The Source: Book III of the Holding Kate Series by LaDonna Cole

that they were speaking a different language. Kate came out of the bedroom yawning with her hair disheveled. Chaps ground his jaw at her, then pierced Corey with a frustrated glare, and cocked an eyebrow. Corey ignored him.
    “We will take these warriors and head back with Chaps. You all come in the other cart when you are ready,” Dirk commanded.
    “I’m ready. I’m with you.” Tara ran out of her bedroom, braiding her hair.
    Trip grabbed their weapons from the corner, and they rushed out. Kate and Corey ran to dress and follow closely behind with the others.

    Rolling to a stop beside the Staying Well, they gawked at the chaos. It looked like a war zone. Smoke billowed from the windows of the Administration Mansion, and dead giant insect carcasses littered the ground. They didn’t seem as scary in the rising sun as they did in pitch black the last time Corey encountered them. But still, giant insects!
    Spheres popped in and out, leaving the impression that the sky was polka dotted and raining sand. Some spheres materialized then fizzled out before they delivered anything.
    Eunavae yelled in Ampelese. “Brashtor, Drayse, with me!” They charged into the cornfield maze after some scampering scorpion monsters.
    “Kate, stay close. I don’t trust this.” Corey took her arm and led her to the porch of the Mansion and peered through a window.
    Donnie and Mel ran up behind them with Krenne and Manifus. “Is everyone out?” Donnie cried.
    “We need to check upstairs!” Corey glanced at Kate and the two pregnant women. “Kate, take Mel and Krenne and set up a first aid station in the Doc’s office.”
    To Krenne and Mel he spoke in Ampelese. “Guard my wife. She is most likely the target of all of this. I will be right there.”
    Krenne nodded and took Kate by the arm. Mel led them to the Doc’s office in the heart of the village.
    Donnie and Manifus had already entered the burning building. Corey followed them in with sword drawn. He broke the glass on the fire hose and dragged it into the tea room and began spraying the base of the flames near the oven. It appeared someone had flipped the gas on and tossed something flammable into the kitchen. An explosion circumference radiated from the stove.
    That disturbed him. It indicated intelligence. He didn’t think the zombies would be responsible, definitely not the insects, maybe the dragons.
    Smoke billowed through the shattered windows, but there were no more flames. He called up the stairs to Donnie. “Fire is out! All clear.”
    “Got it!” he called back down.
    Corey shut off the hose and pushed through the door to Mama Ty’s office to make sure it was empty. His attention was drawn to the painting over her desk of three beautiful women and a small child. The tall blonde woman in the picture was Starlythe, the leader of the Cheleuthi band. His eyes lingered on the young child with spirals of red curls. That would be his great-great-grandmother, Shanna Wisenberg Wilson. She had been known as Tsian the Wise.
    Corey had looked at that painting many times and never realized its significance. It must have been commissioned by his great-great-grandmother on her return from her quantum jump to Ampeliagia. Just how intricately are the two worlds connected?
    Another loud gong sounded outside. Corey ran to the porch and started down the steps when another sphere dropped right in front of him. He skidded to a stop and leapt back to see what horrors would emerge. The swirling glass shards fell to the ground and he let out a shout. The enormous hairy body of a giant Cyclops towered, gazing down at him with his beady eye. Mucus drooled from every orifice and the stench of dead cattle assaulted the air.
    “Ho! Need some help here!”
    Donnie and Manifus ran down the steps, skidding to a halt beside Corey. Their eyes took the same trip up and they stood gawping at the giant. He blinked his hideous eye, appearing confused. He panned down and roared.
    “Kate! You Kate?”