Gordo sighed as he sat back in his seat. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll just give up.”
“Yeah,” Mark said. “Maybe.”
Forty-seven minutes later, I saw the sign.
CASWELL
EST. 1879
I closed my eyes.
chaos
Caswell looked no different. The buildings were the same. The trees were the same. Even the birds sounded the same through the open window.
But there was a change, one I didn’t even realize until Gordo spoke. “Stop the truck.”
“What?” Ox asked. “We’re not—”
“Ox. Now.”
He pulled over to the side of the road
near the movie theater and parked against the sidewalk. Gordo was out of the cab even before Ox turned off the engine. He stood on the sidewalk, head cocked.
Ox glanced at me and shrugged before climbing out himself.
Mark and I followed. I looked back to see the others pulling up behind us, cars and trucks shutting off. Wolves and witches began to fill the sidewalk. Aileen and Patrice went to Gordo, eyes wide.
“You felt it too?” Aileen asked.
Gordo pressed his hand against the front door of the movie theater. “Yeah.”
“What is it?” Joe asked as he stretched, arms above his head. “Is this it? I thought there were walls.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t the compound. It’s still a little ways off.”
“Then why are we—”
“Wards,” Gordo muttered before stepping back from the movie theater. “There are no wards.”
I blinked. “Wait, what?” I stepped up next to him even though I already knew he was right. I hadn’t even realized as we’d crossed into Caswell, but we should have hit Livingstone’s wards already. “Shit.”
“They should be here, right?” Gordo asked.
I nodded. “We should have run into them a mile back.”
Patrice muttered under his breath in a foreign tongue, fingers twitching, eyes oddly vacant. There was a soft burst of color in the air in front of him that faded as quickly as it’d appeared. He said, “Dey were here. Dey’ve been dismantled.”
A murmur went up around us. “Why?” one of the Omegas asked. She shifted nervously. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s inviting us in,” Aileen said. “He wants us to come. He knows he has the upper hand.”
“Great,” Rico muttered. “That’s just great. Hey, guys. Idea. Let’s not walk right into the trap the crazy witch has set up for us. Huh? Right? Any takers? Anyone at all?” He sighed when no one spoke. “Fucking werewolves.” He crossed his arms and glared at the sidewalk.
“It is what it is,” Aileen said. “We knew it would be this way. We planned for it. It’s why you waited for us to come to you.” She glanced at the other witches. “We’ll use containment magic as best we can. Ox will attempt to gain control over the Omegas. The rest of us are support. Stick with what we know. No deviations.”
“Is it always this empty?” Kelly asked me, looking at the buildings. Others were uneasily peering in through the windows. “It’s like this place has been abandoned.”