An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,78
should try the Great Dome next,” I replied. “Thayen did say they were headed in that direction when we first parted ways. And if that doesn’t yield anything, we should check the witches’ sanctuary and the treehouse residences. Maybe the Shadians figured out they were being invaded and went into some kind of self-imposed lockdown.”
Soul nodded once. “I think I remember Lumi or one of the senior officers—Rose or Caleb, I don’t remember which one—saying something about underground bunkers being accessible from pretty much anywhere on the island. Then there are the Black Heights. I know the dragons will happily welcome refugees in times of crisis. It’s just the two of us, Kel… we don’t have time to check every damn spot in The Shade, so we’d best focus on what we can do.”
“Finding Thayen,” I said. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“One step at a time, remember?”
Stan groaned softly, looking up at the moonlit sky. As if his feet had suddenly caught fire, he jumped and vanished into the air. Soul, Ollie, and I quickly followed, leaving the ground and taking to the skies in our subtle forms.
Below, the black disk looked smaller and less significant. The redwood forest was dark and quiet, the wind blowing through its branches and making the leaves rustle. The smell of smoke persisted, but the skies were clear. Lights glimmered in the distance, in different areas of The Shade. Soul was right: we didn’t have the time or the resources to verify the entire island. Not without the Time Master to help us.
One thing was clear, however.
The clones had caused enough trouble to throw the whole of GASP for a loop. We stayed close to Stan as he pursued the aerial traces left behind by Jericho in flight. We bounced through the open air, the redwoods’ crowns inches beneath our feet. I was nervous and anxious, but I knew we couldn’t let our friends deal with this on their own.
Thayen and Astra needed us right now. To be honest, getting to the bottom of this mystery would’ve satisfied my own restless curiosity. Who were these doppelgangers? Who’d sent them? What were they after? It bugged me that even after all this time, we still had so many questions left unanswered, while the clones pranced around The Shade like it was their domain. It irked me beyond belief.
Somewhere far ahead, I saw a dot moving. A creature with its wings flapping, headed toward the Port. “Soul, I think we’re getting closer.”
We had to be careful. Zapping across greater distances, we barely had time to look to the ground and see if the clones had passed through. We didn’t know what they were planning or where they were headed. We only knew they wanted Isabelle’s clone alive and Astra dead. That was the very core of the issue, and the only place in this entire mess where Soul and I could actually make a difference.
So we kept chasing after Stan, who’d caught a solid trace of Jericho. We kept going, in a rush to find our friends and help them fight back against creatures that didn’t belong here. Hell, these clones didn’t belong anywhere. Their mere existence was a troubling abomination, and I was looking forward to being able to communicate with Death again—or to at least send her a message. She needed to know that someone had been fabricating fake souls. She had the power and the authority to help us investigate on a much broader and more effective scale.
But first and foremost, we had to get to Astra and the others before it was too late.
Thayen
For a second, I actually dared to think we’d make it safely to the Port.
Jericho suddenly tilted hard to the left, nearly throwing us off his back in the process. I wanted to ask what the hell was wrong with him, but then I saw the ice shards narrowly missing his belly. Someone was firing frozen projectiles from the ground.
“Thayen, they caught up with us,” Dafne breathed.
I looked down, my blood curdling at the troubling sight. At least five dozen figures were running on the ground, chasing after us. I recognized some of them—Ben and River, Hazel and Tejus, Dafne, Lethe, Heath, to name a few—all of them clones. All of them focused on us. The air rippled from the multitude of barriers the sentry doppelgangers launched upward, and Jericho was forced to bank right. Dafne cursed loudly enough for the whole island to hear.