The Survivors: Body & Blood (book 3)

Red Eye, pt. 2

ON THE WAY INTO BIGFORK, I WAS GLAD TO SEE THE TOWN BACK TO THE PEACEFUL, cabin destination it usually was, art patrons, tourists, locals, and fishermen dotting the main lane, sleepily strolling down Electric Avenue, going about their business. No more media vans. No more madness.

When we got to the Laughing Horse Lodge in Swan Lake, the poor woman who ran the place looked defeated to see us. She had begun to suspect something of us, the group who bought out her B&B and then disappeared up and down the mountainside, our cars left behind. God knows what she thought we were doing. Supernatural Salem Survivors on her mountainside probably wasn't on the list, so I wasn't too worried.

My phone rang as we left to go up the mountain. It was Patrick.

"We found Narcisa. She's gone red-eye. Mad got ahold of her, but we lost her. Get here. Now."

"Shit." This was not the news I was anticipating. I thought Narcisa kept disappearing out of grief. The regular kind that made you drink too much, get depressed, and generally hate your life. Not the red-eye kind. "Where are you?"

"I couldn't tell you if I tried. Just do your thing," he said, and he hung up the phone. I held the phone against my ear for a few seconds after the call had ended, thinking about how to handle this.

Sadie, Everett, and Ginny waited to hear any news. I decided not telling them right now was the best option. (My, my. How Sadie was rubbing off on me.)

"What's going on?" Everett asked.

"Pat and Madeline think they might have found Narcisa. They need my help. I'm going to catch up with them, and I'll be back in a bit," I said.

"Are you going to project?" Ginny asked.

"No, I'll run. I could use it, actually," I lied. Truth was, I didn't need to risk compromising my powers in my astral form. If what they said about Narcisa was true, I'd need them.

Before anyone could say anything else, I said, "I'll be back tonight," which I had no way of knowing, and I ran, tracking Patrick and Madeline.

I felt Patrick weighing at the pit of my stomach, like an uncomfortable moral compass. It took until I cleared Glacier Mountain National Park before Madeline's vibe merged with his, pointing me in the same direction. Hers burned in my chest, tingling to a rhythm not unlike a warped, unwanted heartbeat. I followed the mangled mélange of senses all the way to the Northwest Territories.

Everything is blurry at a couple of hundred miles an hour, so you have to pay attention to where you're going and what you're looking for. I saw Madeline's hair come into sight first. Coppery and messy in the wind, it was my favorite thing about her. That and that smile she hadn't smiled since 1967. Not since I bought her popcorn at a drive-in movie in Yermo, when I was still rocking a greaser look and Ginny had graduated to a pot-smoking, hair-flowing, decked-out-in-John-Lennonglasses and crocheted-shawls-with-nothing-underneath-them hippie. Everett and Patrick were — perpetually — squares.

Madeline lived in Cherry Valance dresses and cateye glasses, a sweater always pinned around her frail shoulders. She had the same red-bronze hair then, but her eyes were clear, glass green. But today, those once-green eyes were fierce and rough and pissed off like they were practically every day. Crimson red and bloodshot, frenzied and bloodthirsty. She was having a hard time controlling herself, not that Patrick noticed. Or maybe he'd just learned to tune it out.

"Have you found her?"

"No, asshole. That's what you're here for," Patrick spat.

Nice to see you too, brother. "Well how am I supposed to find her when she's remained so very unfindable?"