Chapter 15: A Different Kind of Tracking
The sourceless hum beneath the weigh station’s cracked concrete had faded to a faint, uneven throb, like a dying heartbeat. The air still stank of ozone, burnt sap, and the sharp, coppery tang of the Green Knight’s spent energy cells. He sat propped against a rusted scale housing, his helmet off, revealing a face etched with pain and irritation. The wound in his shoulder was sealed, but the armor around it was a blackened ruin.
Sister Morwen lay where she had fallen, now bound not by vines but by Kim’s cleverly knotted ropes and a shimmering golden net from Bethany’s wand. She breathed in shallow, wet hitches, her eyes closed, the terrible compelled ecstasy having subsided into a twitching, empty exhaustion. Godfrey III sniffed at her bound feet and turned away, disinterested.
“So,” Hank said, nudging a shard of broken thorn-construct with his boot. “We gonna stand here admiring our handiwork, or are we going after our kids?”
Jan wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. She looked tired, but her eyes were already scanning the dark highway, then the forest line beyond. “The trail’s cold. Mandy’s moving fast. Standard scrying won’t cut through the interference that artifact is throwing off. It’s like a psychic sunspot.”
Rebecca adjusted her glasses, peering at a small, silvery device in her palm. “My thaumometric readings confirm. The residual signature is… chaotic. Directional, but diffuse.”
“We need a stronger signal,” Jan said, a familiar, mischievous glint returning to her green eyes. She turned to look at the group clustered around the RV. Mike, Casey, Rick, Stacy, Yukio leaning on her cane. “A Green Moon tracking pulse. Specific to family. Blood and… well, other fluids.”
Fatima, arms already crossed, let out a soft sigh that sounded like ‘ya ibn el sharmouta.’
“A what now?” Mike asked, though the resigned set of his shoulders suggested he already knew.
“Just need to raise some focused energy, get a bead on Mandy’s location,” Jan said, her fingers already working on the buttons of her floral-print blouse. “It’s like sonar. We send out a ping of… us. Of connection. It’ll bounce right off her. In theory.”
“Jan,” Fatima said, her voice calm and edged like a knife. “That is not a documented application of the Luminous Resonance rituals. At all.”
“Docs, schmocs.” Jan’s blouse fell open, revealing the soft, generous curves of her breasts, the nipples already hardening in the cool night air. The Power of Exposure wasn’t a conscious spell; it just was. A sudden, awe-struck quiet fell over the non-initiates for a heartbeat—Hank’s jaw went slightly slack, Maryam blinked, the Green Knight stared, his pain forgotten—before they shook it off, accustomed to the effect. “We need a pulse. I know how to make one. Who’s in?”
Casey looked at Mike, shrugged, and a slow, tomboy grin spread across her face. “Better than standing around.” She pulled her own shirt over her head, her silver-streaked dark hair mussed. Her breasts were heavier now, nipples a deeper brown, and Mike’s gaze locked onto them with twenty years of fond hunger.
Mike let out a long-suffering sigh that was entirely undermined by the obvious bulge growing in his jeans. “Okay. But if this doesn’t work, you’re explaining to Mandy why we’re all naked and out of breath when we find her.”
Rick and Stacy were already moving. No discussion needed. Stacy, in her sleek bodyguard’s clothes, had her jacket off and her pants unzipped before Rick had finished turning toward her. He kissed her, his hands cupping her face, his touch still reverent even after all this time. Her hands went to his belt, pulling it open with efficient tugs.
Yukio tested her weight on her bad leg, then shrugged. “Fuck it. My daughter’s out there.” She set her cane aside and lowered herself awkwardly to her knees on the cracked pavement, her tattoos a vibrant tapestry in the neon glow. She reached for Mike’s jeans, popping the button and yanking the zipper down. His thick, already-hard cock sprung out, and she didn’t hesitate, wrapping her lips around the head and taking him deep into her mouth with a practiced, hungry motion.
“Jesus, Yukio,” Mike grunted, his hips jerking forward instinctively. His hands went to Casey, who was shimmying out of her jeans. He pulled her close, kissing her deeply, one hand squeezing her ass, the other finding the wet heat between her legs. Casey moaned into his mouth, her fingers threading into his greying hair.
Jan, now naked, her body lush and pale in the neon light, dropped to her knees before Casey. “Gotta prime the pump,” she winked, and ducked her head between Casey’s thighs. Her tongue, broad and insistent, licked a thick stripe through Casey’s folds, then zeroed in on her clit.
Casey cried out, bucking against Jan’s face. “Oh, fuck, Red!”
