Dad? Maybe she’s delirious. “Say what?”
“My father’s the sea god. He may not win Father of the Year, but he tries to avoid letting his kids drown.”
Mick blinked at her. “The sea god. Like the sea god? Like major character in Greek myth, Poseidon, the sea god?”
“That’d be the one.”
“He…they exist?”
She arched a brow at him as she rolled to her knees and tried to stand “You turn into a wolf and you’re asking me if gods exist?”
He put a hand under her elbow to steady her. “Well it’s not like they’re one of the common Races sitting on the Council. So that makes you…” He trailed off, searching for the right word.
“A demi-goddess, technically. Which sounds a lot cooler than it actually is.” She lifted the hem of her shirt, and he saw the case still wedged firmly behind her belt. “C’mon. We need to find the car.”
Chapter 5
The cemetery was a half hour’s walk from the pond they’d surfaced in on somebody’s Garden District estate. Given their need for haste, Mick had shifted. A big ass dog stuck out a lot less than a bare-assed man, no matter how attractive that ass happened to be. And that was all anyone would see if they looked out at the empty street. A dog and a bedraggled woman without enough sense to get out of the rain.
Sophie wanted to run. The need to get back to the car, to make a plan, was gnawing at her. But after their ordeal in the catacombs, she simply couldn’t manage it. She’d pushed herself too far. The way her head pounded and her vision blurred, she was doing well enough to put one foot in front of the other without stumbling. Mick helped with that. He was so tall as a wolf, she could easily lean on his shoulders to steady herself. She felt somewhat better having him pressed close, her fingers threaded through his ruff. He was solid.
As they neared the back edge of the cemetery, Mick’s ears pricked up, his body going stiff. Sophie stopped, creeping forward as he did, following the unspoken order for silence. On the other side of the fence, the foliage rustled, and she dove for the cover of some bushes. Mick flattened against the ground.
“Anything?” The male voice carried faintly over the rain.
“Nah. If anybody else was standing watch, they bailed when the catacombs flooded again. Raines says the sensors aren’t picking up any signs of life down there. Whoever they were, they drowned.”
Sophie chanced a peek through the branches. She couldn’t see much. Just a moving blur, a deeper black within the shadows of a nearby tomb but it was enough to identify them. Shadow Walkers. The Council’s special ops division. We must have triggered some kind of alarm, she thought.
“Who drew the short straw to go down and see that the artifact is still in place?” asked the first voice.
“Nobody yet. Matthias doesn’t want anybody down there with the hurricane this close. The threat’s been contained. We’ll come back and check it once the storm’s past.”
Their voices faded. Sophie didn’t move, hardly dared to breathe. Nothing short of a Hunter was more deadly than a Shadow Walker. Able to travel by shadow, they could infiltrate virtually anywhere, pursue any target without being seen. If she and Mick had surfaced on this side of the catacombs, they’d be dead, or at the very least arrested. The Council wasn’t big on trials for those accused of treason.
The metal case holding the Eye pressed into her belly, a damning piece of evidence if ever there was one.
When something cold nudged her hand, she nearly screamed. Blood flooded her mouth from where she’d bitten her lip. Mick cocked his head in what she supposed was a canine version of Sorry, then tugged her toward the cemetery.
“They’re gone?” she whispered.
He nodded.
They skirted the edge as quickly as possible, circling around to the car. Once inside, Mick back in his skin, Sophie tossed him her jacket to cover up with, and pulled away from the curb.
“Gods that was close.”
“This is far more exciting than the vault,” came a voice from the backseat.
Sophie shrieked and jerked the wheel as she glanced into the rearview mirror to see the demon looking bright-eyed with interest.
Wresting the car back into her lane, Sophie bit back the curses on her tongue. Instead she said, “We have to decide what to do with the Eye. Given its capabilities, we can’t possibly give it to the kidnapper. I don’t know what he wants it for, but the potential for the apocalypse is just too high.”
“We need a counterfeit,” said Mick.
“That would be great if we had weeks to plan and find someone to make a forgery, but in case you’ve forgotten, there’s a hurricane coming and we’re down to less than four hours.”
“I know a guy.”