Lohet asked.

"North. I got as far as the first river and lost him completely after that." Migalo glowered. He was an apex predator and has been shamed by a mere boy, deviant or not.

"Just as I thought." Lohet returned his attention to the scanner. "He's going to Seattle."

“Not the city!” Migalo hated the city. “It’s dead. And it stinks.” Migalo was very much a creature of the forest. But then, they all were. Lohet was no fan of the big cities either. The city would put them at a distinct disadvantage in many ways. Migalo sat on his haunches, frowning at the prospect. They had worked in the city nearly two decades ago and found it extremely unpleasant.

It was logical, however, Lohet thought to himself. "It is where his parents last worked with the Crows. He is trying to retrace their steps."

He looked up at the snag. The tree was almost exactly a duplicate of another tree he had seen. "Young Steven had a connection with this place."

"How could he know?" Migalo shook off the rest of the dust and leaves of the forest off and stood up next to Lohet, following his gaze up at the dead tree. He remembered it years ago when it was still alive. Their arrival had killed it and reduced the meadow to a wasteland for several years, thanks to the Sadari's jamming of the fracture.

"The fracture here is stronger. It's why we emerged here." Lohet looked back at his scanner, reading the status of the gateway energy in the area. "The gateway he made is still open and residual. We just can't travel through it." The residue of the spacial anomaly was all around them, however. Lohet concentrated as he fine tuned the scanner, hoping to find a way to communicate through the residue and fulfill their mission.

"Can we communicate through it?" Migalo looked over Lohet's shoulder at the scanner.

"No signals are getting through currently. We may have missed a chance last night during his incident." Lohet was sober. That was all they needed the boy for, ultimately. Returning home was secondary to warning home about the new Sadari threat.

"How is he able to punch through Sadari jamming without them noticing?" Migalo looked over Lohet's shoulder at the scanner readings.

Lohet didn't answer right away but continued walking around, trying to map the gateway and find the weakest part. The energy was in flux, however. "I'm not entirely convinced that they haven't noticed it, Migalo," he finally answered.

"Do you think they let him?" Migalo was dumbstruck at the concept.

"They could not have stopped a deviant." Lohet pocketed his scanner and looked around. "And if they know of his existence, then the mission is in great peril already."

Penipe emerged from the forest, a hint of her former graceful self finally starting to show, though her chest was still wrapped up and in pain. Sirel remained in the canopy, keeping an eye on their location from a higher perspective.

"Penipe, a communicator please." Lohet walked up to the tree as Penipe arrived and Penipe followed him, reaching into her belt and pulling out a communicator. The communicator was a small brass button that radiated on a bandwidth only their technology can discern and even then was very restricted to just a certain subset of receivers. To anyone stumbling on the frequency, it would be background noise since it used ambient radiation to mask its existence. The technology was developed specifically to thwart Sadari detection.

Lohet received the button from Penipe and loaded it with the data that they were sent to acquire. Then he jammed a finger into a crack in the dead wood of the tree and twisted his hand until the crack got bigger. Into that he stuffed the communicator then he removed his finger so the crack shrank back down, effectively concealing the device.

"What good is that without the gateway?" Penipe asked, not being privy to the discussion between Lohet and Migalo.

"The gateway is residual." Lohet stepped back and looked around the meadow. "I suspect when the deviant has an incident, the gateway becomes more corporeal."

“That is how he maintains a bond with Asherah!” Penipe gasped. Lohet looked at her, remembering the devastating pain she went through when they first arrived when her own bond was broken. Lelana was likewise incapacitated. After they arrived, the Sadari clamped down on the fracture and abolished the gateway completely, severing Penipe from her bond-mate. It nearly killed her. It took a long time for her to recover. And Penipe was several centuries old and very strong. Asherah is only a child.

"Yes. If we find him again he may have another incident." Lohet returned to the discussion at hand.

"So even if we fail, we succeed," Migalo grumbled. Lohet nodded and returned to the forest. Penipe and Migalo followed. Sirel descended and met them.

"We must go to the house," Sirel advised and held out her hands to them.

After a full afternoon of work, Laurence finally finished copying the evidence they had found and sent the data back to their labs for further processing. Much of it was Steven’s drawings, and he was a prolific artist. He sat back on the couch to ponder his next moves. The forensics specialists were busy putting the items they had found back in the places they originally found them and putting the home back in order. Their goal was to leave the house much in the same shape as they found it, hoping that the family would return and perhaps stay long enough to intercept them.

The microscope sat on the coffee table and Laurence couldn't help but be impressed. Most of it was comprised of custom turned and machined alloys fabricated with great precision in the little shop on the homestead. He had seen bits and pieces of projects in the shop already, including experiments on Stirling cycle engines and cryocoolers. The final assembly of the microscope wasn't very large, but it didn't have to be. After all, it was built to look at very small samples. The sample was still sealed in the microscope and under extreme vacuum, so he would have to send it off to the lab for them to process. He would very much like to know exactly what Steven was so interested in that he would go through the effort and expense to build such a device.

