40. Chapter 40

40

E verything felt like it was happening all at once as Rebecca screamed her warning and Whit’s foot descended that much closer to the glowing casting-circle wards illuminating in the dirt.

Before she’d even finished the words, Maxwell leapt into action, sprinting forward with a snarl and lunging for Whit reaching for the phones. He crashed into the warlock from behind and tackled him to the ground.

They both went sprawling sideways across the dirt just as the ward finished powering up and fully activated.

The explosion of dark crimson light burst from the center of the casting circle, followed by several smaller but no less dangerous explosions to the left and right. Each of them detonated with a rippling intensity and a deafening boom that rocked the defunct carousel on its base.

The sound of more shrieking metal and grinding gears filled the air.

The area lit up with blinding crimson light and strobing flashes before the entire carousel succumbed to the debilitating force.

The ride was blown from its stabilizing base. Metal parts screamed as they tore from their settings. Wood cracked and splintered, throwing thousands of shards in all directions. The brass poles holding the manufactured animals in place buckled and ripped free with loud clangs and pops.

The molded animals ruptured and flew across the open ground while the chipped and dented domed roof of the carousel lurched free and flew several feet in the air. It clanged back down against what little remained of the carousel and snapped into several large pieces before toppling haphazardly toward the team.

The deadly echo of such a powerful detonation didn’t stop at the carousel. The explosion launched Rebecca off her feet and sent her flying backward. She crashed into the dirt again and slid farther by several more feet while giant chunks of destroyed carousel rained down all around her, thumping into the dirt and bouncing chaotically in all directions.

Dust, dirt, metal, and wood rained down behind the larger chunks, adding a hint of charred wood and rust to the pervading scent of turpentine in the air from the detonated wards.

Rebecca flung both arms up over her head to shield herself through the worst of the debris.

In five eternally long seconds, it was over.

Then she coughed through a mouthful of dust in the air and blinked furiously before opening her eyes.

To find herself lying face to face with a decapitated horse head, its chipped and dully painted eye staring back at her in accusation.

Groans and coughing from the rest of the team rose around her as the last of the dirt and floating sawdust finally sifted down out of the air.

“Whit?” Rebecca called, wanting to shout above the hollow ringing in her ears but holding back so as not to risk giving away their position.

Until it occurred to her that the detonated defensive ward and its ensuing explosion had already done that for them.

If the assholes who’d captured Diego, Titus, and the half-changeling Burke were still here in the abandoned theme park, there was no way they hadn’t heard the explosion.

“I’m here,” Whit shouted much louder than necessary. “All good. I think.”

When Rebecca finished picking herself up off the ground, she saw Maxwell doing the same before he offered Whit a hand up as well.

“Everyone all right?” the shifter called as he turned to search the wreckage for the rest of the team.

Through several more groans and grunting coughs, everyone else confirmed they’d made it through in one piece, for the most part unharmed beyond sore muscles and ringing ears and a few bruises.

Rowan chuckled. “Blue Hells. Did anyone else not see that coming?”

No one answered as they dusted themselves off and recovered their weapons to check them for broken parts or obvious malfunctions.

Maxwell gave them another minute to recover before he scanned the area and cleared his throat.

“What do we do now?” Jay asked.

“We keep moving,” Maxwell declared. “And we watch for bomb circles drawn in the dirt.”

“Keep moving where?” asked the other mage on their team; Rebecca thought his name was Murray.

When their Head of Security turned toward Whit, the warlock glanced at the ground where his tracking device had landed during the explosion, his lips pressed together in a grimace of uncertainty before he shook his head.

“We were tracking the signal from their phones, but those are gone. And we obviously weren’t even tracking our people. They could be anywhere.”

“They’re still here,” Rebecca said. She’d meant it as a reassurance and had voiced it without considering the fact that as far as anyone else knew, there was no reason to sound so certain of anything.

But now every member of the team turned toward her with questioning looks, waiting for further explanation of how she knew something they’d found zero evidence to support.

Rowan was the only one who seemed amused by the whole thing, but that was par for the course with him.

“Whoever went through the trouble of setting up such an elaborate trap like this,” Rebecca clarified, “they knew we’d come. And they want us to think we still have a chance at staging a rescue.”

“Do we?” Murray asked.

“Of course we do,” Maxwell replied before sniffing the air again, his nostrils flaring above a determined grimace. “Our guys were definitely here, and I’m betting they still are. I can smell them.”

“So we keep moving,” Rebecca said. As soon as the command left her lips, the shifter’s gaze settled on her face.

Maxwell didn’t look at her like she was hiding something, or like he disapproved of her decision, or even like he couldn’t figure out how to feel around her, which had become increasingly more frequent lately.

He looked relieved.

“Does that special nose of yours know where to go next?” Rowan asked, sniggering at the shifter. “Because if not, we’ll be here all night.”

Maxwell ignored him and swung his weapon up into both hands to hold it at the ready. Then he nodded across the open space toward the opposite side of the now destroyed carousel. “Move out.”

The team fell into formation behind him and followed their Head of Security deeper into the abandoned park. No one was backing out now, their close call with the explosive wards notwithstanding.

With his tracking device now returned to a pocket of his cargo pants, Whit took his position directly behind Maxwell.. Even if they hadn’t had a shifter’s sense of smell to point them in what was hopefully the right direction, Rebecca would have moved this way too—despite the underlying sensation of wrongness she felt here, which only intensified the farther they moved.

The team advanced a lot more cautiously now, watching the ground in front of them for additional casting circles and clearing the front rooms and around the backs of each new structure and worn-down ride they passed.

“Next time you hear music or see something else turn on in this place,” she warned them, “just don’t approach.”

“And if you see or hear anything else,” Maxwell added over his shoulder, “if you get a feeling you don’t recognize, signal an alert.”

It was sound advice, though Rebecca wondered how much good it would do them now, seeing as they relied solely on their own instincts, intuition, and the tracking skills of a single shifter. Though, if she had to guess, Rebecca would have said her Head of Security excelled in that department too.

He’d tracked her several times now, after she’d taken special pains to avoid being followed or discovered.

The overly bold idiots who’d thought it was a good idea to ambush and capture Shade operatives and hold them hostage hadn’t done nearly as much to cover their tracks. That much was clear.

This team would find Diego, Titus, and Burke. Rebecca just hoped they got to their missing operatives before the kidnappers did them any permanent damage.

Judging by the explosive strength of a seemingly simple defensive ward conjured from a triggered casting circle in the dirt, she had a feeling time was not on this team’s side.