The sounds filled the desolate space. The wet, sucking noises as Yukio bobbed on Mike’s cock, her throat working to take him deep. The slick, rhythmic lapping of Jan’s tongue. The sharp, ragged breaths from Rick and Stacy.
Stacy had her back against the cold metal of the RV, her legs hooked over Rick’s shoulders. His face was buried in her cunt, his tongue fucking her with a desperate intensity. Her head was thrown back, her neck tendons taut as she gripped his hair. “Right there, baby, right there, don’t stop,” she chanted, her voice hoarse.
Jan pulled back, her chin glistening. “Switch!” she commanded.
It was a chaotic, carnal dance. Mike pulled Yukio up by her armpits, turning her to face the RV. He spat into his hand, slicked his cock, and without ceremony drove into her from behind. Yukio gasped, her hands slapping against the RV’s black surface, her ass meeting his thrusts with a solid, meaty slap of skin on skin. Her tight cunt gripped him, still slightly dry, the friction burning before her body yielded and grew slick.
Jan stumbled to Rick, pushing him back onto a low, metal toolbox. She straddled him, guiding his cock into her with one hand while the other twisted in Stacy’s hair, pulling her close for a deep, messy kiss. Rick groaned, his hands gripping Jan's hips as she rode him, her body bouncing, her tits swaying.
Casey watched, her fingers working between her own legs, two pumping inside her soaking cunt while her thumb rubbed furious circles on her clit.
“Yeah, that’s it, feed it, build it,” Jan panted, her eyes glazed. “Think about Mandy. Think about family. Think about… fucking…”
The energy around them began to thicken. Not the rose-glow of Jan’s earlier power, but a shimmering, gold-and-green haze that smelled of sweat, sex, and something like ozone-charged rain. It coalesced around the writhing knot of bodies.
Mike fucked Yukio with hard, driving strokes, his balls slapping against her. “You take it… you take that fucking cock,” he grunted, his own climax building, drawn out by the raw need in the air.
Yukio’s cries were muffled against the RV. Her own orgasm hit her, a sharp, clenching wave that made her cunt spasm around Mike’s length. He cursed and followed her over, pumping his come into her in deep, hot pulses, his body shuddering against her back.
Jan came on Rick’s cock with a broken shout, her body clamping down. The sensation pushed Rick over the edge. He came inside her, his hips bucking upward, a long, guttural moan torn from his throat.
Stacy, watching, her hand furiously working her own clit, climaxed a second later, her silent cry a sharp exhalation as her body shook.
Casey screamed. Her back arched, her fingers still buried in herself as a third, devastating orgasm racked her. The shimmering energy around them pulsed outward in a visible ring, washing over the weigh station and vanishing into the night.
Then, silence. Broken by heavy panting, the drip of fluids on pavement.
The gold-green haze dissipated, leaving only the cold neon and the smell of sex.
Jan slumped forward, catching herself on her hands. She was drenched in sweat, her body trembling with aftershocks. She looked up, eyes searching the darkness.
Nothing. No psychic ping. No directional tug.
“I… I got nothing,” she gasped, confusion then dawning realization on her face. “The spell didn’t work.”
From the sidelines, Fatima uncrossed her arms. She hadn’t participated, had merely observed with the patience of a scholar watching a lab experiment go predictably awry. She raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Because that’s not a thing, Jan. The Luminous Resonance is for healing bonds, not for GPS.”
Casey, still trying to catch her breath, looked at the spent bodies around her. Mike was helping a wobbly Yukio up. Jan and Rick were disentangling, both flushed and gleaming. Stacy was pulling her pants up, her face unreadable.
A slow, utterly unrepentant grin spread across Jan’s face. “But it was fun!”
Before anyone could groan or protest, headlights cut through the darkness from the access road. Grampa Joe’s old pickup truck rattled to a halt beside the RV. The doors flew open.
Franklin and Jesse spilled out, followed by Vivian, Dale, and the three Sweeney siblings, who looked shell-shocked but intact. Joe stepped out last, his walking stick tapping the ground. His sharp eyes took in the scene: the bound Morwen, the wounded Knight, the group of adults hastily pulling clothes back on.
“The deeper disturbance isn’t here,” Joe said without preamble. “It’s in the Shawnee. They’re digging. They’ve found a Heartwell.”
The term meant nothing to most, but Rebecca and Bethany both stiffened. Annie, who had been quiet in the RV, let out a small, pained sound.
“A nexus of primal growth,” Rebecca whispered. “Where the first roots of a biome took hold. If they plant the artifact there…”
“They rewrite the template,” Joe finished, his voice grim. “Everything that grows from that soil thereafter grows by their will alone.”
