The trick-or-treaters started appearing around five o’clock, small figures in bright costumes darting between houses as parents trailed behind with flashlights and candy bags. I watched them from the living room window, feeling a strange sense of disconnection from the ordinary world they represented. These families had no idea what was happening beneath their feet, no clue that the town they called home was balanced on the edge of annihilation.
Maybe that was for the best. Some burdens just shouldn’t be shared.
Rebecca’s voice came from behind me. “Ready?”
I turned to find her dressed for combat in dark tactical gear, her blonde hair pulled back in a tight braid, a rifle case slung over one shoulder. She looked nothing like the severe FBI agent who’d first shown up in Silver Hollow months ago, investigating Victor Maplehurst’s death and asking questions that cut too close to the bone. Now she looked like what she’d probably always been underneath the suits and the badges.
A soldier preparing for war.
“As ready as I’m going to be,” I said.
She nodded, sharp dark eyes assessing my expression. “Eric’s monitoring Gregory’s communications. So far, they haven’t detected anything unusual. Their sensors are focused on the drilling site, not the portal clearing. We should have a window.”
“‘Should have,’” I repeated.
“It’s the best I can offer.” A faint smile touched her lips. “In my experience, plans never survive first contact with the enemy anyway. The trick is being ready to improvise.”
Ben came down the stairs, his footsteps pausing on that familiar creaky third step. He’d changed into dark clothes as well — jeans and a black sweater, practical boots. The silver tracery of his scars was hidden beneath his collar, but I could feel them pulsing faintly, responding to the charged atmosphere.
My father emerged from the kitchen, a tablet in his hands. “Eric just confirmed that the electromagnetic readings are spiking. The veil is thinning faster than the models predicted. If we’re going to do this, it needs to be soon.”
I looked around at the three of them — my partner, my reluctant ally, my estranged father — and felt the weight of what we were about to attempt settle on me. In a few hours, I would try to reach through the barrier between worlds, to find my mother and grandmother and bring them home. If I succeeded, we might have a chance to stop Gregory and heal the damage to the ley line network. If I failed….
I pushed that thought aside. Failure wasn’t an option. Not tonight.
Not ever.
“Then let’s go,” I said.
We left through the back door, slipping into the forest as the last light faded from the sky. The trick-or-treaters were still out in force, their laughter and excited shrieks providing a strange counterpoint to the tension coiled deep inside me. A group of children dressed as superheroes ran past the end of our street, their capes fluttering behind them, completely unaware of the real battle that was about to begin.
I’d walked the forest paths hundreds of times, but they felt different tonight, filled with the kind of energy I could sense even without trying. The trees seemed to lean closer, their branches reaching toward us like curious fingers, and the usual sounds of the forest had been replaced by a silence so complete that our footsteps seemed almost sacrilegious.
Rebecca took point, moving with the graceful ease of someone who’d spent years navigating hostile territory. She’d memorized every twist and turn of the route we’d planned, every potential ambush site and escape route. Behind her, Ben and I walked side by side, our hands clasped together, our bioelectric fields already beginning to merge in preparation for what was to come.
Finn brought up the rear, scanning the shadows with an intensity that reminded me he wasn’t just a distant observer anymore. He was part of this now, for better or worse.
We were about halfway to the portal site when Rebecca held up a fist, signaling us to stop.
“Drone,” she breathed, pointing toward a gap in the canopy. “Two o’clock, about a hundred yards out.”
I looked where she indicated and saw it — a small dark shape hovering against the gray sky, its navigation lights blinking in a slow, steady rhythm. One of Gregory’s surveillance units, patrolling the forest edge.
“Can you take it out?” Ben asked quietly.
“Not without alerting the others.” Rebecca was already unscrewing the rifle case, her movements quick and efficient. “But I can blind it. Give me thirty seconds.”
She assembled the weapon with brief, almost careless movements. It wasn’t a traditional rifle, I realized, but something that looked almost like a spotlight mounted on a stock. Eric had designed it, cobbling together components from half a dozen different sources to create what he called an “electromagnetic dazzler.” The theory was that a concentrated burst of EM radiation would overwhelm the drone’s sensors without triggering the automatic alerts that a physical attack would cause.
That was the theory, anyway. We were about to find out if it actually worked in the real world.
Rebecca raised the weapon, sighted carefully, and pulled the trigger.
There was no sound, no visible beam, just a faint shimmer in the air between us and the drone. For a heart-stopping moment, nothing happened. Then the drone’s lights blinked several times and went dark. It dropped a few feet before its backup systems kicked in, but by then, its cameras were useless, its sensors fried.
“Move,” Rebecca said, already breaking down the weapon and stowing it back in its case. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes before they send someone to investigate.”
We moved.