FoM02 Trammel (30 page)

Feeling Lindsay’s cool form limp and heavy with sleep sent a spike of fear through Noah at the realization that he was on a path leading to the kind of devotion that would destroy him again if things went terribly wrong. But Noah wouldn’t try to stop it. He knew Lindsay in a way he couldn’t explain, like he’d felt Lindsay’s inner self meet his when Lindsay was trying to keep him alive. He remembered feeling the echo of his own loneliness and uncertainty there.

That was something he’d had with Elle—she had known him in a way that meant he never had to be ashamed of who and what he was, even if she hadn’t known the details. He’d never expected to find that level of intimacy again. Lindsay’s dedication reminded him of her, the way she’d loved him until he loved himself. She’d always had faith in his ability to do the right thing. The right thing now was to give up the cowardice of isolation.

Noah listened to Lindsay breathing until the rhythm of it pulled him down into sleep as well.

Peace came to a sharp and sudden end as Lindsay jerked out of his arms to sit up, facing the door.

Lindsay didn’t speak and, when he listened carefully, Noah could hear the others banging around on the way down from the room over the porch, arguing about whether or not to wake him and Lindsay.

Too late.

“I’ll go see what they have to say.” Noah got up, lighting a couple candles as he did so he could find his jeans. “It might be nothing.” The last thing he wanted was to get Lindsay’s hopes up over something that didn’t hold water.

Lindsay nodded, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I’ll get my clothes and be down in a minute.”

Noah grabbed his shirt as well, but went back to give Lindsay a kiss. Lindsay cupped his cheek and leaned up, making it last. They’d been having such a nice night too. This had better be something, but he

guessed Kristan wouldn’t interrupt over nothing—not right now. Any other time, all bets were off. Tugging his shirt on, he left the room and headed downstairs.

“Hey, kids. What’s going on?”

Zoey looked guilty. “I think we found something. I mean, I know we found something.”

“But we didn’t mean to wake you,” Ylli added hastily.

“Well, next time you want to not wake us up, how about you remember that Lindsay sleeps like a guard dog, and actually not wake us up?” Noah grabbed the kettle he’d picked up at the thrift store and started filling it with bottled water. “He’ll be down and you can tell us both. No trouble tonight?”

Zoey glanced at Ylli and Kristan, then shook her head. Noah wondered how much happened that actually got back to him and Lindsay. Kids.

“No, nothing that matters,” Zoey said, after the hasty, silent consultation. “I figured out where they are. I mean, I figured out which computer is tracking and purchasing those artifacts you said were magic.

Vivian’s message was a little weird but when I trusted it, it ended up making total sense. The, um—” She looked at Ylli again. “MAC address? Yeah. It’s the same when I trace back all those deals. Ylli said that means it’s the same computer every time. I just know that it looks the same every time. I think it belongs to Dr. Moore.”

She seemed to realize she was babbling and pinched her lips together, looking embarrassed.

Noah nodded as he set the kettle on the stove. He’d provide the heat, but it was good to be careful. He didn’t trust himself. The ball of fire he slipped in before putting the lid on was quiet, at least, humming and bubbling obediently.

“It’s in Ohio,” Kristan said. “Not the place where we found these two, though. Vivian made it sound like she and Cyrus had been keeping an eye on the area.” She came over to pull the lid off the kettle. “You can do that?”

“That makes sense.” Noah put the lid back on and scowled at her. There was all kinds of magical activity around there. “What city?”

“Miamisburg.” Ylli’s wings stirred as though he was uncomfortable. “They have one of those mound things. Like the one Cyrus sent us to. Those things give me the creeps.”

“It’s got a lot of other stuff going on too.” Kristan hopped up to sit on the counter next to where Noah was making tea. “Tell him.”

“This is going to sound weird,” Ylli said tentatively. “But some of the websites I read, for finding out strange stuff that doesn’t make it in the news, they say that there are a lot of busses that go there. The coach kind. There’s nothing to go to, though.”

“Patches said that a couple of the guys that went missing around here, the homeless ones, were last seen getting on a coach bus. No one remembers the company,” Kristan said. “Ylli’s freaky internet friends say those busses had no company markings. Maybe that’s why no one here remembers.”

