My first thought: Cruz was right.
My second thought: I wish he wasn’t.
In Los Angeles, the Hollywood Bowl is a popular venue for outdoor concerts. I can already picture the white domed amphitheater that sits in a giant crater dug out from the scrubby mountaintop, wooden benches rising up all around the hillside. It seems crazy that the last time I was here I was watching Lady Gaga strut around in a bedazzled leather bikini, and now I’m back to stop evil sorcerers from sacrificing my best friend.
Zeke slams on the brakes just outside the lot—any closer and our headlights might be spotted shining over the top of the sunken amphitheater.
Bishop and I hop out of the backseat as the rest of the caravan screeches up behind us.
The acrid smell of smoke fills the air, black clouds of it rising up toward the fat moon. Anxiety grips my chest. The rebels start running toward the wide stone steps that lead down to the theater.
“Stop!” Zeke hisses. “We go through the trees. It’s sparse cover, but it’s our best chance to get close before they see us. This is the closest we’ve ever come to crushing these guys—let’s not ruin it because we didn’t think it through.” She raises her eyebrows at her people. They nod. Sporty huffs, but thankfully she doesn’t spend twenty minutes arguing and just follows orders.
We move through the cover of the ash trees on the hillside. Some areas are thickly wooded, some are so barren we have to dash ten feet across open land before we’re covered by another patch of trees. Adrenaline courses through me as we crest the top of the hill. The Hollywood Bowl finally comes into view through the trees.
Wooden benches wrap around the mountainside like in Los Angeles, but here, where the amphitheater is supposed to be, are a dozen or so massive rectangular stones in a large circle like some sort of Stonehenge. Hundreds of sorcerers holding torches that send huge orange flames into the sky form a second circle around the stone formation.
I don’t see Paige, or any of the other humans.
“We need to get closer,” I whisper.
Silently, we move across the hill. It’s pretty amazing how well we work together when everyone shares the same goal: stop the Chief.
The closer we get, the louder the chanting becomes. I don’t recognize the strange language they’re speaking, but I know it’s the same one the Priory used in the swamp ceremony after homecoming. I shudder.
We need a plan. Though we have the rebels on our side now, we’re only just over a dozen people against hundreds of sorcerers. Like Bishop said, we can’t go in guns blazing and hope for the best.
We reach a point in the hillside where the tree cover ends abruptly. There are a few single ash trees sticking up here and there, but nothing that could hide a baker’s dozen of rebels. We hunker down and look out over the hill.
What I see sends a chill into my bones.
The sorcerers sport the same dark brown robes that the Priory wore during the ceremony in the swamp, except over their heads are the skins of dead animals. I spot a wolf, a bull, a bear. Something about the sheen of the pelts, the dead, glassy eyes, and the mouths opened in perpetual roar tells me they didn’t pick these up at a costume supply store.
Their bodies jerk and sway in a strange, primal dance that makes my stomach clench.
I still don’t see the humans. And then one of the sorcerers moves just enough that I catch a glimpse into the inner circle.
And there they are.
My heart sinks. Now that I know what to look for, I can make out the distinct shape of dozens of people crowded around what looks like some sort of altar.
But they’re not dead. We’re not too late.
The sorcerers sway in time with their chanting, the slow drumbeat pounding hard as their voices rise to a crescendo.
Bishop and I huddle with the rebels, watching the sorcerers through a break in the trees. This would all be so much easier if the sorcerers weren’t crowded around the humans, making so many options—namely, bombs and guns—too dangerous to try.
“What are they doing?” Eminem asks. “That looks like some weird shit.”
“They’re trying to open a portal to another dimension,” I answer. “And they’re going to sacrifice all those kids to do it.”
“That’s bullcrap,” he says. “No way can they do that. That’s creating energy.”
“Well, something tells me they’re going to try it anyway,” Pixie says.
They bicker back and forth, and I can feel my blood pressure mounting by the second.
But before I can suggest they sort this out later in couples therapy, a blast of heat and light flashes up into the trees. I cover my eyes from the searing white, as screams from below pierce the air. The sorcerers’ chanting sputters to a halt. Through my spotty vision I can make out the robed men and women shielding their eyes. The light winks out, the air still pulsing where it had been.
All of us gape down at the scene.
Holy. Crap.
The sorcerers resume their chanting.
“We need to do something,” I hiss.
“All right,” Bishop says. “We split into two groups. One goes around the side of the hill and creates a distraction. The Chief will send sorcerers to investigate, and while their numbers are down, the second group will attack.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say. “Zeke?” I look over my shoulder at her. She’s watching the sorcerers thoughtfully, almost as if she hasn’t heard us.
“Zeke!”
She looks up suddenly.
“What do you think of the idea?” I say.
“It’s good.”
“All right, let’s do it,” I say.
Bishop reaches up to brush a big branch out of our way, but his hand pauses in the air.
“Move it.” I give him a little shove. “There’s no time to waste!”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t move an inch.