54
Savannah
My breath caught as I looked around inside the tower. The walls were all glass, and I could see out into the prison cells perfectly. I’d known what to expect, but seeing it in person was unnerving.
The practical reality of zero privacy.
Every time I looked at the glass, it rippled with magic and magnified the world outside. Everywhere I looked, it was like having binoculars.
I could see some of the orange- and gray-clad inmates curled up in their cells, hiding from the echoes of the ritual below.
A helical ironwork stairway spiraled down around the inside of the observation tower. It was easy to imagine unsleeping demons walking up and down the stairs with their relentless eyes trained on the inmates.
I peered down over the railing, and my stomach lurched with vertigo. The bottom of the control tower was glass as well, allowing observers to continuously watch activity in the courtyard below.
Looking back at Ethan, I asked, “What do you need me to do?”
He and the agents were busy going over a pile of notes and fiddling with the computer systems. “We just need to override the system. Give us a minute. I’m an archmage, not tech support.”
I immediately descended the stairs.
Jaxson followed. “Where are you going?”
“This tower overhangs the courtyard with all the chanting freaks, and I’m betting that Dragan’s still down there. I want to see what he’s doing for myself, and in here, I can do it without him knowing I’m watching.”
I moved down the spiraling stairwell quickly, then paused and looked up at Jaxson behind me. “I’m practically stomping, but my boots aren’t making a sound. Why is that?”
“The stairwell is probably enchanted, so creatures with acute hearing—like werewolves—can’t tell when people are moving inside.”
“This place is so creepy,” I said as I continued down the stairs.
“It has a reputation,” Jaxson grumbled.
I wondered how many members of the pack had spent time in there. Or how many members of my family, for that matter.
If Casey had been here, he would have asked if the guards had to watch everybody do their business, or something equally inappropriate. Sorrow and loss twisted through my heart as I stepped out onto the all-glass floor.
I reached for Jaxson’s arm. “Whoa, this is freaky.”
You could see everything below. It was like flying. What I saw, however, disturbed me far more than the vertigo.
The base of the tower was on level with the third ring. Below us, the perimeter of the second ring and the courtyard were lined with prisoners, far more than I’d seen in my hazy vision. They were chanting, and their collective voices buffeted the building as magic sparked in the air.
The highly polished courtyard floor was covered with strange symbols and radiating lines that reminded me of my aunt’s workshop, but these had been crudely written in red with broad, sloppy strokes.
Blood.
The source was obvious. The dismembered corpses of two guards were crumpled off to the side. Dragan had apparently used their arms to write with.
Without hesitation, my stomach unloaded itself onto the glass floor.
Jaxson touched my shoulder lightly, but I shook him off and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m going to destroy that fucker.”
He wasn’t hard to find.
A massive man stood in the center of it all, his arms raised and chanting. The Crusher, possessed by Dragan.
He must have been eight feet tall, and his shoulders were twice as broad as Jaxson’s. He wore no shirt, revealing muscles that were inhumanly swollen and distended with bright blue veins. The video cameras and my vision hadn’t done him justice. Seeing him in person, I had no doubt that he could crush my skull with a single hand.
As I looked on in horror at the monstrous man, his head wrenched back and shifted into that of a wolf. His left arm sprouted hair, and claws erupted from his hands. He howled, then reverted to human form.
Dragan couldn’t control his host.
The grotesque image made me think of something I’d heard about Dragan—that he’d had a split soul, each half vying for control.
My skin went cold. Wolfie and I had fought for control at the start. Could that have been our fate?
The sickening transformations didn’t stop Dragan from continuing his spell, however, and I shook my head to focus. How close were they?
Wild energy crackled through the room, and dark shadows spiraled along the walls. Even as we watched, I felt the intensity building.
The chant of Dragan’s possessed cultists reverberated through the walls of the prison—dark, grating words that felt like they were gnawing on my skin.
“Ethan? How close are you?” I shouted up at him.