But he looked at me like I was crazy. "Hell, no. I'm talking about losing another lass. First it was Mac. Then Mim. Now Whitney. Who am I gonna kiss when I win the next game of Parcheesi?"
I didn't know how to answer that one. I just knew it wouldn't be Whitney.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next day was sunny and relatively warm for a winter day in Colorado. But it was early March by this time so spring was coming up fast.
After the girls got out of school, we grabbed something to eat and drove to Idaho Springs in two cars, MacKenzie's Jeep and Whitney's van. Up at the Bonanza, Reason and Elaina were waiting for us, Elaina's little white Rabbit parked on the frontage road in front of the deserted complex.
The sun was just beginning to drop behind the mountains as we pulled up. Everyone involved in the mission wore dark clothing so we could blend into the forest and so that those of us in the air wouldn't stand out against the night sky. We had a Plan A for launching a rescue outside the mine and a Plan B to go inside. We were all carrying flashlights, but after what had happened the last time we attempted a mine rescue, we were definitely hoping to catch Chaos outside in a Plan A scenario.
Of course, Dare and Mim had briefed us on what we might expect to run into inside the mine and a number of potential booby traps, some of which surprised us. They told us that it wouldn't be hard for Chaos to turn an ore chute into a weapon of mass gargoyle destruction. And they reported that it was common for a mine to have at least two entrances to allow ventilation of the mine workings. Yeah, that information would have been real useful during our last rescue attempt.
Havoc had sharpened all of our knives. He'd found a hard flat stone on the driveway and had gone to work…until MacKenzie noticed what he was doing and showed him the knife sharpener on her electric can opener. After that, he got the blades finished in no time. And Whitney had turned up with a couple of spears she'd made out of old ski poles, honing the tips to a deadly point. I just looked at her in awe. We are truly a match made in heaven. Or maybe hell. Either way, we're definitely made for each other.
Anyhow, per our plan, we put our people into position. Valor scooped MacKenzie into his arms and headed for the tree-covered slope on the other side of the highway. Dare, Victor and Reason followed while Havoc and I stayed with the girls in the van and used the binoculars we'd brought with us to watch the opposite side of the valley.
We had a backup plan to lure Vilschka and Chaos out of the mine if necessary, but we were hoping they'd come out to hunt at the end of the day. Either way, all of our plans revolved around MacKenzie and her powers as a witch. She'd woken Valor a couple of times in the past, helping him make the change from his stone form to his living form without the aid of direct sunlight. She'd also brought Reason back when he was locked in his stone form and unconscious. But she'd never tried to do the opposite. She'd never tried to change one of us to stone.
So she'd spent the last two days practicing. She started with Valor. Not surprisingly, she didn't have much trouble turning him to stone and back again. But Val was a more-than-willing subject. He wanted her magic to succeed. So, when she was done with him, she tried her powers out on the rest of the pack. One by one, she turned us into our stone forms and back again. Which was damn weird. And unpleasant. I hated the feeling of not being in control.
We discovered that if we fought the change, we could slow her down and she needed a larger source of wood to increase her power. A small rod of wood was enough when she was working with Valor. But she needed a chunk of wood as big as a rolling pin to put me under. And Victor was the strongest; she needed to be in contact with a wooden chair to change him. This was a little troubling since he's Chaos's brother. And Chaos is strong-willed like his other brother, Reason. In addition, he's hot-headed, wild and unpredictable. Not a very reliable mix of personality traits. But hopefully, we'd catch Chaos by surprise and he wouldn't have a chance to fight the change.
The upside was that MacKenzie would have a huge source of power available, because she was going to stand with her back against a live tree, which would also hide her and Valor from sight. Dare, Reason and Victor would be hidden nearby.
Needless to say, we were all wearing our latex gloves to hide our scent. Dare was dressed in the dark hoodie and jeans that Elaina and Reason had picked up for him. The rest of the pack went bare-chested, giving us the flexibility to open our wings and fly, or close our wings and hide as needed. And none of us were wearing shoes in case MacKenzie needed to work her magic on us. If she had to turn us to stone, then a thin layer of the material beneath our feet would turn to stone too, fusing us to that surface…assuming it was something solid like rock and not soft like snow or loose soil.
