I licked my lips and grasped the book. Power leached from it. Oily, heavy, seductive. It whispered of untold magic, promised that all my desires would come true. Wow. I’d never felt anything like it. Indigo rose inside me to gaze at the tomb.
“It lies,” she said. Her voice escaped my mouth, coming out in the multilayered cadence that sounded terrifying.
Sebastian took a step back. Hudson’s gaze narrowed as I lifted the book and gritted my teeth.
My shoulders relaxed as I drew the heavy book to my chest and I let out a steady breath. I grinned and spun to exit the cave. In the tunnel, a shadow moved, jerky and uncoordinated.
I squinted and lifted my phone to shine a light down the dark passage. Dirt crumbled from the wall as something broke away from it.
“Is that a skeleton?” Sebastian whispered.
“For a vampire, you’re awfully skittish,” Hudson mused.
“Skeletons aren’t meant to move, Principal.”
The skeletons formed a barrier between us and the outside world. “I guess when stealing a book of evil, you should expect the unexpected,” I said. “How hard can it be to beat a bunch of bones?”
“Have you seenJason and the Argonauts?” Hudson asked.
“Of course,” I said. “But I am starting to get concerned with your obsession with aliens and mythology.”
“It’s only a myth if it doesn’t exist,” Hudson said with a nod at the cluster of skeletons. “And they most certainly do exist.”
Pulling the satchel open that was slung over my body, I shoved the book inside it and fastened the buckles.
A skeleton broke free from his buddies and launched an attack, coming straight for me. They were probably keyed into the book, and since I had it, that meant they were going to focus on me. Hudson smashed his fist inside the skull. The skeleton gripped his arm and Hudson let out a surprised yelp as he jerked away, a scorch mark burned into his forearm. Of course, they couldn’t just be normal skeletons—they had to be burning ones, because my life wasn’t hard enough.
“Now what?” Sebastian said. His features had sharpened as he released his own inner monster to deal with the danger ahead.
We were trapped. Hudson could possibly barrel through them with sheer strength, and if we were quick enough, we could follow behind him and trap the skeletons inside the tunnel. But that would hurt him. Indigo pushed against my flesh. Clearly that plan wasn’t acceptable.
“Let me out,”she roared.“I will protect us all.”
I closed my eyes and sank inside my own mind, letting her free. I just hoped I could dial her back before she exposed us to the world. My flesh tore at my back and I cried out as my wings erupted from my spine. I grew taller, making the linen trousers rise, and my teeth sharpened into terrifying points. Indigo narrowed her eyes at Sebastian as he swallowed and held her gaze.
“This is your creature?” he asked as his hand reached out to touch one of my hundreds of feathers.
Indigo snapped them to her back out of his reach. “I’m Indigo, vampire, Cora isn’t here right now. I will protect my mate and you because Cora cares if you live, but only my mate touches my wings.” Huh, she was fussy about who touched her wings. Interesting.
“Good to know,” he grumbled.
Indigo crouched and dug for the element she was attached to. Fire licked up our arms, but it didn’t burn us. She pushed it out along the tunnel and the skeletons froze, their mouths opened in a silent scream as they burst into ashes.
“There are no souls,” Indigo complained. I guess it was good to know those skeletons were mindless machines and not souls trapped in a nightmare. “And that was far too easy.”
She led the way out of the tunnel, finding a ladder had been dropped from the hole to help us up. Indigo tensed then pushed off the ground with her wings, flying up to join Babu. He fell back from her, landing on his ass as his eyes widened. Sebastian and Hudson used the ladder to join us.
“He has a soul,” she said, causing Babu’s mouth to fall open.
“You can’t have him,” I instructed her. Her eyes rolled so hard, I felt them looking at me inside my mind.
We moved between the shelves and up the stairs, spilling out into the blistering sunshine and straight into a group of elementals waiting for us. They were spaced out amongst the rubble. People milled around, side-eyeing the elementals with suspicion. My grandmother’s army had waited for us to retrieve the book and were now planning on taking it from us. They remained clueless about the creature they faced, if they held the knowledge of the horror coming for them, they wouldn’t be here.
Hudson and Sebastian spanned out around me, just as Michael Glaister stepped forward. His long sweeping leather coat went with him whether he was braving the icy wings of Hell or the fiery temperament of the Middle East. Damn it, my grandmother had sent The Hound. This was going to be tricky.
“He’s dangerous?” Indigo asked with a tilt of her head.
“Yes, but don’t kill him, my grandmother would not stop until she’d sacrificed us all on her altar of self-proclaimed righteous ruler ship.”
