Sin & Salvation (Demigod of San Francisco #3)(83)

“Except Ken’s name is…Ken.”

“Right, yeah. It should’ve been Chad.” She slipped in behind the wheel. “Behold,” she yelled. “I have never, in my life, driven a children’s school bus filled with cadavers into an enemy crowd in an epic magical battle.” Judging from her smile and sparkling eyes, the thought pleased her as much as the prospect of a shopping spree would have pleased me. “This is going to be awesome!” She cranked the wheel. “Buckle up, everyone, we’re headed for a wild ride!”





35





Alexis





The roar of the engine and shaking of the old vehicle competed with my flip-flopping stomach and adrenaline-fueled anticipation. The cadavers crowded near both doors and some hung out of the windows, cocooning me in the grossest way possible. The John corpse waited by my side, not touching, thankfully, but hovering in what seemed like a protective way. I wondered if he’d assigned himself as my bodyguard.

“Yep, we’re coming right for you,” I heard Bria yell, laughter lacing her words. She was enjoying this entirely too much. “Ten seconds until impact!”

I grabbed onto the seats next to me. Yelling filtered in from outside. Shouts, then a scream.

“Boom, fuckers!” Bria shouted.

The bus jolted forward before bumping wildly. My vision jiggled as the frame shook. More screams, much closer now, some anguished. Hands came up to slap the windows. Glass shattered somewhere beyond the cluster of bodies to my right. Through the gaps between the bodies on my left, I saw glimpses of the crowd outside. They had showed up in dizzying numbers.

“Go, go, go, go!” Bria’s voice rose over the din. “We’re surrounded. Take ’em down!”

The throng of corpses began to move around me. Sparkles shone in through the window. The view suddenly changed, and I saw vivid blue waters and white sand that stretched for miles. It sure as shit wasn’t Ocean Beach.

“They have an Illusionist,” Bria yelled. “A damn strong one, too. Alexis, you gotta take ’em down.”

The bus melted around me, the metal dripping down until it fell away. No heat kissed my skin, though. The drops of molten metal didn’t splatter on my head. I was left standing on that beautiful, idyllic beach.

“Alexis,” Bria shouted again.

Noise assaulted me from all sides. Yelling and screaming. Shouts and commands. A roar sailed past the right side of the bus, but I saw only limitless ocean. A blast shook the soft sand I stood on.

Corpses grabbed me, and suddenly Chad was by my side, groaning again. Trying to tell me something. He hustled me forward and gravity pulled at my feet. I felt a jolt and fell onto the hard, unforgiving…sand.

That Illusionist was messing with my head.

“Alexis!” Bria yelled again, closer now. She was barreling toward me. “You gotta get to work, girl. We need eyes.”

“Okay,” I said softly, stilling myself in the moment.

The hands around me fell away. Bria’s voice quieted. The shouts and screams around me faded into the background. Spirit rushed in to cover the world, washing away the illusion that had blanketed it.

Bodies surrounded us in a circle, keeping us put as they waited for the command to action, just like Chad had said they’d do. There were so many of them, their souls throbbing merrily in their middles. Outlines flickered within the corpses around me, showing me the spirits in their temporary homes.

“Valens has a lifetime of wrongdoing to atone for,” Chad said. The words were garbled within his decrepit body, but with all the spirit coursing around us, I understood them anyway, as though they’d been spoken directly into my head. Chad must’ve led people, because he’d noticed my hesitation. “His people have tortured and killed without concern. Innocents have died by the thousands under his rule.”

The Mia corpse appeared on the other side of me. She was proof that Chad’s situation wasn’t an anomaly.

“If you do not act, they will take you as a prize,” he continued. “You wear the son’s mark, do you not? Valens will make you pay for that. He will make all of you pay. Only the dead are safe.”

The fire of anger burned brightly in my middle.

“Not even the dead are safe from him,” I said, feeling the faith Mia and Chad and John and the others had put in me. They were depending on me to set this to rights. “And it’s the dead I’ve sworn to protect.”

I sent a blast of the Line’s magic out in all directions like a shock wave, punching through the middles of Valens’s minions. Once they were down, I collected the little ribbons connecting everyone in the area, took a split second to grab them, and yanked them all to the ground.

“Here comes Johnny!” Bria shouted, quoting her favorite movie.

The illusion of the ocean cut out. Screams and hoarse yells rose around us as the enemy forces were brought to their knees. Some even tumbled onto their backs.

Through the din, one person rose. A woman built like a tank struggled up from the ground and staggered toward me.

“Kill the vile Soul Stealer,” she yelled. “And save yourselves!”

“That was hurtful,” Bria said as she ran forward to meet her.

She punched the woman square in the face, jabbed forward with her knife, pulled it back, flinging drops of crimson, and round-house kicked her in the head—all in one graceful series of movements.