Page 118 of Changeling
Alex approached from the gas station and Nathan frowned. He hoped that the next time he got Jim alone to discuss this, there would be more to discuss. But the fact that Alex was with them, and that Jim was open to whatever might happen between them, was a good start.
TheyreachedtheVeildoorway after another couple hours on the road, then left the car in a restaurant parking lot as they headed down the street to a local thrift shop. The Veil opened in one of the shop’s dressing rooms. Thankfully, it was closed today. They had to break in, but at least they wouldn’t have to explain how four patrons suddenly disappeared from the store without using the main door.
They hadn’t used doorways as often so far on their mission from Malak, since more direct trips by car had proven more useful. The fact that there was a doorway at their destinationonly made them more wary of what kind of magic they might encounter there.
Nathan felt the pull of the Veil as he stepped through the bright outlines of runes on the wall of the dressing room. For a moment, everything constricted. He didn’t feel pain as he did when crossing through the Veil alone, but he felt…tugged, like something was pulling him from the hold of his friends. They held hands in a tightly formed line, so that Sasha and Jim’s natural connection to the Veil would spread to Nathan and Alex and allow them through more easily. But that pull—Nathan knew it was stronger than it had been before, taunting him with his ticking clock.
He gasped when they finally stepped out on the other side. Alex let Nathan’s hand go, but Sasha hung on and squeezed.
“Nate? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Nathan said on reflex. He looked at Sasha and smiled, then brought the incubus’ hand to his lips. “Just liking that method of travel less and less.”
They’d come out in a field, overlooking newer housing. A thigh-height limestone block wall was before them, just before a hill that looked down on the buildings. They probably stood out like a beacon, suddenly standing there, elevated, but at least it was dark out now with few street lights.
“Let’s find our way into town and get some rooms,” Jim said, hoisting his bag higher on his shoulder. “Tomorrow we’ll start bright and early.”
Theywereinastudy room, the one place food and drink was allowed in the local library, though it was obviously still frownedupon by the older librarian who Nathan saw give Alex a nasty look when she walked by the main desk with takeout.
It had only taken them a couple hours to discover that something was off about the town. Jim couldn’t sense yet where any sidhe might be, or where they should start, but it seemed that there had been several cases of missing persons.
Jim returned from somewhere in the stacks, carrying digital copy print-offs of old microfiche. He laid them out on the table and the rest of them looked up from their reading. “I may have something. Like we thought, there does seem to be a pattern.” Jim spread out the print-offs. Most seemed to be accounts of a mining accident in the 20s. “This was one of the gold mines from back then, not too far from town now with expansion over the years.”
“It still active?” Nathan asked, noticing with a slight knot in his gut the high number of deaths associated with the accident—it had to have been pretty much every miner down there.
“Cripple Creek’s the only active gold mine in Colorado anymore, southeast of here,” Jim explained. “This one shut down after the accident. Listen here.” He picked up one of the print-offs and began to read aloud.
“Prior to the Castle Rock mining accident, several miners and people living near the mine shaft had gone missing. Other reports were being made against certain miners who had begun acting strangely in the few days just before. The one miner to get out alive, Harold Autry, admitted to having purposely set mining explosives near a non-zoned area to rid the town of, and this is quoted, ‘the evil that had seeped up from the very gates of Hell’.” Jim gave each of his companions a pointed look. “Autry was hung for mass murder. No one ever contracted to mine in those caves again though, so I guess he was successful. Whole town thought he was crazy. Maybe he wasn’t as crazy as they thought.”
“And maybe whatever started seeping out then is getting a little closer to home these days,” Alex put in. “Do we know where the mine is in relation to the homes of the current missing people? We don’t have addresses for everyone…” she said as she looked at their print-off of victims. “We’ll want to cross-check that first. There haven’t been any reports of good citizens acting out of character though.”
“Better look into that,” Jim agreed. “We should also keep checking further back, see if there is anything about those caves before they were used to mine gold.”
“I can handle the missing people,” Alex volunteered. “Since I’ve already been looking into that. If you boys check out the history of the town more we should be able to get through this pretty quickly.”
Jim smiled again in agreement, enjoying sharing the control of their research session with Alex, which Nathan couldn’t help noticing Sasha had graciously given up. The incubus shot Nathan a knowing look.
“I think we’re going to need to go further back than what we have,” Sasha said, after they’d spent some more time on the town’s history. “Nate, can you go up to the desk and see if they have anything that pre-dates the town’s founding?”
“Gladly,” Nathan said, taking a long gulp of coffee before getting up, since he wouldn’t be able to bring it with him. He gave Sasha a wink, noticing how close Alex was leaning over Jim as she explained a little of what she had discovered so far. It wasn’t overeager or very purposeful flirting, just very telling body language.
Leaving the study room, Nathan headed left. Having caught the head librarian giving Alex that glare earlier, he decided to try out the Help Desk in the middle of the library instead. It appeared unoccupied as he approached but he could have swornsomeone had been there earlier. There was a little bell on the counter so Nathan gave it a ding.
The first thing he heard after the sound of the bell was a dull thud followed by a much more audible “Shit!” and then a brown head peeked up from underneath the counter.
“Oops,” Nathan grinned down at the guy who was slowly making himself visible from beneath the desk. “Sorry, man, didn’t know you were undergoing some covert operation down there.”
The guy immediately snorted and broke into an easy but obviously embarrassed laugh. “Dropped the damn pen,” he said, standing up tall finally and rubbing the part of his scalp he had smacked into the desk. “This thing has crevices I don’t even wanna know the uses for. Stupid piece a shit.” Brown eyes went wide suddenly and the guy grimaced. “Uh, forget I said that. Any of that. At least around Ms. Grim-bitch up at the front. I’m kinda already on probation for my bad habit of cursing in front of customers.” His grin was a little lopsided, but wide and comfortable like he rarely went without one.
Nathan smiled back. The guy had brown floppy hair that fell a little into his eyes. And he was tall now that he was standing fully. He had a young face but Nathan got the feeling he was at least as old as he was. “I swear I won’t turn you in,” Nathan said, looking down at the nameplate on the desk and drawing an immediate blank on how to pronounce it.
“Like Ian,” the guy helped, probably used to mistakes, “just with an extra ‘I’. Iain Wilde,” he introduced himself more formally, that smile wide and toothy and a little less crooked now. “Resident Grad student and library bitch. Err, gopher,” he grimaced again. “Pretend I said gopher.”
Walter suddenly crackled into view next to Iain behind the desk, but didn’t seem capable of holding his form. He had grown stronger of late, more able to appear even when Jim was onlyacross a room, but he didn’t seem able to this time. Nathan couldn’t address Walter directly, of course, but he thought his Spirit Guide said, “Nathan, he’s—” before cutting out entirely and vanishing again.
Short lived or not, Nathan took it as a good sign that Walter also believed Iain was the one who could help them.
“So what does being the library ‘gopher’have to do with grad school?” Nathan asked.
