Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa Read Free Page B

those wolves, and now that old tree is destroyed.”
    “I was just showing our new friend here what we can do,” he said. “Besides, Kate can fix up the tree. Can’t you, Kate?”
    “Trust me, I will,” she said. “ After we take
care
of the wolves.”
    Something howled nearby, the call echoing through the air. It was unmistakably a wolf. A sound like that belonged in the mountains of Montana—not in our town outside of Boston.
    “Come on.” I turned toward the sound and reached for my bow, wanting to be ready in case anything jumped out at us. “It came from that way.”
    “There’s still five of them, right?” Chris asked the guard.
    “Yes,” he said. “From what we’ve seen of their behavior so far, they stick with their pack. There are no lone wolves in this group.” He looked back at where the sound came from, and then eyed us up one more time. “Are you kids sure you’ve got this? You don’t want any help?”
    “Trust me—we’ll be fine,” I told him. “These wolves have nothing on the monsters we’ve killed before. It’ll be easiest if you just let us handle this.”
    He glanced at the tree again, where the smoke was still rising up, the smell of burnt leaves filling the air. “Be my guest,” he said, motioning us to go inside the gate. “If you need any backup, I’ll be here.”
    I nodded at him, and the five of us marched toward where the howl had come from, ready for a fight.

CHAPTER FOUR
    The wolves were gathered in front of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia—a re-created monument in the center of the cemetery that had been built over a hundred years ago to honor the gods.
Since it was under repair, the
statue currently had scaffolding around it
.
According to the humans in town, the statue had been struck by lightning so strong that it destroyed the stone eagle Zeus had been holding. No one knew where the eagle had gone—some of the more superstitious suspected that the god had incinerated it himself.
    We were the only ones who knew the truth of what had happened—how the eagle was part of a scavenger hunt set up for us by the gods. We
had to remove the eagle from the statue to find the clue hidden inside. It was now displayed in our training center in Darius’s basement.
    The statue had been peaceful then. Now, we formed a semi-circle around the wolves, backing them against the statue, giving them no place to run. They growled at us, their glowing yellow eyes staring us down. Their lips pulled up to reveal their teeth, which glinted white in the light of the moon. But I held their gazes, not backing down. If they thought they were intimidating us, they didn’t know who they were dealing with.
    They must not like being backed into a corner, because the wolf in front—the biggest one, who appeared to be the pack leader—pulled back, snarled, and barreled toward us.
    He didn’t make it five feet before I shot an arrow straight into his heart.
    “Three pointer for Nicole!” Chris called out, as if announcing a sports game. “Bullseye.” He threw a knife, and a breeze passed by my face as he used his power over the air to plunge the weapon into another wolf’s heart. “These puppies are making this way too easy for us,” he said with a laugh.
    At that moment, Blake and Danielle charged toward the remaining three wolves, holding their swords in front of them. They swung, and two more wolves were down, the swords  covered in blood.
    Chris pumped his fist in the air. “Blake and Danielle both go in for slam dunks, and they both score !” he said, still talking in his sports announcer voice. “There’s only one wolf left, and there’s five of us.” He rubbed his hands together, eyeing up the wolf. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”
    The wolf must have agreed with him, because it backed itself into a corner, its tail down. I had my arrow strung, ready to shoot, but seeing the animal like that made me pause. Despite the unnatural yellow glow in its eyes, at that moment,