“Then you know you have the power to protect yourself from an intruder.”
She looked bewildered, like any nine-year-old girl would.
“Remember how you fixed that broken vase a few weeks ago?” I drew her attention to when she’d been playing with her friend and a very expensive vase shattered on the floor. Rebecca had ordered her to fix it.
“The one I broke when Wendy was here?”
“Mm-hmm. Remember how you made all the pieces spin in the air and come back together only using your mind?” She nodded and I continued. “Well, that’s what I want you to do to the lady if she comes back and tries to hurt you. But instead of willing the pieces back together like that vase, I want you to spin her apart.”
Georgia suddenly looked much calmer. Content. “I’m allowed to do that?”
“Yes, but only if she tries to hurt you. Promise me you won’t do anything unless she steps out of the shadows and comes after you. Then you call me, and I’ll be right here.”
I got up to leave after she agreed. As I shut the door, wondering how to explain to Cabot that his daughter thought she was being visited by a vampire, I realized he would brush it off as a reoccurring nightmare. I wasn’t completely sure myself that it wasn’t, but her comments about my eyes convinced me that Georgia knew what I was. She was an extraordinary child with powers we’d barely begun to discover. I needed to talk to Samuel in private.
Everyone had gone into the living room by the time I returned.
“Thank you for taking care of Georgia,” Cabot said when I joined him at the window.
“No problem. I think she’s seeing things in the dark.”
He snickered. “Didn’t we all at that age?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “You should keep an eye on her. Check in on her now and then so she feels safe.”
He sipped his drink and stared out the window. “I know how to take care of my own daughter.”
I held my tongue but thought it was the perfect time to bring up his less than fatherly addiction. “I went to the auction house today and ran into my replacement.”
The glass stilled at his lips. “So now you know.”
“Really, Cabot. You hired your whore to replace me?”
“Don’t call her that.”
I huffed. “What should I call a woman who sleeps with a married man for money, a job, and an apartment on the Upper East Side? A prostitute?”
“Not here,” he growled.
Samuel walked up and interrupted our conversation before I lost my temper. “It’s been a fun evening, Cabot, but it’s time for me to head out.” Then he looked at me. “I have a meeting in the morning.”
Cabot glanced at his watch. “It’s barely ten o’clock. You’re getting to be an old man.”
“I guess I’m getting old too,” I said. “I’m leaving with him.”
I thanked Rebecca for dinner and said good night to my grandparents while Samuel spoke to Olivia and James, probably to tell them about the impromptu meeting in the morning.
As we walked to the elevator, I gave him the news. “I think we have a problem.”
He snickered. “Imagine that.”
I stopped and turned around. “I’m serious. I think Georgia has a new friend. A very dangerous friend.”
Chapter 22
Hawk was on the terrace when I got home. He looked like a wreck, which was understandable considering he’d just discovered that the woman he’d lived with for over a decade was an imposter who might have killed his younger sister. He’d gone through some of Selene’s things while she was asleep the night before and found a book on dark magic. On a page detailing a spell for inducing suicide, he’d found a dried smudge of blood on the line where the victim’s name was to be written. It was Mia’s blood. He said he could smell it.
“How was the party?”
I shrugged and sat down next to him. “The food was good. Got a few surprises tonight.”
“Oh yeah?”
“My grandmother has been keeping some pretty big secrets, but it’s my nine-year-old cousin who shocked me the most.”
He took a sip of the beer in his hand and glanced at me sideways. “What did she do? Steal a few sips of whiskey while the adults weren’t looking?”
“I think she’s being visited by a vampire.”
The beer almost sprayed out of his mouth. “What?”
“She peed all over herself and walked into the dining room, looking terrified. When I took her back to her room, she pointed to the corner and said a woman has been showing up in her room at night. She said the woman was like me.”
That got his attention. “Like you how?”
“She can see the flicker in my eyes, and she was tracing her finger over my lower lip. It was like she knew there were fangs in there. I’m telling you, Hawk, she knows what I am.”
I’d told him about Georgia and her unusual powers. He also knew about Rebecca’s motives for trying to push me out of the clan so her daughter could eventually take the throne. Now she had the ammunition, and she didn’t even know it—unless Georgia decided to tell her.
He sighed heavily. “We’re a messed-up pair, aren’t we?”
“I think I’ve got you beat. It’ll be all right. Samuel has my back.”
“We all have your back, Morgan. If Georgia outs you, we’ll deal with it.” He shrugged. “We can live together on another deserted island. There are plenty on the East Coast.”
As the silence between us stretched out, I debated whether I should ask him to help us. But the mission was too important not to. “Speaking of islands, the Order is meeting in the morning to discuss next steps. We could really use your help.”
He grabbed my fidgeting hand and squeezed it. “Whatever you need, the answer is yes.”
“We need to know what’s on that island before we go in there to look for the box.” I waited for his reaction. When he looked more curious than reluctant, I continued. “Since you lived out there for a while, I was hoping you’d come with me in the morning and tell us about it.”
