The drive to the parcel was twenty minutes on a normal night. We did it in twelve.
I was in the lead car, Merrick driving, two of the fighters in the back. The convoy behind us—four vehicles, armed, headlights off past the gate—ran silent through the dark of the estate road and then silent through the stretch of old forest that bordered the parcel.
I saw the fire before we cleared the trees.
You couldn't miss it. The sky above the parcel was lit from underneath in a wrong color—not the orange smear of a normal forest fire, not the red glow of something burning you'd expect, but gold, shot through with a cold, deep blue that pulsed, actually pulsed, the way a heart pulses, and off-rhythm with anything a fire should be doing.
Merrick said, very quietly, "What the hell?"
"Keep driving."
"Alpha —"
"Keep driving."
We broke from the trees into the clearing, and the whole scene opened up in front of us like a stage.
