Enemies(30)

“Hello,” Karthik said with a smile as he flipped a badge out. “What have we got here?”

The cops all looked at each other, exchanging sidelong glances, until the one out front, a short balding fellow with reddish-blond hair spoke. “About time you lot showed up. It’s been ages since we called it in. The whole village has gone quiet, like all the phone lines are out or something. People called in from Wales, said they were trying to reach their cousins but couldn’t.” He shrugged. “So we sent over—”

“You should tell ’em what we found,” a stocky cop next to him said, a guy with short dark hair and way too many extra pounds.

The reddish-haired officer turned and rolled his eyes at the second. “Well, we didn’t find anything now, did we?” He turned back to Karthik. “We did a brief search, by the book. The place is empty. Like they all picked up and moved off in the middle of the night.”

No, Little Doll. My eyes widened involuntarily; I still wasn’t used to hearing disembodied voices in my head, even after all this time. Especially not in the middle of a conversation. My first instinct was to act like not a damned thing was happening. I didn’t really care about any of the Omega operatives’ opinions of me, since they knew what was going on in my head (sort of) but I had some reticence with having random strangers think I was insane. Smell that?

The police officer continued to talk to Karthik, but I tuned him out and took a deep breath, trying to sift it through, savor it. It was cold air, which always held its own smell. I caught a little of the scent of the grass and some nearby flowers that were pleasantly pungent. There was a faint aroma of exhaust from the helicopter, even as it throttled down. Finally, I caught it, barely, underneath it all, as the wind began to turn toward us from the east.

“What is it?” Janus asked me quietly, so quietly that none of the humans would have heard him. It took me only a moment to realize he’d picked up on the flow of my emotions, tripping him to the fact that something was amiss.

“A scent in the air,” I breathed back, and I saw Bastet close her eyes and take a deep breath through her nose as it flared to take in the smells around us. “This way,” I said and veered to the right, away from the line of officers.

“Where’s she going?” the short, dark-haired one called out.

“Investigating a lead,” Karthik called back. “We’ll be a few minutes. Maintain your perimeter.”

I heard a few muttered utterances from the officers before the red-haired one spoke up again. “Did you bring a psychic out here?”

We trod down a sloped hill, walking over the green fields that were dry, the cold air surrounding me a brisk counterpoint to what I was used to from winter back home. I wondered if it would snow here, and if so, how soon it would come. The village was spread out in front of us, both down the hill and up the next, a near-endless collection of houses and other assorted buildings. The one I was drawn inexorably towards was a church. It had a gothic facade but wasn’t particularly large. It had one tower with a pointed tip that reached far above a second, squared one. The main part of the building stretched back from the impressive entrance. I knew as I looked upon the massive white doors that whatever I was smelling would be found inside.

I ascended the steps slowly, carefully, as though afraid that the doors would burst open and something would come clawing out at me. What that would be, I had no idea, but I thought surely it must just be a figment of my imagination. I also thought it curious that I didn’t fear it would be a squad of men with guns, because that would kill me just as surely as some beast ripping my throat out. Actually, it was more likely to. I felt a flash of irritation that I’d had to stow my guns before I got on the plane to come over here. What was the likelihood Omega would give me one?

“I need a gun,” I whispered to Janus, who was only a pace or two behind me. Karthik was edging up on my shoulder and I exchanged a look between the two of them as Janus looked to Karthik. Karthik, in turn, reached to his belt and handed me a small, boxy thing with a handle and a trigger that looked like a gun, but only if I squinted really hard. And was stupid. It was lighter and felt like it was made of plastic. I held it up and noticed some yellow crosshatching on the “barrel” as I waved it. “What the hell is this?”

“Taser,” Karthik replied.

“Well, this will certainly help me if we run into a meta that can kill an entire village.”

“Sorry,” Karthik said, and I could hear the notes of genuine contrition in his tone. “Guns aren’t quite as easy to procure here as in America.”