Chapter 39
Why was dawn such a favorite time for nefarious activities? There I was, hunched over a picnic table in the woods nearly puking my guts out and unable to see either the trail or the other obstacles around me through the haze of watering eyes and shifting shadows. The closer I approached to Brightarm‘s territory, the louder and more disturbing became the signature of the Druz, their strings tangled with a vibration that scraped that my nerves like a mosquitoes whine. I had thought them no longer a threat since I‘d sent them to hell, but the residue of their…spirit had created the worst enemy, in combining with men, a hybrid with all the knowledge of magic and human technology.
Zyperia pushed back my head and wiped the sweat off my forehead as she ran her fingers through my soaked hair. "Jade, you‘re burning up," she fretted and pulled her backpack off to rummage in it. I wiped my mouth off on my T-shirt and heaved my stomach back down.
"Quiet!" I hissed. "There are soldiers hidden in the underbrush. They‘ll spot us."
"What are we going to do?" Her eyes, large green and luminous glowed like a night cats in the flowering sunshine. I looked around. We stood in a small clearing set aside for a campsite with a picnic table, iron campfire ring, barbecue pit and a post with the number and electrical hookup. I knew this park had a reputation. Only a few hundred yards behind me was a jogging trail where a congressional page lady had been attacked, raped and murdered.
I could still feel the abrupt snapping of her string, trace the cascading ripples as her death affected a million others in ways too minuscule for anyone but a string reader to notice.
"What‘s making you sick, Jadewyn?"
"Don‘t you sense it? Smell it? Feel it?" I was astonished that the heavy dirge of the enemy miasma did not cloy at the back of her throat, sit on her chest like an angry jinni, weigh her down as if she carried an unbearable secret. It hurt to breathe, to move and to stand erect. I hunched my shoulders and leaned on the table with my head on my arms. Sweat plastered my shirt to my skin yet the breeze felt like icy fingers poking and prodding. A groan escaped me.
"Jade," her voice was worried and uncertain. Sunrise sent slivers of gold through the trunks and branches of gaunt unclothed trees. Speared the ground and illuminated a carpeted forest floor of dead leaves, pea gravel and ruts from four-wheel-drive ATVs. No broken branches littered the ground; too many campers picked off the dropped pieces for free firewood.
"There are men hiding to the right, Jadewyn," she whispered and I nodded.
"On the left, too. And behind us." I gathered myself, put both hands on the planks, felt the mossy softness of the wood exposed to the seasons and climbed atop. Spreading my arms, I shouted the words to bring the Seillach coin to full power. Trees bloomed around us. Grass, sprung up beneath our feet. Flashes of light that could be felt illuminated the clearing; made the faces of the enemy squad look like zombies. Here and there, brilliant blue fire pulsed in their eyes.
"Jade," she whispered and I felt her climb up behind me, her thin shoulder blades knocked into mine.
"Welcome, Lord of the Strings," a blue-eyed warrior stepped forward and he held not only a riot gun, but also a Druz stun rod. His rank I noted was Captain in Special Forces. He was more than human, his arms hung nearly to his knees, and he was bulked up larger than normal.
He was more than half Druz.
"Why are you here, Lord?"
"To challenge your Master," I answered.
"I will call him."
"No need," I returned, and clenched the coin so that the rivulets of her power arched from my fingers. "He will have sensed me, and felt the shift of energies." I aimed the coin and blew them all to vapor. We waited, heard the droning of helicopters and the strident voices of men approaching amid sirens.