Page 134 of Agency
“Thanks, Jericho. Keep the engine warm.”
“Will do.”
She splashed down, first. Morgan followed, and Andrew was hot on his heels. Together, the three of them waded out into the darkness, and to their mission on the shore, any beyond.
“Will do,” I whispered again as I settled back in my seat and began the long wait. “Will do.”
“You wanna beer, or something?” Mac asked, turning to reach to a cooler in back. “Kill some time? I got some Coor’s Light back here.”
“You take one sip of beer, I’ll fucking shoot you and swim home.”
He went dead still. “No beer then, huh? Cool, cool, cool, man,” he replied, hands up to show they were silver bullet free. “Cool, cool, cool.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Morgan
The Northwest Angle was rough land with hardly any trails, and only our compasses and sense of direction to guide us.
Old growth forest practically swallowed us the moment we trudged ashore, lake water dripping from our tactical pants and boots and onto the rocks and grass beneath us. Ambyr had been first on the rocky beach, and she’d already dropped a knee and raised her carbine to provide cover for Andrew and me, her barrel sweeping the surrounding spruce and firs.
Ambyr possessed a kind of steel I hadn’t seen in her before this. Which was really saying something, considering the kind of steeliness she’d been showing since the first night we met. She was even more beautiful because of that strength, despite, or maybe because of, the night forest camouflage painting her face and the dark blue beanie concealing her red hair.
Beautiful, and deadly.
Extending her left arm in front of her as Andrew splashed ashore, she held up a knifed hand at a ninety degree angle and sliced forward through the air. Before her knife hand had even finished coming down, she was taking point and moving ahead of us into the forest’s depths.
I fell right into single file behind her, with Andrew bringing up rear.
The Northwest Angle is only four-hundred-fifty square kilometers, give or take. Roughly twenty kilometers across at the widest point, and twenty-four kilometers at the longest, seventy-percent of the forested projection is controlled by the Red Lake Indian Reservation. The rest is resorts and cabins and shops, occupied by little more than one-hundred and twenty permanent residents. Hardly any trails or roads cut through the southern portion, leaving the forest as natural as before the first American colonists began moving westward.
Which made this an almost lawless place.
Hell, even the land border with Canada only requires a phone call to customs official to declare you’re crossing the international border.
The perfect place for Management to spin his web from and work his machinations.
More forest.
More trees.
More undergrowth.
More marching.
Lake always on our right and weapons tightly gripped, we humped northwards with nothing but the call of bugs and brushing tree branches to accompany the sound of our heavy breathing.
Geared nearly as heavily as Andrew and me, Ambyr moved like a predator amongst the trees, and I found myself almost struggling to keep up with her determined stride. She flitted through the darkness as if she were some creature born to the dreamlike woods. Like a fae from the old country, maybe–like the ones in stories my nana had raised me on before she passed and left an aching hole in my life.
Faeries over in Ireland weren’t like Disney faeries. Some of them were beautiful, sure. But, these weren’t Tinkerbell or magical godmothers, and there had been no benevolence in the bedtime tales my nana had told. No, the fae were more deadly than anything natural could ever be. They were redcaps, with their hats dipped in the blood of their victims, or banshees, who would scream outside the house of those who would soon die.
They were creatures of retribution, fury, and death.
Both seemed as much like the flame-haired Ambyr as anything else.
Still, we marched on. Always heading north, always keeping the lake to our east, always pressing hard and fast through the all-encompassing smell of fir and spruce. Always marching, always moving, always going, we followed after her for the next four kilometers without a word, break, or encounter with another living soul.
Half an hour later, our destination just within reach, she held up a fist and dropped to a knee. Following suit, I cocked my head to the side as she touched her ear and pointed to our northwest. The distant rumble of a combustion engine sounded only a hint more loudly than my own rapid breathing, and I held my breath and struggled to hear the motor over my now-thundering heartbeat.
