Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) by Kendra C. Highley Read Free Book Online Page A

find?”
    She pulled out a digital camera, removed the memory stick
and pointed at Mike’s laptop. “It might be better to show you.”
    While we waited for her to pull up her pictures, Julie said,
“Good call on sending me out there. Your theory was right—the campsite was
marked.”
    The first photograph was shot from outside camp. Scorch
marks from grenades and bullet casings covered the ground. “This was where that
last porcupine monster was lurking.” She changed pictures to a close up of
prints in the dirt. “Their tracks came from the northeast and, from the spacing
further out, they moved fast.”
    Julie moved to a new image. “These are the Dingo prints.
They came from the northeast, too.” She glanced at me. “Now for the strange
part.”
    The next photo was of a large, flat rock at the edge of
camp, near the clearing we’d made for the helicopter to land. That had to be
where Will was standing when Dad, Julie, and her crew came in. We’d been
covering them to make sure they weren’t ambushed as they disembarked.
    The next picture was of the same spot, but the rock had been
moved. A pentagram was burned into the dirt underneath it. The edges were
scorched and jagged, but the symbol was completely symmetrical, and there was
something wrong about its perfection.
    “Just like the one in Africa,” I told Uncle Mike. “Exactly
the same.”
    “That’s not all,” Julie said. She flipped through four more
pictures—each one with a different pentagram. “There were four of them
surrounding camp. The first one was the only one right next to our perimeter,
but they formed an open square around us. The one in camp was the top ‘point’
so to speak.”
    “How far apart were they?” Uncle Mike asked.
    “Five miles,” she said. “Once we found the second one, we
had a better idea how to look, but that’s why we were gone so long.”
    “Five miles…about when I felt Tink coming back online,” I
said. “Whoever left these symbols laid a trap for us.”
    “Like they knew where we’d be,” Johnson muttered. “But how?”
    I was beginning to understand why the coven worried Dad.
Knowing approximately where we’d camp in an area the size of Missouri without
intel wasn’t natural. Not by any stretch. “I don’t know, but I bet our answer
will be at the coven.”
    “It’s the only lead we have,” Uncle Mike said. “Captain
Johnson, I’d like your team to stay here and watch over Cruessan in case those
Dingoes come back.”
    “If anything happens, I have a feeling Will might still be
useful. Don’t count him out,” I told them.
    “Never crossed my mind to think that, Archer,” Johnson
stood. “I’ll let Cruessan know.”
    So this was it; I’d known Will and I would be split up at
times on this mission, but that didn’t mean I liked it. No matter what I told
the officers, I hated the idea of leaving Will here, blind and exposed. But we
had to go. It was our only hope.
    “Chief, are you up for going tonight?” Uncle Mike asked.
    We’d been talking about going in the morning, when we had
the protection of sunlight, so this switch had me surprised. “Why?”
    He quirked an eyebrow, an expression that always sparked off
a mix of dread and excitement in my gut. “Because they’ll expect us to come
during the day.”
    Not the most sound logic in the world, but I had to admit I
liked it. “I seem to have Dad’s willingness to skate the edge and your habit of
making risky choices. I’m in.”
     
    * * *
     
    “You sure you’re okay?” I asked Will an hour later.
    He stood tall, but it looked to me like he’d lost a few
pounds in the last two days and there were dark circles under his eyes. I
decided not to tell him about the tiny circle of white hair that had appeared
on the back of his head, a spot the size of a quarter that stood out against
his buzzed-short black hair. Being blind was enough to go on for now.
    He clenched his jaw and I wondered if he’d bark at me about
pitying