Viper shifted his weapon on its sling, and now that Juice seemed to have a handle on Trace, he leaned back against a chunk of volcanic glass. His pulse still hadn’t settled. He could feel the tremors through the soles of his boots. Above them, the volcano was losing its goddamn mind. He turned to Ward. “You from the dig site?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you inside the mountain?”
The archaeologist wiped sweat and ash from his forehead with a shaking hand. “I was following a sequence of carved glyphs. They’re not part of the local record. I think they’re Irish in origin—ancient Irish. Pre-Ogham. Proto-Goidelic, maybe even older.”
“You saying there are Irish symbols in the belly of a volcanic island in the middle of the Indian Ocean?”
“Yes.”
That doesn’t make sense. The Indian Ocean is a hell of a long way from Ireland.
“Bullshit.”
“I didn’t say it made sense. I said it’s what I found.”
Viper stared at him, assessing him, trying to figure out if he believed him or not. Ward looked ready to pass out, but his words had a sharpness to them that didn’t reek of fantasy.
Trace leaned close. “He’s not lying. He’s rattled, but not lying. I feel the magic in here.” He met Viper’s gaze, and his voice once again rumbled with the undertones of Bran’s growl. “We feel it.”
“Great,” Viper muttered. “One more mystery to throw on the pile.” The ground shook again, and over their heads a massive bang sounded and a rain of pebbles skittered down from walls near the ceiling. “Everyone down.”
They crouched low in the corner of the cavern as the earth growled again. Heat pulsed from above in waves like a warning heartbeat as the pyroclastic flow retreated, then slammed against whatever invisible barrier was keeping it at bay, again and again, as if it was determined to feed from their souls. Viper wiped the beads of sweat from his brow with the Shemagh around his neck. “How deep are we?” he asked.
Ward pointed toward the tunnel. “Deeper than I was before the volcano started. I think there was a cave-in or something. It opened a path I’ve never seen before.”
“So we’re in virgin tunnel space?”
“Yes.”
“Does that matter?”
Did anything really matter? They were buried deep into a mountain tunnel while the island rained fire and brimstone down on their heads. Even if whatever it was holding back the river of ash overhead held, when that shit hardened, they’d be buried deeper than Pompei or Herculaneum.
Ward hesitated. “I don’t know. I think the symbols I followed were part of a sequence, like a ritual pathway. The collapse, I think, was at the end of that sequence.”
“Ritual?” Zero asked. “Like magic bullshit?”
Ward gave a helpless shrug. “I study language. I don’t do magic.”
Viper made eye contact first with Juice, and then with Trace, but spoke to Ward. “Are you saying you think those symbols do something or had something to do with the situation we’re in?”
“Yes.”
Fucking hell.
If he hadn’t seen Trace shift into a goddamn wolf, and hadn’t seen the shit he’d seen over the past few months, he’d have considered Ward Sutherland to be insane. But he had. He knew there was more out there than anyone realized. His brain was already cycling through worst-case scenarios. The heat was rising steadily again. He scanned the walls of the chamber. There were no exits that he could see, no air currents, and no light.
We’re fucked.
Juice leaned in and jerked his chin toward the wall closest to where they’d slid down the slope. “Bran says there’s something behind that wall.”
Viper followed his gaze. That end of the chamber had a narrow seam running vertically through the stone. “Something? Like what?”
“Don’t know.” Juice paused as if he was listening to his mate’s voice in his head and frowned. “Feels… old.”
Of course it does. Everything on this damn island feels fucking old.
