Page 64 of Hunted
He nodded. “I’m scared too, but we’ll get through this. That creature isn’t taking us tonight.”
Thunder crackled high above, the wind whipped around us, kicking up trails of snow. There was a sound like an implosion, then a sudden rush of air. Behind us there was a flash of light, three women emerged from within that light wielding crackling arcs of magic in their hands.
“Thank goodness we found you,” Helen said.
“Now where is this monster?” asked Pepper, her hands pulsing with a red-violet glow. “I’m going to teach it a thing or two about messing with my granddaughter!”
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
“Are you hurt?” Helen asked, the slight creak in her voice betraying the panic in the back of her throat.
“I’m fine,” I said, “We’re all fine, but that thing split in two, and now it’s out there.”
“Split in two? That’s concerning.”
“Just concerning?” Tallin asked. “It sounds like a disaster to me.”
Evie picked Tallin up. “Come with me, little guy. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”
“Safe?” I asked, “Where are we going?”
Helen took my hand, and Pepper took Valerian’s. “Away from here,” she said, and with a perfectly synchronized flick of each of their free hands, they whisked us away in a flash of light.
The trip was instantaneous, barely longer than the blink of an eye. At first, I thought we hadn’t moved much. We were still in a snowy field, and the world around us looked largely the same. Instantly I realized that the stars were back, casting their twinkling light on the world below them.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Not far from where we were,” said Helen, “The creature will catch up soon. Pepper, Evie, begin setting up what protective wards you can. We need as much time as you can give us.”
“Right,” Pepper said.
Evie set Tallin down,boopedhim on the nose, smiled at him, and joined her sister in drawing protective sigils into what looked like four stone pillars arranged around us. I noticed that the ground beneath my feet wasn’t wet, soggy grass, but hard stone. Looking down, I saw patterns in that stone; lines, shapes, and even glyphs, encircling us and converging all around us.
“These are Arcadian glyphs,” said Valerian.
“Correct,” Helen said. “We are standing at the spawning point of an Arcadian portal.” She turned her eyes up. “Coaxing it out will be difficult given the light isn’t right.”
“Can you do it?” I asked, hope rising in my voice.
“I really cannot say, but we cannot go back to the house. We have not had adequate time to craft more powerful protective sigils. The creature will break through what meagre defenses we were able to set up in the time we had.”
“Meaning… if we don’t do this now, we may not get another chance?”
“If I cannot open this portal and send you back to Arcadia…” she paused, trailing off. She didn’t want to finish the sentence because her words were going to be grim; she knew it, I knew it, even Valerian knew it.
“I want to help,” I said. “I don’t have any Arcadian magic in me, but there has to be something I can do.”
“When the time is right, an offering will need to be made for the portal to open fully,” Helen said. “When that time comes, we will see.”
“What kind of offering?” Tallin asked.
My grandmother didn’t answer him.
“Wait,” I said, “One of us doesn’t have to die for this thing to open, do we?”
She shook her head. “Oh, heavens no. But the portal will need some manner of offering, something important.”
“Whatever the price is, I’ll pay it.”