Chapter 68

Adrian instigated ambusher steps to hide himself and walked by the side of the gravel road. It was ridiculous that the driveway had survived better than the public road, but that was what happened. It was mostly still intact, though there was a patch where a noxious yellow weed had taken over half the road. He skirted it and then turned around the bend.

Adrian stopped and stared.

His heart jumped.

It was the middle of the night, but there was life!

Tony’s hobby farm had always had the buildings concentrated in the centre. The hay shed was a stone’s throw from the house, then the machinery shed, the stables and the new machinery shed, which acted more like a giant garage had spread out in a broken circle with each building sort of on a side.

Those sheds now formed the basis of a communal shelter. The complex had been expanded, walls put in place and what looked like a crow’s nest installed on top of the hay shed providing a lookout post. The trees on the outskirts of the wall had been chopped down. Presumably both for visibility reasons and because the timbre would have been needed to help construct the wall. Archer posts were set up regularly at the top of the fortifications. It was a survivalist dream setup. He was looking at what in olden times would have been a walled village, but with modern sensibilities. A fortified compound.

And it was occupied.

Two men were in that crow’s nest, acting as a lookout.

He felt like laughing. Of course, Tony was stubborn enough to stay at his farm and sufficiently popular to draw in his mates to help him.

Anticipation and hope flared. She might not be here but… He was sure that morning of the event that she had been at Tony’s and if that was the case somewhere in that compound in front of him she was sleeping and his kids too.

He did not know what to do. Should he retreat and come back in daylight so as not to scare people? It was the right thing to do, but he could not get his feet to turn away.

He needed to know.

With Ambusher steps cloaking him, he moved forward. The men in the crow’s nest were unlikely to have the skills necessary to pierce Ambushers Steps, but it was a moot point. Thief habits died hard, and it was easy to move when they weren’t looking and use the limited cover. He ducked behind a sawn off trunk that was just tall enough. Then slid into a drainage ditch. Two-inch water soaking him.

Adrian froze.

The compound wall was now right at the edge of his sensing domain. He was approaching from the house side. The large two-story house whose front facade provided a significant part of the defensive wall. The upstairs windows were intact even when the lower ones had been closed off with wooden planks.

There was no need to enter the house. If he snuck up to the front porch, he would be able to see enough with his domain.

God. Why was this so hard? He pushed away a tear, choking up. It took more will than inserting the last troll core to take another step. He snuck forward and crouched next to a broken tractor.

Ambusher armour flashed on and off, and then he was dry once more.

It was taking too long. He needed to go faster. He needed to know now.

Step.

Ambusher and thief skills went haywire, and he aborted the step or at least redirected it to only inch forward rather than going most of the way to the house. There was a ward, and he was so distracted he had almost missed it.

Adrian tensed worried that he might have just set off an alarm.

Nothing happened. He was outside its range.

The ward built into the ground around the outskirts of the house. He should have seen it and now that he knew about it, he should take steps to immediately disable it.

Adrian couldn’t do it.

The presence of the community was distracting. Emily might be there. He peered at it. Extending his domain. The closest downstairs bedroom was the only one he could sense, and it was filled with a family.

Not his.

He shook his head and examined the ward that had been placed to provide additional security. He did not know whether this was Tony’s work or someone else’s but the fact they had purchased this sort of sensing technique told him they were taking security seriously.

With all of his senses, he examined the simple magical construction. It was a single purpose early alarm with none of the bells and whistles that you would use to stop humans. He produced the most basic of the ward blockers he had used on Eleni’s house and created a hole large enough to slide through.

Step, blink.

Right up against the house.

His domain folded out, revealing everything.

Over forty people were crammed into the house. One and sometimes two families per room, but his mind flicked over most of them to concentrate on a single room.

It was the room they always slept in.

Emily! His heart jumped and the kids!

Tears ran down his face. They were alive. A strangled whimper escaped his throat. Ambushers fade could not keep it in.

Alive.

All of them were alive!

He wanted to scream it out. After so long, he was here and she and them.

Thank you! Jaracol. Kozzie.

It was fitting that he remembered both of them at this moment. To recognise for a moment how dangerous this new world was and how lucky he was that his family had survived.

He had been intending to check on her and then depart to come back in the morning like a normal person, but now he was here there was no way that was happening. He needed to see her, hold her.

His thief’s mind kicked into action. She was less than ten metres from him. Walking away and waiting until morning was not an option.

The house was not warded against magic, but then again why would it be? Unless there were teleporting cats out there.

Blink Panthers.

This alpha species uses short bursts of teleportation in hunting. Avoids sapients.

There was always something, he thought ruefully, while considering what he should do. By this stage, his domain had mapped out everything. Emily was in bed with the boys, their two chihuahuas and Natalie had a mattress on the floor. She was wearing the animal tamer ring, so he had expected her to have a pet of her own but there was nothing sleeping with her. Possibly she had gone with a bird similar to what Susie had got and it was hunting night.

Adrian hesitated. He wanted to go up, but the dogs troubled him. They had power. He could sense it. Summer, Sammy would greet him by barking and he did not want to wake up the whole horse.

Go or leave. Indecision warred within him.

Blink.

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