Beast might survive a leap out of a slowly falling helicopter.
Big Evan said to Eli, “The Cathedral of All Souls is that way.” He pointed off to our right. “An Episcopal church. I know one of the lay ministers or whatever they’re called. I’ve sent a text, hoping I can get us permission to use the premises.”
“Good thought,” Eli said. “We won’t have barbeque, but a church is the safest place we can hole up. Let’s get your wife on board the Huey.”
The sound of rotors cut through the air.
* * *
* * *
The ride through the storm was cold and miserable, once again deafening without the ear protectors. The turbulence slammed us around until we hit the inversion layer, where the wind whipped in the other direction and rain beat against the windshield and windows all around, and the Huey tried to turn upside down, just for funzies.
Beast growled through my mouth and complained the whole way about being in the belly of a metal bird. Halfway there, Molly threw up from the turbulence. The smell of vomit and Ed’s torn flesh and old blood and soured breast milk were not a good combination. We were all . . . Wretched was a good word. Completely wretched.
My stomach wasn’t happy and the stench meant that Beast was having kittens about it all, bouncing off the walls of my/our brain. It was funny and annoying and I knew she would get me back for making her fly again. I’d probably wake up human, lying in mud two feet deep, or perched naked on a billboard. Beast chuffed in amusement and settled at that thought, planning evil against me as only cats can. Go, me, for giving her the idea.
For a while, in the inversion layer, we leveled out, but that part of the trip was short and the passage back into the storm, with winds in the opposite direction as we descended to land, was horrible. The landing was more a controlled crash, and I heard metal things popping and twanging and snapping. The Dark Queen would have to repair her Warlord’s Huey. My teeth snapped together on a final bump. The skids settled.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for choosing Bell Huey Airlines,” the pilot said. “Watch your step as you disembark. And I thank you for the bunk on the layover.”
The rotors began their slowdown whine as Molly ducked and raced for the house. Lincoln, Kojo, Thema, and Gee, carrying Edmund, climbed out of the Huey and traipsed around to the back of the property. I glanced at the pilot, realizing I didn’t know his name, and decided he was busy. “Thank you,” I shouted to him. He didn’t look up, but he did give me thumbs-up. I stepped to the ice-slicked, crunchy ground, following the vamps and Edmund (who looked like a slab of raw meat slung over Gee’s shoulder) around the house to the finished cottages. The little Anzu was a lot stronger than he looked.
Lincoln opened the door to cottage one, the unit set aside for Edmund, and the inside lights came on. The cottage was set up like a four-star hotel suite, the décor in whites and grays, with a king bed, two pullout couches, an Oriental rug, a small kitchenette with quartz cabinet tops, and a bath that could have been designed right out of an HGTV makeover.
Gee carried Edmund to the bath and put a knee on the edge of the tub. Kojo came up behind him and together they lowered him to the bottom, Gee holding Ed’s head to keep it from bouncing on the porcelain. Gee stood up and backed away, as Lincoln stepped into the bathroom doorway behind me, pulling off his T-shirt.
It was not what I was expecting, all that expanse of flesh and ripping, rippling, striated muscle pressing beneath skin. Hairy bare chest and nipples and—
I jerked my eyes away but not before Thema noticed me looking. At my side, she said softly, “He is indeed a fine-looking piece of man flesh. Though his bum is lacking, I fear.”
Before I could figure out how to respond or how to stop the shock that flushed beneath my pelt, Edmund’s head raised. Fangs clicked down, the sound barely registering in time for my eyes to snap back. Before I could shout a warning, Lincoln Shaddock moved. Popped into the small space beside me. Caught Edmund’s head. Directed Ed’s desperate, insane dash for lifesaving blood to his own neck. Edmund savaged