"There they are," Elaina announced in a low murmur. She was kneeling in the empty space behind the driver's seat. We'd removed the seats from the middle of the van to make the room we needed for Chaos.
Sitting in the driver's seat with Whitney on my lap, I turned my binoculars in the direction Elaina had indicated and searched the darkening sky.
"Are you sure that's her?" Elaina questioned me in a strange voice. "I mean, are you sure that's a harpy?"
"What do you mean?" I muttered, puzzled by her question as I found the two winged figures and followed them across the sky.
"She doesn't look anything like the creature that attacked Rees and me. She's not ugly."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded a little more forcefully.
Elaina frowned behind her binoculars. "Well, she's…she's not beautiful, exactly. But she's…magnificent."
"Magnificent?" I echoed, thinking she was crazy.
Lowering the binoculars, she handed them to Mim.
Mim braced them against the van's window. "You're right, Elaina. She doesn't look like the harpy we ran into in Limon. She's not like Nitschka."
"She looks like a cross between Pink and the Statue of Liberty," Elaina murmured.
I frowned and peered through the binoculars again. I didn't know who Pink was but the thing looked like a harpy to me. Big, ugly and dangerous. Just watching her made my skin crawl. I handed the binoculars back to Havoc so he could weigh in.
"Ugh," was all he said, a shudder vibrating through his frame before he handed the binoculars to Whitney so she could have a look.
As we watched, Chaos and the harpy circled higher then separated, probably so they could cover more ground during their hunt. Obviously, this was a lucky break for us but not entirely unexpected. Vilschka didn't need to watch Chaos too closely. She was wearing his rune and he was bound to her. She wasn't worried that he'd try to leave her, ever.
A harpy's hearing isn't any better than a human's so we had that working for us. But their eyesight is damn good. So we couldn't make our next move until Vilschka was turned away from Chaos. But we had to watch out for Chaos because he'd be working against us and he'd warn Vilschka if he saw or heard anything suspicious. And his hearing was as good as ours.
On top of that, he also has exceptional night vision like Valor. So our advance unit had to be silent and stay out of sight in the shadows of the trees while waiting for the harpy to circle slowly away from Chaos. We got lucky again when she dropped toward the ground in a sudden dive, disappearing beneath the treetops.
Chaos was still circling above, over a wide expanse of deep snow when MacKenzie turned on her magic. The power of the red worked. Frozen in mid-flight, he fell from the sky, plunging into the snow with barely a whisper of sound, the white stuff falling in around him and almost hiding him from sight.
Several hundred feet away, Vilschka lifted above the trees again, a small bundle of fur locked in the deadly grip of her talons. The unlucky rabbit was meant to be her dinner for the night. A meal she might share with her captive gargoyle if she was feeling generous. Or if she didn't want him to starve to death.
The harpy cawed for Chaos, doing a sweep of the slope and probably looking for him. Everyone in the van held their breath, hoping she wouldn't search
too long before she decided to check back at the mine. As we watched, she landed on the other side of the valley and folded her wings over her monstrous frame. When she disappeared inside the mine, Reason and Victor swooped up the mountainside and pulled Chaos from the snow. Gliding low to the ground, they wove through the trees toward us.
As soon as Victor and Reason got to the van with Chaos, I grabbed a quick kiss from Whitney. Then Havoc and I opened our wings and took to the sky with our sharpened ski poles. While we handled the next phase of the operation, my cousins would stay with the vehicles to guard Chaos and the girls.
Dare was already airborne, sweeping above the slopes like he was hunting, his hoodie tied around his waist like Chaos's had been. We'd chosen him to play the part of Chaos because his dark hair was tipped white, like his cousin's. He trailed the harpy at a safe distance, taking his time and giving us a chance to get into position before he landed in front of the mine and closed his wings. Then he disappeared inside and we raced across the sky, hovering above the mine entrance and waiting for his signal.
