Wine of the Gods 05: Spy Wars Read Free Page B

feet away, with a couple of guards as escort. They were all staring at the wall of the building, saying nothing. Waiting, but for what?
    :: Bran, can you see them?::
    :: Yes. There's nothing there. They're just . . . ::
    Oscar gawped, as the trio visibly braced themselves before they strode forward and disappeared. He dropped his mental shields and probed. There wasn't anything there, and no people either. He climbed through a window and checked the ground. Three sets of footprints in the disturbed ground, the last ones a bit firmer, as if pushing off into a leap. Then nothing. There was a thick metal plate along the base of the wall. About ten feet long, a hair over a foot wide. The ground was too hard to check its thickness. Oscar retraced his steps, and met up with Bran for dinner. As usual they chose a restaurant far from the Oner's, and their own, regular daytime locations.
    "Well, that was unexpected. Some sort of magic traveling."
    Bran smiled at the serving girl and they ordered lamb kabobs and tea. The girl dimpled at them and scurried away. "I think she likes me."
    "I think we're going to have to go home and see if any of the mages or wizards know about this kind of traveling and where those people could be from. It wasn't something they did, they stood there and waited for a signal or something."
    "Could they be telling the truth? About being from the other side of the World?"
    Oscar shrugged. "If they're from around here, they must be damn good scam artists."
    "I'd be delighted to see the Amma get conned." Bran's eyes drifted. "Heads up, more of those Oners."
    Oscar scooted back to give the girl room to set down plates and the pot of tea and glanced at the eight men. They were dim spots to his mental senses. Not the soft glow of most people, nor the brightness of an unshielded magician. They must be partially shielded. Hard to tell how strong they really are. Tall, running to muscle. Black or brown hair, dark eyes, heavy tans. They looked all of a type, but not a type they were familiar with. Too light for the Classic Auralian, hair too dark for the tawny Veronian type. Definitely not the bulky fair colored type found mostly in the west. Their eyes were not slanted like an Islander. One man they could write off as a mixture – after all, nearly everyone was. But this was a matched set. Wherever they were from, they were all appreciating their view of the girl's bottom as she set their dinners down. Oscar pulled his chair back up and poured his first cup of tea. "Guards, not Embassy staffers."
    "Yeah. They're spooky, the way they tend to move together. Like a Compass that went too far and isn't releasing properly. Dad said that was really dangerous. Should we test them?"
    Their eyes met and they both started grinning.
    The Oners seemed to be sizing up the serving girls, with an occasional glance toward some of the female customers. By the time they'd eaten, the Oner's seem to have settled on a pair of customers and a pair of serving girls.
    "They're still short four women." Brad commented, watching the Oner's eyes. "That is definitely spooky, they all look at the same woman at the same time." He smiled sunnily and raised his voice as the serving girl swung by. "Another pot of tea and two baklavas, please."
    She smiled a bit mechanically, her eyes distracted.
    Oscar had been eating with his eyes half closed, listening and watching magically. He kept his voice down. "She doesn't like the way they look at her, but they're sending out feelers. Suggestions. Not quite compulsions, yet. They're working over the other three as well. Sure seems to be heading for a gang rape, but how are they going to operate it?"
    "Hey, they're splitting up now, so to speak."
    For the first time Oscar saw the eight men moving independently. Their attention was now split between all four women, the front door and the kitchen. One man stood up and stepped out the back entrance where, in theory there was a privy, generally a shallow hole,