Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (26 page)

“Exactly. W
e need Brownie and Buns,” sh
e agrees
, like I wasn’t just bein’
totally sarcastic.

Anya growls
and immediately
Reed i
s
in the doorway, speakin’
to her
. Listenin’ to them talkin’
,
it looks like they’
re
discussin’ some sinister plot. Then, R
eed smiles
at Anya and his head nods
slowly as he looks
between Evie and me.

“What, Reed?” I ask
, wonderin’ what they’re discussin’.

“Anya asked me how I can stand
watchin’ your souls interact. I
t disturbs her, how intimate you are with one another,
” Reed replies
.

“WHAT!” Evie and I
say
in unison.

“I’ve long ago decided that you two don’t realize that you have auras that entwine whenever you are near one another. Therefore, I ignore it, but Anya fin
ds it irritating,” Reed replies
, s
milin’ again at Anya
.

Anya speaks to Reed again and he listens
intently before answerin’ her.

“What did she say,” I ask
.

“She said that you and Evie are very dangerous, makin’ you targets. She wants to know what I’m doing to protect you and what she nee
ds to do to help me,” he replies
.

“Did you
tell her that we’re pretty good at protec
tin’ ourselves now?” I respond
stiltedly.

“I told her
we have friends that help and I promised her that she
will meet them soon,” Reed
replies
, ignorin’ my comment.

“Y
ou
shouldn’t be promisin’ her that. You
should be te
llin’ her to go home,” I reply
.

“And I already told you that
she can’t go home,” Reed counters
.

“Then tell her that she should find a safe place and stay there
‘til this is over, Reed,” I say in frustration
.

“When
will that be, Russell?” he asks
.

“I don’t know,” I answer
. “But hangin’ with us is dangerous. Too dangerous for someone like Anya.”

“It’
s her choice,
Russell. S
he came all the way from Paradise for you. Do you know what a sacrifice th
at is?” Reed asks
, lookin’ stunned.

“I di
dn’t ask her to come,” I point out
.

“And, yet
, she came anyway,” Reed says
. “If courage has
any weight with you, she has it
.”

My eyebrows pull together.
“She’s gonna need courage, isn’t she, Reed?” I
ask
him rhetorically, gettin
’ up from the bed. I don’t even know why I feel so angry, but I do. Anya is an angel and she can probably take care of herself fairly well
. She’s also probably super old—
old enough to make her own decisions. So, why is it that I already feel responsible for her?

“L
et’s discuss it somewhere else,
” Reed says
, frownin’. “I found this while I was tying up the loose
ends. Is it yours?” he asks
, holdin’ up a cell phone.

“Naw…shit!” I say
, scra
mblin’ off the bed.
“How much time do we have?”

“Minutes
,
” Reed says
, graspin’ Evie’s hand and le
adin’ her down the stairs. I ta
k
e
Anya’s hand, pullin’ her along with me.

“Do you think Brennus tracked the cell?” I as
k
. “Do you think he sent the Polish freaks
to stall us?”

Red gasp
s
.

“Let’s
count o
n it,” Reed replies
. “He must not
have realized
right away that we
didn’t die on the island or he would’
ve bee
n here hours ago. He knows now. He’s coming.”

“Y
ou
have a car here
?” I ask
hopefully
.

“Yes, but we leave it,” he says
, tossin’ coats to us from the front closet before leadin’ us to the back, t
hrough the kitchen. Anya, seein’
her bow and quiver on the table, snatch
es
them
up
, strappin’ them to
her back before puttin’ her
coat
on
over them
.

“W
here are we goin’?” I ask Reed
,
takin’ a knife from him and
puttin’ on the coat he had handed me.

“I was about to a
sk
you that, Russell,” Reed replies
, watchin’ me
.

“Huh?” I ask
, used to him barkin’ out the orders.

“I need you
r help. I’
m too predictable for
Brennus,” Reed replies
. “I act with supernatural instincts and training. My instincts tell me that we should fly
from here
, but somehow
I know that’s wrong.”

“You think
they’re out there?” I ask
, feelin’ my skin crawl.

“Yes,” Reed admits
. “Can you
do some more recon?” he asks
.

“Yeah
,” I reply
, not wai
tin’ for direction, but makin’ my
c
lone jet
out of my body and
leave
through
the back door of the house.

