round out of the air and handed it back to Mack.
“Neat, now maybe you can help me find the empty cases,” Mack said. Caeco opened her other hand, revealing three tiny brass .22 cases.
“My girl has mad skills,” Jetta said.
I dropped all three expended bullets into Caeco’s hand . “So does my guy,” she said, smiling at me before looking at her roommate.
“Okay, the results are good. Let’s get out of here before someone comes along,” Mack suggested.
We piled back into Beast and pulled back out to the closed gate. After everyone looked out their perspective windows and pronounced the area clear, I used Craft to open the gate and reclose it after Beast rolled through. A swirling snow-devil wiped out our tracks behind us and we pulled up to the edge of the road. Just in time, as a pair of headlights appeared around the far bend. I waited to let the car go past but it slowed, the silhouette becoming that of a police cruiser. Chittendon County Sheriff’s Department.
“Awesome,” Mack groaned.
“Shut up and let Declan talk. His aunt’s girlfriend is a deputy,” Caeco said before turning to me.
The cruiser pulled in with its headlights focused on Beast, but after a moment, the car pulled forward and the driver’s window powered down.
“Roll down your window. I think I know him,” I said.
Leaning over Caeco’s lap, I waved to the deputy I had met at least once at a department picnic. His stare was very direct and measuring, but I figured he’d already recognized my distinctive vehicle or he would have held back and run the plates.
“You Ashling’s boy?” the beefy, bald headed deputy asked, his eyes scanning everything.
“Yes sir. Declan, and this is my girlfriend, her roommate, and my roommate,” I said.
“Roommates? I thought you were still in high school?” he asked. His name came to me a second later. Carl. Carl and a couple of other deputies were Jeep aficionados, but they could admire Land Cruisers too, and we had talked about Beast at the outing.
“Early college program at UVM. We’re all in it,” I said.
“So what are you doing way out here?” he asked. “Drinking?”
“Do that right in the dorms if we wanted to. We needed to get away from the other kids for a bit. Plus, I need to be outdoors fairly often, like my aunt,” I said.
Most of the department knew my aunt had some different skills, things that a few of the more open-minded might call psychic. She had done a lot of lost people work for the department and after a while, they stopped caring how she did it and were mostly glad she could do it. I was hoping Carl was one of the ones that weren’t too freaked out by her.
“Like aunt, like nephew?” he asked, a deeper question hiding in plain sight.
“Exactly,” I said.
“Okay, well, carry on. Drive careful, though; the roads are a little greasy and I wouldn’t want to have to call a Jeep to pull your Cruiser out of the snowbanks,” he said with a smirk.
“Ha ha. As if. We were turning around right here to head back but stopped for a moment to talk.”
“Well, your tracks have already filled in, so I wouldn’t dawdle if I were you,” he said.
“Thanks, Carl. We won’t.”
He nodded, powered up his window, and pulled away. After a moment, I followed him and stayed two car lengths behind him all the way back to Burlington.
We made it in time to grab a quick dinner before the buffet got put away. We were the last ones through and by the time we were done and had taken our dishes up, it was almost time for class with Gina.
Before she could start the night’s discussion, one of the remote viewer kids raised her hand.
“Gina, why did you have the entire school sit in last night’s class? All of us Explorations of Power students I understand, but why the Control class kids too?”
“Because Ms. O’Carroll requested it and I liked her reasoning. She said it was about respect. The physical minded among us have plenty of chances to impress the Explorations of Power class during Mr. Jenks’s morning workouts. Ashling felt that the weres and more combat-oriented kids could benefit from seeing what was possible on your side of things, Gail.”
“Mission accomplished,” Matthew said, glancing my way. The class laughed, even the stoic Janek smiling briefly at the joke. Delwood just frowned.
“So, tonight I want to start with a follow-up. I had a call