They shouldn’t have been able to shift, not with copper restraints, and yet, they were, and they were all freeing themselves now, and the room was filled with howls and roars and snarls.
Coral’s wrists were free, and she sat up and concentrated on the tree roots that were tearing at the straps on her feet.
Several guards rushed in to the room, leveling their rifles, but before they could fire, freed shifters hurled themselves through the air. Shots cracked through the air, and she heard the yelps of injured shifters and the horrified, gurgling screams of guards.
The shifters who’d been shot were scrambling to their feet, and the smoking holes in their bodies were healing rapidly. They shouldn’t have been able to do that. The guards undoubtedly were using silver-coated bullets, which should have killed the shifters within minutes.
All of her straps were ripped to shreds now. Coral scrambled off the able and ran over to Frederick, who’d shifted into coyote form but was still normal size.
Frantically, she looked around for Blanche and Maybelle. The beds they’d been strapped on to were empty, turned on their sides, and two grizzled gray wolves roamed the room, snarling and snapping at the retreating guards.
The ley line flare up was affecting them all differently, she realized. It had turned the descendants of Original Shifters into gigantic shifter monsters. It had given Frederick the power to shift into animal form even though he was restrained by copper. And it had enhanced her formerly puny magic powers to an incredible degree.
In his animal form, the straps were too big to hold Frederick, and he leaped to the floor. More guards were rushing in to the room, and one of them paused and aimed his rifle right at Frederick.
Coral concentrated hard on the vines that were shooting over the walls, and one of them snaked around the guard’s neck. He let out a strangled scream and the shot went wide, missing Frederick by several feet as the vine hauled the guard up into the air, and left him dangling there.
*
She’s not dead, she’s not dead, she can’t be dead, Flint thought frantically, loping in to the grove.
Up ahead, he could see the other Enforcers, rushing towards an astonishing scene.
At first glance, it looked as if there were a hillside rising up in the forest, but it was clearly a camouflaged building covered with vegetation. No wonder the Enforcer’s flyovers hadn’t been able to locate Metamorph’s facility from the air.
Vines were swarming up over the side of the building like snakes. Tree roots were shooting up out of the ground, wrapping around men in camouflage. The front door of the building lay on the ground.
There were close to a hundred armed mercenaries there, and two choppers lay on the ground. Flint could see vines wrapped around them, pulling at them, as if the vines had risen from the Earth and grabbed the choppers from the sky.
There were a dozen enormous shifters battling with the mercenaries. The shifters were impossibly huge, like something out of a movie. Gunfire cracked, and shifters fell and then staggered to their feet.
Flint and the other Enforcers dove into the fray, shooting mercenaries, shouting at them to surrender.
But where was Coral? Flint looked around frantically. He couldn’t see her anywhere.
“There!” Rory shouted, pointing.
Coral, stark naked, with a bandage on one leg and bleeding from her arm, stood in the middle of the fight. She held up her hand, and roots shot up from the ground, and wrapped around a mercenary who’d been aiming his rifle at an Enforcer. The mercenary let out a strangled scream and then the roots pulled him down into the ground and he disappeared into the Earth.
As Flint raced towards Coral, he saw a flash of brown burst through the bushes, heading straight for her. Melinda. That crazy bitch.
He knew now what had happened back in India. They’d never been able to figure out who’d betrayed them to the local bandits. Clearly, it had been Melinda – she’d set them up so she’d be able to rescue Flint. Enforcers had died because of her actions. She’d be going to prison for the rest of her life.
He shouted a warning and raced to intercept her, reaching her just before she closed in on Coral. She swung towards him, her eyes glowing a strange, crazy red. With mighty blows from his paws, he knocked her down and slammed the side of her head so hard that she slumped unconscious into the dirt.
Then, quickly, he shifted back to human form.
“Are you all right?” he cried out. Coral turned to look at him, dazed.
“Did you see what I can do now?” she asked. She turned back towards the fighting, which was dying down. A mercenary was running away, heading for the tree line, and she pointed her finger at him. A tree root shot up, tripped him, and then wrapped around his ankle. The root climbed higher and higher, and held him dangling upside like a pi?ata ten feet off the ground.