Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2) by LeAnn Mason (book club reads .TXT) 📕

of nourishment. “Eat.” With a flick of the offering, she impressed upon Ember the need to regain her strength.

Ember snagged the stale bread, continuing to take stock of their assets… if anything about their location could be called one. “So, what can you tell me about our situation?”

“What can you tell me about my daughter?” the woman returned with surprising ferocity.

Ember was surprised for only a second. “You had a vision, I presume?” It had been a while since she’d experienced a banshee… who wasn’t an annoying newbie. “She’s fine. A giant pain in the ass, though,” Ember murmured, biting off a large hunk of the bread. Her jaw strained to break down the tough fibers, the movement making her head pound. Deciding that the calculating look in the woman’s eyes meant that Ember needed to expound, she added, pushing the bread wad to her cheek, “But she’s a good woman. A good harbinger.”

“So, it’s happened. The rune’s magic wore off? She’s come into her power?”

The woman’s defeated countenance suggested she’d known as much, so Ember nodded but didn’t give details. She swallowed the dry bread with difficulty. “Can I ask why you bound her?”

“I had seen what the vampires were capable of, what lengths they would go to get their hands on banshees for one reason or another. I didn’t want her on their radar. I thought… hoped she would have an easier life as a human.”

“While I understand where your head was at—” Ember had experienced the uprising of vampires Enid was referring to, though she could only imagine the endless horror of being hunted by them. “—Aria’s had a… rough life without parents, a life the complexity of which was exponentially compounded the moment she began finding herself drawn to death while screaming bloody murder without knowing why.”

Ember wasn’t sure if she should be saying any of these things to her cellmate, but she felt a blaze of respect and sympathy toward her newest teammate. Maternal instincts were prone to rear up in one for whom death only brought on more life. Being unable to shut them down entirely, a bit of word vomit had been known to arise.

She cut off any defense Enid might have. Now wasn’t the time to get into family therapy. “We need to devise our escape plan. Here’s all you need to know about Aria for right now: She’s leading a mission to find you. I know my team is out there… somewhere. Probably doubling their efforts now that I’ve gone MIA. We need to do all we can to help. So, what can you tell me about these damn bloodsuckers? Anything that will help us get out of this predicament?”

“Gerard did mention your two ‘friends,’ but I don’t think they have them yet. As for helpful tips… vampires are already dead, so it is extremely hard to kill them permanently as you may know already.” Her voice rose at the end in question, inferring that the long-lived would probably have some knowledge.

“I do,” Ember said. The only true way of offing the undead was to sever the entombed soul from the body, which only began to detach once the body suffered enough harm to warrant what a normal being would die from. Their vital, and stolen, life-blood having left the animated corpse enough to render them immobile. “We’re going to have to get physical.”

“Very. And if the soul isn’t reaped at the right moment…”

Ember finished for Enid. “It will be reabsorbed yet again, and the vampire will continue its unnatural existence once it heals. Yeah, well, we don’t exactly have an extractor on hand, so perma-death probably won’t be happening unless our captain shows up.”

And that wouldn’t exactly be ideal. They’d wanted to rescue Enid, but it would be worse if they all got themselves stuck with Enid. They’d been so stupid to split up. They knew better, had been trained better.

“I take it you haven’t had a handy vision about how we escape from here?”

Enid shook her head. “Not yet.”

Ember’s frustration began boiling, causing her temperature to rise. Steam curled in wisps along her exposed skin.

Enid stared at the tendrils, a look of dawning comprehension taking over. She rolled onto her knees, leaning toward Ember’s side of the dilapidated cot, making ancient, rusted springs creak and groan.

“May I?”

Ember raised a questioning brow but nodded. Perhaps like Aria and the ring, Enid could stimulate a vision by touch?

Reaching out a hand, Enid clamped surprisingly strong palms on Ember’s skin. “Fire.” The woman grinned, a sort of blue fire igniting behind her own tired eyes. “Burning the vampire bodies is extremely effective. It is a favorite form of torture amongst their kind. Tell me, am I looking at a firebird?”

Ember could see the steel that was at the core of the bedraggled banshee and knew exactly where Aria had come by hers. Satisfied with her new team, she confirmed Enid’s suspicion and inferred the plan with a small nod, without breaking eye contact. Her lips tipped up.

“Gimme a couple of hours. I’ll have it toastier than Hell in here.”

“What do you mean you split up?” I shrieked at the unsteady hellhound.

My tone was starting to register within Cole’s inebriated noggin above the steady thumping of the loud music, and he blinked forcefully in an attempt to focus.

“Why the fuck would you think getting drunk was a good idea right now, anyway?” I turned away from the infuriating man to keep from knocking him on his ass in the middle of the crowded club.

It was dark except for the stroke-inducing strobe lights pulsing with the beat of remixed hip-hop songs. They blared from monstrous speakers set up near an elevated DJ table in the rear of the building where they’d found Cole wrapped around a small, curvy, mostly naked chick. It had been a spectacle to walk in on as they groped each other in a great show of teeth and tongues.

With a steadying hand, Seke ushered Cole past