Hostile senses

"I thought I owed you that honesty, at the least. Shall we patrol?"

They nodded.

"Guilherme finished his patrol a short while ago. We'll pick up some goblins on our way by, since they aren't very active or engaged in Kennet's politics and most can help in a fight. Keep your eyes pointed outward and your ears open. Use Sight if you can comfortably do so. I may signal you that I'm going ahead. If I do, wait. I have a knack for finding anyone or anything hostile, but I may need to be alone to make the most of it."

"Dog of War thing?" Verona asked.

"It's an ability I picked up later on. All of the breeds of Dog Tag get certain talents, knacks, skills, or abilities, as we grow, varying from individual to individual."

And they grew by killing.

"Did you-" Lucy started. She hesitated, then didn't finish the question. Stupid, impulsive.

"I did," John answered. "Quite a bit, actually. Among other things, clearer sight in darkness."

"Ah," Lucy replied.

"If there's trouble, I'll give you one of two commands. To help, or to go. If the latter, I want you to go back to the council and get them to send assistance to me. I'll hold the danger back or keep track of it."

"Sure," Avery said.

*

They passed the little-used train station, and they had a view of the glittering north end of Kennet. The motel, the fast food places, the strip mall, and all the other places with signs that were mostly aimed at the highway, which had two cars on it.

Lucy watched, tracking them, and saw the cars move on. One car, now. Now none. Now one.

"We'll cut across the north end of town," John said. "If we stick close to the highway, the goblins will be able to stay near us."

"Sure," Lucy said.

When they'd done surveillance on the local Others, ninety-five percent of it had been really boring, and most of the remaining five percent had been boring. They hadn't turned up much, except to get a general sense of where the local Others lived, where they went most days, and who they talked to.

The patrol was weird, because she felt as on edge as she had during her first stint of careful surveillance, but it didn't feel like future patrols would get easier like the surveillance had. At the same time, it was a walk in the woods at night, and even with night vision there wasn't a ton to look at.

"Is it normally this quiet?" Avery asked.

"No," was John's very haunting, one-word reply. He whistled.

Fishmittens slap-walked his way over, while Kittycough appeared on an overhanging branch.

"It feels as if something dangerous came through and scared off the little things," he told them. "What are your instincts?"

"Scary," Kittycough belched the word in a high pitched voice.

"Scary. Fish?"

Fishmittens looked startled, like the kid who wasn't paying attention in class. He nodded. "Something's around."

"Lucy, Avery, Verona?" John said, turning to look around at the woods and buildings near them, one foot high and one foot low on the slope. "Once we get a bead on this thing, I think the thing to do will be to run and notify the council. You're only staying around to help me spot it, I.D. it, and to use that I.D. to make a more informed choice about who to ask for help."

"Got it," Avery said.

"Yeah," Lucy said.

"Let's carry on. No chatter, high alert."

They carried on. They took the route they'd plotted, and Avery took the north side of the highway with Snowdrop and the goblins, while the rest of them took the south side. The highway was on raised ground, and walking on the grassy slope, littered with trash thrown or blown from cars, they had a view of Kennet. Red watercolor, sword-impaled Kennet.

Lucy tried to study those bloodstains, to read them for what was old and what was new. There was a kind of… not drying, but almost crispiness to the watercolor blots that tinted surfaces. She could use that, trying to look for what was more wet, less aged, and see the loose chronology of it all.

Unfocusing her eyes just enough let her see streaks of red, wet, watercolor stand out from the rest.

And following those-

"Avery!" Lucy called out. "Anything on your end?"

Avery shook her head.

"I'm seeing streaks! I want to check your side!"

"I wish we could share our Sight with each other, but I haven't prepped that!"

"New thing?"

"Finder thing!"

Lucy nodded. "Can I cross?"

"There's a tunnel under the highway, just a bit down that way," Verona said. "Remember?"

Lucy remembered. When Bristow had sent the Aware, they'd come up at the point by one of the tunnels under the highway.

"I don't want to backtrack too much. I think it's clear?"

John nodded at her.

*

They did end up taking a slight detour, looking for the origin of that streak.

The tunnel was badly stained in much the same way that the street had been, where the three teenagers had been accosted.

"It's the same tunnel, near the same point," Verona observed.

Lucy folded her arms, walking around the tunnel opening that led beneath the highway. Just narrow enough for one-way traffic.

Kennet Others had stopped here and carried the Carmine Furs from the Ruins to their vehicle. They'd taken that vehicle down to the west end of town, nearly hit Clementine, and then fled rather than engage. Clementine had had the chance to pick it up, declined, and three teenagers had grabbed it instead. They hadn't made it far.

And they were still missing. It was still in the papers, big and small, around Kennet.

Presumed runaways, after some stuff had come up about one of their mothers. It was thin but people clung to offered straws.

In reality, someone had come after them, probably someone from Kennet, and they'd reclaimed the furs.

This didn't feel like something that extended from that. This felt like a side effect… because the staining was thick, and it looked like something had painted a heavy streak near the tunnel, slipping off or out of a vehicle sometime tonight, had come to the tunnel, and then headed South, into Kennet.

Lucy took a pinch of glamour from Verona, since her own supply was low, and painted glowing streaks, where the staining and streaks were thickest.

She went to paint where the old staining from the movement of the Carmine Furs had painted the tunnel, and John was already there, hand on the concrete where the staining was worst.

"Can you see it?" Lucy asked.

He shook his head. "But I feel it."

She nodded, uncomfortable.

He'd inadvertently hit the same tone of voice he'd had that night. Standing over Alexander.

"It's taking a funny route," Avery said. "That's closer to the Arena."

"It likes the points where the Carmine staining is thickest," Lucy said. "It came from the road to this tunnel, where they moved the furs, and it makes sense it would go to the Arena."

"Follow it?" Verona asked John.

"Yes. Goblins? Carry on with the casual patrol."

They turned, heading deeper into town.

Toward the arena, following this trail. Whatever this was, it was big enough to paint a stripe four feet wide, capable of going over a guardrail and down a slope without doing noticeable damage, and it had scared off the local wildlife.

"Would you have found this without us?" Verona asked.

"I had a feeling, near the tunnel. I could have sensed something. I wouldn't be moving this fast on my own," John said.

- Shaking Hands 9.4