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They walked a little farther until they came to a large clearing that was filled with brightly colored tents and temporary structures all set up around a bonfire that was nearly burned out. The place looked like an old-school circus or maybe a hippie caravan. Not that he’d ever seen either of those things in person.
Only a few pestilents could be seen outside, walking in the same slow courses around the area. These were the guards while everyone else had to be asleep in the tents.
Lucien nudged Clay with his forearm and grinned wide. “You ready to light up their life?”
To Baer’s shock, Clay smiled. “Shake, rattle, ’n roll, baby.”
“Oh God, shoot me now,” Grey grumbled under his breath.
Clay looked over his shoulder at Baer and Wiley. “Take care of the animals as quickly as possible. Either Baer takes control of them or you send them out of the area.”
“Got it,” Wiley said firmly.
They watched from the shadows of the trees as Clay and Lucien boldly marched into the camp. One of the pestilents stopped where he was and did a double take to see them walking so brazenly straight into the pestilents base. The vile creature backpedaled and opened his mouth to raise an alarm when Clay swept one arm toward him. A heartbeat later, a tree root shot out of the ground and stabbed straight through the pestilent’s chest.
“Whoa!” Wiley said on a gasp.
“Not bad, old man,” Lucien mocked. “Why don’t you step back and watch a professional work?”
Lucien moved in front of Clay and raised both of his hands as he took up position before the first tent in the row. The Fire Weaver sucked in a breath and slowly released it as if he were centering himself. And then with the smallest flick of his wrists, fire broke out on the top of the tent, instantly eating into the super-thin fabric.
With a chuckle, Lucien crossed one arm over the other as if he were directing a dog to roll over. And that was what the freaking fire did. A chunk of the fire rolled and leaped over to the next tent. Lucien did this again and again until all the tents arranged in the horseshoe around the bonfire pit were ablaze.
Pestilents rushed out from the tents, stumbling, pushing, and climbing over each other to get away from the flames. Clay followed behind Lucien, shaking the earth and grabbing the creatures with vines and roots.
Ardette rushed out of the largest tent in the center of the horseshoe, her hands balled into fists at her side.
“I knew you’d come!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice wavering with her rage. “You’ve walked into my trap!” She threw up her arms as if she were calling down the wrath of God, and Baer’s heart skipped a beat. He almost believed she could. There was a confidence in her that was maniacal. Had the Circle faced her before and lost? Or had the death of her family simply broken her mind?
The forest once again came alive with noise. Above the crackling fire and screams of the dying, Baer could now hear the animals of the woods. Angry growls, howls, and snarls radiated around them.
“Holy shit! She’s got them all!” Wiley cried.
“What?” Grey demanded. He cocked the shotgun in his hand, swinging it from left to right as he tried to spot the first target that was insane enough to race toward them.
“That’s why it feels like a wall. There are so many. She’s put all the animals in the immediate area under her control.”
Baer grabbed both of Wiley’s arms and turned him so that they were facing each other. He could feel the panic rising in Wiley while his breathing puffed from his parted lips in short little gasps. Wiley’s confidence had gotten him this far, but it was clear he’d bitten off more than he could chew. But Baer believed in him. He could handle this. “Wiley! Baby, I need you to focus.”
“So many…”
“I know. You don’t have to do them all at once. Can you pick out just one?”
Wiley blinked away tears. “But there are—”
“I know it’s a lot of animals, but can you pick out one? Remember, we do this in steps. First step is to free just one.” Baer held his breath.
He hated to do this, but if Wiley couldn’t get rid of the spell, he was ordering Grey to haul his lover to the Jeep and to retreat to the plantation while Baer went to help Clay and Lucien.
“Yes.” He paused and then nodded. “Yes, I can do this,” he said with more confidence.
“Baer, we need to get to open ground,” Grey barked. “I can’t see shit in all this darkness and trees.”
“This way,” Baer commanded. He kept his fingers wrapped around Wiley’s biceps with one hand as he gently pulled them past the edge of the trees and into the clearing. Clay and Lucien were still wreaking havoc among the pestilents and even some of the animals that had started to attack. Lucien had once again created a circle of flames to guard against slithering and crawling animals while Clay was using his vines to keep attacking birds away from them along with holding back pestilents.
