The Shadow Commission by David Mack

Author:David Mack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

16

Teleportation via water was far less painful than anything Briet had experienced when jaunting by way of fire or lightning, but something about the experience still did not sit well with her. It made her think of being born, and then of baptism by immersion. Childbirth and religious indoctrination. Two of my least favorite subjects.

Anja led the group—which consisted of herself, Cade, Briet, Barış, Sathit, and Yasmin—through a water jaunt between two deep shoreline eddies, the first in the river that fed Arthurs Lake outside Luis’s lodge in Tasmania, the other in the Seyhan River on the outskirts of Adana, Turkey. The magickal journey went smoothly enough. The group surfaced in the water just a meter from the west bank of the river, as planned.

Close above their heads, jutting some seven meters from the shore and perched on two rows of concrete pilings sunk into the riverbed, was the floor of the eastern end of the factory. On the far side of the river there was nothing but trees and dense ground-covering foliage.

Everyone continued to hold hands as they waded ashore and climbed from the river one by one. Maintaining their daisy-chain connection to Anja meant that, in spite of their mode of travel, none of them were wet, thanks to the protections of one of her yoked demons.

Sathit, at the end of the chain, was the last person out of the water. As soon as she found her footing, the other members of the group let go of one another’s hands and huddled for cover behind a line of thickly grown shrubs close to the rear corner of the factory.

Crouched beside Briet, Barış squinted at the three-quarter moon, which lay low in the west beyond the fenced compound ahead of them, and then he fiddled with his watch. “It was just after five A.M. when we left Tasmania. Do any of you know the time here?”

Briet arched an eyebrow. “Why? Are we synchronizing watches?”

“I just wish to know how long we have until daylight.”

“We’ve got all night,” Cade said. “It’s nine minutes past ten.”

“Not to mention it’s yesterday again,” Yasmin said. “It’s Tuesday morning in Taz, but here it’s still Monday night.” She cracked a quirky smile. “Almost like we time-traveled.”

“It is nothing like that,” Anja said, apparently irked by the least hint of frivolity.

A wave of Cade’s hand opened a wide slash in the chain-link fence at the top of the riverbank. He addressed the adepts. “I’ll go in with Briet and Anja, have a look around. You three stay here, spread out, and stay under cover. You’ll be our lookouts.”

Sathit rolled her eyes. “I am starting to see a pattern here.”

Her complaint drew an insincere smile from Cade. “It’s called ‘keeping you alive.’ You see or hear anything, come in and let us know. If you get split up, or cut off from us, or outnumbered, you fucking run. Got it?” All three apprentices nodded. “Good. See you soon.” He drew his Beretta pistol and slipped through the gap he had cut in the fence.

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