Mature content doth be below. I try to keep it reasonable, but the nature of the subject doesn’t make it necessarily easy to accomplish. So consider this the warning. Language and Gore follow. It isn’t a blood-fest, however.
Ames held her mouth in place with grim determination. It wanted to droop open with shock, and her lips had never felt dryer.
She knew now that something was very, very, VERY different about this man that worked with Bronski. She barely noticed Bronski telling her to keep quiet. It was the stones that Jordan was taking out of his trunk.
They glowed.
Not like light or anything. There was strange writing that glowed softly on the skin of each of the stones. It wasn’t just writing, but that was the closest thing she could think of to describe it. When Jordan moved his hands along the writing, she committed all her formidable mind to memorize the motions. When he used the same pattern on each of the blocks, she knew that he was entering something. To her eyes, it reminded her of someone entering a PIN on a keypad, but way more complicated.
When he finished the fourth one and stepped back, she could feel the stones watching him with unseen eyes. She knew they were alive in an incredibly real way. She was desperate to ask about those words and the pattern, but Bronski told her to shut up. So she kept her mouth shut.
With what came in the next few minutes, she completely forgot that question. She had…