Page 165 of Elven Crown

“Duly noted, Hannigan. Thanks.”

Then, apparently, the conversation was over. Though Maxwell said nothing else about it, his breathing pattern had changed, dropping into a slower, heavier rhythm, like he was actively forcing himself not to react.

This was not the time for conversations based solely on opinions. They had a job to do.

Rebecca expected that kind of distracting nonsense from Rowan, but coming from Maxwell, it was even more exasperating. The mission had already taxed her to the point where being short with him had been all she could manage.

She wished she’d tried harder not to, but she couldn’t just stop herself and apologize for it either. Not now. Not when they couldn’t afford more distractions.

And especially not when she was certain Rowan hung back by just enough distance that he could overhear everything they said.

If either of them convinced himself Rebecca had “picked sides”, that would only make them go at each other that much harder.

Now that there was nothing else for them to discuss, Maxwell sped up to take his place at the head of their team again, and that was that.

They could discuss it further later, after the successful completion of this mission, if necessary.

So Rebecca returned her full attention to approaching their destination, and not a moment too soon, it seemed.

Because now they were close enough to the next collection of buildings to make out the various shapes of individual structures.

As well as the highly suspicious and unexpected activity kicking up around those buildings, as if perfectly timed to their approach.

It started with an occasional flash of colored light—purple, then a hazy and muddled brown-green, then streaks of bright orange interspersed among the others. It seemed there was no rhyme or reason to the intermittent flashes, which came from half a dozen different buildings up ahead that Rebecca could count.

When the team reached the end of the overgrown road to continue across hard-packed soil rendered uneven by the wild overgrowth and the scattered chunks of the rundown buildings choked and covered by thick weeds, the music started.

It was different from the eerily scratchy and off-tune melody played by the antique relic of the carousel’s spotty sound system. The first notes blaring through the night were reminiscent of atrumpeting fanfare, coming from the opposite end of this next themed attraction.

Then, as they finally reached the buildings at a slower, more cautious pace, still clearing the doorless entrances of abandoned structures—some with marginally readable signs—the second blast of music began. The tinkling of tuned chimes carried a haunting melody, which built in two seconds into a bursting, crackling drum line.

Rebecca felt the beat reverberating through her chest and up into her teeth like a physical blow.

And it came from behind them, inside the building they’d already passed.

Shell spun around with her weapon raised to search the area Rebecca had already just cleared.

The troll woman fought the urge to open fire into the darkness, but when Rebecca gave her the silent signal that no physical threat accompanied the music and that the team had only to continue after Maxwell, Shell pulled herself back together, nodded, and continued after the others.

After that, the strobing bursts of magical light and random bits of old, warbling music blasted at deafening volumes grew in frequency and intensity. Rebecca and her team ignored it as best they could, though it understandably made them more skittish.

Maxwell stood fast to his assertion that their captured operatives were still here, still close. Every time Rebecca looked toward him taking the lead, it seemed he was still on the scent, trudging ever onward in determination and with an unwavering confidence in his own tracking abilities. She didn’t once consider questioning them.

If he didn’t know what he was doing, he would have told her by now.

She hoped that particular assumption of hers hadn’t been misplaced.

The worst of it, though, was when the screams started up again.

44

Burke’s scream came first, his agonized wail just as desperate and tortured as the other times they’d heard it. The awful sound was easy to pinpoint now that they were so close, despite the way it echoed off every building around them and clashed against the odd fits and bursts of antique music.

But this time, when Burke’s screams pierced the night before abruptly cutting out again, the other screams followed.

A heart-rending chorus of agonized wails followed, first in one voice behind Rebecca and her team, then a second far off to their left, then a third ahead and to the right, though from far enough away that it couldn’t have possibly come from the same direction as their captured operatives.

The screams thatdidcome from that same direction, however, were even more horrible to hear—Titus’s roaring bellow that ended in a cripplingly breathless choke; every short, sharply rending shriek in Diego’s rough voice.

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