Page 102 of The Stone Initiation
“Then come back for us when it’s ready.”
I take a breath and head for the tower, ignoring the vise around my chest because I’m about to head into what we call the gray zone, and the last time I was there, I almost died.
CHAPTER44
We fly over the twenty-mile strip of land adjacent to the closed breach and to the area where the alpha team were attacked, past sparse woodland and along a winding road. There’s a cart on its side, wheels pointing up at the sky. Blood speckles the ground.
Janna’s report mentions the humans were riding in a cart. Humans that morphed into graynites. But there is no sign of them now.
We do a circuit, scoping out the land before hitting earth.
“No one’s here now,” Orix says.
We examine the cart for clues. But all we find is blood and venom residue. The ground is disturbed from the fight, but something niggles at me. I walk away from the cart, and it hits me.
“There are no tracks.”
“What?” Orix asks.
“There are no wheel tracks.”
Orix scans the ground. “You’re right. So how did it get here?”
“They saw movement on the scanner because it tracks all movement of a certain size, right?”
“And we know that the animals in this zone are too small to trigger the scanners,” Orix adds.
“So…Where are the tracks?” My pulse quickens. “There are none above ground, but what if”—I cross back to the cart and fling it aside. The gravel beneath looks too neat, as if— “look at this. There’s a seam.”
“It’s a fucking door,” Orix says.
We exchange glances. Our true mission is clear. We were sent here to find something vital, and this passage could lead us to it.
Orix nods, and I use a talon to pry up the door. It’s heavy, and it takes a moment, but together we lift and slide it back.
There are steps below, leading into darkness. I give Orix a nod and am about to take the first step when a low raspy chuckle drifts up out of the inky blackness.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the voice says. “You’re meddling in affairs that don’t concern you.”
I know that voice. It belongs to the male from the ruins. The one who killed the mutts. “Come out where we can see you.”
“You don’t give the orders here, elite.” He says it like it’s a dirty word. “This is our terrain. Our domain. The same was said to the guardians that came before you. They were given the chance to leave. To walk away and they declined.”
“Since when do graynites negotiate?” Orix says.
A bitter laugh floats up out of the darkness. “You’re fools dancing to an out-of-date tune. Leave now. Last warning.”
Orix and I step back from the hole in the ground and it’s Orix who replies.
“We don’t take orders from graynites.”
“Have it your way.”
The ground beneath us rumbles.
Something is coming.
Orix roars as he morphs from gargoyle form to Chimera, lion jaws snapping, and lizard tail swiping at the ground. His talons are set in padded paws that could crush a skull and his wingspan is wider, the stone marked with feathered etchings. The Albion Chimera form is power and brute strength.
