Page 70 of Triumph of the Wolf
“Whatwashe interested in?” I eyed him, looking for signs that he’d been injured.
“Scaring me away, perhaps? He didn’t say anything when I rolled down the window and asked. Instead, he leaped onto a fire-escape ladder, climbed up to a rooftop, and disappeared.” Duncan touched his medallion. “This senses something here.”
“Mine does too.”
We looked at Bolin.
“I don’t have a medallion,” he said.
“Is your esophagus still tingling?” I asked.
“Oh, yes.” Bolin pointed at the archway. “It’s pointing me right at that.”
Duncan returned to his van, pulled out his magic detector, and brought it to the backyard garden.
While he waved it about, I looked at the windows on the back of the house, again expecting someone to notice our trespassing. It was late enough in the day that a homeowner might be returning from work.
Faint beeping came from the detector, verifying that there was something magical about the archway. Duncan continued to point the device around the garden, and its pair of long antennae quivered, picking up something else. He padded past the bench and fountain and pointed the device toward the frog houses.
“You hear something?” a man asked from the street.
“Some beeping,” another guy replied. “The kid said they went this way.”
The kid? Lykos?
I waved for Bolin and Duncan to hide. The house and trees in the yard blocked us somewhat from the street but not enough.
Duncan turned off the magic detector to stop the beeping and crouched next to us. Visible between the houses, two big men who emanated magical power walked up the center of the street. I couldn’t tell if they were paranormal by birth or had chugged potions to enhance their abilities, but they looked like the sorts of people Radomir had employed.
My senses told me a werewolf was trailing them. Lykos. In his lupine form, he loped up the street to catch up with the men. Planning to guide them toward us?
I gripped the hilt of the sword. Duncan and I ought to be able to handle two men, even two men amped up on potions, but I’d hoped to find Jasmine and Izzy before alerting Abrams that we were in the area.
“They go this way, kid?” one of the men asked, unperturbed by the appearance of the wolf.
Of course not. They were all on the same team. Lykos had been spying on Duncan all week.
I looked at Duncan, wondering if that stung, if it bothered him that his attempts to befriend Lykos hadn’t worked.
He was rubbing the green-painted top on one of the ceramic frog houses. Nothing happened. He delved into one of his pockets and pulled out a cylindrical magnet on a rope. I shook my head, certainthatwouldn’t do anything, but a faint clunk sounded within the frog house. Like… a switch being flipped?
Abruptly, great power emanated from the nearest side of the garden, and a silver-blue glow brightened the center of the arch. Startled, Bolin and I scrambled backward. My heel caught on an uneven paver, and I had to flail to maintain my balance.
“Over there!” one of the men barked.
“Jasmine is that way,” Bolin blurted and surged toward the arch.
Light flashed, and sparks outlined him as he leaped through. He yelped in pain before disappearing.
I faltered, hesitating to follow him through. But an eager howl came from the street. Even knowing I had the power to defeat Lykos, his lupine cry raised the hair on the back of my neck.
“I’ll go first, Luna,” Duncan whispered, rushing toward the arch—the portal?—from the other side.
He sprang through. The two men who’d passed the house surged back into view, leaping the fence and running toward the garden. They carried rifles. Loaded with silver bullets?
I didn’t stay to find out. As Lykos ran into view, jumping over the fence, I rushed through the archway.
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