“Mandy’s heading right for it,” Jan said, all trace of levity gone. She stood, pulling her clothes on with swift, decisive movements. “We have to move.”
“The van has a twenty-minute head start, at least,” Bethany said, consulting a steampunk gauged device on her wrist. “On these roads, we cannot close the gap in the RV before they reach the forest edge.”
Vivian stepped forward, her timid demeanor firming into resolve. Shadows coalesced around her ankles, then swept upward, forming plates of dark chitin over her leather jacket, wicked horns curling from her brow. Great, membranous wings of pure shadow unfolded from her back with a sound like unfurling silk. “I can fly faster. Scout ahead. Dale comes with me.”
Dale nodded, checking his pistol. “We’ll find them. Slow them down if we have to.”
Jan grabbed Vivian’s armored forearm. “Find the kids. Keep them safe. But don’t engage the Root alone. You feel that digging, you pull back.”
Vivian met Jan’s gaze and nodded. She turned, wrapped her arms around Dale, and with a powerful downstroke of the shadow-wings, launched them both into the night sky. They became a swift, dark speck against the stars, heading south-southwest.
“Everyone else, in the RV,” Casey ordered, her voice taking on a tone her kids would recognize. “We’re not waiting.”
As the engines roared to life and the large vehicle pulled onto the highway, Jan stared out the window into the dark, the taste of failure and sex still in her mouth. The fun was over. The real race had begun, and they were already behind.
The real race had begun, and they were already behind.
Tires screeched on the cracked asphalt as the convoy formed. Casey vaulted into the RV’s driver seat, her hands closing over the wheel with a painter’s certainty. Mike dropped into the passenger seat beside her, pulling a laptop from a bag under his feet. “Tapping into the van’s old GPS module,” he mumbled, fingers already flying. “It’s offline, but if it pings a tower…”
“Just get us close,” Casey said, her eyes on the taillights of Grampa Joe’s pickup as it swung onto the forest highway. Franklin was driving, his inky fingers pale on the wheel. The old truck didn’t speed; it simply flowed through the night, its path seeming pre-ordained, untouched by potholes or drift. Franklin’s Fair Bargain magic, an absurd side-effect, made the road itself agree to safe passage.
In the RV’s main cabin, the air was thick with unresolved magic and anxiety. Kim and Maryam took up defensive positions at the mid and rear windows, Kim’s curved sword unsheathed, Maryam’s enchanted Louisville Slugger resting on her shoulder. Fatima sat perfectly upright, her eyes closed in meditation, tracking the distant, greasy signature of the disturbed Heartwell. Hank chewed a thumbnail, watching the dark trees whip by.
Annie Sweeney turned in her seat to face her three rescued relatives. Caleb, Beau, and Sage were huddled together on a bench, wrapped in spare blankets, their faces smudged with dirt and shame. The ghost of Annie’s old calico cat, Sophie, materialized on the back of Annie’s seat, washing a translucent paw.
“Why?” Annie asked, her voice softer than the RV’s engine. “You were raised in the Pasture. You know the covenants. Life as partner, not slave.”
Caleb, the oldest, wouldn’t meet her eyes. “They said… it was the next step. That our way was too passive. That we could cultivate growth more directly, shape it for everyone’s good.” He swallowed. “It sounded like evolution. Not heresy.”
“They showed us wonders,” Sage whispered, her voice trembling. “Seeds that bloomed into crystal. Trees that bore fruit in minutes. It felt like progress.”
Beau, the youngest brother, finally looked up, his eyes red-rimmed. “We should have said no. We knew it when they started talking about ‘pruning the unworthy.’ We just… didn’t leave.”
“Did you ask Jesse?” Annie’s question was gentle.
Sage’s face crumpled. “We thought about it. We knew she’d say no.” She wiped her nose on the blanket. “We should have taken that as a sign.”
Annie reached out, putting a hand on each of their knees. “The hardest part is over. You admitted you were wrong. Now we fix it.”
From a nearby swivel chair, Jan, who had been quietly cleaning her fingernails with a pocketknife, spoke without looking up. “The hard part is probably going to be protecting the Heartwell from a bunch of fanatics with a god-complex and a magic battery.”
Fatima’s eyes snapped open. “Jan. You are not helping.”
“Just setting realistic expectations,” Jan said, snapping the knife closed.
In Stacy’s low-slung sports car, riding tight behind the pickup, the atmosphere was different. Rebecca navigated via a glowing, three-dimensional topographic map projected from her phone. Rick sat stiffly in the small backseat, his jaw clenched.
“They’ll be okay,” Stacy stated, her eyes locked on the road. It wasn’t a question.
“I know,” Rick said, but his fists were clenched. “I just hate this. The waiting. The not being there.”