Zoey piped up again. “That mound thing, the one in Miamisburg, they built a big lab on it back in the forties. Like, Manhattan Project kind of lab. It’s huge, and it’s all closed up now, but it’s still there. The computer that’s tracking the artifacts, that mound-lab thing is where it usually lives. I’ve tried to talk to it before, but it’s really—” Zoey blushed. “It’s shy and kind of nervous. I think if I had more time, I could get it to come around, but the computers near it were pretty talkative, once I matched Vivian’s numbers up to the gateways I had to take to get there.

“Anyway,” she continued, “that computer isn’t at the mound right now. The other computers can’t talk to it anymore. I don’t think it’s online at all. She must have left, and she took it with her. The other computers said that it leaves a lot, but never for very long. A couple days. It left this morning.”

“We have two days to get down there and get him back,” Lindsay said from behind Noah. “Are you ready?”

“I am.” Noah turned around to face Lindsay. He just needed his shoes. But the others... He looked over at Kristan.

“Let’s get going.” Kristan shrugged. “Nothing I need to do here. Make sure we have what we need to get around once we’re there. We could probably use computers for these two. That way we don’t have to find a library to check in on things.”

Lindsay looked at his watch, a cheap plastic thing they’d picked up at a pawnshop. It looked too big on his wrist, but it covered the scars even when his sleeve slid up his arm. “Nothing will be open yet.

We’ve got a couple hours. I’ll go downtown with... Ylli, you can come with me, pick out whatever you need.”

“Everyone who isn’t me or Lindsay should be trying to get some sleep in that time.” Noah poured boiling water into a cup with a tea bag and drew the fire out of the kettle. “We might not get another night to sleep before we have to get down to business.” He caught Kristan’s pitiful look, sighed, and made another cup of tea.

“We can’t take the car,” Kristan said. The ride back from the Great Circle had redefined uncomfortable, and if they got Dane out, it would be worse. Beppe’s sedan had been plenty big enough for three, but with Ylli’s wingspan, five was pushing it and six would be ridiculous. “When you guys go downtown, drop me off at Apollo 11, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Be careful,” Lindsay cautioned. “We might not be back here any time soon, and I don’t want to end up with a debt I can’t repay.”

“Hey, don’t teach Grandma to suck eggs.” Kristan took her cup of tea and poked the teabag with her finger, sinking it deeper. She looked over at Lindsay, her expression guileless. “I can get what we need without any problems. Trust me.”

“There’s some famous last words.” Noah gestured at Zoey. “Come on, kid. Nap time.”

“Let’s go.” Ylli waited until she was up and followed her out of the kitchen.

“I’ll go get pretty.” Kristan hopped down off the counter, tea in hand. “Before you say it, don’t.” She eyed Noah and Lindsay and then huffed with annoyance on her way out. She’d set herself up for an insult, but Noah managed to keep his mouth shut. “I can hear you thinking it.”

Noah finished making Lindsay’s tea and offered him the mug. “One for the road?”

Things were about to get very hectic, and if luck was with them, next time they could relax, Lindsay would have Dane back. That was what Noah wanted more than anything, though he was going to miss having first rights to cuddling Lindsay. He’d have to cuddle his fill before they left.

There was tension around Lindsay’s eyes, but he gave Noah a smile as he accepted the mug.

“Miamisburg. That explains the Hounds I felt when we were looking for Ylli and Zoey,” he said quietly, looking over at the stairs. There were still footsteps and shuffling sounds from the others moving around upstairs. “And something else was looking for us—it was like the Hounds, but I felt it hunting in my head. I knew Moore’s people were somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t figure out where without risking that they’d notice me.”

After a moment, he shook himself and took another sip of his tea, then set it down on the counter as he came over to stand in front of Noah. He didn’t say anything, just leaned up on his toes and nuzzled against Noah’s cheek like a cat.

Cat kisses. Noah remembered Rose calling it that when the family cats would rub against her. He wrapped his arms around Lindsay and nuzzled back. Really, they were marking their territory, but it was all the same as far as he was concerned.

“It’ll be okay,” he murmured in Lindsay’s ear. He would have been surprised if Moore hadn’t been hot on their heels. She had more resources than they did, and all the same information. Knowing gave him certainty about what they faced, and how much it needed to be destroyed.

