Page 26 of Ravenous Prophecy
What was the end of that question, Bradley? Convince them? Could I sound more suspicious?
“Will the MEA be supporting us?” I asked helplessly. I wasn’t even sure who I was asking. The suit? Griffin?
Griffin’s lips pulled tight, and he snorted. “No.”
“Do they… theyhavethe technology. They must be able to see it’s the Hive.” I knew how peevish I sounded, a petulant child unhappy with his Christmas presents.But I didn’t want theredone!
“Come on. We’ve been given leave to go, and I’m not waiting for them to invent an illegal broom parking ticket just to keep us locked up.” Griffin grabbed my arm, his fingers tight on my elbow. His face was so different from earlier, when he’d cleaned my wounds carefully, when he’d been so gentle.
“What happened?” I murmured, but his lips only tightened, and he tugged harder, rushing me down the hall and through the desks of the officers on duty. As we passed, many turned to stare at us, and I saw the frightening commander from her position at the door to her office. “Er, do they not want to talk to me?”
I’d given my statement twice already: once at the crime scene, and once again at the station, as though they were testing me to see if I was able to recall what I’d told them. But more fool them. The fight and the aftermath were burned into my mind.
Nothing would change in the retelling because I wouldn’t forget a moment of it until the day I died. The screams, the chaos, the thrum in my brain, and the terrifying urges that pushed the Hive forward.
Outside, Griffin guided us through the pedestrian trafficon the street, and it was strange, impossibly so, to see people walking along, talking on cell phones, behavingnormally. I rubbed at my temples, then pushed up my glasses to scrub at my eyes.
My hands came away wet, and I pushed harder, as though I could squeeze the tears out, as though I could push out the memory and the horrible truth that was carved into my mind. As I gasped, breath too sharp, too hot, Griffin stopped, and I ran into him, my shoulder hitting his chest. I was still grinding my knuckles into my eyes, tears and snot leaking out.
“Hey,” he said.
And that undid me. I found myself sobbing into his shirt, my hands coming around to grasp at his back. I had spent my whole life studying the Hive, being called a crackpot. Even my own family saw it as an amusing fascination of mine, akin to collecting butterflies or rare spellbooks.
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “What are we going to do if they won’t help us?”
Because that was the crux of it. We were two men against the most powerful foe that humanity had ever faced. It had nearly killed us all once. It would try again, and I doubted that our modernized technology or weapons would be any more effective than the swords and lances our ancestors had fought with.
“Well, if they won’t help us, we’ll have to help ourselves.” Griffin’s voice rumbled against my ear, and I found my breath coming slower, my gasping sobs comforted by his reassurance. His hands were tight on my back, pressing into my skin, gripping me just as firmly as Iwas holding on to him. “Listen, I don’t have a theme song, but I know how to pull together an A-Team when I have to.”
Griffin’s A-Team apparently started with a drink at a bar that I never would have suspected was magical. The ambiance lent itself more to violent arguments over card games and women peddling their wares, rather than spellcraft and magical artifacts.
I had wiped all the tears and snot from my face using a handkerchief, but I knew my eyes were likely still puffy and my face blotchy. Griffin hadn’t said anything, though, just guided me to the bar and ordered for both of us.
“A Mexican lager for me, a vodka and Coke for him.” He raised an eyebrow at my affront. “What? You going to tell me you want it straight?”
“Well, I do have a head injury,” I said stiffly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be drinking.”
“If we’re really doing this,”—Griffin accepted his bottle from the bartender—“we’re going to need a drink.”
I took a tentative sip. The Coke was too sweet, and I scraped my tongue with my front teeth. The cut of alcohol almost made me gag, but after shaking myself, I swallowed another mouthful.
“It’s a drink, Your Highness, not poison.” Griffin’s smile barely lasted a second.
I tilted my head. “What happened?”
“The MEA isn’t convinced it was the Hive,” he saidshortly. “They could see an actual locust and convince themselves it was a Halloween prop.”
“Something else happened,” I said, thinking of how angry he’d been, how tense.
His fingers twitched on the glass, and he looked at me out of the corner of his eye, not even turning his head. I frowned when he didn’t say anything, thinking of all the worst-case scenarios. Before I could guess, he said, “There were kids. Williams is leaving a trail of mundanes to power up this magic, and this time it was kids.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. “Monstrous.”
“Yeah, well, there were kids at the oracles’ camp, too.” He threw his head back, finishing off the last of his lager, then ordered a whiskey.
“Is that all it was?” I asked.
“Does it need to be more than that?” Griffin snapped.
