“Why did you not tell us this sooner?” I asked eventually.
Zerus clasped his hands even tighter, the knuckles turning white with the pressure.
“I vowed I would not return to Hellswan,” he murmured. “The end was coming—the end of our time on this land, and I wanted to spend my last days alone with the stars and the silence. Forgive me, brother.”
I stared at him, not knowing how to react. In the past, I would have dismissed him as a coward. I was angry at his reticence—receiving this news earlier would have perhaps enabled us to use it to our advantage—but I understood his reasons. I could not hate him for his attempts at self-preservation; our selfishness was a family trait, clearly, and I couldn’t blame him for a fault that was so alive in me.
“Get some rest,” I bit out.
Zerus nodded, and Field escorted him to a quiet spot away from the waiting armies, before leaving to return to his brothers. The sentries, particularly those who had resided at Hellswan, whispered to one another as he passed, but they did not speak to him.
I turned my attentions to the matter at hand.
“More proof that the visions are genuine,” I observed to Derek. “This is good news.”
“Indeed,” the vampire replied, his blue eyes following my brother as he sat down on a rock, his cloak pulled tightly around him. “If Jenus has been trying to communicate with the two of you it must mean he’s semi-conscious, or has moments of lucidity. Which leads me to believe that the entity is not as powerful as we first thought, or that it is spreading its power too thin.”
I agreed with the latter. If the entity was maintaining the energy of the shadow army and manipulating the body of Jenus, then its powers would be unfocused. No wonder it had only appeared in battle at certain times—it was holding back, allowing its armies to do the work.
“So really, it’s similar to what it did with Benedict—just a stronger form of possession?” Hazel asked.
“I think so.”
“Then let’s hunt it down,” she replied. “Let’s find a way to expose that weakness.”
Derek smiled at his granddaughter. “I couldn’t have put it better myself. Let’s move out.”
He gave the order; the sentries and the GASP members divided into their assigned teams, and we all moved toward the portal.
It was time to hunt down my brother.
Derek
Corrine led us down into the portal. We followed the tunnel of blueish-gray swirling mists, strong air suction pulling us along the portal till we saw the uncharacteristically blue, sunshine skies that covered the North Sea. I followed after Corrine, clasping Sofia’s hand; Rose, Caleb, Tejus, Hazel, Ashley and Landis followed behind us, and behind them, twenty sentry guards and ministers who would be fighting alongside us. Once we reached the ocean, Corrine held us suspended in the air. She muttered a few words under her breath, and a moment later we were standing on a wide road that faced the six columns of the Brandenburg Gate.
Tejus and the rest of the sentries looked around them in amazement—I’d forgotten that their kind had little experience with witches, and the powers they possessed. Tejus glanced over at Corrine, half impressed, half mistrusting. Corrine smiled warmly back at him while Hazel hid a small smirk.
Either side of us, completely obscuring the lush greenery of the park on both sides of the road, were hundreds of tourist buses, each with a capacity nearing seventy. The crowds that had gathered at the base of the gates were huge, and no doubt there would be more of them in the huge courtyard on the other side of the structure.
“It’s swamped,” Sofia murmured, her forehead creasing into a frown.
“I don’t see anything yet,” I muttered. “Maybe there’s time to clear the area.”
“Maybe I can do something,” Corrine added. “I can probably invoke a spell that would make them think of leaving, something that would repel them…but it would take a little time.”
I thought about the witch’s suggestion. I wasn’t sure if we had time for a spell that subtle—we needed something that would make them move immediately.
“Corrine, can you do something to get their attention? Maybe bust the alarms on these vehicles?” I gestured to the rows of tourist coaches.
“Certainly,” she replied. A moment later we were all deafened by the sounds of high-pitched alarms erupting from each of the coaches.
“Let’s get moving,” I yelled over the noise, pointing toward the gate.
A couple of overweight men with wrap-around shades were running toward the coaches, but it hadn’t had the impact I’d wanted. We kept moving toward the gate—the tourists were dispersing too slowly.