An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,70

take her somewhere safe, as far from here as possible,” Astra said. “Stan and Ollie need to know where we’re going. We might as well regroup there when they do find Soul and Kelara’s crew.”

“Right. You’re absolutely right,” I replied, thinking for a moment. “Crap, where are we taking her?”

Dafne raised a hand. “Might I make a suggestion?”

“Of course,” I said.

“The Port.” Dafne sighed. “The underground cells, to be specific. Not everybody knows about them, and I figure it’ll buy us some time because it’s such a maze down there.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Jericho agreed. “Especially since the clones are using intel from the originals, though I’m not sure how they’re getting it—”

“Probably magic,” Dafne said, cutting him off.

“Yeah. Makes sense. The Port is definitely our best bet. Not everyone can navigate those tunnels. Most in our generation have never even been down there,” Jericho said.

I nodded once. “The Port it is, then.” Pressing my palm against the charmed reader on Isabelle’s clone’s door, I listened for the lock’s click as it gave me access. “Don’t try anything stupid,” I warned her as I unhooked her cuffs from the table-mounted ring and yanked her upright.

“Wherever you go, I go.” Isabelle’s doppelganger chuckled. “At least this way I get to watch you die in pain, cousin.”

“I’m not your cousin. You’re not Isabelle,” I hissed and dragged her out of the room and away from the hospital’s piles of scorched rubble. It would take forever for me to shake off the charred smell of this place.

“We need to move. Now,” Soph said, her voice wavering. “Something is coming.”

“You’re damn right something is coming,” Isabelle’s clone replied.

Before any of us could even take a step toward the Port, we were frozen on the spot. A high-pitched sound cut through my brain. I gasped, bucking under the sudden pressure. I had never experienced pain like this before, and I wasn’t the only one. Jericho snarled as he fell to his knees, clutching his head with both hands. Dafne screamed, her legs shaking, but she fought against the agony, stubbornly remaining upright.

Soph bared her fangs, looking somewhere behind us, while Astra whimpered and wobbled. The daemon held her close, and I followed her gaze. Something big was coming. I could see its enormous figure treading through the forest and knocking the redwoods aside like they were nothing more than matchsticks.

“Dad?” Jericho managed, blinking rapidly as he looked at the giant dragon. It seemed familiar, yes, but I couldn’t shake off my unease at his presence. “It’s Dad!”

“Oh, no… it’s not.” Isabelle’s copy chuckled.

The creature stormed into the clearing, making Stan and Ollie jump back. He certainly looked like Blaze, but the sheen of his black scales was strange and unnatural. The glow in his eyes was a tempestuous green and certainly not what I remembered Blaze looking like in dragon form. Most importantly, his jaws unhinged and released a storm of fire upon us.

The heat was unbearable, but I managed to grab Isabelle’s clone and get away from the flames. Jericho burst into dragon form and fought back with fires of his own, while Dafne and Soph grabbed Astra and joined me on the edge of the clearing. Behind us, clones were coming. I could see them. Jericho and his father’s unsettling doppelganger battled, clawing and biting at one another.

For a second, I worried Jericho might lose. The fake dragon knocked him down with his massive tail, then spat fire. The flames covered Jericho, and I held my breath in anticipation. But my friend bounced back, untouched by the blaze—after all, fire dragons were immune to fire. Then I remembered what had happened to Chantal’s clone when Jericho had burned her. It was a long shot, but it was worth trying.

“Jericho, use your fire on him!” I shouted.

He gave me a confused look, as if wondering what the hell I was talking about, until it hit him. He huffed and growled, his head slowly turning to face the incoming attack from his father’s doppelganger. His lower jaw dropped, and a stream of fire erupted with the pressure and power of a fireman’s hose. It hit Blaze’s double smack in the face, and the creature howled in agony as the inferno spread over his form and seeped through his scales. It forced the creature to move back long enough for Jericho to lower his head so that we could climb onto his back.

I held on to Isabelle’s clone and proceeded toward him. Another high-pitched sound