Page 114 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
A rallying cry.
Hawk looked around at all the faces as if he were in a dream. The open mouths, the raised arms, the expressions of elated astonishment, people jumping and hugging and shouting in glee as if they hadn’t just been told their lives were in danger and they might all soon be dead.
Hawk knew why there was such an outpouring of happiness. The danger didn’t matter. Not compared to what they’d just been given, something not a single soul present had ever had in their lives.
Freedom.
Hawk looked back at the Queen, marveling at her. In one fell swoop, she had crushed thousands of years of draconian Law, and gained the loyalty and love of an entire army of supernatural beasts.
They would stay. Judging by the roar that had overtaken the crowd, every one of them would stay. A single word rose above the noise, a word repeated with growing volume until it had become deafening, shaking the foundations of the Earth.
“Ta-hu! Ta-hu! Ta-hu!”
Fight. Fight. Fight.
Hawk raised his arms overhead, opened his mouth, and lent his own voice to the multitude.
Jack heard the cry that went up far off into the forest, and jerked upright in bed.
She listened, a rash of goose bumps covering her arms, the hair on the back of her neck prickling. She listened as the cry rose to a crescendo, distant and eerie, listened as it changed from shapeless babble to the rhythm of two syllables, chanted over and over again.
She rose from the bed, crossed quickly to the dresser, and donned the jeans, T-shirt, and jacket she found there, all freshly washed and folded in a neat pile atop the wood. She assumed they were hers, they fit her, though she didn’t recognize them. A pair of boots were beside the dresser, and she tugged those on, too, still listening to the cry of voices echoing over the tops of the trees.
What could it mean?
She didn’t know, but of one thing she was certain: it was something important.
She went down to the lower level—astonished by the stacks of fruit piled haphazardly throughout the tree house, the jumbled mounds of jewelry and pottery and trinkets adorning every flat surface—and shimmied down the rope that hung from the bottom floor to the ground below.
Then she stood waiting.
It didn’t take long until she saw them, approaching en masse from the opposite end of the colony. Led by a woman in black, the throng of people chattered in English and Portuguese and a language she didn’t know, mellifluous and sensual. They were an agitated bunch, except for that woman in front, and the man who walked beside her.
Jenna. Leander. They were headed her way.
By the time the group reached her, the ranks had considerably thinned. Many had ascended into the trees, while others had dropped back to form small groups, talking, and still others turned into massive black animals and disappeared into the forest. Jack got the distinct impression whatever had happened to cause such an outcry was still happening.
A group of perhaps two hundred surrounded her. Everyone except Jenna and Leander gave her a small, respectful bow, shocking her, and evidently Jenna and Leander as well, who shared a look. Unsure of the correct way to acknowledge such a thing, Jack simply nodded back, murmuring a confused, “Hello.”
Then the Queen said, “I can take you as far as the clear-cut near Moura, but you’ll have to walk into town from there. They have a small airport, so you should be able to make your way to Manaus and find an American consulate, but it’s too dangerous for me to fly any closer.”
“Fly?” Dear God, she didn’t mean . . . she couldn’t mean—
“It’s the fastest way to get you home. And it’s far too dangerous for you to stay here any longer. Are you ready?”
Jack said, “Please tell me you don’t expect me to fly on the back of a dragon.”
“Why not?”
“I could . . . I could fall, that’s why not! As in, to my death! And—a dragon? Seriously?”
The Queen was looking at her as if her concerns were ridiculous. “I’d catch you. Just hold onto my mane, you’ll be perfectly fine. Haven’t you ever ridden a horse?”
There were no words. Jack just stared at her, open-mouthed. Beside the Queen, a red-faced Leander had rolled his eyes heavenward and looked to be silently counting to ten.
“We’ll give you money, water, and a gun.” She nodded to a young man in the crowd, and Jack recognized him as the boy who’d helped her up when she’d fallen yesterday during the Queen’s impressive arrival. “In something she doesn’t have to use her hands to carry,” Jenna added to the boy. He nodded, turned, and dashed away. Turning back to Jack, Jenna said, “Hopefully you won’t need the gun, but I think safe is always better than sorry.”
Jack was having a problem with her tongue. It didn’t seem to be connected in any meaningful way to her brain.
