Page 50 of Shadow Caster
“We’ll be headed into it soon enough,” Hyde said. “You can stare at it then, from the inside. Come on.” He jogged down the knoll and toward the squat gray building.
Neat rectangular windows stared back at us. The building was a box made of brick and metal that looked impregnable. A garage door trundled up as we approached, and a stocky bald man wearing overalls, boots, and a tool belt ambled out to greet us. He raised a gloved hand to Hyde and then looked us over.
“This it?” He didn’t sound impressed.
“I’m afraid so,” Hyde said.
“Slim pickings. Half of ‘em will be dead in two years.”
“I know.”
They were speaking about us as if we weren’t there. As if we were nothing but cannon fodder, and anger flared in my chest.
“Hey!” I stepped forward. “How about a little confidence? How about a little mentorship? That is what you’re supposed to be offering, right?” My ire was all for Hyde. For the man who was supposed to make us into knights but was acting as if we didn’t matter.
Hyde’s jaw ticked. “Get the fuck back in line, Justice.”
I was a cadet, and he was my tutor, but right then, I was just a woman who’d been pushed around too much. “For what? For a chance to die? Is that all this is? A little faith would be a great motivator, you know. How about you give us the fucking benefit of the doubt instead of treating us like we’re already bloody dead?”
Hyde looked down his nose at me, and then he smiled, a cruel thin smile that filled my veins with frost.
“You want motivation? How about this. You speak out of turn again, and I will personally feed you to Redmond’s hounds. Do you understand me?”
He wouldn’t do that … Would he? His gaze bore into me, demanding a response. And yeah, in that moment, I had no doubt he’d follow up on his word.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” he snapped.
“Yes, sir.”
His lip curled. “Get back in line.”
Part of me wanted to push, to rebel. But the primal part, the part that recognized danger, complied by taking a step back.
Hyde’s shoulders didn’t relax, though. He jerked his head toward the building. “File into the barracks. Vince will be running orientation.” His smile was wry. “Let’s have a little excitement, people. You’re about to learn the truth about the mist.”
* * *
He’d calledthis place the barracks—a place to house soldiers. A place for us? Two long tables with bench seats filled one room. There was a kitchen and a dorm-like room with bunk beds and a communal shower room off to one side.
Cadets obviously stayed here.
My pulse quickened. Wouldwebe expected to stay here? Lloyd and his troop said they worked sector two … was that deeper in the mist? Were there other barracks like this one?
Vince led us into a room with plastic chairs and a whiteboard. “Sit.”
Chairs scraped on lino, and when we were all seated, he crossed his arms and stared at us.
“You got the shit end of the stick. No doubt about it,” he said, his voice like gravel. “It ain’t no joke that not all of you will survive the next two years. Just how it is, I’m afraid. Me. I served my time. Fifteen years, I did.”
He pulled up the sleeve to his gloved hand and showcased a metal arm. “Lost my arm five years ago. So, here I am, relegated to sector one barracks master. But you ain’t here to listen to my story. You want to know what’s out there.” He grabbed a chair, dragged it to the front of the room, and sat. “I’m here to tell you. You see that mist?” He jerked his head toward the window. “It ain’t natural. But it ain’t fomorian either. It’s man-made.” He paused there to let that sink in.
There was a ripple of confusion which manifested into whispers.
“Yes, that’s right. The magic mist is not magic. We make it. It’s Winterlock Technology. They provide the Atmospheric Modifiers that are planted all over the place—twenty-five hundred acres of land between us and them. The AM posts churn out the shit that keeps the fomorians at bay,but”—he raised an index finger—“over the centuries some creatures have evolved to live in the mist. They call it their home, and those are the threats we work to keep off our land.”
Wait, what? The fomorians couldn’t get to us? We were safe?
