Matt Archer: Bloodlines (Matt Archer #4) by Kendra C. Highley Page B

could I keep that promise?
     
    * * *
     
    We reported in to Colonel Black as soon as we got back and
he gave Davis the order to let me use one of his precious computers to email my
sister. Without much left to do but wait, we spent the next few hours musing
over the rest of what Carrie had spilled.
    “We were right about the gap,” Dad said, after I’d explained
her remark about there being five in the circle. “She was supposed to sacrifice
herself with the others, but didn’t. Once they were dead, she ran.”
    Uncle Mike frowned. “And left the kids?”
    “That’s what I said,” I told him, still a little pissed off
about it. “She said finding Ann Smythe was the priority and something about
being followed while following.”
    Funny enough, Dad seemed to understand what that meant.
“She’s on Ann’s tail, but she’s being watched by Ann’s people. She was right;
we shouldn’t have come. I’m glad she wasn’t seen with us.”
    Will, who’d been quiet a long while, asked, “What did she
mean by ‘break the chain’ and the legions and all that, do you think?”
    “My guess is that the eclipse is going to be rough,” I said.
“She said they ‘called them all’ and that we’re the only line of defense.”
    “I didn’t think there was any doubt about that in the first
place,” Will said. “But here’s a question. Those pentagrams around camp were
really far apart, right? They covered what, more than twenty square miles?”
    “Something like that,” Uncle Mike said.
    “We didn’t have to drive too far to escape their power, did
we?” He shrugged. “I was possessed at the time, so I don’t remember that well,
but it didn’t seem like we were on the road long enough to break free.”
    Everyone froze. “How far apart where the pentagrams, in a
straight line?” I asked.
    “Five miles,” the colonel said, pulling out a copy of Aunt
Julie’s notes. “They found four of them.”
    “There should be five then, right?” Will asked. “If Carrie
was supposed to be part of the ritual? Five points, five miles, five
pentagrams. Where’s the other one?”
    “Davis!” the colonel called.
    A few seconds later, Davis strode into the tent, casting all
of us a pinched look, like our very presence was screwing up his electronics.
“Yes, sir!”
    “Pull up the map Captain Tannen was working on before she
left.”
    “One star chart, coming right up, sir.”
    “Star chart?” I said. “We’re not telling horoscopes,
Sergeant.”
    Davis paused in his typing to glare at me, then flipped on a
monitor and spun it to face us. Four dots, at perfectly regular intervals,
formed a grid across the desert floor. Our camp had been right on top of one of
those points—the lowest one. As I looked closer, I realized what we’d been
missing.
    “There should be a fifth pentagram.” Dad caught it too. “And
it should be close by.”
    Because the dots, if you added one a few hundred yards away
from our current camp, made a perfect pentagon.
     “Johnson, take a few men and go find it for us,” the
colonel said.
    After he left, I asked, “But if we’re on top of one, how was
Tink able to come back online?”
    Dad took a ruler and did some quick measurements on the
screen, ignoring Davis’s watchful gaze. “So imagine that each of these
pentagrams can send waves of…something.” He traced a circle around one with a
finger. “Its influence would extend in a radius, right?”
    I nodded. “And they would overlap, covering the entire
pentagon and part of the area outside of it.”
    “Right…but Carrie didn’t complete the ritual, so…”
    He gave me an expectant look, totally like Mamie would when
she wanted me to make a connection. I almost laughed at the irony, but told
him, “The final star is dormant. It’s a dud.”
    “That has to be it,” Uncle Mike said. He smiled at Will.
“Good thinking, Cruessan.”
    Will nodded, staring straight ahead, and Mike’s smile
drooped. The tent went quiet and