An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,22
over. On the contrary, I had a feeling our nightmare was only just beginning.
“Don’t mention it. I just followed the smell of trouble,” Dafne replied. Her grayish blue eyes darted all over the place as she analyzed every inch of space ahead. Most of the floor had burned enough for the walls to turn black. Ashes lingered in the air, flakes of papers and medical paraphernalia, towels and uniforms that had been reduced to nothing. Looking at it now, I realized how lucky we’d been to find an intact garment for Jericho in the reception area of the hospital, which hadn’t incurred as much damage.
We could see the broken windows and the door to the clone’s room. From what I could tell, Soul had been right. The protection spells had kept it safe and virtually intact, causing an interesting contrast of pure white walls and the marbled floor against the charred aspect of everything else around it.
“Have you been able to reach any of the Reapers yet?” I asked Soul, and he shook his head.
“I’ll go get Kelara as soon as we check on Miss Knockoff in there,” he said. “Something’s off here, and I don’t like it. The only time comms are cut is when there’s an assault coming, and I doubt the four clones running around in the woods are the first wave.”
“What about the ones we fought?” Thayen asked. “Weren’t they the first wave?”
“Nah. Two of them were manageable,” Soul said. “I think we should assume the worst is yet to come.”
When I reached the glass panel, I breathed a sigh of relief. Isabelle’s clone was very much alive and tethered to the table with charmed cuffs. She seemed annoyed by our presence. “I was hoping you were all dead,” she grumbled, leaning back in her chair.
I had trouble getting the burnt smell out of my nose. This place had been a haven, a place of healing and peace. The mere fact that they had attacked it felt like an act of war, and Soul’s warning made me worry about where they might strike next.
“They’re obviously after Isabelle’s copy,” Jericho said. Occasionally, he stole glances at Dafne but looked away whenever she shifted her focus to him. Under different circumstances, I would’ve found their dynamic cute.
Thayen looked at the device we’d rescued from Voss’s clone. “And we still don’t know what this thing is…”
“He was trying to use it on the door,” I replied. “It’s got to be some type of lockpick.”
“And that disk Chantal had. And the black spray… that was the worst,” Soul said, visibly troubled. “It affected me directly. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Dafne scoffed, shaking her head slowly. “Whatever foreign magic they’ve got, it seems to have an effect on everyone, alive or otherwise. They did some of their homework right, since our GASP-issued masks are useless for this stuff. It’s a shame Chantal’s clone ran off with the disk. I would’ve loved to take a look at that thing, too.” She paused to give Jericho a stern frown. “You should’ve turned the heat up on her.”
“I went full throttle!” Jericho exclaimed. “It’s not my fault she’s resilient. She was cloned after a fire fae. It’s a miracle I even hurt her at all. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I used my fire to at least distract her with an enormous amount of flames. I’m surprised it took so well.”
“For what it’s worth, you did a good job out there,” Dafne admitted. It seemed to have an impact on Jericho, as he looked away, his cheeks blooming red for a moment.
“Thanks. You weren’t too bad yourself.”
Soul cleared his throat, demanding our attention. “I’ll go out and get Kelara. We’re spiritually bonded, so I know where to find her, even without our telepathic connection.”
“Is she still at the terrace?” Thayen asked, slightly concerned. “Surely, she and the others would’ve heard the blast. There were witnesses running away from the hospital.”
“I’ll find out. Maybe they had issues of their own,” Soul replied, then vanished.
While checking the hallway for any details I might have missed earlier, I replayed the entire fight in my head. It had been manageable, like the Reaper had said, until they pulled out the black spray. Whatever that was, it messed with our heads in ways I feared we’d never truly overcome. The sensations I struggled with still haunted me, the horror already settled in my chest and unwilling to ever go away.