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Kalugal shook his head. "It's old, it is made from gold, and it houses a large fire opal." Kalugal lifted the amulet by its chain to let everyone see.
The opal was magnificent in size and in color. The kaleidoscope of fiery hues started with a fierce orange core that looked as if it was alight with an inner flame. It was bordered by flashes of red, green, and yellow that shifted as the amulet gently swung from Kalugal's fingers on its chain. The gold edges of the housing were etched with symbols or glyphs, and Jacki assumed that they were either incantations that were supposed to be uttered at ceremonies or represented power, protection, or maybe even a blessing.
It didn't radiate evil, but it didn't project anything good either. In fact, it seemed like a pretty trinket that looked impressive but held no power.
"It's beautiful," Frankie said. "But it's also terrifying."
Jacki frowned. "Why do you say that? Do you feel anything?"
She shook her head. "I'm not talented that way, but those red splotches look like blood. It's possible that I'm still being influenced by what Mey said about the other room."
Frankie might have the simple gift of human intuition, and Jacki wasn't going to dismiss it. Turning to Kalugal, she extended her hand. "Can I hold it now?"
"Not yet." He dropped the amulet into his other hand and closed his fingers around the stone. "I need to make sure that it's not poisonous."
Jin snorted. "If you are worried about poisons, you should have worn the gloves when you unwrapped the amulet. The fabric was soaked in some sort of oil."
"I'm well aware of that, and I did it on purpose. If there was anything in it, I wanted to feel its effect before I handed the amulet to Jacki." He opened his fingers and extended his hand to her. "You can take it now."
Finally.
Under her mate's watchful gaze, Jacki took the chain and lowered the stone into her other hand. She didn't even need to close her eyes for the vision to surge into her mind with perfect clarity.
But unlike most of her visions that were of an object's distant past, the amulet sent Jacki's mind to a recent scene.
As she watched the horrific events unfolding, Jacki was dimly aware that there was no way that the amulet was being worn or held by any of the victims or the monsters attacking them. The power of the amulet enhanced her psychic ability, showing her an event that was unrelated to her or anyone she knew.
Jacki had never witnessed such brutality, and wanting the vision to stop, she dropped the amulet, but the images continued, and she was forced to watch as the cartel monsters slaughtered adults, children, and babies, as they violated young girls and old women alike, and after corralling the young girls and women, they set the village on fire to eliminate the evidence of the slaughter.
One by one, the faces of the kidnapped girls flashed before her mind's eye—their red-rimmed eyes brimming with tears of pain and grief, their broken souls calling out to her.
The amulet was no longer in her hands, but it still funneled the horror of their reality into her mind with a visceral force, each sob and plea another bleeding slash to her heart.
"Jacki!" She heard Kalugal's panicked voice. "Open your eyes, sweetheart. You are safe. I've got you."
His voice chased the last of the horrors away, and she collapsed into his arms, sobbing. "We have to save them. They are not far from here. There is still time. We have to get them before they are moved, and we lose them forever."
"Who, sweetheart? Who do we need to get?"
"The girls. We need to save the girls."
They also had to destroy the accursed amulet, but that wasn't urgent. They would do it after rescuing the victims.
Dagor
As Kalugal's mate recounted the atrocities she'd seen in her vision, tears streamed down her face, and her voice trembled. Her words painted a harrowing picture of the suffering inflicted on the innocent, but Dagor had a feeling she was censoring some of the most horrific parts to spare Frankie and the other ladies the worst of it.
Males were better equipped to deal with such things than females, the pain turning into rage and igniting a fire that prompted them to action.
Dagor would tear off the heads of those monsters one by one with his bare hands.
It wouldn't help the dead and the tortured, but justice would be served, and the innocents would be avenged. To let evil triumph by allowing it to get away was almost as bad as standing by and not doing anything to stop it.
He didn't care that it wasn't his fight and that he and his teammates were specifically forbidden to intervene. He was stuck on this rock anyway, so he'd better clean up his new home as best he could.
First, though, he had to get Frankie to safety.
Turning to her and seeing her tear-stricken face only hardened his resolve to get her as far away as possible from this blasted place and back to the ship.
