The Alliance agent paced anxiously, a cell phone pressed to his ear. Croe was close enough to hear the tirade of his superior officer, close enough to pick up the replies he thought of and almost said, close enough to wonder how many bars of signal he had, and how that was even possible – but the agent did not notice her. Indeed, she could have been slow-dance close, leaving no room for Jesus, and he would not have known she was there until she wished it. She could have touched him.
Could have killed him, she thought idly. He wouldn’t even see it coming.
But no, that would defeat the purpose. She followed him for the phone calls, and the self-talk that followed. One day she’d probably capture him, and they could have their own conversation, and perhaps that little chat would end with body-disposal, or not. People tended to be more useful alive than dead, and Croe had many potential uses for this man.
Tell me where he is, she thought to herself, though she knew he couldn’t.
“What was that?” The officer on the phone demanded. The agent startled, stiffened.
“What was what?”
“That voice.” Through the phone, the older man’s own voice was distorted, mechanical. There was a faint echo, which Croe supposed made sense, given the lack of signal towers. “Are you alone?”
Shit.
“V-voice?” The agent turned on the spot, his elbow held at a comical right-angle that Croe deftly side-stepped as he whirled. His free hand went for the sidearm at his hip. “I didn’t hear a voice.” Croe looked around, too. It was impossible that the man on the phone had heard her thoughts – she wasn’t so stupid or inexperienced that she couldn’t control their projection. But did he have some magic that had detected her presence, regardless? That did seem like something Gwythr would do…
Then again, maybe the officer was just paranoid.
“Get out of there. Right now.”
The agent stuffed the phone into his pocket, and ran.
Croe blinked after him. Surely, this was not what the officer had meant. Surely this kid had a hop loop. Surely he would remember he had a hop loop, once some of the adrenaline had worn off or his stamina flagged, and when he did, Croe wanted to be close enough to read the coordinates. With a sigh she gave chase, rolling her eyes at the way he stumbled over roots and cast terrified eyes over his shoulder. Gods, it would have been a relief to break his stupid legs.
They descended into a thicket, and of course, of course, it was here that the agent remembered his hop loop. Croe sped up, attempting to position herself somewhere she could observe the coordinates as they flashed across his screen. But he was stumble-running like a drunk, and the screen bobbed wildly while he jammed at it with his index finger, and then they were both crashing through the bushes bordering a clearing when he vanished with a pop. Croe slowed to a stop with her hands on her hips, the shape of her resolving from the air in twisting coils of darkness.
There was an armed man in the clearing, and a seal, and some boxes. She huffed a breath, made a non-committal sound that was not quite a greeting. He was obviously up to something at least vaguely nefarious, but that was of no concern to her. Even if she had worked for the former King, hunting down such men, once upon a time.
She supposed it was possible he knew that.
“I’m not here for you,” she clarified mildly, taking in the sword, the eyes that were near-mirrors to hers, the teeth of his familiar. Her attention lingered on the crates. She wasn’t there for him, but the new King would no doubt appreciate this insight into the goings-on in his woods, and Croe couldn’t deny that it would be useful to offer him an olive branch…given what other news she’d eventually have to break. She took a few oblique steps, neither nearer nor farther from where he stood.
To an uneducated observer (and perhaps to him, if he did not recognize her) she was at a disadvantage. Her only visible weapon was a dagger on her hip; her clothing, though it covered her from neck to toes to fingertips in black, was lightweight. Fashionable. She’d spent too long in palaces, probably, and was beginning to look like she’d grown soft. But appearances were deceiving, and any outlaw worth his salt would know it.
“It seems Shaman hasn’t changed much, despite all the news to the contrary. Who moved this? The Widowmaker? Drakon?” Croe did not mention Henry’s ship, though she was curious if it was his. “Bold, in the middle of a forest named for the King.”
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