A deep silence falls, broken suddenly by buzzing on both phones. Grace does some texting back and forth on both, then looks out the window thoughtfully.
“What is it?” I ask.
“You’ve really made me think now. About the snake. It could be the worst idea to bring a ton of warriors to it, but on the other hand, if it’s weak, or fully corporeal, that might be just what we need to finish it off.”
She taps her finger lightly against her phone screen, and I can practically see the thoughts racing through her mind.
“What are you thinking?”
“I need advice,” she mutters. “I don’t know enough about this to make the decision, but we’ll have to warn Rex. So far, we have all the warriors from every pack coming in, and Wolf’s Shadow, too.”
“Did they message me?”
“No, Rex sent a text to your phone. It was Sloan who sent in the satellite data, and they deployed this morning. I don’t even know what to tell them to keep them out of it, honestly.”
“Neither do I, really,” I answer. “They believe they can handle anything, no matter how big and nasty it is, and they mean well. The primary objective is to protect people, both shifters and humans.”
“That might just make them more vulnerable,” Grace says. “More likely to stay, even if their presence there could make everything worse.”
“Well, they are used to fighting soldiers or magicians, not gods.”
Grace falls silent, and something snags in my brain.
Anomaly eight…
What if there are more of these things?
“Dan,” Grace whispers, so softly I can barely hear her. “I have to tell you something.”
The serious note in her voice is so tense, I take my eyes off the road for a few seconds too long and have to swerve back to the middle. She chuckles.
“Don’t kill us yet,” she says.
“I’ll try not to. But what the fuck is wrong?”
Grace stares out the windscreen for a moment, then looks at me with wide eyes.
“Before we go into this, I have to tell you that I’m—I’m—”
Her voice catches, and the words won’t shake free from her lips.
“I’m a witch,” she finally says with a sigh of defeat.
“I kind of knew that,” I reply, confused.
“No,” she says. “I mean, there is a secret coven out here in the hills who guard the snake and all its power, and I’ve known about it this whole time.”
Fear races through my veins like lightning, the shock reaching my bones in a flash.
“You’re in with the snake?” I almost yell.
“No, no,” she says. “We want to destroy the snake. All this is happening so we can finally kill Sakesh for good.”
The fucker has a name?
“Why are you telling me this now?” I ask. The amount of questions I have cramming my brain makes it hard to think at all, and this is the only one I can choke out.
“Because I need to talk to them right now. We do it by telepathy. One of my sisters—Kyra—she can’t even handle a phone. She’s so powerful, it would explode.”
