AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Twenty minutes later, Vincent was screaming the same in his face, Icarus shoved against the side of the SUV, all of Vincent’s soldiers in a line behind their boss, ready to tear Icarus apart as soon as Vincent gave the order. “I told Atlas you were a spy. That you were still working with Devlin.”
“How do you get that?” Icarus shouted back. “Do you see him anywhere?” He would have spread his arms if he could, but the cuffs had rematerialized as soon as they’d reached the end of the bridge.
“I don’t seeanyone!” Vincent roared as he did what Icarus couldn’t, spreading his arms and gesturing at the deserted mound of earth behind them. The grass had grown over the layers and layers of shells and bones; this was one of the Ohlone tribe’s largest ancient burial sites, seemingly undisturbed by witches or otherwise. “You lied to us about the message, about the coven being here.”
Icarus glared over his shoulder at Brock. “You and your recon team detected activity here earlier today, didn’t you?”
Vincent wasn’t hearing any of it. “You told them to leave.”
“When?” Icarus shrieked. He glanced at Brock again, then at Atlas. “When was I alone today?”
Vincent held a hand out behind him. “Stake.”
“Vincent,” Atlas started.
“Mind your place.”
Atlas promptly shut his mouth, back under his master’s thrall.
Fuck!
“Someone give me a fucking stake!” Vincent roared again.
The vampire from earlier slapped one into his palm. Fucking traitor. Vincent firmed his grip on the thicker end and drew back his arm.
Icarus closed his eyes and recalled the warmth that had enveloped him last night. Thanked whatever fate had put Adam—Gabriel—in his path and prayed the Devil would keep his sister safe when he was gone.
“Boss,” Brock spoke up. “I don’t think we’re alone.”
Icarus popped open his eyes and scanned their dark surroundings. No one in sight.
Caw.
He looked up and gasped. Crows were perched on every roof and eave of the buildings bordering the streets that surrounded the shellmound.
Watching. Waiting.
“Remember what you said this morning,” Atlas spoke evenly, as if any inflection would shatter the eerie stillness, would turn whatever was going on here into the battle they’d all anticipated. “He’s bait. They’re watching him. For the Devil.” Vincent’s raised arm wavered. Atlas continued to press. “We can regroup and use him like we always intended. We can end this, and then no one will stop you from sucking the coven dry.”
Vincent lowered his arm but didn’t step back. Didn’t give an inch as he seethed in Icarus’s face. “Club Sutro, tomorrow night.” His brown eyes hardened, and Icarus didn’t think he’d ever consider the color lovely again. “You’ll die beside him if it’s the last thing I do.”
THIRTY-NINE
Icarus felt marginally saferon the return trip to YB. Yes, his life was more in danger than ever, but with two fewer tanks in their caravan, crossing the auto bridge didn’t feel like the same death sentence it had the first time. Vincent had left one van of shifters behind to monitor the shellmound, had ordered one north to monitor Monte Corvo, and had taken the wheel of their van headed back to YB. They were in the middle, Vincent riding the bumper of the lead van driven by Brock. Vincent was paying little attention to the vans behind them, unlike Atlas, who had spent extra time securing it before they’d left Encinal and was spending extra energy guarding it still, if the raised hairs on Icarus’s arms and the weakened cuffs around his wrists were any indication.
Maybe that was why Atlas missed it.
Or maybe it was Vincent, in all his awful alphaness, cursing the lead car for driving too slow.
Or maybe it was just the shitty, buckled road beneath their wheels.
Whatever it was, the other two beings in the car with Icarus missed the shimmer of green as they entered the tunnel, the water stains on the cement roof that had been dry less than an hour ago, the sway of the island itself. Warning signs that would have cautioned against swerving out from behind the lead car and charging ahead.
Right into a wall of water that crashed over their SUV, that blanketed the windshield and sent them fishtailing across the bridge.
“Fuck!” Vincent cursed as he fought the wheel for control. “Hold on!”
But he was no match for her strength, for the coven she’d spared, for the spirits and ghosts who’d heeded her call and whipped the Bay around them into a frenzy. Walls of water hundreds of feet high splashed onto the already uneven surface, the entire decaying structure swaying. What had been a dark quiet night when they’d entered the tunnel had, a quarter mile later, turned into a maelstrom.
