Magic Claims by Ilona Andrews

“We went to ropes. I got my paracord out, tied everyone to each other, with Tim bringing up the rear and me leading the way, and told them to look at the back of the person in front of them while they were walking. We kept going. All the while I’m looking around for the shaman totems, witch markers, anything that could possibly explain what’s going on, and there is nothing.”

Isaac dragged his hand over his face, as if wiping memories away.

“The woods started closing in. Suddenly, there is an underbrush. I’m seeing willow, alder, and blueberry. I’m seeing quaking aspens. They don’t grow south of Zone 6, so it’s strange, but they are native to North Carolina. You can find them on some Smoky Mountain slopes. Then I see this.”

He turned to the shelves, pulled a glass jar off, and set it in front of me. Inside was a clump of golden pine needles.

I looked at him.

“Tamarack,” he said. “Also known as American larch. A conifer that loses its needles in the fall.”

“Not something I’m familiar with.”

“That’s because it grows in Canada and northeastern US.”

“Oh.”

“This forest is thriving. Trees look healthy, birds are singing, squirrels are running around, deer, mice, everything is as it’s supposed to be except all of it should be a lot farther north and something doesn’t want us there. All of this is confirming that we’re going the right way, because the farther we go, the weirder things get. We keep moving. Our path gets denser and denser. I had to get my machete out, and I’m cutting through now. In every other direction, there are clear animal trails, but directly in front of us, it’s a wall of green.”

The evil in the woods was trying to get them to turn back any way it could. It must’ve recognized them as large-caliber magic users and didn’t want a confrontation. But with the tech up, there were only a handful of ways to do it. Three, to be exact, and all of them meant serious trouble for us.

“Do you think you might have gone through a portal?” I asked. “A pocket realm of some sort?”

Isaac shook his head. “No. I’ve gone into places like that twice. One hundred percent sure there was no portal. And the enchanter confirmed it.”

It was down to two, then. I would’ve taken the portal over either one.

“It’s early afternoon now,” Isaac said. “And we’re being watched. I can feel the stares. Something large is moving all around us, just out of sight. The woods end suddenly and we’re in a swamp. I stop on the edge trying to figure out the path, and I see these things in the water. I don’t know what the hell they are but they’re furry, they’re the size of black bears, and there are a lot of them. We turn to go around, and something comes out of the brush and rips Jeremiah out of our line. Sliced right through the paracord on both sides. You’d think it would hit me or Tim, but it went for the man in the middle.”

“What was it?”

Isaac sighed. “A blur. Never saw it clearly. It was so fucking fast. But you want a gut-feeling call: a shapeshifter.”

Crap. “What kind?”

“I don’t know. I’ve fought shapeshifters before, and this bastard was on another level.”

I didn’t need to ask him if they chased the attacker. Knights of the Order didn’t leave their own behind.

“It took us another two hours to find his body,” Isaac said. “There was a clearing with a rock sticking out of it. He was on that rock, impaled by his own sword. The rock had carvings all over it, and his blood had run down into the grooves and painted them red.”

Great.

“The knight-enchanter had never seen anything like that. She had no clue what culture it might have come from. By this point it was dark. So, we left him, alone, on that rock, and made camp away from it. Taylor put the salt circle down in case magic hit at night. We slept in shifts, two people down, two people watching. In the morning, Sander, one of the knight-defenders, is missing. None of us heard or saw whatever took him. He’s just gone. It’s down to Tim, Taylor, and me.”

The pauses between his sentences were getting longer. He was struggling to get the words out.

“We took a vote to go in or to get out. Everyone wanted to keep going, so we did. At noon, I climb a tree to see how deep into the woods we had gone. While I am up there, something comes out of the forest. I can’t see what, the brush was too thick. I hear Tim scream. I get down off the fucking tree and they are both dead. Skulls caved in, just crushed like walnuts. Blood and brain everywhere.”

He fell silent. I gave him room.

“I’m pissed off, so I keep going north,” he said finally. “I don’t know how long I walked, but they trailed me the whole way. Finally, I see the forest thin out up ahead. I come to a clearing and see this animal chewing on some bushes. I don’t know what it is but I sure as hell know it shouldn’t be here, in coastal North Carolina.

“We look at each other, and this realization comes over me. This animal, it fits perfectly into this environment. It’s exactly where it’s supposed to be. It’s me who is out of place. I’m the one who doesn’t belong.”

“The magic hit, and it was like someone pinned me under a microscope. I don’t have words to explain. It’s like whatever it was that had been keeping an eye on me suddenly stared and the weight of it almost made me black out.”