“I guess you’re it.”
“The others—?”
“On their way.”
Tracy’s jaw flinched. “There’s a lot of them, Carter. Even with us together, it’s dicey.”
That was when he heard the cries. Muted, muffled, like maybe she’d been gagged or someone had their hand clamped over her mouth, but unmistakably Ellie’s. He heard murmurs, heard voices rising and falling. His head whipped towards the opening. He couldn’t see her, but she sounded desperate.
“Wait for them, then,” he snapped, not even bothering to look at Tracy again. “I’m going in.”
“Carter, wait—”
“There’s no time to wait,” he snarled, and spun around.
He sprinted for the entrance of the grotto, sliding to a step in the entryway, using the split-second of rest to catch his breath.
What he saw was a scene from a nightmare, a dream from hell.
Several fires lit the space, their flames casting frolicking, cavorting shadows on the rough cavern walls. He saw Nosizwe clad in a formfitting black jumpsuit. Saw the people, her people, her shifters, spread out around her, backing her. Saw Ellie, bound, gagged, and bent over the Stones, Stones that were identical twins to Sean’s.
“It’s midnight,” Nosizwe announced.
In her hand was a knife. The blade was nowhere near him, but Carter felt a stab to his gut as if the blade had been rammed into him. It was close to Ellie. Too close. Nosizwe shifted, changing for a few seconds into her alter, the beautiful, deadly, Impundulu, or Lightning Bird. Ellie’s neck was craned upwards. Even from where he stood Carter could see the abject terror in her eyes. Her glasses were gone. He didn’t know how much she could make out visually of what was occurring around her, but she could see enough to be petrified.
The Impundulu gazed at Ellie as it took a step forward. The bird’s feathers rippled from head to legs, and shifted back to Nosizwe.
“Time to open the Stones of Fire,” she said.
Her knife sliced downwards towards Ellie’s abdomen.
“Nosizwe!” Carter shouted, putting every bit of volume and strength he could muster into the cry.
The shifter queen’s head snapped up. Hatred flamed in her dark eyes.
“Ballis,” she hissed.
Ellie’s neck twisted his way. Her pleading gaze met his but he couldn’t stare at her long enough to reassure her. He was already moving, the familiar itch spreading across his skin as the Talos took over, leaving Carter behind. Everything was happening at once. Cries, shouts, curses from the mob. They were surging forward, shifting into their own alters. He heard Tracy shout behind him, felt the reverberation as her shotgun blasted into the crowd. More than one dropped or fell back, screaming.
The Talos charged the men holding Ellie, its only thought to kill them, break their necks, rip their spines out. They’d laid hands on her. They would die. Them first, then Nosizwe.
He saw vague motion from the corner of his vision. Heard the shotgun blast again. Even Tracy’s gun wasn’t keeping all of the shifters at bay. There were simply too many of them. Yet he was almost there. A few more feet, a few more steps and he’d be close enough to dive for Ellie’s nearest captor.
A screech filled the cavern, louder even than Tracy’s shotgun. Nosizwe was gone. The Impundulu, the Lightning Bird, had replaced her. The knife fell to the ground with a clatter, but the Impundulu didn’t need a knife. In Xhosa folklore, the folklore of Nosizwe’s heritage, the Lightning Bird was sometimes a fiend who attacked humans to drink their blood. It lived that part of its legacy now, thrusting its neck down and up…into Ellie.
The Talos heard its own roar as if from outside itself. He lunged for the girl, the men holding her, the Lightning Bird.
He was too late.
The Impundulu’s savage scarlet bill tore into Ellie’s torso.
The shotgun blasted. Off in the distance, he heard a distinct cry, a female voice shouting, “Stop! Police!”
The Talos crashed into the men holding Ellie, taking down two of them. He grabbed both by the hair, slamming their heads against the stone floor of the Pit, smashing their skulls to mush. The third man leapt back, out of his reach. The Talos bounded to its feet, spinning to meet Nosizwe.
Elia, Nosizwe in her human form, stood over both Ellie and the Stones. Blood, Ellie’s blood, was smeared over her face, her neck, her clothing.
“You’re too late, Ballis,” she jeered with a terrifying smile of victory. “Your child’s blood, your blood, is already on the Stones. They’re going to awaken. Their power will be mine.”
His child’s blood? His blood?
But it was Ellie’s body slumped over the Stones. Ellie’s blood that poured from her shredded abdomen, spilling over the Stones. Ellie’s blood that leaked into the grooves of the words etched across their surface.
He didn’t know what Nosizwe meant, but he knew the all-consuming drive for vengeance. Fury gushed, spewing out of him like lava from an erupting volcano. The bronze Talos leapt over the downed bodies, diving for its enemy. In the background, a detached part of his brain heard the unknown woman’s shout again—“Stop! Police!”—accompanied by more gunshots. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered except revenge.
Because if Ellie was dead, Nosizwe was going to die too.