Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(2)
“Yes, Chae Rin will dig out the hatch,” Sibyl said. “His bunker should be approximately one hundred feet below the surface. Lake will aid in the descent from the helicopter.”
“You guys don’t pay me enough,” Lake muttered under her breath.
Sibyl’s sigh was enough to quiet them both down. “We have a lock on his spectrographic signature, so we can confirm that he’s still at the location.”
Spectrographic signatures were how the Sect was able to trace phantoms—and, when they needed to, Effigies. The Sect could trace the frequency of a special mineral, cylithium, existing naturally in both. For us, it pops up on the Sect’s radar whenever we use our powers, even if they can’t tell from the signature itself exactly which Effigy they’re tracking. But Saul wasn’t like the rest of us Effigies. Somehow, he’d found a way to mask his frequency. If we’d kept him in Sect custody for a little longer, we might have been able to find out how. But for now all we could do was chase him down along with the questions he’d left in his wake.
A shiver suddenly tightened the muscles in my arms. I guess I was still getting used to thinking of Saul as an Effigy like us.
“On the other hand, like I said, with Saul, nothing’s that simple. For several days after the train incident, Saul’s spectrographic signature had been unstable, as if he couldn’t control his ability to mask it from us. Your encounter with him may have destabilized his psyche.”
“Well, you did kind of cut off his hand,” Lake said.
I sure did. Not that he didn’t deserve it.
“Then the trace went dead—until now. But we can’t let our guards down,” Sibyl continued. “Even though we’ve traced him to these whereabouts, there’s a risk he could—”
“Disappear,” I finished for her. One of the many perks of being able to vanish at will.
“Hang on.” Lake fidgeted against her parachute straps. “If he ends up poofing before we get there, then wouldn’t this whole thing be a waste of time?”
She sent a worrying look past me, and I knew why. Following her gaze, I turned and peered through the window behind me, into the sunset peeking through the torrent of dust.
Where the phantoms were waiting.
“We knew it was a risk,” Sibyl answered. “But we may not get another chance. Capture Saul. And if the situation doesn’t permit, then gather as much information as you can from his hideout. I want to know what he’s been doing and, more important, who’s been helping him.”
Right. Saul didn’t have his ring anymore, which meant he couldn’t control phantoms. So why would he pick a hideout in the middle of a Dead Zone? Surely an area protected by society and technology would have been the safer choice for someone who didn’t want to get ripped apart in a phantom free-for-all. The only way he could last for so long in an unprotected area was if he’d had help from the kind of black-market tech commonly used in illegal Dead Zone trafficking networks.
Speaking of tech. I dug my hand into the lower left pocket of my thick vest and pulled out the sleek metal ball that had been nestled inside—one of three antiphantom devices we’d been given. Lake and I had this one. Belle and Chae Rin each had their own.
“We can only do so much to keep the phantoms at bay as you’re reaching your drop sites,” Sibyl said. “Once you land, it’ll be up to you to activate your handheld APD at your specific coordinates by entering in the code.”
“Hopefully before we get eaten,” Chae Rin added.
On the monitor, three little blue lights flashed around the blinking red square indicating Saul’s hideout, each four hundred meters away from the site. Together, they made a perfect triangle. The three APDs—or antiphantom devices—worked as a trio. It was why we were in separate planes. Each antiphantom device had to be set up at its respective corner of the triangle. Lake and I took the southern coordinate, Chae Rin the northeast, and Belle the northwest. Chae Rin and Belle had to activate their devices at their respective coordinates within the same time frame that Lake and I activated ours. As long as we didn’t screw anything up, we’d be able to triangulate a protective field around Saul’s hideout. It would be large enough for us to maneuver and bring in extra troops if need be. With Saul, we had to be ready for anything.
“We’ll be monitoring you from here in Communications via satellite.”
The agent came back in from the cockpit. “Thirty seconds to the drop site,” he said. “Get to your positions.”
Her dark brown skin graying by the second, Lake pulled the goggles over her eyes and motioned at me to do the same. “This is just bloody fantastic. You know, I just got my first Teen Viewers’ Choice Awards nomination since leaving that evil girl group. The damn awards show is in a couple of weeks, and those hags are going to be there because they got several nominations they clearly don’t deserve.” She said this all in a single breath. “I’d better not get killed before then, I swear to god.” She fitted the goggles around her eyes. The strap pinned down her long black ponytail. “No way am I giving them the satisfaction of my death.”
“Technically, we got nominated,” I corrected her, putting on my goggles. “Didn’t think you’d be this excited over a Canadian awards show. Honestly, I forgot it was even happening.”