At First Light(Dr. Evan Wilding #1)(105)

CHAPTER 35


Evan blinked upward into falling snow and waited for the fog to clear from his drugged brain.

Officer Sally Osborn. The divine bear. How had he managed to screw up so badly?

Where was he?

He lay perfectly still. It was a lesson he’d first learned during a bandit attack in Luxor and again in an ambush in Timbuktu.

Locate your enemy. Locate your weapons. If injured, take stock of your wounds.

Then move.

Around him, nothing stirred. The only sound was the ancient creak of trees leaning into the cold.

He did a quick scan of his body. He was on his back, shivering with cold, the damp seeping through his pants and coat, his gloved hands going numb, his bare head chilled. A headache pulsed behind his eyes, and his thigh throbbed where the needle had gone in. After another moment’s silence, he cautiously inched his hand toward the pocket where he’d tucked his gun.

Metal bit into the flesh of his right wrist.

He turned his head to follow the chain from his swollen wrist to a nearby tree.

He moved his left hand. That hand, at least, was free, even if his fingers were numb. He reached across his body for the gun, but his pocket was empty.

His next thought struck like a blow: Where was Tommy?

He sat up abruptly, scrutinizing the darkness. Nothing but woods all around. No Tommy. No one at all.

Without intending it, he lay back down.

How does it feel, Professor Evan Aiden Wilding, that you walked right into a trap and brought a young man with you?

Not good.

Above him, tree branches interlaced in delicate trellises against a sky rendered red by the reflected lights of the city. Between the branches’ dark strands, occasional stars glittered coldly through gaps in the clouds. Snow drifted down, gentle and unhurried.

A deep hush held over everything.

He yanked hard on the chain, testing it. The only thing that gave was the tender flesh of his wrist. Blood seeped over his skin.

“God’s wounds,” he said.

Feathers fluttered nearby. He sat up again, the headache rewarding him with an intense throb, and turned around. Ginny eyed him from a short perch thrust into the earth. He scrambled along the ground, grateful that even chained to a tree, he could reach her. He ran gentle hands over her feathers, the shackle on his right wrist clinking a discordant tune as he checked her for injuries. She tolerated his hands and blinked feral golden eyes at him and the woods beyond.

He followed her gaze. Still no sign of Tommy.

Assured now that she was uninjured, he freed Ginny from the tether, lifted her on his left fist, and tried to clench her jesses between his awkward fingers. Then he followed the chain that bound his wrist to where it was linked around a tall elm and held with a padlock.

All around were the woods. His woods, where he and Ginny had been hunting just the day before.

And the snow, which formed a thick carpet unmarred by footprints. Enough snow had fallen since Osborn brought him here to erase her passage.

A hollow, mechanized voice spoke from somewhere nearby. “Greetings, Sparrow.”

“Officer Osborn,” he answered, though he didn’t know if she could hear him. He looked around for a camera.

“Turn right,” she said. “Go five or six paces. The chain will reach.”

“Where’s Tommy?” he asked as he followed her instructions, stumbling forward in the semidarkness.

“Do you see the covered shelf nailed to a large pine tree?” she asked. “There’s a laptop computer sitting on it. Touch the ‘Delete’ button.”

The “Delete” key, he noticed, was the only option. The rest of the keyboard had been slathered with epoxy.

When he pressed the button with a numb finger, the screen sprang to life, filled with the image of Osborn’s face. A clock in the lower right-hand corner indicated that Evan had been unconscious for just over three hours. Which meant he had time to try to fix this.

The sacrifice, he was sure, would happen at first light.

Osborn moved aside, revealing a small room with concrete walls and a low roof. Machinery—a system of pumps and valves—filled much of the space. There was also a cot and a few jugs of water. Canned goods were stacked on the floor. A single shelf held a few books, including what looked like his three copies of Beowulf.

This was, almost certainly, the pump house for the nearby lagoon.

She would want to be close.

The view shifted to show two figures lying unconscious on sleeping bags spread on the floor.

“Dear God,” Evan whispered. On his fist, Ginny fluttered.

“Thorn of riding and god of riding,” Osborn said.

The prone figures were Tommy Snow.

And Evan’s young neighbor, Jo.

Evan yanked helplessly on the chain. The metal cuff again bit into his wrist.

“Why are they here?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“They’re going to die,” Osborn said. “It is their fate. But they will die peaceably. A child’s death should always be peaceful. I am not as cruel as you imagine me to be. Not as cruel, even, as the gods demand that I be. These two will simply . . .” The camera shifted again, and she pressed a hand to her cheek. “Go to sleep.”

He growled.

“It will be different for you, Sparrow,” she said. “That is your fate. That is why you are out there and they are in here. You must die in a place where the Others can find you.”