“Yeah, of course. I wouldn’t let you go out there without preparing you for that god-awful place. It’s a snare waiting to trap its next victim.”
Suddenly glancing toward the park, he stood up and went to the wall. I followed him and looked out at the sky. There was a dark mass hovering over the park.
“What is that?”
His face went blank, but I could see from the way he was staring at it that he knew what it was. “Flyers. It’s a flock of Flyers.”
They were flying in formation, circling over the area where the hidden stones were concealed from the mundane world. Not a sound came from them as the mass grew wider.
“What’s happening?” I was startled by the feel of talons gently gripping my skin as Fetch descended from the sky and landed on my right shoulder. Hawk was so transfixed by the sight he didn’t even notice the crow.
It’s a procession, I heard him say in my head. The queen is dead.
“Dead?” I whispered.
Hawk turned and saw Fetch on my shoulder. “It’s the queen, isn’t it?”
I nodded and watched as the Flyers suddenly sped up. They circled faster, forming a giant funnel over the park. As if being sucked into the center stone, the funnel pulled toward the earth, eventually disappearing into a wisp. And then nothing.
Spatza had gotten her wish. She was free.
“Are you suggesting we just waltz over to that island and start browsing around for the box? And live?” James didn’t seem very happy with my idea, but he was also misinterpreting what I was saying.
“No. But we’ll have to tear that island apart eventually if we want to find it, and I’d prefer not to do that blindly.”
Samuel nodded. “What Morgan is suggesting is that we take a little trip out there to get the lay of the place. Then we’ll have a fighting chance of making it out of there alive when we do look for that box.” He glanced at Hawk. “And we have the perfect
tour guide.”
Hawk looked around the room as he suddenly became the center of attention, which clearly made him uncomfortable. I couldn’t tell if it was modesty or the unwarranted shame he felt for being homeless on that island for months. Probably a combination of both.
“Hawk and his sister lived out there for a while after his mother died. It was a safe place for them at the time.” I left it at that. He could elaborate more himself if he felt like it. “He’s going to help us navigate the island and buildings, so we’ll know our way around when the time comes.”
James sank deeper into the cushions of the sofa and propped his boots up on the coffee table. “Why don’t we just get a map of the island?”
Hawk stared at him for few seconds and then proceeded to tell him why that was a useless idea. “Will your map show you where the overgrown hedges will cut through your skin like butter? Or where they’re so thick you’ll get lost in them? And then there are the sinkholes and the ghosts.”
James got a curious look on his face and swung his feet off the table. “Tell me more.”
“North Brother Island is more than just a bunch of abandoned structures crumbling to the ground—it’s a living hazard. The island is slowly returning to what it was before civilization got ahold of it and turned it into a quarantine hospital over a century ago.”
“It’s off-limits to the public,” Jakob said. “And for good reason. The place is in ruins.”
Hawk continued. “The island is overgrown with ivy so thick you can get stuck in the stuff. You can be standing in the middle of a growth of trees and shrubs and not even see one of the buildings twenty feet away. That’s why a map won’t do you any good. And then there are the buildings themselves. They’re falling apart. Step on the wrong spots, and you’ll plummet to the floor below and give yourselves away. If you want to get in there and look around without being detected, you’ll need someone who knows the island intimately, and there aren’t many who do.”
“You mentioned ghosts,” James said, squinting.
Olivia snickered. “My brother isn’t afraid of much, but ghosts make him a little nervous.” She cut her eyes to him. “Chickenshit.”
He cocked his eyebrows. “You’re damn right they do. Once you’re dead, you’ve got no business hanging around. And the ones who do are up to no good.”
Hawk got an ominous look on his face. “You have to keep in mind that the island was the last place most of those people ever saw. Most of them were sent there to die. It was their home, and it still is. Not to mention the ferry that sank off the coast of the island over a century ago. A thousand people drowned in those waters.”
“Shit,” James muttered. “This is starting to sound more like a haunted-house visit than a scouting trip.”
“Most people can’t see the spirits, but my sister and I could. We could hear and talk to them too. That’s why they tolerated us. Helped us maneuver the place when we first arrived. They were our eyes until we got to know the island, and now I’ll be yours.”
“What about snakes?” Olivia asked. “Because snakes are a deal breaker for me.”
Hawk chuckled. “Then I guess you won’t be coming with us. You’ll run into plenty of spiders out there too.”
“Well, I like spiders.”
James shot her a wicked grin. “Now who’s the chickenshit?”
“I have to warn you though,” Hawk said. “After the hospital was shut down in the thirties, it was used as housing for World War II veterans. Some of them are still around, and they think they’re still fighting the war.”
Olivia scoffed. “They’re dead. How dangerous can they be?”
“Spirits have their ways. Just don’t engage if we run into one.”
Samuel steered the conversation back to more practical matters. “Vikktor has another fundraiser scheduled for tomorrow night. Some thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner downtown starting at eight o’clock. We’ll have a three-hour window to get a good feel for the terrain, figure out where their lair is, and get the hell out. But I suggest we be conservative and give ourselves two hours max.” He looked at Hawk. “Can you get us in and out of there in that time frame?”
