Kobal
River squirmed in the seat beside me. From the driver’s side, Hawk shifted away from her. “It looks mostly the same,” she whispered as she stared out the windshield.
Resting her fingers on the dashboard, she leaned forward before sitting back again. I placed my hand on her knee when she started tapping her foot on the floor.
“It does,” Hawk agreed.
I’d never been to this area of Earth as the demons had been kept secret from the humans residing here. Dotting the landscape were crumpled and burnt-out homes. Many of the wrecked houses were being reclaimed by vegetation.
“We’ll be there soon,” Hawk said.
River started wringing her hands in her lap.
“Easy,” I said and clasped her hands.
Her eyes were turbulent when they swung toward me. “It doesn’t look all that different, but something’s not right. Ifeelit.”
I drew her closer against my side as Hawk eased the truck over a series of ruts. In the passenger-side mirror, I watched more pickups and a larger truck traveling behind us. Calah, Lopan, Lix, and some of the skelleins rode in the truck following us. Through the trees lining the roadway, the hounds loped beside the road. A shadow fell over us as Raphael circled above, and to my far right, a drakón plunged into the woods to feed.
“Why are the drakón still out there?” River whispered. “Don’t they have somewhere else to go?”
“They’ll move on. They’re feeding as they go,” I assured her as her foot started tapping again.
A thud behind me drew my attention to Erin, Vargas, Bale, Verin, and Corson sitting in the bed of the truck. Caim cawed loudly from where he’d landed beside Corson and shifted into angel form.
“Anything ahead?” I asked through the open window behind River.
“No,” Caim replied. “Nothing that I can see, but I only went so far as the collapsed bridge.”
“What collapsed bridge?” River’s voice took on a hysterical note. The truck slowed further when Hawk’s head whipped toward the window.
“Ahead, less than a mile, a bridge has collapsed into the water below,” Caim answered. “I’m sure it has happened to many of them over the years.”
“The bridge was intact when I left,” River whispered, and her foot tapped faster as she started wringing her hands again. Hawk focused on the road and pressed on the accelerator.
“Careful, Hawk,” I said.
He eased off the gas when the truck was rocked by a series of holes in the pitted road. Chunks of asphalt clanked off the bottom of the truck when the tires threw them up.
Turning back to the window, I met Caim’s gaze. “Stay low enough that nothing can see you in the air, keep to the trees, and stay within a half-mile radius. Tell Raphael to do the same. We can’t risk either of you being spotted if something more than a simple bridge collapse awaits us.”
Caim shifted to soar up to Raphael.
“Something’s not right,” River said again.
“The people on the Cape could have collapsed the bridge themselves,” Hawk said. “It would help keep things from getting over the canal and stop people from flooding onto the Cape again, like they tried to do after the gateway opened. Destroying the bridge could have been a measure of self-preservation. They may have destroyed the other bridge too.”
“Or they could have been evacuated,” I reminded River, “and the bridge collapsed on its own from time and water.”
She barely glanced at me before focusing ahead again. When we crested over the top of a hill, the broken remains of a bridge came into view. River’s breath sucked in; she leaned forward until her nose almost touched the windshield. I rested my hand on her shoulder, drawing her back as I gazed at the twisted pieces of metal sticking into the air. Looking over the embankment, I spotted more of the massive structure jutting out of the water.
Caim landed in the bed of the pickup again when Hawk started down a road running parallel to the rushing current of a canal. The sun lit the dark blue water, and I scented creatures living beneath its surface. The aroma reminded me of River, but this was tangier than her scent, and it left something sticky on my mouth. Curious to the taste, I licked my lips and found it salty but not unpleasant.
“Did you see anything else?” I asked Caim.
“No, it is clear on this side.”
“Good.”