Lindsay hummed his agreement and nodded. “It has to be.”

Chapter Fourteen

This rest stop looked a lot like the one Lindsay saw last week. Maybe all the Ohio rest stops looked the same. The similarities made it hard for Lindsay to shake the feeling he’d been here before—caught in a loop of failing and surviving, but never catching up to Moore...

This time, though, they’d already seen where they were going. The site of the former Mound Labs was down the road, and they’d scouted it as best they could before coming back here to regroup. Ylli had a camera, and Lindsay had risked hiding him under the illusion of a turkey vulture to get some shots of the installation.

“We’re going to have to use one of those busses to get in,” Lindsay said, turning away from the highway to look at the others.

“You can make sure no one notices if I board the next one.” Noah was sitting on the ground, back to a tree, watching Zoey work. The girl had bonded with the sparkly pink computer Ylli had put together for her to the point that Lindsay half-expected her to disappear into the screen like Alice down the rabbit hole. “We can’t take her in, and that means someone needs to stay with her. As much as I want to get Dane back, that has to be a priority.”

Lindsay looked around. Neither Ylli nor Kristan would be able to get themselves out if things went wrong, and sending Zoey in was a ludicrous proposition. Lindsay wasn’t sure what he’d consider things going “right”, at this point, except all of them walking away alive and whole.

“I should go.” He’d escaped Moore more than once. He could do it again.

“Over my dead body,” Noah said flatly. “First, because it will be my dead body if I get Dane out but lose you. Second, because that girl you said talked to you... How the hell do you think she found you? She can do it again, she’ll feel you if you get into her sphere, into the place she considers hers.”

Lindsay didn’t want to send Noah in there, hated the idea, but Noah was right. Lourdes knew him, and she might not be the only one. The hunters were still out there searching for him, the feel of them growing stronger in Lindsay’s mind the closer he was to the lab.

“If you don’t come out, I’ll kill you again myself.”

“I’ll be fine.” Noah gave him a wry smile. “If I can’t kill me, who’s gonna do it? Get me in and give me some cover, okay?”

“All right.” Lindsay could do that. “We’ll get you on the next bus that comes in for gas.”

They’d already tracked two busses that had pulled in at the same gas station. That would give them an opportunity for Noah to slip on board as a stowaway.

“I’ll get you in there and stay with you to make sure nothing goes wrong.” That would keep Lindsay from going crazy with worry that he was sacrificing Noah to save Dane and would end up losing both.

He’d never dreamed he’d be in that kind of position. “We’ll follow the bus, get as close as we can. Zoey and Ylli can handle the security system from outside to help smooth your way once you’re in.”

“And you can stand around and look cute,” Noah said to Kristan. “Or try. Practice.” She threw a stone at him and he rolled to his feet, laughing.

She got up as well, brushing dirt and grass from her jeans. “Just for that, you can drive.”

“Everything’s going to be fine.” Noah came over to Lindsay.

He had said the same thing last night. Lindsay wanted to believe him. Needed to believe him.

He caught Noah’s hand and raised it to his mouth to kiss the soft, new skin of Noah’s palm. “Yes. I’m going to make sure of it.”

Noah kept telling Lindsay it would all be okay because he was desperate to believe it himself. Hope wasn’t something he was very good at. In the past, he’d been adamant that he’d simply used up all his hope waiting for his magic. But with the second life Lindsay had given him, he’d had such things restored to him, as though he’d been refreshed.

He and Lindsay were alone in the front of the passenger van they’d rented through one of Patches’s friends. The thing would seat fifteen and yet Ylli, Kristan and Zoey were holed up in the back. Noah guessed it was an attempt to give him some time with Lindsay. It was endearing, really. Kristan, at least, wasn’t usually that subtle, even if it was a very small value of subtle.

As he pulled into the truck stop where the busses were known to refuel, Noah was scraping all the optimism he could find out of the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t fear of Moore or Lourdes. It was fear of failing. He couldn’t let Lindsay down.

“If Ylli’s friends are right, we won’t be waiting long,” Noah said, partly to remind himself that he wouldn’t have long to spend worrying before he had to simply act.

Lindsay’s fingers crept up Noah’s thigh. Before it got into salacious territory, he flipped it palm-up.