Brie was saved from having to respond by Zina.
“Bring him in,” she said impatiently. “We could all use some rest, and no one should have to sit out here and guard him. Besides, the house has a better security system than the van.”
Zina was certainly right about them all needing some rest. Not only had her attempted escape from the hunter drained her but so had her foray into the basement beneath the abandoned warehouse.
She’d gone in there thinking she had plenty of time before the sun set and could find the stone without a problem. Prepared to have to dig it out, she arrived with all the proper supplies, but it had still taken her far more time than she anticipated to break through the concrete floor and dig through fifteen feet of rocky soil to uncover the stone.
By the time shefinallyfreed it, the sun was setting and Savages were on the prowl. She’d tucked the stone securely away, retrieved her equipment, and tried to exit the warehouse as easily as she’d entered it, but three Savages had different plans for her.
She encountered them on the first floor; they must have been sleeping above. The basement windows weren’t boarded over; for easier access. People or Savages had torn them away, but the windows on the upper floors remained covered, which meant the Savages were safer from the sun up there.
It had taken her far too long to kill those Savages, and by the time she emerged, she found herself staring at Asher as he and his friends battled more Savages. Almost everything that could have gone wronghadin the retrieval of this stone, but they’d all survived, and it remained in her possession.
That was what mattered most, but it had exhausted her.
Brie rested her hand against her pocket and the stone tucked safely inside.Seven down, three more to go.
She already had a very good idea about the location of the next one and had caught glimpses of the ninth stone, but the tenth remained a mystery. It would start to reveal itself soon; that was how it worked, or at least how it had worked since she was twenty-five and reached maturity.
At first, her visions about the stones were sparse. It had taken her fifty years to find the first stone, and she’d slogged through more years locating the others, but recently the visions about them had started coming faster.
Her powers had grown over the years, but her visions about the stones were almost frantic recently… like time was running out. If the increased activity and brutality of the Savages and demons were any indication, then timewasrunning out.
She had to find the rest of the stones before the demons and their minions destroyed the world.
* * *
Asher eyedthe small home they led him into. The brick structure was straight out of the nineteen fifties with its low roof, single-story design, and windows with black shutters next to them.
It was difficult moving with his wrists tied behind his back and a rope still binding them to his ankles. He shuffled down the broken, concrete walkway as Brie and Cabo flanked him.
One good thing about it taking him a while to get anywhere was he could study his surroundings more thoroughly. There were multiple cameras on the front of the house, pointing in all different directions and, he was sure, covering every inch of the front yard and road.
He assumed there were more around the sides and back of the house. That many cameras would make getting away more difficult but not impossible.
The small road was lined with numerous pines, maples, and oaks shading the potholed street. No one else moved on the road, and no other cars traveled past. He didn’t see any other homes along the road, but that didn’t mean they weren’t nestled securely amongst the dense woods surrounding him.
He had no idea where they were, but one thing was for sure… they were far from the city. Judging by the mountains rising behind the home, they were either in the Berkshires, or they’d gone north to New Hampshire, Maine, or Vermont.
“Where are we?” he inquired, though he didn’t expect an answer.
“Somewhere safe,” Brie replied.
Zina unlocked the door and pushed it open. Numbers beeped as she turned the security system off and stepped away from the door. The scent wafting out made Asher think of doilies, cats, and little old women who knitted as they regaled their grandchildren with stories of years gone by.
“Whose house is this?” he asked.
“It was my grandmother’s,” Zina replied. “Unfortunately, she passed away last year.”
“It’s a good place to hide,” Cabo said.
“That it is,” Brie agreed.
Zina vanished inside, and Cabo nudged Asher’s shoulder with his own. Asher had to keep his feet together and jump up the steps. When Cabo grasped his elbow to help him, he almost shoved against his side.
It would have been enough to knock the big man off balance and maybe off the steps, but it wouldn’t have done him any good. He wasn’t going to break free of his bindings, so it would be impossible to make a run for it.
All he’d succeed in doing was pissing off the giant of a man and alerting them that he planned to escape the first chance he got. But he suspected they already knew that.
