Page 82 of Swamp Kings 2

“There’s a name for this kind of thing,” Beth said, angling her head at it. “Anamorphic,” she remembered. “Depending on how you look at it or howyour brain works, you see one thing while another person sees another. Pretty cool,” she murmured.

“It’snotfucking cool,” Bishop corrected. “It’s a drawing of a vision fromGod. Seer sees a bloody me in a shattered glass, I see a war with soldiers, and you see what you see.” He looked at Seer. “How about we haul ass back to the swamp and then we can ooh and ahh all about what the fuck this could mean.”

“Good idea,” he muttered.

“I’ll show it to the rest and see what they see,” Beth said as Bishop got the rig back on the road. They had three hours to go still, and he really didn’t want to be on the road after dark now.

“Seer, get Spook up here. I want him to find us a faster route without any added risks.”

“Got it,” he said, patting his shoulder as he headed out.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“No, no, no, no,” Bishop muttered at the barricade before the bridge. “Give me an alternative route,” he told Spook.

“Already on it.”

Bishop checked mirrors then the setting sun. He had every asset wide open and on high alert, every gift, every talent. 8-Bit and the Kings were on standby for emergency extraction while Beth, Maggie and Lucy played happy games in the back bedroom, and he drove as fast as he could from whatever impending doom he felt circling them.

“Okay, there’s a road justbefore the bridge you can take.”

Bishop hit the gas, heading toward it. “Where does it lead?”

“To a very small town with two red lights. Worst case scenario, you can plow through anything.”

He gripped the steering wheel tight. “How far.”

“Two point three miles. Pulling up every alternate route from here to our main exit just in case.”

“Good. 8-Bit sent you that backroads map?”

“I got it. Paved roads, gravel roads, dirt roads, water roads, bike trails and foot trails.”

“Fuck, I’m glad you’re here.”

“It’s gonna be alright brother.”

Yeah. He wished to fuck his useless gifts would confirm that. His mind was a chaotic vortex, and the numbers and equations seemed to be trying to define it. It didn’t help that everybody who looked at that picture only saw a forest of trees. Even the triplets. Fucking amazing. Well, they were driving in a forest at that second, maybe everything they saw was relevant, all a coming reality. But that didn’t explainrescuing those kids, or the random adoption of one by a triplet. That had to be fucking relevant to something important.

“It’s coming up,” Spook said.

Bishop rounded a curve and jammed on the brakes, encountering a wall of people on the road.

“What the fuck,” Spook said, as Bishop threw the vehicle in reverse, looking for a turnaround.

The cab door flew open. “We’ve got company behind us,” Fetch said. “Zodak, you’re on the girls with your life.”

He headed out as Fetch grabbed Bishop’s shoulder, showing him what they saw. Oh Christ. Fucking line of convoys behind them. “What is this, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know but the crowd isn’t happy,” Seer observed.

“I thought this was a small town, Spook!”

“It was!”

“It’s a Chaos Point,” Fathom said with his eyesclosed. “People are here to get aid.”

Hope flashed through him. Maybe that’s what the convoys were. “We need to turn around, I need eyes to help me get us turned around. Now!”

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