There was a loud cracking sound, and the wolves howled their anger.
“Over there!” Tyler called. “Do you see it?” He pointed at a tree to our right. It had started to glow, pulsing through the yellow haze like a beacon.
“The phone is telling us to go to the tree,” Marcy said.
We all took off, racing to reach it as the wolves closed in, yelping and snapping their jaws. Rourke arrived first, bracing his arms around the big trunk. One arm went through, which was a good sign. “It’s a doorway, let’s go!” He backed up and Danny lunged through, followed by Marcy. “Come on, Jessica, you’re next!”
The rabid wolves were running hard across the clearing, trying to get to us. Tyler shoved me from behind, sending me shooting through right as a ghostly voice shivered along my spine, whispering, “We shall meet soon, bèt nan bwa.”
7
“Where in the hell did you come from?” Ray yelled as we all landed at the edge of the channel, right in front of the boat.
“Ma Reine,” Naomi said in a worried voice as she landed in front of me. “Are you all right?”
I picked myself up from the tangle of roots and followed Marcy, jumping into the boat. “I’m fine, I think. We were chased into some kind of alternate reality by possessed snakes, but found a way out thanks to Juanita. I’ll explain later, but now we need to fire this boat up and get away from here.” I turned to Danny, who was already by the fan. “Can you get it started?”
“Working on it,” he said as Tyler landed in the boat behind me and hurried to join him.
“The snakes are gone,” Marcy called from the front as she tentatively peered over the side. “But I’m putting a containment spell around the boat anyway.”
“What snakes?” Ray asked in a bewildered tone. “When I got here, this place was a ghost town. Not a sound for miles. It was like you, and everything else here, just up and disappeared.”
“We did disappear. I told you, we were caught in some kind of alternate space,” I replied. “The priestess surrounded the boat and forced us out because she wanted us in her realm.” I turned to Marcy. “Can you hand me your phone, please?”
She set her phone in the palm of my outstretched hand. “Good luck.” She grinned. “She killed it again.”
I glanced down. Marcy was right. The screen was totally white. I punched the button on the front, but nothing happened.
“The snakes will be back as soon as she can summon them,” Rourke said grimly as he landed in the boat, making it rock. He broke a branch off the nearest tree in the same motion. “Ray, kick the boat out with your feet as hard as you can. It’s being held by something underneath. I don’t think it’s a spell. We’re going to need a send-off.”
The boys were still trying to get the fan to turn on, with no luck.
“I leave for ten minutes and all kinds of crazy shit happens,” Ray grumbled as he took hold of a big tree branch above his head. Bending his knees, he shoved both feet into the side of the boat with enough force to knock us free. There was a huge crunching noise as something gave from below and we were finally launched into the middle of the channel.
As soon as we were free, the propeller roared to life.
Rourke ducked over the side to check out what had held us. “She must be able to control the trees somehow. The roots were suctioned to the bottom of the boat. There’s a mass of them at the bottom now.”
Ray swung himself from the branch and landed effortlessly in the boat. Rourke took the main chair and steered us around in the small space and zoomed out the way we’d come. Only once we’d reached the end of the cypress trees and were headed into the sawgrass and water lilies did Rourke lower the throttle.
“Okay, now that we’re clear, can someone tell me, in detail, what the hell is going on?” Ray asked. “All traces of you had vanished. There are no smells, no footprints, nothing. That can’t happen. We’re in the middle of the goddamn Everglades. You couldn’t have disappeared that soundly unless you went through a wormhole.”
“That’s a good name for it, because that’s what it bloody felt like,” Danny answered, picking up his jug of moonshine and petting it. “It was like we’d crossed over into a fifth dimension—one without life or love.”
“We’ll explain everything in a second, Ray,” I said. “But first we need to get on the right channel to rendezvous with my dad. Where are they?”
Naomi answered. “Head south”—she gestured for Rourke to turn right—“and follow the tree line. The cypress swamp will stay to our right. There is another channel about two miles farther. They are on another boundary line of the priestess’s territory. Your Pack has set up camp at the very edge.”
“Does my father know we went missing?” I asked.
“Non,” she said. “We had just arrived back at the boat when you emerged.”
“Yeah,” Ray added. “Before we were going to sound the alarm, we flew over the area thinking you went on a hike or found something to check out. But you were nowhere in sight.”
“Did you feel anything strange when you flew over?” Marcy asked. “Any bad mojo?”
Naomi nodded. “Oui, something hit my senses once I flew closer. It was like a dark warning.”
Ray snorted. “Yeah, the air right around where the boat was parked is absolutely full of shit. Like the devil blew his nose all over it.”