“I’m not surprised.” Jonas wasn’t. There was something at work here. He’d gotten that feeling in his gut and wanted to check things out.
Jonas had told Ryland he had a strange pulling toward this side of the mountain for some time and wanted to take time off to explore. They’d just recently come off a dicey hostage rescue. They’d managed to pull off the rescue without a single casualty even though things had gone sideways twice, and they all had some downtime coming. Jonas wanted—no, needed—to explore the miles of wilderness around the fortress they had carved out for themselves close to Team Two.
“Have you noticed that we’re losing visibility, Jonas?” Kyle asked. “The mist is getting thick.”
Jonas could see the fog moving through the trees at times. At first it stayed low to the ground, gently rolling like ocean waves on a cloudless day. Then a few fingers of mist crept through the trees toward them, in an eerie display, looking like giant hands pulling an equally giant blanket through the forest until it was impossible to see through the gray vapor. Jonas glanced down at the trail they were following, but the swirling mist had thickened so much that he couldn’t see even his own boots—a strange phenomenon.
There was another component to the fog he found fascinating. A warning, or dread, that acted on their bodies. He could hear both Kyle’s and Jeff’s hearts accelerating. His own pulse rate had tried to increase and he had instantly forced his heart under control. All three GhostWalkers slowed considerably, eventually halting altogether.
Jonas waited in silence for his eyes to adjust to the fog rolling off the ground and rising in dark tides nearly to his waist. Given time, he could see through just about anything. He was often called Smoke because he moved through and could disappear into places no one else could. He saw through things no one else could see through. It was only a matter of time before his vision would adjust to the strange mist hiding the trail.
“Looks as if the fog is dissipating in that direction,” Kyle said, indicating their right with his chin.
Jeff nodded. “And our little game trail leads in that direction too, Jonas. If we’re going to find a place to camp before nightfall, we should double-time it out of this mist.”
Jonas didn’t move, studying the forest and rocks in front of him. The path had wound through the trees and rocks earlier. He had a good memory. More than a good memory. His mind mapped things out for him in grid patterns. The game trail hadn’t veered to the right. It had continued upward, straight ahead, winding around tree trunks and large rocks, but it hadn’t really swung left or right.
“Give me a minute.”
Keeping completely still, Jonas swept his gaze up and down the fog-shrouded forest floor in a grid pattern, paying special attention to the area where the game trail should have been. At first there was a strange shimmer, very reminiscent of a mirage in the desert. But Jonas persevered until the shimmer dissipated and what lay beneath it became clear.
“The actual trail is straight ahead. It’s being hidden from us.”
“That’s not good,” Kyle observed. “And we’re being watched to make certain we go where we’re directed?”
“Yep.” Jonas took the first step onto the very narrow game trail to see if it would trigger an attack of some kind.
“This is some kind of crazy-ass magnetic earth thing happening, like in the Bermuda Triangle,” Jeff muttered. “We’re going to get misdirected all over the place, aren’t we?”
“Yep.”
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