Chapter 25 - Dan
Leaving the house with Grace, a kind of fear like nothing I’ve ever known rises in me. It feels like it infects my blood, racing to every last corner of my body until I can barely think.
That’s okay. I was never a big thinker. This is my time to shine—finally, some action!
The thought doesn’t comfort me at all, and a stone of dread settles into my gut. I finally got what I wanted, and now I don’t want it anymore.
As I cross the front lawn with Grace, heading for the car, I let her get a few steps ahead of me, watching the morning light trace gold lights into her long blond hair. She turns and smiles at me, and it warms my heart even in circumstances as dire as this.
We jump in the car and take the dirt road towards the junction between all four packs, and I hand Grace my phone.
“Can you text with the others?” I ask. “There’s a massive operation going on to move innocent people out of the blast zone to Riverside and Clover, as well as mobilizing all warriors towards the stone.”
“We shouldn’t be doing that,” Grace replies, her voice high. “The snake needs warriors as well as innocents.”
“Is that really still true?” I ask. “How can we know that, since it’s gone so far beyond the original ritual?”
Grace looks out the windscreen, her face tense as she thinks. My phone buzzes, and she flicks it open, texting furiously.
“That was Luke,” she explains. “Working on the evacuation route. He wants to join us.”
“No!” I say, almost shouting. “He needs to stay and protect the people, and they’ll need a leader if… if…”
“If we don’t make it back,” she finishes softly. “I know.”
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.”
“They’re your sisters?” I ask, my voice rising again. “How big is your damn family?”
“Figuratively speaking,” she says. “All women are my sisters, really, joined by the great goddess—the mother of all life. Women create life, and all life comes from Her.”
“This is blowing my mind,” I say. “What else do you know about this thing—Sakesh?”
“Not a lot,” she answers. “My sisters know a lot more, which is why I need to speak to them right now. If Sakesh wants to feed on those soldiers, we have to clear the area.”
“Text Rex,” I say urgently. “He needs to know—”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “There’s too much to tell. It would only confuse him at this point, and none of this information will help. We can reveal it if the others say it’s imperative for the soldiers to retreat. If it comes to that, we’ll have to tell him something.”
“Damn straight,” I agree.
Dots suddenly connect in my mind, all the times I thought Grace was hiding something from me, and how I felt it was connected to her long walks.
“I thought you might have a secret,” I say. “I don’t know, I could just sense it. That’s what it is, all this stuff about witches and the snake?”
“Yeah,” she chuckles. “It’s been hard for me. I’ve kept this secret my whole life, and things have heated up a lot in the past few years. But all of it is important to stop Sakesh.”
“What is he?” I ask. “Like, actually.”
“I don’t really know,” she replies. “An elemental force that gained sentience. It has an evil soul, I know that much. He wants to create a land of fire on earth and have all living things under his command.”
“Sounds painful.”
“Unbelievably,” she mutters.
“Okay,” I say, getting my thoughts under control. “What now?”
“Just hold on,” she says.
Grace leans back into the seat and closes her eyes.
The air in the car seems to get thicker, as if there’s a fog I can’t see.
Small sparks strike off the edges of the door, and I can feel all the hairs in my arms standing up.
Even though I’m curious and a bit freaked out, I just focus on driving while the weirdness is going on.
“Okay,” she says, relaxing and taking a deep breath.
“Kyra says things have changed, and we might need warriors, depending on how this goes. She told me everything has fallen into place to ensure his destruction, but having firepower on hand could be useful. If they try to go head-on with him, though, they’ll die. We need to tell them when to attack.”
“So how do we do this?” I ask. “Should I tell Rex?”
Grace shakes her head. “We can’t reveal the coven just yet. If we do, we could jeopardize the entire thing. Just tell them not to go into the circle or try to fight Sakesh head-on. Surely, they know by now that all this does is get people killed.”
“They’ll have a plan,” I say. “Sloan, the military. They wouldn’t show up without one.”
“What do you mean?” Grace asks, alarmed. “Like blowing up the rock?”
“Maybe, yeah,” I answer. “I’ll need to check in to find out, but the military always has a plan.”
“If they blow the rock, we would lose the seal!” she says. “That’s always an option—locking him up inside it again. Don’t let them destroy it!”
“I can try,” I say, yanking the car around the turn that leads to Eccles. “Alisha and Sara are there now, but they don’t know any of this, do they?”
“No,” she admits, her voice very soft.
“This sounds like a terrible way to run an operation,” I mutter.
“The snake is telepathic, Dan. It’s in Alisha’s dreams, and Sara’s. It got into Scarlett’s head. If they know about the coven, so does he, and currently, Sakesh thinks he destroyed them a hundred years ago.”
“What about you?” I ask. “You know about the coven, and the snake’s been all up in you, too.”
Grace shakes her head. “It took all my strength to close my mind against him. The coven taught me the technique early on. I can shield my thoughts from almost anything now. I knew he’d come for me. I was prepared.”
“What else did you know?” I ask, suddenly suspicious. “Did you know about me? Our marriage?”
“No,” she answers, looking out the window again. “There’s no point going over this again. It’s not going to help us fight him. We’ll have plenty of time to pick apart the details after.”
“Unless we’re dead!” I snap.
Grace laughs a little. “I’ll find you in the afterlife,” she says. “You can argue with me for eternity.”
“Not funny,” I retort. “At all. I’m not sure I believe in any of that.”
We both fall silent as Eccles appears before us. The light of the early morning sun glares off the buildings, and the air is full of a thick haze.
I can’t lose her. Not now. Not ever.
I can’t voice the thought, so I let it bottle up inside me, almost choking me. It only takes a few minutes to drive to the center of town, where a massive group has gathered. When I look over at Grace, she looks incredibly tense, and I see that strange, locked-up look in her eyes again.
“Grace,” I say. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She swallows hard, shaking her head. “Nothing. I’m just scared, that’s all.”
I reach out and take her hand, wanting to believe her, but still feeling like she’s hiding something.
I love you.
Even under everything we’re facing, I can’t bear to say it out loud. Grace pulls her hand from mine when she sees Alisha approaching.
“I have to go,” she says. “I need to talk to the girls.”
She jumps out of the car, slamming the door behind her and racing towards the other women. I get out much more slowly, feeling the ringing of chaos all around me as Wolf’s Shadow soldiers mingle with warriors and civilians. Everyone smells of deep, primal fear.
It doesn’t matter how tough you are today. We’re going up against something that can’t be fought. I wouldn’t blame anyone for freaking out today.
“Dan,” Rex says, coming through the crowd to grab my hand. “Good to see you. Let’s go, and I’ll give you the brief.”
“Ready for it,” I answer. “Grace says we have to keep the warriors back. The snake could try to feed on them.”
“We remembered that,” Rex says. “It’s in Sloan’s info. She’s got a plan.”
Of course she does.
Rex’s words give me intense relief, because I won’t have to explain anything now. I can keep Grace’s secret for a bit longer.
For how long? And is this the only one she has?
I look over at her, and she’s talking to the other women as they get ready to leave in a military truck. She sees me looking and smiles at me, but it’s quick and furtive.
She looks uneasy, but who wouldn’t?
Rex grabs my arm and nods in the direction of the command tent. I put my focus on the battle ahead and try to forget about everything else.
I can’t go out into battle as an emotional wreck… and I want to deal with this thing once and for all. It almost killed me last time I faced it. Now it’s my turn to kick ass.