Per our plan, he was supposed to grab Vilschka's wrist then shout out so Mac could turn him to stone. Like the rest of us, Dare's feet were bare so that he could lock onto the mine's rocky floor. After he'd made the change, Vilschka would be trapped in his unbreakable grip. Then it was our job to kill the harpy. Havoc and I were hoping to pry off one of the protective plates on her neck and reach a vulnerable spot.
It was a relatively sound plan. But Dare never called out. Something went wrong. Maybe Vilschka became alarmed when she couldn't pick up the scent of gargoyle venom. Or maybe she got suspicious when he didn't pull his hoodie back on over his closed wings. They needed to be free for flight if he had to make a run for it. Maybe she noticed his eyes. At any rate, we heard a terrible screech of rage then Dare shot out of the dark opening like a bat outta hell. Vilschka was right on his tail, her clawed hands reaching for him as she screamed for help from her bonded gargoyle.
Havoc dropped in front of her with his wings spread, momentarily blocking her view of Dare. His knife flashed in the darkness as he dragged it across her face, aiming for her eyes. He didn't incur any damage but he distracted her enough for Dare to gain a few feet on her. And after that, she didn't stand a chance. Dare's a rocket in the air and he was soon out of reach.
Realizing that, she swerved after Havoc with me in pursuit, my knife in one hand and my sharpened ski pole in the other, hoping to reach the harpy's only vulnerable spot—her wings. Normally, this sort of attack is hard to pull off with a knife because it's not easy to get close enough. But I was hoping to have more luck with my makeshift spear. I dive-bombed the harpy like a sparrow attacking a raven while Dare circled back to join me, and Havoc turned to help.
I managed to put a few holes in one of Vilschka's tough leathery wings, which threw her into a rage like no other. She howled in fury and spun around in the air, nailing me with her outstretched wing and banging me halfway to Wyoming. And all the time she's screaming for Chaos like she can't understand why he isn't there, helping her. But without immobilizing the harpy, we weren't faring any better than sparrows. Unfortunately, that gave Havoc an idea. "Sparrow Hawk," he panted as his blade clattered harmlessly across the harpy's polished hide.
My stomach dropped and lodged somewhere around my ankles. Sparrow Hawk is a flying game and training exercise for young gargoyles. It involves falling out of the sky at great speed and leveling off just before you hit the ground. The game is won by the last gargoyle to open his wings. The training exercise is practiced as a defense strategy when being chased by harpies since their reflexes are slower than ours and they'll often crash into the ground.
Unfortunately, Havoc had never grown up; he'd never stopped playing the game. And to give you an idea of my Sparrow Hawk skills, I'd never won a game. Ever. I failed at Sparrow Hawk. "What? No!" I shouted back at him.
But there was no time to argue. Especially when Havoc took off and started climbing. I dodged a blow from the harpy that would have torn out my throat if it had connected, then followed. Streaking into formation ahead of Vilschka, we climbed several hundred feet over the high ridge of the mountain then circled back toward the slope again. The trees far below were dark blotches on a white canvas of snow. The highway was a river of glittering stars pouring downhill.
The rest of the pack hadn't had a chance to react to our predicament but they each had their assignments, which they wouldn't desert without damn good cause. Victor and Reason were stationed in the van to protect Chaos and the girls. And Valor was probably on his way there to drop off MacKenzie. And that's where I wanted my cousins to be. But it meant we couldn't count on their help any time soon. We were on our own. And I, for one, was determined to keep Vilschka from discovering the van. I'd let that monster chase me all night if it would keep her away from Whitney and the others.
Havoc wrapped his wings tightly around his frame and I did the same, following him into a vertical dive. As we fell out of the sky, the harpy was right on our heels. By then it was fairly obvious that Vilschka was shadowing me more closely than the others, swerving when I swerved, banking when I banked, climbing on my heels and waiting for her chance to get her claws on me. It looked like she had a personal vendetta going for me, focusing solely on me with single-minded intensity. I guess she was pissed about those holes in her wings.
