Chapter 167

NOLAN

Luna drummed her fingers on the table as Nolan spoke.

“Only the five of us will go up first, on foot.” Nolan stood at the head of a long mahogany table, gripping the back of a chair. His mother was at the other end, and seated along the sides were his top strategists. At the very back of the room, one of his mercenaries stood with his arms folded across his chest, leaning against the wall.

They had been planning for hours, poring over maps, deciding positions and double checking that they had thought through all possible outcomes and how to prepare for each.

There was no guarantee that Adan was still in this area they had pinpointed using Lucy’s phone. Adan’s phone had stopped updating its location several hours prior, probably having lost service or battery. But this was their only lead, and it seemed like a good one.

“Adan will be able to hear vehicles coming from a long way out. We can’t tip him off, give him a chance to flee, or worse, a chance to prepare for our arrival and set a trap. Everyone else stays behind until I call you in. Is that understood?”

Sounds of agreement came from the sides of the table. The Queen, looking anxious, remained silent.

“It’s the only way,” Nolan said, looking straight ahead at her. “Vehicles will stay at least five miles out.” Then he made eye contact with the rough-looking man at the back of the room. “You and I will head up from there on foot and meet the others higher up the mountain. We leave immediately. The hike will take at least two hours. We’ve got no time to waste.”

Nolan’s ears popped twice as they ascended their last couple miles up to where Adan’s cell phone had last reported its location. The afternoon turned gray and dark while they walked. A blanket of clouds smothered the sky, threatening to break into a rainstorm at any moment.

The five men – Nolan and his father’s troop of mercenaries – were armed with automatic rifles and wearing thin Kevlar vests. They had not spoken a word in over an hour, hiking slowly and carefully to keep their movements as discreet as possible.

Finally they reached a clearing in the woods, one accessible to the mountain road, and Nolan knew that they were there.

This was the place.

He could smell it in the air. Werewolves had been in this place recently. Humans, too.

Tire tracks pressed into the woody grass showed that vehicles had driven up and back between the mountain road and the clearing. But there was nothing else in plain sight. No temporary shelters, no cars, nothing.

Communicating silently with hand signals, Nolan coordinated with his team.

They formed a perimeter around the area and began a search.

One of the mercenaries found the cars first.

Before reporting it to Nolan, he’d gone ahead and slashed all the tires, cutting tiny punctures into every one of them, disabling their enemy from using them in an escape, or as weapons. Nolan gave him a nod of approval.

With the cars located, Nolan knew that Adan, his crew, and the human hostages had to be somewhere within walking distance.

Night was falling, and the air felt heavy, damp. It would be pitch dark within minutes and raining any moment.

Nolan’s mind scrambled for a solution. He turned 360 degrees, scanning the area, looking for absolutely anything suspect, anything out of place, anything distinctive. And that’s when his eyes landed on a big tree just a few yards back from the clearing. One with a flat, round stone leaning against it.

It bore a resemblance to a place he knew.

The place where the secret passage from Nolan’s library let out into the forest behind the palace.

He signaled for his men to follow and made haste for the tree. Suddenly he knew he was going to find a tunnel entrance right at the base of it.

The others hung back, forming a circle around the pine while Nolan started searching the forest floor. He lowered himself to all fours and pressed his face close to the earth. Took a big breath in… and smelled metal.

He was uncovering a steel hatch a moment later.

The mercenaries paced closer, slow and light-footed. When they were in position, Nolan began to inch the hatch upward, praying it wasn’t rusted and would glide on its hinge soundlessly.

It opened smoothly. But Nolan knew the change in sound – the ambient noise of the forest was leaking down into the tunnel now that the hatch was open – would set Adan on alert instantly.

There was a metal ladder stretching down into the earth. There was no view of what lay beyond, but Nolan could see the bottom. He reasoned the drop was less than twenty feet.

Either way down was a risk. Climb the ladder, give them more time to react. Drop down, risk breaking your legs.

He decided to risk it and drop.

The bottoms of his feet stung on impact and sent a sharp pain vibrating up through his legs, but Nolan could still walk just fine. He pushed the pain from his consciousness. It wasn’t important.

He was in a short hallway, from which branched off four different passages leading out in all directions. There were sounds of movement and voices on all sides.

Gun drawn, Nolan paced forward down the closest corridor. He heard the thumping sounds of his men behind him, dropping themselves down from the surface and landing on the floor of packed earth just as he had done.

The enemy heard them, too.

Sound was muted down here in this dim labyrinth of walls, ceilings and floors carved out of the rocky mountain soil. But Nolan and the mercenaries’ entrance hadn’t been silent.

Footsteps in the distance were fast and deliberate. Voices hushed to silence. Guns were being readied.

Chains were rattling somewhere, too.

The mercenaries scattered, all following different passages.

Nolan stumbled upon the hostages within seconds. A wall of chain link fencing was buried floor to ceiling at the end of the corridor he’d rushed down. A hinged gate in the center of it was locked with a giant padlock. On the other side of the fence were the humans.

There were at least fifteen or twenty of them in the cage. They looked small, cold and tired, and were clinging to each other, their eyes wide with fear.

Nolan held a finger up to his lips as he came into their view. Still, a young woman made a little cry when she saw him, perhaps thinking he was one of her captors come back to visit. When she recognized Nolan, she covered her mouth with both hands and went quiet.

He could have walked away. He could have come back for the hostages later, once Adan had been secured.

But no, he would not do that. The humans were defenseless and could be caught in crossfire.

A gunshot blast – a manual weapon firing – sounded from around the corner. Then another.

Then came the return from one of Nolan’s men. A long blast of machine gunfire.

There was no more need for stealth.

Nolan pulled a sat phone from his pocket and made the call his backup was waiting for.

“Begin ascent,” he commanded into the speak as soon as the line picked up. “I repeat, begin ascent.”

Then he ordered the hostages to stand against the left wall. Once the last of them obeyed – a boy, paralyzed by fear, was trembling right in front of the gate until his mother dragged him away – Nolan shot the padlock, blasting it to pieces.

He wrenched the gate open and motioned for the humans to follow him, leading the way back toward the hatch.