Page 32 of The Bear Between Us

Nessa. I file that and deal with it later. "Did you see which direction they took her."

"Northeast." He says it without hesitation, which means he was watching, which means Rourke has been paying closer attention to the forest edge than our working arrangement formally requires. "Four of them and Elowen. She was on her feet." He pauses. "Fighting the whole way."

Of course she was.

I move to where the ambush happened and crouch over the residue the binding left on the pavement. It's thin and precise, not the degrading organic residue of the creatures from the boundary breaches. This is constructed, intentional, the kind of working that requires significant preparation and specific knowledge. I've seen the methodology in Brennan's research, documented in the corporation's known activities, cross-referenced against three historical incidents involving organized faction work around old god sites.

It's theirs.

And underneath it, faint but present, the specific signature of someone with enough individual power to anchor that kind of working personally. Not a faction foot soldier. Someone at the center of this.

The name Brennan put on the operations table two days ago has a face now.

Cyris Vantrell.

I stand and I take one full breath and I let the Alpha settle over everything else the way I've learned to do when a situation requires it, pushing the part of this that is personal and loud and wants to move immediately to the back where it can't compromise my judgment. It doesn't go quietly. But it goes.

I call Brennan. "Full mobilization. Everything we have. I want the staging point at the eastern boundary in thirty minutes."

"Already running," he says. "Torin is coordinating the approach routes. We have three viable paths to the shrine, I want to use all of them simultaneously."

"Do it. Nobody holds back. This is everything."

I find Rourke still at his truck, watching me with the steady attention of a man deciding something.

"I can clear the forest road," he says. "Keep it clean on the human side so you don't have to manage that while you're managing everything else."

It's more direct involvement than he's ever offered. I look at him for a moment.

"There's a civilian in the back room of that shop," I say. "Nessa Thornfield. She needs someone to stay with her until this is resolved."

He nods once. "I'll handle it personally."

I leave him to it and get back in the vehicle and drive to the staging point with my hands steady on the wheel.

The staging point is organized when I arrive. Brennan has the three approach routes mapped and the team allocations set, and he walks me through it in four minutes.

Torin is running the point team on the direct northern approach. The fastest route. The one that goes straight to the shrine.

"I'll take point with Torin," I say.

Brennan doesn't argue. He knows what this is.

I stand at the eastern boundary with my pack assembled behind me and the forest ahead and the mark's frequency loud in my perception even at this distance, alive and fighting whatever is being done to it, and that signal is the most important piece of information I have right now.

She's there. She's fighting.

I move into the forest.

25

ELOWEN

Cyris Vantrell doesn't pace.

That's the first thing I catalogue about him, because in my experience people who are about to do something significant can't keep still. They move, they check things, they find small tasks to occupy the part of themselves that knows what's coming. Cyris stands at the edge of the shrine's stone ring with his hands in his jacket pockets and watches his people prepare the ritual with the unhurried attention of someone observing a process they've seen many times before.

He's been doing this for a long time.