Hawk nodded. “As long as everyone follows my lead. It’s easy to get distracted out there.”
Samuel glanced around the room at his team. “Hear that? No fucking around.”
Edward, who had been quiet during the entire conversation, spoke up. “It’s not enough. We can get past a handful of guards left behind to watch the place, but if Vikktor and Ryker return early with the rest of the brigade, we won’t see them coming. Unless one of you has an invisible drone handy, we’re going to need eyes in the sky to keep watch.” He glanced at Hawk. “Got any shifter friends with wings we can trust?”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I have the perfect bird for the job.”
Chapter 23
The Order convened at the brownstone just before eight p.m. when we knew Vikktor and his guards—including Ryker—would be at that expensive fundraiser downtown. For a thousand dollars a plate, the crowd would expect their candidate to entertain them for at least a few hours. But as Samuel said, efficiency was the name of the game tonight. We’d be in and out in two hours max.
After volunteering Fetch to be our scout for the evening, I had to actually find him. Fortunately, he found me. When I got home after the meeting the day before, he was waiting for me on the terrace. I’d been thinking about him hard enough to nag at his head and bring him flying to the penthouse. So there he was, perched on the wall, back to Mothman proportions.
Fetch’s job was to circle the island and watch for signs of movement other than ours. If he saw anything that even hinted of a Caspian, he would warn me. I’d known his ability to get inside my head would come in handy someday.
Samuel commenced with the pep talk. “They’ll have several guards at all times on the island, so don’t think you can go in there and get cocky. That box is the equivalent of the Holy Grail for the Caspians. Stay quiet and in the shadows.” As he was heading for the door, he turned around to say one more thing. “We’re not looking for the box tonight, but if we happen to stumble across it, Edward or Morgan gets it.”
“Why?” James asked.
“Because both of them have Caspian blood. If that box has a ward placed on it, they might be the only ones who can get it off the island.”
Everyone nodded in agreement as we walked outside.
“There’s an old dock on the west side of the island. Meet me there,” Hawk said to Samuel. Then he turned around and spread his arms wide before shifting and flying into the sky.
We headed for the island right behind him. Halfway down the block, the city vanished, then reappeared from across the East River. The rusted metal structure sticking out from the pier looked more like a death trap than a place to land a boat.
“That’s a dock?” I whispered to Samuel.
“Five or six decades ago it was.”
As the others arrived, the sound of a bird got our attention.
“Come on,” Samuel said. “That’s Hawk.”
We headed toward what I could only describe as an endless wall of overgrown bushes and trees, distinguishable only because of our exceptional vision, mine still razor-sharp almost a week after drinking Jules’s blood.
James pulled out that map Hawk had told him would be useless. He squinted at it and looked around. “You sure we’re on the right island?”
I cringed as his voice carried.
Samuel snatched the map out of his hand and put his index finger to his lips, shutting him up instantly. Olivia grinned at her brother but was smart enough to not make a sound.
Hawk came through the overgrowth a minute later and beckoned for us to follow him. I kept glancing up, wondering where Fetch was. He should have been circling the island long before we got here. Just when I was about to follow the others into the sea of killer weeds, he descended from the sky and buzzed my head. A few seconds later, he landed on a li
mb in front of me.
The island of souls is worse than I remember. Watch out for the woman in green.
Woman in green? Before I could shove the question in his head, he was back in the air and sailing out of sight. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.
After getting my foot caught in a tangle of ivy trying to catch up to the others, the reality of the place set in. Thank God we’d all taken Hawk’s advice and worn heavy boots. Even heavier than the ones we wore with our ninja outfits for hunting Night Walkers. Those would have been sucked beneath the vines by now.
Time seemed like a foreign concept on the island, tricking me into thinking we’d been walking for nearly an hour when I knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. But the one thing that was crystal clear was the need to get in and out as fast as possible. Now we just needed to find something that resembled an old hospital.
Hawk abruptly stopped and nodded straight ahead. He parted the overgrown shrubs, and a building came into view. Not in the distance—directly in front of us. The growth was so thick we couldn’t see the structure from half a dozen yards away. It was a two-story house, covered from ground to roof with dead vines that looked like a mop of stringy hair cascading over the facade. In the window on the second floor, I saw something move.
“Hawk.” I called him just loud enough to get his attention. When he turned around, I pointed to the window.
He groaned and backtracked to where I was standing. “Ignore her,” he whispered. “Don’t look her in the eyes.”
“Who?”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me with him to the front. As we continued past the house, it took every ounce of willpower I had not to look back up at the window because I could feel her eyes staring down at me.
We kept to the side of the next building and headed for the hospital. That was where Hawk suspected the Caspians had set up their lair. But as I looked inside, I couldn’t fathom why anyone would actually choose to stay in this decaying place. Hawk and Mia had been young and desperate, but the Caspians were wealthy and had access to a swank apartment on the Upper East Side.
Savage Sons (House of Winterborne Book 2) Page 19
