Cain nods. “Unfortunately. You can’t tell when someone’s rifling through your past. It’s not like someone’s reaching into your brain and you feel it. They’re looking through time.”
That’s extremely unnerving.
We approach the village, and I brace myself for an attack. I notice the men doing the same, forming their usual sort of circle around me, prepared for anything. North inhales deeply, trying to scent any attackers, and Cain curls his fingers up like he’s about to summon a fireball.
But nobody leaps out at us.
I don’t even get the impression that there are people waiting for us, hiding. I don’t see many signs of life.
There are two cars, both older models, parked in front of what looks like some kind of general store, although it’s closed. Through the dark windows I can just barely make out canned and bagged food on shelves, nothing that looks super fancy, as well as a jumble of various supplies. It also seems to be the town’s post office and internet café. I don’t speak Russian, or read it, but I don’t see what else the big mailbox and the table with three old desktop computers on it could be for.
The rest is just a collection of old houses. They look like farmhouses that just ended up clustered together. I don’t see any boots by the doors, cars in front, no horses or other animals.
It’s like a ghost town.
Behind the general store is a house, and I see a light on in there. North looks that direction and inhales deeply.
“They’re having lunch,” he growls quietly.
“Must be the store owners,” I reply. “If they’re living right behind it.”
Down the street on the left, another house has lights on. The only signs of life. Most of the other houses are dark and empty, and I don’t think they’re inhabited. So we’ve got, what, two families? Maybe some people just don’t have lights on and we can’t tell. There can’t be more than two dozen people in this town, though. It’s a village, and a barely inhabited one at that.
The perfect place for a mage to hide out and perform powerful, illegal magic on someone.
“This place probably sprang up because of the bunker you saw,” Cain says quietly. “It was some kind of outpost during the Cold War, maybe in case of the leadership needing to retreat into hiding. Then afterwards most people left and went back to civilization and we’ve just got these people.”
I can’t help but feel a bit bad for these people left behind. They must feel abandoned. They’re just here. Existing. They’re cut off from the world. I don’t know that I’d want to do that. But in a way, isn’t that what I was doing, internally? Cutting myself off from everyone, no friends or lovers, not really interacting with the world and just living in it on the sidelines?
At the far end of the cluster of houses, someone emerges from a house. Beside them is what looks like a husky dog, or some similar breed, panting and leaping through the snow, eager for its walk.
I can sense it from the man, bundled up against the cold as he is: magic.
I look over at the men, but they’re already stiffening. They can sense it too.
The man has his head down, looking at where to put his feet, keeping his face turned down from the wind as he walks. I don’t think he’s noticed us.
I don’t know how many other people in this town are supernatural or know about it. Probably not, I’m guessing. If they were acolytes or cultists or what-have-you, I think they’d all be a bit more alert and ready for an attack from someone. But there’s just, what, two houses with people in them? Eating lunch? Not exactly what I’d worry about.
That means we should probably keep this as subtle as we can.
Raven doesn’t transform and Cain doesn’t summon a fireball, which I take as a sign that’s the route we’re going, and I hurry with the men through the snow, fanning out so that the mage will be surrounded as we approach him.
He looks up, hearing us, and freezes.
Even though he’s wearing a scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face, I’d recognize those watery old eyes anywhere. They’re burned into my mind along with every other part of that memory that I saw. That horrible, blood-soaked memory.
“Hey there.” Cain grins and waves, wiggling his fingers.
“We’d like to have a talk,” North growls.
The mage’s dog growls, then whimpers at his master. The mage waves his hand, and the dog turns tail and runs back toward the house, obviously on some kind of magical command.
Then the mage throws a blast of magic at us.
“Of fucking course,” North snaps, annoyed.
I dodge and the mage turns, trying to run away. “Don’t let him get to his house!” I yell.