Ward sat down heavily on a chunk of stone. “I think… I think this island was meant to be a prison.”
I’m on this fucking cray-cray train anyway. Might as well see where the fuck it’s going.
He turned slowly. “What kind of prison?”
Ward’s voice was ragged, almost as if he didn’t quite believe what he was about to say. “For someone powerful. Someone they didn’t want coming back.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Reaper snorted. “You mean like a demon?”
“I mean like a king,” Ward whispered. “A warrior king. One that was bound by druids with a chant carved into this mountain and left to rot for eternity.”
Viper scrubbed a hand over his face.
First, fucking Al-Rami chose this island of all places to fucking hide in. Then the volcano. Now we’re in a tomb with an Indiana Jones reject who thinks we’ve found a goddamn Celtic apocalypse bunker. Fucking awesome.
“Sutherland,” Reaper called. “Do ya mean glyphs like these?”
They all crossed to where Reaper pointed to a symbol carved into the wall—one of the lower, near-invisible ones etched in deep, almost black against the basalt.
Ward’s eyes locked on it instantly. He went utterly still, then pulled his notebook out of his back pocket with shaking hands. “I sketched some stuff earlier in what feels like another lifetime. Lemme look.” He flipped the page. “Yes.” He breathed. “That one is new.”
Viper crouched to get a better look. “What’s it say?”
Ward’s throat worked as he translated it out loud. “Let no breath stir within the bones of kings.” The glyph shimmered faintly in the green glow of their chem lights. Above them, the barrier trembled, the glowing flow rippling like it was waiting to strike.
“Fan out,” Viper ordered. “Search for more.” He had no idea why he gave the order. They were all going to die anyway. But somehow that didn’t matter. It was a distraction they all needed from the reality that burned over their heads. He could give his men this, even if he wasn’t sure what the fuck it was he was giving them.
Easy day.
Easy fucking day.
“I got another one.” Zero brushed at the wall a little closer to a vertical crack in the wall. He stepped aside as Ward rushed to look at it. They all waited while he sketched it into his books.
“What’s it say?”
“Let no door open ‘til oaths are sung in blood…”
Another quake rippled through the floor beneath their boots. A soft groan came from the mountain’s depths, and fine cracks whispered across the empty space above them as if the volcano was winning its battle against the magical barrier that held its weapons at bay.
“I have one,” Trace growled. “Right here next to the crack in the wall here.”
Overhead, the ash and rock pummeled the barrier, and it felt like the whole island shook and shuddered under its onslaught.
“From the hand of hound and brother born of war and the druid with the blood of Tuatha Dé Danann.”
Trace staggered back a step like he’d been punched in the chest. He lifted his hand and turned it over to show them his palm with its wide arch of bleeding marks from where the tips of his claws had slid into his flesh in an effort to keep from shifting. “We’ve got the blood from the hand of the hound and plenty of brothers to donate some; we just need the druid.”
“I don’t understand?—”
Viper caught Ward’s upper arm and shook his head, cutting him off. He tugged him out of the way. “Let Trace look at the glyph.”
It looked like every muscle in Trace’s body was coiled, like he was straining against a leash. Viper recognized the scent of blood as it thickened the air. Trace’s voice was raw as he turned back to Ward. “I need the rest,” he said. “All of it. The entire chant.”
Sutherland hesitated, his grip tightening on the weather-worn field journal. “This isn’t—” He shook his head. “It’s not finished. It’s a translation at best. I don’t know if it’s even right.”
Trace’s voice dropped to something that wasn’t entirely human. “We don’t have time for right. We have minutes at best.” He jerked his thumb upward to where more cracks appeared under the onslaught over their heads. “Hand it the fuck over. Now.”
