Page 72 of Camriel
Vic slowed down again, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“Try the radio,” Grace suggested.“The Mad Prophet might be on the air.”
Sure enough, his familiar voice was speaking when Zoe switched it on.“More comets will be coming,” he predicted, voice both mesmerizing and on the verge of insanity.“War is on its way, folks.It won’t be waged by us puny humans, but by beings from another world.”
“He knows about the aliens?”Victoria asked as the prophet ended his rant.
“We’re not sure what he knows,” Zoe said, switching the radio off again since there was only static now.“He only talks for a short time and it’s usually about the Soldiers of Chaos, not that he knows that’s what they’re called.”
“This is the first time he’s mentioned our knights,” Grace said.
They discussed what they’d heard the prophet say and how he could know about any of them at all.No one had the answers.They didn’t know where he was so they could talk to him about his prophecies.
“Okay, we need to be on full alert now,” Victoria said when they reached the quaint town.It had taken a couple of hours to reach it going by road, since they had to take the long way around.
“We were attacked the last time we looted some books from here,” Grace said.“Amaros and Cam took care of the threat.”
“At least we have weapons this time,” Zoe said, holding her pistol up.Grace had the compound bow in the back seat.The wicked sickle was resting on the floor at Zoe’s feet.
Victoria had the hang of driving by now.She coasted to a stop, then swung the truck around to face the way home, parking right outside the store.“I need to grab a few things from a convenience store before we leave,” she said, gesturing at the closest store just down the road.
“No problem,” Zoe agreed, climbing out and grabbing the reaping hook.She handed it to the wrestler and the trio headed inside.
“They’re all mine,” Grace gloated, turning in a circle to examine the shelves that were still untouched by looters.She and Zoe had only taken a fraction of the tomes that were on offer.
“Hello, what are we?”Victoria joked, pointing at Zoe and herself.
“You may borrow books from my collection,” the teen said in a mock regal tone.“As long as you promise to return them,” she added.
Zoe rolled her eyes, then started browsing through the non-fiction books.The other two started loading up the truck with predominantly romance books.Victoria paused to examine a novel.A handsome, shirtless man with a ripped body was on the cover.She flipped it over to read the back cover.
“What’s the book about?”Grace asked, nudging Zoe to get her to start helping rather than browsing.
“It’s about an alien warrior who’s sent to Earth to find his fated mate,” Vic said.
“You’re kidding,” Zoe said.
“Nope,” the wrestler replied.“There’s a whole series of them,” she added, nodding at the shelf she’d taken the book from.“There’s twenty in total.”
“I’ve got to read these,” Grace said with a grin.“I can’t wait to see how close they come to our situation.”
“They’re all yours,” Victoria said, tossing the paperback to the teen.She didn’t want any spoilers to ruin her rocky romance with Camriel.
It was a tight fit, but they managed to get all of the books into the truck.They tied tarps over them so they wouldn’t fly out when they got back on the freeway.
“Do you hear that?”Zoe asked when she heard a distant noise.
“It’s a car,” Vic said, instinctively reaching for her sickle.
“We should hide and hope they drive through the town,” Grace suggested.
They hurried back into the bookstore and closed the door.It was too dark for humans to see inside, but they stayed back from the windows next to the door anyway.
“They’re slowing down,” Zoe said, clutching her pistol tightly.
Victoria moved closer to the window and kept her back to some bookshelves to peer outside.“They’re stopping,” she said with a scowl.
A large white truck parked across the road and eight men climbed out.Four of them had been riding in the bed.She could tell they were drunk by the way they were weaving on their feet.They were all armed with guns.
