It had been surreal before.
Now it was simply creepy.
Connor dropped beside Kat on one knee, heart seizing in his chest as he realized how wiped out she looked. It was as if all the energy she’d replenished since that battle at the farmhouse was completely sapped. And as devastated as he felt for failing Demarcus and losing the fight with Marko, he knew Kat felt worse. She’d had to face Marko again and lost badly. That had to be traumatizing.
“You okay?” he asked, gently taking her in his arms and searching her body for injuries.
She had more than a bit of black dirt smudged across her face and clothes, and her hair looked and smelled slightly singed, but other than that, his soul mate seemed okay.
“Yeah,” she murmured, finally allowing Connor’s chest to loosen. “Creating fire and holding it for that long took a lot out of me, that’s all. I’ll be fine. I just need to get my wind back.”
“They took the kid,” Hale said, even as they heard terrified voices inside the Joneses’ residence calling out for Demarcus. “Is there any way you can do that tracking thing you did before, so we can find them again?”
Kat shook her head. “Even if we could find some of his blood—and if Marko weren’t obscuring their trail—I simply don’t have enough energy to attempt it right now. Even if I did, I don’t think we should walk back into the middle of that fight after how badly this one went until we come up with a way to stop Marko.”
Connor couldn’t disagree. In a battle between the Pack and Marko, they were going to come out on the losing end every time. At least until they found a way to change the odds.
Chapter 21
“As far as when Marko is going to perform this ritual, do you have anything more precise than the autumnal equinox?” Rachel asked, looking at Kat from one of the other tables that filled the SWAT compound’s training room. “That’s sort of a broad time frame.”
Even though they’d been going over these kinds of questions since well before dawn, Connor and the rest of the Pack still turned to look her way like they thought Kat had all the answers. She only wished she did. Because right now, she could feel the pressure of the moment weighing on her shoulders, making it hard to breathe. Even Tuffie, who was sitting on the floor in front of Kat with her head resting on one of Kat’s knees, seemed to be eyeing her as if waiting for the answer on how to save the world.
Sighing, she reached out to pet Tuffie, at the same time leaning to the left a little to rest her shoulder against Connor’s. That gave her enough strength to admit she had very few answers.
“Marko will almost certainly start the ritual at sundown tonight,” Kat said, her fingers caressing Tuffie’s head. “When the sun drops down below the horizon, at around eight o’clock, that’s the true beginning of the equinox, when darkness overtakes the light. He’ll be able finish the entire thing in thirty minutes or less.”
Kat suspected everyone already knew that since Gage had told them about Davina’s theories. But from the expressions on their faces, it was clear they’d been hoping they’d have more time. She couldn’t blame them. Realizing they had fewer than twelve hours to figure this all out or lose those kids was tough on all of them.
“Okay. So we know when Marko will act,” Cooper murmured, not even bothering to look up from the cell phone he’d been focused on for the entirety of the meeting. “Any clue about where this crap is going down or how we’re going to stop it if we get there in time, especially considering how easily they dealt with the five of you last night?”
Beside her, Connor frowned. They might have gotten their butts kicked, but that didn’t mean they wanted to be reminded of that fact, especially by one of his pack mates. Kat was about to defend Connor and the others, but then she realized Cooper had zoned out completely, totally focused on whatever was on his phone.
“Earth to Cooper,” Connor said, apparently noticing how distracted Cooper was, too. “If you want, we can try and get a message to Marko and see if he’s willing to put off his plans to take over this part of Texas until you aren’t so preoccupied.”
Cooper stared at his phone for another moment before giving himself a shake. “What? Oh…sorry.” He glanced around with a slightly glassy-eyed look. “I was paying attention. For the most part. It’s just that Everly is dealing with contractions right now, and I’m a little worried about her.”
Kat looked around at everyone else, wondering if she’d heard right. Given the alarmed expression on their faces, it seemed that she had.
“If your wife has started going into labor, what are you still doing here?” she asked.
Cooper shrugged. “According to her, she’s been dealing with these contractions off and on for days now. Her water hasn’t broken, and she doesn’t want me hovering around until she needs me. According to her, I make her nervous when I hover.”
Kat was about to suggest that he should go home and be with his wife, regardless of what Everly said, but he spoke before she could.
“So any idea about where this ritual is going down and how we’ll stop it?”
“As far as where, I’m hoping Gage will be able to help with that,” Kat said. “He’s been in his office on the phone with Davina for more than an hour talking about it. As for your other question on how to deal with him and his coven once we find them, I’m sorry to say, I’ve got nothing.”
Most of the Pack let out a collective groan of disappointment, while Connor, Rachel, Hale, and Trevor simply looked resigned to the fact. She suspected that was because they were already well aware of exactly how screwed they all were when it came to dealing with magic.
“Hale mentioned that you can do a magical tracking spell.” Cooper glanced down at his phone again then up at her. “Can’t you do something like that to find Demarcus Jones?”
Kat was kind of amazed at how fast the details of her abilities had made the circuit through the Pack. People liked to think that women gossiped a lot, but in reality, there wasn’t any group of women that could hold a candle to a pack of werewolves. They loved to talk.
“Normally if I had a sample of Demarcus’s blood or anything else containing his magical essence, I could do a Find Me charm,” she said, feeling like she’d already explained this a hundred times already. “Not only has Marko magically obscured the boy’s track, but he’s also purged the Joneses’ home of any trace of him. There isn’t anything left behind that I could use to follow Demarcus. For right now at least, there’s simply no way to find him. Or any of the other missing kids, for that matter.”
Her answer obviously disappointed everyone, but there wasn’t anything else she could tell them. She’d spent half the night trying—and failing—to get a bead on any of the missing kids, but it was no good. Marko had covered his tracks too well.