Havoc led the pack as we plunged toward the ground, pulling out of the dive at the last possible instant to sweep a few inches above the snow. Dare followed and I was next. I copied the maneuver, opening my wings and pulling out of the vertical drop. Not unexpectedly, I wobbled wildly and started to lose control, my bottom wingtip momentarily dragging through the snow and wrenching my wing. A sharp pain flashed through my right upper spine. But the slope worked in my favor, giving me room to recover that I wouldn't have had on a flat landscape.
Behind us, the harpy tried to make the turn but couldn't pull it off. She hit the mountainside headfirst and disappeared into the thick layer of snow with a heavy thunk. Before any of us could react, there was a muffled rumble and the smooth white slope below me started to form cracks, then slide. Then the entire mountain of snow headed downhill.
Up ahead of me, Havoc was unaware of the disaster building behind him. He was skimming the slope, inches above the surface of the snow. I shouted a warning but it was lost in the deep roar growing beneath us. Like a wave, the flume of snow reached for him and the heavy white torrent captured his foot. He tried to elevate and kick free but the snow wouldn't let go. It was sucking him in. He was going under.
Ignoring the warnings from my right wing, I poured on the speed to reach him, wrapping my hand around his, yanking him upward. But I couldn't pull him free. Together, we started to drop.
Havoc opened his hand. "Let go," he shouted, choosing a damn awkward time to get all noble. "Let go or it'll take both of us."
I won't tell you what I said in response, but it was a particularly obscene modern curse that he didn't seem to appreciate. He tried to twist out of my grip but I wasn't having it. And all the time the thick, heavy snow was creeping upward, sucking at his knee, reaching for his other foot. Beating my wings wildly, I ignored the building pain in my spine and strained to lift us. I felt the bone crack and a blinding wave of black pain, and for a minute I thought we were finished. Then Dare was suddenly beside me, grabbing Havoc's other arm and tugging upward. Together, we wrenched him from the rumbling cataract beneath our wings.
"Nice save," Havoc panted as we released him to fly under his own power.
Hiding my relief, I flexed my wings experimentally. Every time I stroked the air, my right spine hurt but not unbearably, so I ignored it for the time being. And together, the three of us hovered in the air, catching our breath and watching the white landslide crash down toward the valley bottom, crushing into the small creek and sending up a silvery spray that misted across the highway. Fortunately, the violent river of snow fell short of swallowing the road so nobody wa
s harmed. But when the fog settled, we stared down in awe.
"Holy hell," Havoc breathed into the deep echo that thundered up from the bottom of the valley.
I turned my head and searched his face. "Did you mean for that to happen?"
"Are you kidding?" he answered. "I don't even know what that was."
"I think it was an avalanche," Dare offered flatly.
"An avalanche?" Havoc echoed, looking ridiculously impressed with himself. "Sweet!"
When I glared at him, he swiftly revised his expression to something more appropriate for the occasion.
"Well, that's made a bit of a mess," he admitted with a suitably somber frown.
"Maybe just a bit," Dare agreed, shaking his head and trying to hide his grin as he hung in the air.
"Let's not tell MacKenzie," he ventured tentatively.
I eyed him critically. "Yeah, I think she's going to notice, Havoc."
For the next few minutes, we surveyed the chaos below without speaking. Then Havoc started snorting and Dare began chuckling. And a little while later, all three of us were cracking up as we bumped fists then got back to work.
Chapter Twenty-Two
There was no sign of Vilschka, though we circled high above the avalanche until the news crews started to show up. By then, Valor had joined us to make sure we were alright. And when several vans were parked on the highway with their spotlights turned on their reporters, we drifted back to our cars to discuss the unexpected turn of events.
As my feet touched the ground, I tried to fold my wings down but my right one wouldn't bend—not without some pretty severe pain. Gargoyle wings are flexible and strong, but everything has its limit. And I was afraid if I forced them to fold over my shoulders, the bone would snap. As long as I kept the wing open, the pain was manageable. So I left it open and managed.
The van shielded us from the activity on the highway as the girls spilled from the sliding door. I captured Whitney beneath my wing, feeling a great weight of tension leave my frame. I knew Victor and Reason wouldn't have let anything happen to her while I was gone. But it was still a great relief to see that she was okay with my own eyes.
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