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

ear as we hit a fork, waiting until everyone stopped moving so I could focus on the existing sounds. “This way.” I picked the left corridor, trusting my gut and that trickle that scraped at my recognition.

Paying such close attention to where we were going, I nearly jumped out of my skin when Seke’s pinky finger curled around mine. I gave a secret smile of delight at the blind contact, wondering if the settings also reminded him of the day he blindfolded me in the gym. I pushed that from my mind to be reconsidered if — no, when — we got out of here and plowed on.

When the wall began to curve, my heartbeat picked up its pace. “This is it. This is the right way. We’re almost there.” My whisper echoed around the tunnel, but I was walking faster, and the splashing was almost louder.

Seke pulled on my arm. “Slow. We mustn’t be detected.”

Right. This time, I was solid. I was actually, physically here and could be spotted even by my sounds.

I’m actually here. That thought pinged around inside me, doing weird things to my heart. I’m almost with you again, Mom! Now, that was something I never thought I’d say after she’d gone missing during my childhood.

“Shit!” My hands slammed against wrought iron bars as the other shoe dropped. I was solid this time — I couldn’t just pass through the gate at the end of the tunnel.

“Did we go the wrong way?” Cole asked.

“No.” I dropped my forehead against the bar with a clang. “I just forgot about this obstacle. When I came here in my visions, I was able to pass right through.”

“Aria?”

I froze, lifting my head to stare at the room in front of me. Something moved in the darkness, water swished, and a pale face came into view just feet in front of me, materializing out of the darkness.

I swallowed down a lump in my throat the size of Stone’s ego. “Mom.”

“You came. Oh, my sweet child.” She broke down sobbing, her hand pulling mine through the bars and drawing it against her lips. The kiss hit my knuckles at the same time as her tears.

“And I brought help,” I choked out. “I brought my team to free you.” Water dripped down my cheeks, adding to the liquid swirling around our knees.

“Good.” Mom swallowed back her emotion. “Good. Because we’re going to need all the help we can get for phase two.”

“We?” Cole asked at the same time that Raven asked, “Phase Two?”

“You’ve got it,” I promised. “Whatever you need. What can we do to help?”

“First, you can dunk.”

“Dunk? Like in the water?” Raven’s voice was horrified.

“Yes. The wetter you are, the better. You need to fully submerge. Trust me.”

I trusted her, despite not really knowing her.

“What is this, a prank? I see where you get it from, Silver. No, thank you. It’ll take me a million showers to get the smell of shit from my hair.”

“Says the woman who spends half her time in jail cells?” I couldn’t help but quip.

“Better that than the alternate fate.” I could hear my mom’s sarcastic shrug in her tone. “But the choice is entirely up to you, of course.”

As if her words were a cue, that’s when the shouting started above us.

Ember was trying not to enjoy herself. She was a member of the Harbingers of Death in order to ensure peace, to give souls a gentle helping hand into the afterlife. But soaring through the hallways of the mental institution, terrorizing the vampires who were racing to get out of her path was a powerful experience.

Behind her, she left a trail of smoldering wallpaper and flaming stained rugs — not to mention the two vampires she’d managed to ignite already. Ember reveled in the sight, sounds, and smell of the chaos rising in her wake. Nothing could stop her.

I am death, and I am life. I am flame and flesh. I am phoenix. Feel my might.

Once she reached the end of her first hallway, she swooped to loop around and headed down an as-of-yet untouched hall.

Her wingspan wasn’t as impressive as her captain’s — Seker’s hawk was quite exaggerated in size. But the phoenix dripped fire. Flames danced from her feathers and licked from each of her wingtips. She made sure to brush them against any walls and doors. Anything, really. Most things burned at the temperature of her lit form.

The first to crumble to her heat had been the door to the pit in which she’d left Enid. That one had been somewhat involuntary as, by the time she gained wings during her resurrection, she was already engulfed in fire. She had taken out the vampires in the pit first — they’d come to haul her corpse away — then soared up and out of the dank hole, leaving Enid safe beneath the soaked mattress they’d propped against a far wall.

Ember had suggested that she try to nudge the ladder into the hole for Enid to escape, but the banshee had refused, insisting that her daughter would come to that spot, looking for her. The phoenix hadn’t fought her much — the banshee may have seen something — and anyway, the wooden ladder was unlikely to survive Ember’s touch.

“Get out of my way!”

Returning to the present, Ember caught sight of a vampire at the end of the hall where it took a sharp turn, looking thoroughly terrified. He was thrusting humans around the wall and directly into her path as if trying to build a human barricade, placing obstacles in the way to prevent the oncoming tide of burning vengeance.

It worked.

Rearing up, Ember flapped her wings hard, trying to slow her approach. These humans were innocents who were being fed on by the vampires. She didn’t want to harm them. They’d certainly been through enough, considering their bedraggled and malnourished state. But she could do nothing about her incendiary state either unless she was to shut it all down