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“And we can’t afford to let Vincent capture you and find out what you are,” Robin added. “Go to the roof and provide cover. Be the backstop.” He didn’t give Adam a chance to argue further, turning and moving out, joints cracking, the shift complete by the time he crossed the threshold.
Icarus’s departure was even more abrupt. A rough, hard kiss, the cell phone shoved into his hand, a “Don’t fucking die” mumbled against his lips, and then he was gone, disappearing after Robin.
Everything in Adam screamed to follow, a physical pull the likes of which he’d never felt before. An almost painful amplification of the tug he’d felt that night in Club Sutro when Icarus had first approached him, when confusion, desire, and betrayal had converged to spark an awareness inside him that he’d been unable to ignore. At the time, he’d glared over his shoulder, trying and failing to back fate off, but Icarus had sauntered right into his space, right into places Adam had held reserved for others. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way about anyone else. He was supposed to take what Deborah and David had given him and use it to end Vincent. Burn in the process so he could join them.
None of that was going to happen if he stayed there, if those fighting for him outside, including Icarus, lost this battle. And fuck, they were too close to ending this to lose now. Adam checked his weapons were secure, then staying low, he dodged more magic on his way out of the study, down the hall, and up the stairs, emerging two flights later onto the roof and slinking across the narrow widow’s walk on hands and knees. He reached the edge, hidden in a dark corner out of the moonlight, and lifted his head enough to peek between the rails, raising one pistol enough to be at the ready.
Jenn in coyote form, Abigail in mountain lion, and the rest of the pack were handling the shifters. Cormac and his corvid brethren had one of the warlocks virtually walled off, which left the two vampires and the purple-orb-wielding wizard to Robin and Icarus. Off the field of battle, they were practically enemies, but faced with a common foe, Robin and Icarus were an impressive pair. Two incredibly powerful beings, two creatures with unrivaled attack instincts and training. Adam knew Robin had it and had glimpsed a hint of Icarus’s at the Canyon Lands, but seeing both in action now, Icarus held his own beside Robin, the two of them working together to dismantle one vampire, to swiftly stake the second, and to dodge and deflect the warlock’s magic as they closed in on him.
Movement to their left caught Adam’s eye. A bobcat broke through Jenn and Abigail’s line and charged in Icarus and Robin’s direction, leaping for Icarus’s blind side.
Adam fired and instantly knew the lead bullet wouldn’t reach the cat before the cat reached Icarus. He let more of the leash go, fire and heat licking off his fingertips, forming an invisible mire between the cat and Icarus and slowing the former’s speed enough for the bullet to catch up.
The bobcat fell and howled at Icarus’s feet.
The warlock ceased his spell casting long enough to see where the other had come from, zeroing in on Adam’s location. He got as far as raising his arm before Cormac slammed into his face talons first. Robin crashed into his body and took him the rest of the way to the ground, and Icarus finished it, ripping the warlock’s head clean off with one twist of his hands.
Victory vibrated through him, through the heated stare he shared with Icarus, until Adam realized something on his person was actually vibrating. It took a second to breach the fog of adrenaline and realize what it was. Icarus’s phone in his pocket. Her. He shoved a hand in his pocket, withdrew it, and glanced at the screen. To the picture that appeared in the encrypted chat. Vibrations of a different sort took over, and he followed his sinking heart to his knees.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Well,this explains why Vincent didn’t send Atlas.”
Adam barely heard Robin’s words over his thundering heart, over the flapping wings of the thing inside him desperate to beat their way out and wrap their warmth around the vampire frantically pacing the length of the cellar he’d had no choice but to retreat to. The rising sun had trapped Icarus, preventing him going after the one person Adam knew he put above all others.
Including him.
“What does he want?” Jennifer asked. “There’s no ransom request, no message, just the picture.”
The picture—a smug, grinning Atlas with his arm around the shoulders of a much shorter woman with long green hair and hazel eyes, only the slightest creases at the corners, far fewer than one would expect on a woman who, by Adam’s math, should look closer to fifty than thirty.
Adam circled one end of the cellar table. His legs were steadier now, the battle rush of adrenaline faded, the initial shock of that picture internalized, the pain he’d felt for Icarus better tamed though no less intense. He leaned a hip against the side of the table near where Icarus was pacing. “Did they take her to leverage you?”
“I don’t know.” Icarus stopped in front of him, his eyes wild with fear and with self-recrimination Adam recognized all too well. “Maybe. Fuck!”
“Why else would they take her?” Adam asked, sensing that he’d finally get the whole truth now, that Icarus was either ready to share it or had no choice.
It would be the latter, judging by the frustrated twist of his lips, as if they’d sealed in the truth for so long that his body was fighting to keep it in still. “For her own power. Because I fucking showed it to them.”
“You both did,” Cormac said, rejoining them from upstairs where he’d been questioning two of the shifters they’d detained. The rest of Vincent’s strike force, including the other warlock, had retreated. “You showed them yours tonight,” he said to Adam. “And you”—he jutted his chin at Icarus—“showed them hers at the Canyon Lands that day, didn’t you?”
Icarus’s eyes slipped shut, a powerful cocktail of guilt and fear pinching his features, answering Cormac’s question. The raven had been right.
“Which is what?” Adam asked more gently than Icarus was being with himself.
“If they don’t know already, and they find out...” He covered his face with his hands and roared, loud enough to rattle the metal tanks and light fixtures. Everyone in the room took a step back.
Except Adam. “Icarus, what power?”
He lowered his hands and opened his eyes, locking his gaze with Adam’s and drawing whatever strength he needed, everything Adam had left to give him. A slight nod, a silent thank-you, before Icarus shifted his attention to Cormac. “You weren’t wrong about me putting my hand to the ground and asking for help. That’s exactly what I did. And she answered.”
“Your sister?” Cormac said.
“Nature.” His blue gaze returned to Adam’s. “Her name is Mary, and she’s Mother Nature.”
TWENTY-NINE
“Mary and Michael Rollins.”Cormac dropped a bulging file folder onto the cellar table and flipped it open. “Crossed paths the first time at the homeless teen shelter in Portola. In 1979.” He withdrew two photos and slid them to the center of the table. Teenage versions of the blue-haired man and green-haired woman from the picture on Icarus’s phone, except in these older shots his hair was the color of carrots and hers was so dark brown it was almost black. “Michael was fifteen, Mary was fourteen.”
