Footprints. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ I guess I’m used to too many people in my life not being what they claim to be.”

      Joey scampered down the slope and began checking the area around the pine boughs. “There are no tracks here.”

      “What? How is that possible?”

      He pointed. “You can see the impression her body weight made on the bed of pine boughs. That’s where I left her. But look at the ground. There’s nothing much here to read. Even for someone like me.”

      “Is it possible she just got up and walked away?”

      “Not without leaving some type of sign. I’d be able to read it, especially since I’ve grown pretty familiar with her track type. There’s nothing here. It’s like she just up and vanished.”

      Annja looked around. The approach to the knoll was fairly well sheltered. Would the gunmen have been able to spot the fire and mount a kidnapping so quickly? And if they had, shouldn’t there be some type of track for Joey to find?

      “This doesn’t make sense. She’s got to be around here,” Annja said.

      Joey shook his head. “Impossible. She’d need to have a stride like King Kong in order to walk away without me having anything to follow. No way. She’s not here—she somehow got snatched by someone skillful enough to erase their tracks like they weren’t even there. And that’s some major skill. I don’t know anyone but my grandfather who could pull it off.”

      “And yet someone clearly has.”

      “Yep.”

      Annja frowned. “My real concern right now is that Jenny might be in some serious trouble. She might be close to death again, being away from the fire.”

      Joey nodded. “Well, whoever grabbed her, they at least had the good sense to take the tea I made for her. It’s gone, too.”

      Overhead, the storm clouds finally broke apart and drifted away, illuminating the area with moonlight. Annja was amazed at how much better she could see the surrounding area now. It was almost, but not quite, like being out in the daylight.

      “Well, that will help,” Joey said.

      “How long did it take you to get her settled before you came to see me?”

      “About twenty minutes to get her squared away, and it was long enough for me to make sure she was in a good state. I would never have left her otherwise.”

      “I believe you,” Annja said. “And how long did it take for you to get back to me after you left Jenny?”

      Joey shrugged. “Under ten minutes. It’s not that long a haul for me.”

      Annja nodded. “Still that means someone had plenty of time to get to her while you were fetching me.”

      “Maybe she got swiped by a UFO,” Joey said. “That would explain the absence of tracks. They could have used one of those beams that lifts people right up into the spacecraft.”

      Annja smirked. “You get a lot of UFOs around these parts?”

      Joey shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. This place can be a real bore sometimes.”

      “All right, so that means whoever grabbed her had to be extremely capable at stealthy movement.”

      “And strong,” Joey said. “Jenny wasn’t exactly light as a feather.”

      “For you,” Annja said. “A grown man might have had an easier time of it.”

      Joey frowned. “I’ll be grown up within two summers. It’s not such a big thing.”

      Annja winced. She’d clearly struck a nerve with Joey. Teenaged boys only want to be men and she’d belittled that with her comment. “Joey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insinuate that you were weak or anything.”

      “No big deal.” But she could see that Joey was smarting from the comment.

      Annja looked around. “So what do we do now? I mean, Jenny’s not here. And if we have any hope of finding her, we’ll have to do it soon. I’m at a loss as to how we should proceed.” She looked at him closely. “These are your woods. I’d be grateful for your advice.”

      Joey smiled. “Thanks.”

      “Well?”

      Joey nodded. “Okay, we can try to search for her, but I don’t know how much good it’s going to do. Without a track, I’m not much use. I haven’t really learned how to spirit track yet.”

      “What’s that?”

      Joey shrugged. “You’ll think I’m being weird.”

      Annja smiled. “Did you see that sword earlier? What exactly was normal about that thing?”

      “Not much.”

      “Exactly.”

      Joey sat down. “Well, spirit tracking is when you try to tune in to the person’s thoughts or spirit. You use that to guide you to them. My grandfather says it’s one of the ultimate tests that a true scout can undertake. Learning how to do it, you can kinda tune in on them anywhere.”

      “It’s not limited by distance?”

      “Nope. The process isn’t one I’m really familiar with, though. I still need a lot of training before I can pull it off adequately.”

      “What about your grandfather?” Annja asked.

      Joey sighed. “That guy can do anything.”

      “Then maybe we should get him out here to help us.”

      “Yeah, that would be the best thing to do, but my grandfather’s not able to walk anymore. He wouldn’t be able to come out here unless we drove him.”

      Annja frowned. “What happened to him?”

      “He got hit by a car crossing the street. Paralyzed him from the waist down. He hasn’t been the same since.”

      A stiff breeze blew across the hill, chilling Annja. Jenny was somewhere in the woods, probably still in pretty bad shape, and there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. All that seemed likely was that she had a cup of pine-needle tea and little else.

      “This is not how I expected to be spending my trip,” Annja said.

      Joey pointed to their left. “My grandfather lives about four miles that way. If we hurry, we can reach his place in a little over an hour. But it’s not an easy trek. And I’m a little worried that you might not make it.”

      “I’m not waiting here for you,” Annja said. “The last time I did that, Jenny vanished and I’m not taking the chance that whoever took her won’t come back and get me, as well. That’d just make your job that much harder.”

      Joey shook his head. “Yeah, like if someone tried that on СКАЧАТЬ