The spell embedded in his body led us out of the drawing room and all the way down to the basement level of the house. We were only a few doors away from the room we’d stayed in when Ian stopped and opened another door. Yonah, Ereshki, and Katsana were inside, and from their expressions, only Yonah wasn’t surprised to see us. He merely gave Ian a sardonic look.
“That took much less time than I expected.”
Ian ignored the slur to his supposed sexual stamina. “This proves what I warned you about,” he said. “This spell traced Dagon’s power right back to Ereshki. What’s to stop him from using one just like it to find her and the others he’s seeking?”
“It also proves Ereshki is telling the truth,” Yonah countered. “She doesn’t remember Ariel or any of her former crimes despite being one of the souls Dagon hoarded inside himself, which she must be or she wouldn’t have specks of Dagon’s power in her for the spell to trace now.”
I hated that I agreed with the demon. I might not be capable of believing Ereshki after what she’d done to me, but spells didn’t lie. The question was, where did that leave me and the many, many other people who had only me left to speak for them? Should this Ereshki pay for the crimes of her former self? Or did having all memory of that Ereshki ripped from her mind make the woman standing before me technically innocent?
I was still wrestling with that when Ian said, “It also proves Ariel’s version of events, so we’ll take Ereshki and go now,” with such deadly silkiness, it was clear he wasn’t suffering from a crisis of conscience.
Ereshki burst into tears. Hearing it tugged at a place in my heart I’d thought was long dead when it came to her. Even Yonah gave her a sympathetic look. Then he stared at Ian.
“Unaccept—”
He never finished the word. The floor heaved, then a huge crack appeared that the sea immediately filled. Water was up to my knees before I could even react.
Silver! If I didn’t get him out of here, he’d drown! I dashed out of the room, then ducked because Yonah flew over me with Ereshki clasped in his arms. That’s right; she was human again so she was susceptible to drowning, too.
I flew down the hall, ignoring Ian’s shout to stop. By the time I reached our room, the water was already higher than the doorknob. I kicked it open right as a tremendous quaking caused multiple cracks to appear in the ceiling. Silver flew out as if he’d been fired from a canon. Now, the only dry space left was around my head. I clutched him to that while fighting to fly above the water line. More horrible crashing sounds above had me glancing worriedly at the ceiling. Whatever catastrophe had happened—an earthquake, maybe?—it sounded like the roof would cave in any moment.
“Ian!” I shouted, not seeing him in the hallway with its rapidly rising water and ominously increasing roof debris.
I thought I heard his voice farther ahead, but I couldn’t be sure. The water was now so high, I could no longer fly, and walking through it while holding Silver’s nose above the water would take too long. More collapsing sounds proved that. We only had seconds before this entire hallway crashed in on itself.
I yelled, “Hold your breath!” to Silver, prayed he understood me, and dove beneath the water, holding him.
I kept one arm in front of me to punch aside any debris as I swam as fast as I could. My other arm protected Silver’s head and the rest of him was tucked against my body. I fought panic as new crashing sounds reached me even through the churning water. More debris began to pile up, blocking my path. Silver could be dying right now, and where was Ian? Vampires couldn’t drown, but he could be trapped under something while the house collapsed upon him with enough force to rip him apart—
Something hard slammed into me, yanking me up. I thought I felt someone’s body next to mine, then there was nothing except pain from the multiple concussive impacts and noise that made the previous sounds pale by comparison. When I could see again, it was through a sheen of blood that turned my vision red.
Red Ian had me clutched against him while flying us free of the house, which pancaked onto itself with horrifying rapidness.