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ChapterTwenty-Six
The roar of the helicopter thumped over the racing pulse in Perry’s ears.The agony of leaving Vori crushed him more than any Senate prison torture had.He’d stared at his queen beneath the Hollywood sign until the dust and smoke blocked his view of her.
The city stretched out below in black shapes and lumps.Pinpoint lights shone, likely powered by generators.And the flames—the writhing, greedy flames that carved across the valleys echoed his desperate need to be back with Vori.His gut twisted and pitched, and he clutched his stomach.
The pilot’s voice cut through the mics to crackle in his headphones.“Don’t puke this way.The smoke and gusty winds mean this’ll be a choppy ride.Not that you deserve any better, but my Legacy does.”The man glanced at Delia Donovan.
Ah, the half-witch, half-human, all-Marine boyfriend who Perry had almost blasted out of the air along with the witch sisters.No wonder the man hated him.But now, the animosity was mutual.The man had pointed a 9mm at him, at Vori.“This vomit-inducing bullshit?It’s not motion sickness.It’s being kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to abandon my wife.”By the powers, she was all he could think about.“She needs me more than you right now.”
“I doubt that,” Delia said.“How’d you con a supermodel into marrying you anyway?”
He wanted to lash out with his magic, but that wouldn’t get him back to her any faster.“Who the hell volunteered me for this mission?”Because seriously, he couldn’t be anyone’s choice to save the world.
“It was my idea.”Delia’s admission shocked him.
“Why would you do that?”
“You’re our best chance at restoring the electricity.We’ll get you to the main grid of power lines serving the city.It’s up to you from there.Prove me right in trusting you after you’ve almost killed me, my sisters, my fiancé.”She tipped her head in the pilot’s direction.“Mark Cavan.But you two have already met briefly.”
Mark twisted in his seat, taking his eyes off the flight deck to glare at him.“One wrong move, one wrong twitch, one wrong word, and I’ll shoot you.We’ll see if you can fry your way out of that.”
The helicopter dipped, slamming Perry against the harness.Ugh, he was on everyone’s hit list.Yet another reason he didn’t want to stay in the human realm.That and his goblin queen.“You’re pissed.I get it.We don’t like each other.I’m good with us never seeing each other again.But I got a sniper-served invitation with a target on my chest, on my wife.So why am I here?”
Delia pointed toward the fires raging in Hollywood.“A human organization wants supernaturals dead.They hacked the systems of the power distributors for Los Angeles.All electricity gone in an instant.Air traffic control, signal lights, hospitals.Everything went down; dozens died in crashes the first few minutes.Then, the arsons started.”
“Damn.”It didn’t make sense.“We’ve had riots, uprisings, and protests before, but nothing like this.What triggered the firestarters?”
“The same organization.Burning, looting, shootings—all part of a master plan to paralyze the city.They wanted to create chaos.”
Like Petra.Mass-scale craziness to achieve some demented mission.“Why?What’s their goal?”
“We believe it was to draw supernaturals out.”
“That makes no sense.The Senate would never allow witches to expose their magic.”
“Your Revelare killed most of the Senate.The rest need to learn that their old ways won’t work anymore.”Delia shook her head, her headset glinting in the panel lights.“My sisters and I contacted Vori’s demon-hybrid cousins and the shifter pack alphas to coordinate a cross-species response to the fires and attacks.We’re scrambling to figure out what our witch government’s future might be.Hopefully a better one.”
A more tolerant one if they were working with demon hybrids and shifters.Perry couldn’t believe it, yet he had no plans to stick around and see.“If you’re trying to prevent magic exposure, why use my powers to restart the power grid?Wouldn’t that be playing right into their plans?”Any human who saw Perry sparking electricity from his fingertips would be bound to ask questions.
“We’ll minimize the risk.”She waved a hand toward the flames.“It’s what we’ve been doing all along.My sisters are on the ground doing what they can to stop the destruction, and we have the second-best hacker in the city working to reverse the systems failures.”
“Why not the first best?”Perry asked, the sting of being forced to come aboard this save-the-city mission at the worst time turning his question sharp.“He bail for someplace with electricity?”
“She’smanaging the fires at ground zero.”Her tone was glacier cold.“She’s my sister.One you tried to kill.The hacker working with us has holed up in the bookshop where your dad works.”
The knots already cramping his stomach seized as if his whole body might shut down.First, he’d had to leave Vori, and now the Senate had an insider behind the wards with his father?“I don’t know anything about a bookstore.”He didn’t hesitate with the lie.“My dad’s an exile.The Senate banished him years ago.But I’ll take that pardon for him.”
Delia turned and stared at him.“Your father almost got my other sister killed in the prison break he staged to get you out.Since then, Mitch has been working with us, providing information.I think we’re past the whole lying about his exile.We tried to reach him tonight, but he wasn’t at the bookshop.The store’s demon owner is watching the ley lines.If your dad shows, we’ll tell him we found you.For the record, I argued against the Senate’s execution orders for you both.”
She’d argued forhim?His intended victim had fought on his behalf?So much had changed so fast.He still wasn’t talking about his father with a Legacy witch.He leaned to look out the window.“Are those tanks?On the city streets?”
“Nope.”Mark brought the chopper lower.“They’re armored fighting vehicles.”
“Which look like tanks to us civilians,” his witch said.“Troops were deployed into the city twenty-four hours ago—barking orders over megaphones, handing out supplies, but not knowing what’s causing this or how to fix it.”Knowing truth, justice, and the witchy ways of Delia, she could probably understand the horror Perry felt hearing that LA was occupied by the military.“There’s a curfew, but we have an exemption.”
“Hold on,” Mark told her.“We’re going in.”
They circled a neighborhood with houses crammed on top of each other.This part of the city usually bustled with bumper-to-bumper traffic, pedestrians filling the sidewalks, buses running people from home to work, bicycles weaving between cars.Tonight, the chopper’s spotlight swept from empty postage stamp–sized yards to deserted streets to boarded-up shop windows.“I’ve never seen LA like this.”