I
t
creeps
up along the drainpipe to the rooftop, keepin’ to the really dark part of the eave
s
. In the moonlight across the s
treet,
I
see
what looks like
humans stirrin’
, watchin
’ Reed’s house. Doin’ a sweep
of the area
, my clone
nears
the rooftop of the house next
door. The garbled voices of
inhuman
body snatchers drift
to me on
the muffled snowy air.
Next to them, three f
allen freaks are
just standin’
‘round
out in the open.

If they’re not even hidin’
that means th
ere are more of them ‘
round
,
I think
, and t
hat knowledge causes
chaos
to reign
inside of
me.

Jettin’ back to my body, I report
, “We’re in trouble. It’s those things t
hat make
all the hair on my arm
s stand straight up.
”

“Kevev?” Reed asks
.

“Naw, the other ones—
the ones that
are all moldy dead and walkin’ ‘
round like
zo
mbies,
but when they’re after you
, they run like do
gs—
super fast on all fours. T
hey talk like they have water in their
mouths,” I describe
, feelin’ adrenaline runnin’ through me.

“Inikwi,”
Red and
Reed say
together.

I point my finger.
“That’s them—
I
counted
thirteen. Five across the street four on each roof
flankin’ this place,” I assess
.
“And three Fallen, not even tryin’ to be covert.”

“Ready to jump on
us if we try to fly,” Reed says absently
. “Evie, we need to leave here without being seen. Can you think of a spel
l that will shroud us?” he asks
, rubbin’ her arms.

“Why haven’t they attacked us?
” Evie asks
.

“They’re making sure we don’t leave. Br
en
nus is coming here,” Reed says
, and
Red looks like she might faint.

“H
ow long do I need to
hold the
spell
?” she asks
, lookin’
tired and
scared.

“Where ar
e we going, Russell?” Reed asks
me
over his shoulder
.

“Just down the block. Then we cut over a couple of blocks. There’s a pu
b,” I say
.

“Why there?” Reed asks
, frownin’
.

“‘Cuz it’s the last place you’d go, especially now
,
” I reply
. “If the Inikwi are here, then w
e can assume that they’re cov
er
in’
the railway, the roads
,
and the river. Let’s go have a pint. They’ll think we
slipped through and they’ll leave
.”

Rubbin’ his eyes, like he thinks I’m complete
ly out of my mind, Reed mutters
, “Y
ou’re the m
ost human and you’re right, it is
the last place I’d go right now.”

“You’ll like it, R
eed. I’ll buy you
a beer,” I say
, tryin’ to grin.

“You ready, love?” Reed asks
Red softly.

“Uh huh,
tell Anya the plan,” Red nods
.

Reed speaks quickly to Anya, and although she seems
t
o lose color in an instant, to her credit, she merely nods
.

I gather
energy to me, then
I
turn
it
outward
, pushin’ it towards Red a
s she
mumble
s
her spell.
As Red
r
eleases
energy
slowly
,
she disappears from my sight along with
Reed
and Anya
.

“Please
tell me you’
r
e
still here,” I whisper
, holdin’ out my hands and fee
lin’ Anya next to me. I trail
my fingertips
down her arm, findin’ her hand.

“Yes,”
Reed and Red both say
.

“M
y turn
then
,” I say
grimly. “Red
,
you
take Anya’s other hand and Reed’s hand. It’s just like kindergarten again, we’re gonna daisy chain. Reed, s
ince you’re the caboose, it’s you
r job to make sure our tracks are covered in the snow.”

“Okay,” Reed’s voice answers
me.

“Here we go—no talkin’ in the halls,” I order
.

Leadin’ the way outs
ide, I move
slowly, cautious
not
to
make a sound.
When we make it to the sidewalk, I freeze. Several
Inikwi are standin’ across the street from us. They’re not speakin’, but just starin’ at the house
while their bodies twitch oddly—
flares of unintentional muscle movements
course through them
sporadically
, makin’ them
twitchy
.

One
of the Inikwi sniffs
the air loud
ly, mutterin’ somethin’ in his g
arbled tongue to his buddies. This one
robbed a grave and snatched his body
for sure
, ‘cuz his skin is blue and his eyes are no longer moist
, but dried beads in his
eye sockets
. Springin’ forward on all fours, the Inikwi
pounds
across the street toward us.

My breath sticks
in my throat, not knowin’ if I should break cover and take him out or stay where
I am and wait. The wind shifts
th
en, blowin’ toward us. He halts
, sniffin’ the air again, lookin’ confused as he crouches
like a dog
in the middle of the street.