Page 152 of Elven Crown

With that tingling energy swirling between them at close proximity, and the creepy carnival music forming the worst background ever, Rebecca could no longer keep herself from looking up into his silver eyes glowing like twin moons in the darkness.

“But something still doesn’t feel right,” she added. “I’d even go so far as to say this whole thing feels completely wrong.”

He studied her face with his usual silent intensity, though his regular aggravated disapproval didn’t exist this time. Blinking slowly, he nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

Oh great. They were sharing thoughts now without even trying.

From here on out, Rebecca had to be a lot more careful, a lot more consistently, about where she let her mind wander, especially when her Head of Security was around.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, for reasons she couldn’t have explained, Maxwell’s ability to read her like this would only strengthen and improve. That wouldn’t always be a good thing.

Their gazes were simultaneously ripped away from each other when the agonizingly slow rotation of the carousel jolted again, and the entire ride came to a grinding halt, shuddering and clanking.

The ancient speakers crackled more than ever and elicited a snapping burst before the entire carousel ground to a lurching stop. It wobbled on its base, the mechanisms clinking and clanking somewhere deep inside. Then the hauntingly off-key melody died with a burst of static and the last few fading notes dropping into an impossibly low warble that cut out abruptly.

The Shade team froze, everyone on high alert for the cause of such an abrupt change in their current environment.

The only sound was the low, moaning whistle of the breeze as it kicked up and hurtled through the narrow spaces between the dilapidated buildings all around them.

There was no other sign of movement and still no sign of their captured operatives.

What the hell was going on here?

Before either Maxwell or Rebecca could voice a new command, before anyone had any idea what to do next as they scanned the darkness and waited for the looming danger tofinally show itself, Whit took one more step toward the dark, silent, perfectly still carousel, the back light of his tracking device casting a faint bluish glow in front of him to contrast even more starkly against his dark silhouette.

“Hold on,” he said, his voice low. “I think I see something.”

Maxwell signaled for the rest of the team to hold their positions and keep watch. Rebecca headed toward Whit and the carousel, because now she thought she saw something as well.

A faint but very real metallic glint reflecting off the floor of the carousel right at the very edge of its rounded perimeter. Metal, maybe, or glass. Whatever it was, it was more modern and in far better shape than every other dull and rusty piece of the carousel’s metal.

Something that didn’t belong here.

Whit slowed in his approach and visibly stiffened.

Rebecca was close enough now to see in the low light glowing from Whit’s tracking device.

Two cell phones lay side by side at the edge of the carousel’s floor, each of them strapped down to the rusted metal with thick strips of duct tape.

“Oh shit…” Whit muttered and stepped forward again, reaching out with his free hand toward the phones.

The second he took his first step closer, a new light bloomed into existence right there in the dry dirt at the base of the carousel—faint at first but growing in brilliance and intensity with every vital centimeter of Whit’s approach.

A dark red light, illuminating the casting circle drawn in the dirt, and which was now activated by the footsteps crossing the threshold of the defensive ward the enemy had left in place.

“Whit!” Rebecca screamed. “Get down!”

40

Everything felt like it was happening all at once as Rebecca screamed her warning and Whit’s foot descended that much closer to the glowing casting-circle wards illuminating in the dirt.

Before she’d even finished the words, Maxwell leapt into action, sprinting forward with a snarl and lunging for Whit reaching for the phones. He crashed into the warlock from behind and tackled him to the ground.

They both went sprawling sideways across the dirt just as the ward finished powering up and fully activated.

The explosion of dark crimson light burst from the center of the casting circle, followed by several smaller but no less dangerous explosions to the left and right. Each of them detonated with a rippling intensity and a deafening boom that rocked the defunct carousel on its base.

The sound of more shrieking metal and grinding gears filled the air.

---