Rebecca adjusted her glasses, the holographic light reflecting in the lenses. “The psychological profile of the True Root elder suggests a fixation on purity of form. This ritual won’t be hasty. It will be precise. That gives us time.”
Ahead of them all, Bethany’s Aether-Sprite—a sleek, silver vehicle that seemed to glide a millimeter above the pavement—weaved silently between the shadows of the trees, a scout utterly devoid of engine noise.
Deep in the Shawnee, the air changed. The constant chirp of crickets died. The wind carried a scent of upturned clay, ozone, and something sweetly rotten. Mandy raised a clenched fist, and the group behind her froze.
They moved on foot now, the van hidden a half-mile back. The golden leaf on Mai’s palm was a burning brand, pulling her forward through the dense undergrowth. She was still wearing Mandy's borrowed clothes, the shirt and pants too big for her, but she wasn't in any position to complain right now.
Mandy edged forward, parting a curtain of thick ivy with the barrel of a taser she’d modified herself. The clearing beyond was not natural.
The earth had been torn open in a perfect circle thirty feet across, exposing dark, loamy soil that steamed faintly in the moonlight. Around the perimeter stood twelve True Root acolytes in dark green tunics, their arms raised. From their fingertips, thin streams of virulent yellow energy seeped into the soil, causing ghastly, pale shoots to twist and writhe like worms. In the center of the circle stood an ancient, gnarled oak, its bark streaked with phosphorescent green veins.
Before the tree stood the Chief Elder.
His robe was the color of deep forest shadows, his face hidden within a profound hood. His presence was a pressure, a silent command that made the very air feel heavy and compliant. He held a staff of polished blackthorn, its head cradling a pulsating orb of the same sickly yellow energy.
“The vessel comes,” the Elder said, his voice a dry rustle that seemed to come from the ground itself. “The heart must be replanted in the sacred filth. Prepare the offering.”
One of the acolytes dragged a terrified, bound form toward the oak. It was a young dryad, her bark-like skin torn, her leafy hair limp. She struggled weakly as they forced her to her knees before the tree.
Mandy’s blood went cold. She slowly backed away, gesturing frantically for her group to retreat. They moved silently back into the thicker woods, clustering behind a towering mossy rock.
“We are so fucked,” Bruce whispered, his Scottish accent thickening with stress. He hefted his steampunk wrench. “I can maybe disrupt one of their energy streams. Maybe.”
Calista’s hands were already glowing with faint, blue-white elf-fire. “I can create a diversion. A fire in the canopy.”
“And bring every remaining cultist down on us,” Kay hissed, her Wand-issued pistol in her hand. Her professional calm was fraying. “There are too many. And him… his power signature is off the charts.”
Mandy’s mind raced, assessing their pathetic arsenal: a tech-modified taser, a wrench, some elf-fire, a Wand sidearm, Bruce’s minor tricks, Felicity’s brain, Mai’s connection, a thief who made silent copies, and Ben’s… well, Ben. Her gaze swept over their frightened, determined faces.
“I wish Beth was here,” she muttered, the words escaping before she could stop them.
Felicity, who was peering back toward the clearing with academic intensity, glanced over. “Does Beth possess latent capabilities we’re not aware of? A specialized form of magic?”
“No,” Mandy said, a ghost of a smirk touching her lips. “But she’d point out that the moss on this rock is really beautifully textured, or something equally insane. She’s… optimistic. It’s annoying but useful right now.”
A low, resonant chant began to rise from the clearing. The yellow energy streams brightened, converging on the central oak. The Elder raised his staff.
“We can’t let them start whatever that is,” Mai whispered, her palm glowing so brightly it lit the hollow of the rock. “The artifact is screaming. It’s not for that tree. That tree is… wrong. It’s a prison.”
The Echo Thief, who had been utterly silent, plucked a string on her lute. No sound emerged, but the moss at their feet briefly shimmered, duplicating itself in a perfect, fleeting circle. “The roots are listening,” she murmured. “They remember the first song. This is a corruption of the melody.”
Back in the RV, Mike let out a sharp breath. “Got a ping. The van’s emergency transponder. It’s about four miles ahead, just inside the forest perimeter.”
Casey pressed the accelerator. The RV’s powerful engine growled, closing the distance. In the pickup, Grampa Joe pointed a gnarled finger toward a specific break in the tree line—an old, overgrown logging track.
“There,” he said. “That’s the back way to the Heartwell. Hurry.”
The convoy turned off the highway, plunging into the suffocating dark of the woods, drawn toward the clearing where light was now pulsing in a rhythm that matched the terrified beating of a stolen heart.