Laurence sighed and looked around. The team was very efficient at the job they were assigned to do. It was time for him to leave. One of the forensics team came in with a small wooden crate and packed up the microscope and vacuum pump and carried it out of the house. Suddenly feeling useless, Laurence grabbed up his gear and headed to his car. He put his hand on the hood, looking at the paw prints that covered it. It had scratches and his door was dented from the problem with the wolves and he shook his head, disappointed. He liked that car. He would have to make a point of coming back for some wolf hunting when all was said and done with this mission. Getting in, he turned on his GPS and pulled up Seattle. It was time to move operations there and intercept the child once and for all.

Steven lost track of how far he had run as he trotted through the forest. The forest all looked the same, even the infrequent ravines, streams and rocks. Occasionally he would be joined by various denizens of the forest like the wolves and elk as he trotted along. It was enormously comforting to have their presence nearby and he stayed on the forest floor, rather than in the canopy, to enjoy their company. Steven felt alone for the first time, with Sally and Jonah not part of his life at the moment. He hoped desperately that he'd be able to repair that bridge later on. A wolf nuzzled his hand as he ran along and he scratched its ears. It was like the wolf could sense the melancholy he was experiencing and tried to comfort him. Always his friends, even from childhood.

At the same time, part of him felt liberated. No longer was he hiding from them, or lying to them. He hated lying to his godparents. They treated him so well and their relationship was so close, it ate at him to have to hide that one major part of his life from them. But his current predicament was exactly why he hid it from them for so long. Now he was on his own and free from that stress.

Late afternoon found Steven suddenly quite famished. He found a comfortable stump to sit on and he dug through his bag for some berries and mushrooms. A puma ambled by, marking her territory as she went, then disappeared silently into the forest. Steven munched his berries, taking in the silence and serenity of the forest. Its energy ebbed and flowed around him, like a living thing that embraced him in warmth and calm. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. The trees seemed to speak to him in their own language, soothing his inner turmoil over leaving his family. He could feel the life that was abundantly present around him. He couldn't help but think how he had taken this all for granted, so focused was he on his search for his parents, or his fantasy, or even his accelerated college course. He had never really taken the time to just stop and experience life around him.

A strange bear ambled up to him. Most of the animals in this part of the forest were strangers to him now. And yet they all seemed be familiar with him. He held out a handful of berries and grinned as the bear lapped the berries up then put its massive head in his lap. Such strength was mesmerizing. Steven scratched behind its ears as it closed its eyes and soaked in the attention.

"It is good to have friends like you," he said to the predator. He remembered the days back when he used to have pretend animals for friends, inspired by his godparent's books. That seemed like eons ago. Then getting lost in the forest and having one of those animals, real this time, guide him home. Ever since then he has not wanted for friends and the entire forest was his family. And it dawned on him that the forest was reminding him of that. He was surrounded by more life than he had experienced in the forest in a long time. He grinned, grateful. He grabbed a new mushroom from the stump he was sitting on and nibbled it, migrating his thoughts to his next steps. It wasn't time to set up camp yet so a few more miles would definitely be a good thing, he thought.

The bear grunted and walked off into the forest, as if sensing that Steven was about to depart again, and Steven zipped up his bag and hopped off the trunk. A small herd of elk followed him as he got back to running again, trotting easily through the underbrush and ferns of the forest. One of the elk pulled even with him, easily keeping pace and he grabbed the thick fur on the top of its neck and let it pull him along. After a few miles they finally veered off, and Steven found himself running solo again. But he didn't really feel alone, and even in his solitude the life around him made him feel like he was amongst a crowd of close friends.

But something was a little different. There was a presence in the forest that didn't quite fit. As he loped through the underbrush he was able to discern where the presence was. Curious, he started zeroing in on it. It didn't exactly take him far off course, after all. As he slipped through the underbrush he started to smell something, faintly at first but getting stronger. It was a fire. Someone camping out in the woods, perhaps? The idea made him hesitate. He wasn't prepared to interact with people just yet, at least until he reached Seattle. But he decided to at least take a peek and see who it was.

The camp was quiet. There was a smoking grill by the door of a modest RV. Steven scanned the forest for any sign of the campers. He felt someone down by the small river that passed by the campsite and he skirted around the perimeter of the small clearing to get a better look. A man and his wife were sitting on a log hanging their legs over the bank of the river. Steven wasn’t sure, but they appeared to be his godparent’s age. The man was cleaning a couple of fish while the woman chatted with him. They both looked totally relaxed and very much enjoying each others company, so Steven decided to continue on without bothering them. But before he could leave, he heard a noise nearby and they both looked over in his direction, frozen. Steven froze as well, wondering if they had seen him. He was still pretty well concealed by the undergrowth through which he was peeking, though.