The truck begins to slow down, and we can hear the shouting of soldiers as well as equipment humming and a thundering in the sky. When the truck stops, I jump out and look up, shielding my eyes to see a helicopter hovering over the circle.
I hurry towards the stone, seeing people crowded all around it. Soldiers are set up with guns and explosives, while wolf warriors stalk the perimeter. I can feel the coven in the trees beyond, watching and waiting. I look up at the helicopter again, panic rising in me.
“They’re too close!” I yell over the noise. “They have to—”
A massive boom sounds from the center of the rock, so powerful that the ground trembles as a shock wave cascades out in all directions. All of us are knocked off our feet, and it’s a good thing, because a wave of fire follows the boom.
“Down!” I scream, and the others and I press ourselves to the ground. The second the heat clears, I leap to my feet and run towards the circle, watching the fire streaking upwards in a massive column, exploding into a thick wave that looks like an umbrella opening above the rock.
The helicopter rocks crazily, already off balance from the sonic boom. I can hear the men inside shouting as the wave offire spreads towards them, then only screaming as it explodes like a bunch of dried leaves.
I stagger closer, right up to the edge of the rock. Soldiers are screaming all around me, most of them horribly burned. Wolf warriors are dragging them away, but some attempt to enter the circle and simply disintegrate from the heat, leaving nothing behind but a faint trail of ash.
The impact tremor sounds again, right in the middle of the rock, and runes begin to glow as the fire cloud spreads, blocking out the sun.
A hissing scream, just outside the range of human hearing, tears across my consciousness, making me cover my ears, even though I know it won’t do any good. The rock shatters, the main fault right in the center as if something heavy was dropped there from a great height. Huge cracks split in all directions towards the outer edge of the circle.
Lava begins to leak through the cracks, and Sakesh suddenly shoots upwards through the center of the circle, following the tower of flame right up to the spreading wave. His body is massive, and it twirls around the core of flame until it looks like a gigantic tree.
Like a mushroom cloud.
Some of the soldiers with fingers left start shooting, but Sakesh shrieks with glee, absorbing the bullets and glowing with more heat. He twists around the trunk of flame, and I see its huge, acid-yellow eyes lock onto mine.
Gracie…
My hands begin to hum, and I look down, seeing a pale white glow coming from my fingers. My child moves within me, and it’s as if I can hear her singing to me, the ancient song I’vealways known but forgotten for a short while. All around me in the woods, I can feel my sisters prepared, just waiting for my signal.
“Grace!” Alisha screams, her black hair whipping around her in the screaming wind. “What are we supposed to do?”
I look down at my glowing white hands again, then up into Sakesh’s eyes. His tongue flickers out, and I can feel it flicking on my skin.
I can taste you, Grace…
I know what to do!
“I know what to do,” I whisper, looking at my hands again.
Without thinking, I turn and run, leaping through the flames into the circle.
Chapter 27 - Dan
After the meeting in the command tent, I couldn’t find Grace. A tiny knot of fear begins to grow deep in my guts. I run around the square, but I can’t find her or the other girls.
I finally go back to my own car, hoping to find her there, but when it’s empty, the tiny well of fear overflows and spreads into my chest.
Something is really wrong.
“Hey, Alpha Dan!” one of the soldiers yells. “The others are leaving in this next truck. They want you to go with them.”
I give him a brief salute, then jump into the back of the truck, seeing Rex, Brad, and Shawn waiting for me.
I’m not leaving without her. I’ll just touch base with them, then keep looking.
“Have you seen the girls?” I ask, addressing all of them.
Awkward looks are exchanged, making me even more uneasy.
“They left ahead of us,” Rex says.
