An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,20
unloaded on the clones, left and right.
Voss and Chantal’s copies were forced to move away from us. Some of the shards sliced through them, but they were still moving. They both aimed their weird spraying devices at her. I forced myself into a sitting position. My arms were weak. My body weakened and my breathing labored, but it occurred to me that the black mist’s effect was brief and profoundly psychological, just enough to mess with our defenses so the clones could deliver the kill shot. Fortunately, Dafne had come upon us somehow.
The worst part was that the spray had affected Soul, too, and he was struggling to pull himself back together. The stars had gone out from his eyes, leaving behind nothing but darkness as he looked around and tried to understand what had just happened.
Dafne hissed and lowered her head, releasing more ice shards all around her in a bid to keep the clones at bay, but they were both determined to hit her. A fire dragon emerged from the woods—majestic but smaller than most I’d seen. I only needed a second to recognize Jericho as he made it rain fire on the doppelgangers.
Voss’s clone managed to escape the flames, bolting into the redwood forest, but the blaze caught Chantal’s clone in full. She screamed in agony as the fire consumed her. She dropped and rolled on the ground over and over, but nothing helped. The flesh melted off her bones, black smoke rising as she took her last breath and stilled. Looking at her charred remains, I realized what was so off about the way she’d died.
“She’s a fire fae,” I said quietly. “The fire isn’t supposed to kill her…”
The body was barely a figure with legs and arms and a head, a black and reddish crust covering every inch of her. Dafne and Jericho approached her cautiously, while Thayen helped me up. He looked better than I felt, but I was thankful we’d both made it out of this alive.
“Long live the dragons, huh?” he said, only partially amused. “Are you okay, Astra?”
“They did something to us.” I glanced at the clone’s body. “Is she really dead?”
Dafne huffed and pulled her head back just in time, as the burnt doppelganger sprang up shrieking and ran off into the woods. It left us all stunned and unable to react as we tried to wrap our heads around this.
“Well, this is endless shades of wrong,” Soul grumbled, finally up and in a better state than before. “What was that black mist thing? It messed with my head on so many levels… I’m still shaking!”
“Isn’t anyone wondering how a fire fae clone could succumb to the one element she is supposed to be impervious to?” I asked, my voice trembling as I leaned into Thayen. “Also, how the hell did she manage to just get up and bolt away like that? I don’t… I don’t get it.”
Dafne and Jericho approached us, staying in their dragon forms. They both sniffed the air, their reptilian eyes scanning every inch of the place. Dafne was the first to shift back into her humanoid form, and I gave her my jacket so she could cover herself.
“Thanks. Chantal, Voss, and Soph are on their way back with my stuff.” she said. “I came across them in the redwood forest, not far from the Great Dome. They were chasing after Chantal’s clone. As for your question regarding it and fire… I’m gonna take a wild guess and suggest that maybe whoever’s making these fiends doesn’t have all the information. Or maybe they have faulty genetic material? I don’t know, just a theory at this point.”
“Even so, this is insane.” I sighed, the adrenaline gradually wearing off to reveal the physical trauma I had just overcome. My legs were shaky and weak, but Thayen stayed close as I tried to gather my thoughts into something coherent.
“I don’t know much about the clones’ genetic makeup,” Dafne added, “but Voss and his crew lost Chantal’s clone. I picked up a faint trail and followed her up here.”
Jericho sat on his hind legs, threads of smoke billowing from his nostrils. “And what’s your deal?” Soul asked him.
It made Dafne chuckle. “He tagged along. He and his crew were chasing after Richard’s clone again. There are definitely more of these creeps around. Though I fail to understand their purpose. The comms systems and Telluris are both down—none of our messages have been getting through.”