The woman who’d first spoken to them came over, her gait hurried and her face filled with worry. “All we’ve done is try to keep the demons at bay. Nothing more. And look how you’ve ruined our efforts. How could you lead our enemies here?”

She winced after saying it and stumbled a step backward, holding a hand up to her temple. “How could you?” she whispered.

“I’m really sorry,” Alec grumbled as he stepped around her and moved toward the fire. There was a long piece of wood that was half in and half out of the roaring flames. He picked up the unburnt side and held the thing up like a torch. “This ought to make ’em think twice before they try anything. Come on, kid.”

Mark looked back at the woman, who was obviously experiencing head pain, and things began to click into place.

“I said come on!” Alec yelled at him.

In that moment, dozens of people came tearing out of the surrounding woods with fists raised in the air, yelling. There were women and men and children, all with the same crazed expression of rage mixed with glee. Mark-sure he’d never seen anything like it-sprang into action, following Alec’s lead and grabbing a log out of the fire. Flames erupted from its tip as he swung it through the air, and he held it in front of him like a sword.

The wave of attackers crashed into the rows of singers, jumping on them with animalistic cries of battle. Two men leaped into the air and straight into the bonfire. As Mark watched in horror, their clothes and hair ignited. Screams tore from their throats as they stumbled out of the flames, but it was too late. Engulfed and burning alive, they ran out into the woods, sure to set the whole forest on fire. Mark turned back to the chanting villagers. They were being beaten and choked, he was surrounded by chaos-it was too much to take in.

“Mark!” Alec screamed from nearby. “Not sure if you noticed, but we’re being attacked!”

“Please,” a woman cried behind Mark, “take me with you.”

He whipped around to see the lady who’d ordered them beaten, and almost burned her with the end of his torch. She seemed transformed, meek. But before he could respond they were suddenly in the middle of what seemed like a thousand-person fistfight. Mark was pushed and shoved. To his surprise, he realized that it wasn’t just the new people versus the old. Many of the attackers were actually pummeling each other-he saw a woman fall into the fire, her screams filling the air.

Someone grabbed Mark by the shirt and yanked him to the side. He was just about to rear back with his weapon when he realized it was Alec.

“You have a knack for trying to get yourself killed!” the man yelled.

“I didn’t know where to start or what to do!” Mark countered.

“Sometimes you just act!” He let go of Mark’s shirt and they took off in the same direction-up the slope, away from the fire. But there were people all around them.

Mark swung his torch in front of him as he ran. But then someone tackled him from behind; he dropped the burning log and landed facefirst in the dirt. An instant later he heard a thump and a cry of pain and the body flew off of him. He looked up to see Alec bringing his foot down from a kick.

“Get up!” the man yelled. But the last word had barely come out of his mouth when he was slammed to the ground by a man and a woman.

Mark scrambled to his feet, grabbed the torch he’d dropped, ran to where Alec was struggling with his two attackers. He drove the burning point into the back of the man’s neck-the guy screamed and grabbed his throat, falling off Alec. Then Mark hauled the log back and swung it as hard as he could, connecting with the side of the woman’s head. All Mark could hear was fire burning as she toppled off Alec.

Mark reached down, grabbed Alec’s hand, helped him to his feet.

More people rushed in on them. At least five or six.

Mark whipped his log around, forgetting all control and just handing himself over to instinct and adrenaline. He smacked a man, then pulled his weapon back around and hit a woman right in the nose. He drove it forward at a man coming straight for him, thrust its tip into his stomach and watched as his clothes ignited.

Alec was next to Mark. He was punching and kicking and elbowing and picking people up, tossing them away like bags of garbage. At some point he’d lost the torch he’d grabbed, too busy using both hands to fight off the attackers. The man was every bit the soldier he’d once been.

An arm slipped around Mark’s neck from behind and yanked him off his feet, started squeezing the breath out of him. Mark gripped the log in both hands, then hammered it backward in desperation. He missed, pulled it back, then tried again, swinging it with every bit of strength he could muster while the oxygen rushed from his lungs. He felt the solid blow as he connected, heard the crunch of cartilage and the man’s scream. Sweet air rushed into his chest as the arm loosened its grip.

Mark fell to the ground, sucking the life back into his lungs. Alec was bent over to catch his own breath. They had a slight reprieve, but one look showed that more people were coming their way.

Alec helped Mark to his feet. They turned up slope and half crawled, half climbed into the thicker cover of the trees. Mark heard the cries of pursuit behind them-these people didn’t want anyone escaping. He and Alec hit a spot that was a little flatter and burst into an all-out sprint. And that was when Mark spotted it, about a hundred yards ahead of them.

A huge section of the forest was engulfed in flames.

Between them and their camp. Where they’d left Trina, Lana and Deedee.

CHAPTER 27

The trees and shrubbery of the woods were already half dead-a tinderbox ready to light up. It had been a few weeks since the last torrential storm, and anything that had regrown since the flares was parched. Misty tendrils of smoke bled along the ground at their feet, and the smell of burning wood laced the air.

“It’s gonna spread like wildfire,” Alec shouted.

Mark thought he was joking, but the man looked grave. “It is a wildfire!” he shouted back.

But Alec had already started running straight toward the distant flames, which seemed to have grown in the moments since it had begun. Mark set off after him, knowing they had to make it to the other side of the inferno before it got too big-they had to get to Trina and Deedee and Lana. The two of them tore through the undergrowth, kicking past thick briars, dodging trees and low-hanging limbs. The sound of pursuit still rang out from behind, but it had lessened, as if even their deranged pursuers understood it was crazy to head into a forest fire. But Mark could hear lingering catcalls and whistles haunting the woods.

He ran on, throwing all of his focus into making it back to Trina.

The fire got closer, crackling and spitting and roaring. A wind had picked up, fanning the flames; a huge branch toppled from far above and crashed through the canopy, throwing sparks everywhere until it finally hit the ground. Alec continued to head for the heart of the blazing section of woods, not slowing down, as if his one final goal was to run to a fiery death and end it all.

“Shouldn’t we veer off?” Mark shouted up to him. “Where are you going?”

Alec answered without turning back and Mark had to strain to hear him. “I want to be as close as possible! Run along its edges so we know exactly where we are! And maybe lose those psychos while we’re at it!”

“ Do you know exactly where we are?” Mark was moving as quickly as he could, but the soldier still stayed ahead of him.

“Yes” came the curt reply. But he pulled out his compass and looked at it as he ran.

The smoke had grown thicker, making it hard to breathe. The fire took up Mark’s entire field of vision now, the flames close and high and illuminating the night. The heat surged out in waves, washing across Mark’s face only to be sucked away by the wind gusting from behind him.