Page 275 of Caelum

He winked at me. “What’s this about GPS?”

When my laughter had burned off some, I managed to drawl, “God-Positioning-System.”

He groaned. “That has to be the worst joke ever.”

“It’s not a joke! It’s true. He’s telling us where to go, isn’t He? That beats the satellites the humans use.”

“True,” he retorted, sliding his arm around my shoulder and hauling meclose. “Can I talk you into another shower? It’s my turn in the bathroom next.”

“Nope.” I stuck out my tongue. “Nestor asked me first.”

His eyes darkened again, but this time, in a way that told me his Hell Hound was present. Everything inside me tensed. Not in concern, but with need.

Goodness, he was delicious when his beast surged forth.

Stroking my fingers over his brow, I murmured, “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be better when this is all over with.”

I couldn’t blame him and knew we were all on edge over what Bartlett had explained to us in their last call.

That he and Avalina were so knowledgeable, not just from their time on Earth, but also from the things they’d studied and lectured on, was a great boon.

This time was different than the last. Amid the leaves and branches on my body, the thousands of tiny letters and words had crafted together one wish. The amulet? Written into its design were two wishes. Two. That meant things were getting complicated, and it also meant that Sam was likely going to get the action he’d been so keen on seeing…

More than that, the amulet’s clue had referenced the feathered serpent, which was an Ancient deity from the Toltec, Aztec, and Mayan civilizations.

Apparently, there was a major pyramid in San Juan Teotihuacán in Mexico that was dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, but Bartlett had explained that the clue in the markings on my belly indicated a different location. One on a site called Tula in Hidalgo, Mexico.

So, we had two wishes to worry about uttering and a destination to fret about reaching.

Dre, whether he wanted to or not, was going home, and from the grim expression he’d been wearing ever since our early morning wakeup call from Adam and Eve, he was looking forward to it as little as the rest of us were.

After Eren was done in the shower, Reed got up after giving me a kiss and headed for his own ablutions. Within the hour, we were all ready to rock, and as we headed out of the hotel, the true devastation we’d reaped on the world became evident.

The news was calling it Armageddon, and it was damn inconvenient, actually. It meant that most flights were canceled, and that we’d been scrambling to find a carrier who was flying to Mexico today.

ThankGod we were rich because Frazer had spent a small fortune on the tickets!

The streets of Ploie?ti were dead as we made our way to Bucharest airport, and driving from the small town and onward to the capital was definitely an eyesore. People suddenly being incinerated left a mess behind, not unsurprisingly. Ghouls who’d been driving cars had crashed and caused pileups, which were a major source of the chaos. Getting through the traffic jams they’d caused meant we were running late as we approached the airport, having spent most of the journey using back roads to get there.

As we left behind a world torn by chaos and fear and soared into the sky to head back to London, I released a relieved breath to be in the air and away from the mayhem on the ground.

I thought about the people, the innocents, who’d perished last night, and guilt filled me, and I knew I wasn’t alone in that. Everyone was quiet. For most of the journey, truth be told. Heading to London, then on to Atlanta, and finally into Mexico City, we traveled nonstop and grabbed a rental at the ghost-staffed airport before setting on our way for Tula.

Mexico was just as badly affected as Romania had been, and why wouldn’t that be the case?

Drekavac’s line had roots that spanned the globe. Every country in the world was feeling the force of his death.

Still, it was like driving through a warzone. Cars pulled off at the side of the road, and people wandered as though they were lost and aimless, heading for somewhere that was known only to them. They were armed with random stuff—signs from the roads and things from the jungle that lined some of the paths we had to drive down.

“It’s like something fromMad Max,” Stefan grumbled as we hit Ocampo and were around twenty minutes from Hidalgo.

Eren whistled. “Jesus, you’re right.”

“OrDie Hard,” Reed mused, and so began an argument between the two as we drove into the city and made our way to Tula.

Hidalgo was a strange mixture of small and large. A bit like Ploie?ti in its feel, but nothing like the major cities of London and Geneva. The buildings were small, somehow, a little ramshackle. I wasn’t one to judge, but I had a feeling that this particular area we were driving through was poor. Everywhere seemed to need a lick of paint, and the roads were tight with the abandoned vehicles, which made things even narrower, and even the cars looked older.

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