Before his spinning brain could even form a reply, a voice spoke up, cool and self-assured.
“Yes, he is.”
Stepping out of the shadows was Detective Ewing. Her Glock was already raised, trained on a spot between Nosizwe’s eyes.
“Let him pass, Elia,” she said calmly. “Don’t you think it’s time to end this?”
The shifter queen didn’t look afraid, but her attitude had subtly altered from smug to cautious.
“I am ending this by letting him die,” she replied, gesturing towards Sean on the ground. “Letting Carter get to the Stones prolongs the agony. What’s the point? He saves Sean and the war goes on? The carousel never stops spinning? Is that what you want, Detective? You’re tired of the killing and carnage, aren’t you? This is your chance for it to stop. You should be on my side.”
“I’m not on either of your sides,” Detective Ewing answered calmly. “And it certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings for you and Sean Costas to kill each other off. However, I’ve come to realize this war will never be over until this business with the Stones is complete. And it looks like it can’t be completed until he—” she nodded her chin towards Carter—“gets back into that other world.
“So, let him go,” she finished.
Carter waited, tense, for the explosion. For Nosizwe to shift and tear into the detective. She looked awful brave now, standing there with a gun barrel aimed at Nosizwe’s head, but how would she look with that same weapon trained on the mighty Impundulu?
Nosizwe must have had something else in mind. She stepped back with a little bow and swept her hand towards the Stones.
“Far it be from me to impede progress,” she mocked.
Carter shoved past, pulling Ellie along behind him. He didn’t bother watching his back as he dashed towards the Stones. He figured the detective had it.
Within the circle of Stones, he dropped Ellie’s hand and flicked his wrist of the hand holding the sword. The blade lit up, the mysterious etchings sheathing themselves in flame. He heard a soft gasp from Ellie. The etchings on the Stones had lit up too, as if in response. Excitement welled. Maybe Ellie was right. This had never happened before. He glanced at her, and she nodded, encouraging him.
He knelt on one knee, twisted, and brought the blade of the sword around. A second’s wait as he assumed the Talos form, then he used the edge of the glowing blade to carefully reopen the vein. This time, when the blood oozed out, it dripped onto the sword and the blade soaked it up, causing the runes to glow bright and brighter.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Ellie pointing at the largest Stone, the one they’d always considered to be the centerpiece of the collection.
“Look,” she said.
The entire Stone was quivering, its etchings glowing brighter, the flame burning brighter. In-between the lines of runes something else appeared. A simple slit, several inches long, outlined by fire. Also, on the top corner of the Stone, a spot previously worn down and smoothed by time, was now revealed by fire to be a groove shaped roughly like the Stone itself, like that piece had been chipped off. Carter had never noticed either, because they hadn’t been there or else they’d simply appeared to be weathered areas in the Stone’s ancient surface. There was no mistaking now what they were. Carter rose, approached the Stone, and carefully worked the miniature tablet, the sliver of stone, into the groove on the corner, then slid the blade into the slot, tip first. It sank in all the way to the hilt.
The flames flickered out. Darkness. Silence.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Maybe he’d done something wrong. My heart stopped when the flames wreathing the writing on the Stones died. I’d been the one who directed him to use the sword in the first place. Had I been wrong? Had I ruined the whole thing?
Carter, as the Talos, stood there as the flames winked out. He didn’t panic. He didn’t even react. Honestly, he didn’t have time to. A second or two skipped by, seconds that felt like hours to me, before the world exploded in a blaze.
All around us the night lit up with a boom. Fire, light, colors like fireworks going off, but these weren’t fireworks. Whatever magic the Stones contained had caused them. The shifters, the cops, even the animals behind us…they were all on their feet, startled, gazing around in awe. The light show lingered a moment and then passed away, leaving behind a familiar glowing portal.
It was different this time. It was larger, and I could see inside, see through it, see the world on the opposite end. I recognized the city where Carter and I had spent the night. The city that had been empty, quiet and desolate. It wasn’t that way anymore. As if looking through a telescope, at the far end I could see people inside, people who were watching, waiting.
Exactly like the people on our end.
I think everyone was so stunned, including me, that we all stood there, frozen, waiting to see what would happen next and what Carter, the Talos, would do.
He wasn’t much different from us, though. He was also stunned. Bewildered. The Carter I knew from the beginning of our relationship wasn’t somebody who had ever pictured himself as the key to unlocking other worlds or fulfilling ancient prophecy. He didn’t have the answers. He glanced back and forth from the city scene beyond the portal to me, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe it either. However, he knew what he wanted to do. He half-turned, gesturing over his shoulder to a couple of
