Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(101)

I was squished between Lake and Chae Rin, with Belle in the front next to James. Lake was sleeping; her head dangled awkwardly as her languid body leaned forward against her seat belt. Her neck looked like it was going to break off, so I pushed her back up against the seat and positioned her head properly against it before settling back into my own stupor.

“No way this thing can take us all the way to Prague,” Chae Rin said, though with the intense helicopter noise, I could only really listen to her voice through the headset.

“We’ll need to refuel en route,” James said. “I know it’s not as ideal as taking the Sect jet, but it’s faster than driving and less easily followed.”

“Thank you for helping us,” I said. My sleeveless arm was chilly, but we’d left our suitcases at the rooftop bar. Lake was the only one who’d had the sense to take her knapsack with her. All my clothes were back in Madrid.

“It’s what Mrs. Prince wanted. . . .” James’s voice tapered out as the question no one wanted to ask hung in the air. Rosa must have gotten Naomi to a hospital by now. I had to believe that. But when I closed my eyes, I pictured the look of devastation on Rhys’s face and my fingers curled on my lap.

“They’re going to know we had something to do with it,” I said. “They knew we were in the city when it happened. Then we suddenly disappear without telling anyone?”

“And they’ll track us.” I could see the knit in Belle’s eyebrows as she looked out the window. “We need to work quickly.” She looked at James. “And rely on whomever we can trust.”

There had to be a way to mask our frequencies like Saul could. If the Sect could just track us wherever we went, what would be the point? We didn’t know for sure who’d attacked us in Naomi’s apartment, but it had to be them. If they caught us, even if they didn’t kill us, best-case scenario would be that they’d lock us up and question us over Naomi’s attempted murder. Considering Saul was working on a timetable, both options were inconvenient.

We flew in silence, each of us lost in the dark of our thoughts. We were out of the comfort of the APD tower protecting Madrid and the satellite cities. We were low enough in altitude for me to see a Spanish mountain range. Darkened earth covered in thin sheets of snow at the highest peaks, everything blanketed in night. Even in the dark, I could see something shifting and scuttling across the rocky domain, too fast to be human. Phantoms. It’d be impossible to describe them; it was too dark and we were too high. But there were enough of the tiny specks climbing up the rock for me to feel their menace.

“Dead Zone,” I said as we flew over them. “Down below.”

“From what I know, some of these mountains are protected by the mining industry,” James said. “But there’s one prominent barrier to expanding their territo—”

His word cut off with a grunt as the helicopter began to struggle with turbulence.

Or maybe it wasn’t turbulence.

I could see it out of the window to my right: the beginnings of a snarl forming out of the cloud in front of us. The white mist shivered and sank into a gaping hole, black as the night around us; round, soulless eyes shimmered bright like white jewels as the rest of the phantom’s face shook itself free from the cloud. A demon snout, black steam smoking through its long, jagged jaws and off its scaly, leathery hide. A single horn stretched back from the crown of its head. This one had wings, tiny ones, on its back, and short little arms that dangled uselessly from its torso. Its long tail flitted behind it as it began slipping through the air toward us.

“It’s okay,” said James, though he clearly looked more spooked than we did. “Our electromagnetic armor is still operational.”

“Better be,” Chae Rin whispered as the phantom swooped under the helicopter and then curved itself around until its long, spindly body was parallel with us. For an uncomfortable few minutes, it followed beside us. My eyes tracked its body’s mesmerizing undulations, its form silhouetted in the night. It was shadowing us like a faithful pet, waiting for its chance.

Four more descended from the sky and sank below us; they were making their way toward the mountains instead. Something else had caught their attention.

I gasped and held my seat belt to keep myself stable from the sudden convulsions of the helicopter.

“Ugh,” James grunted. There really was turbulence. “Hold on.” He gripped his controls even tighter. The helicopter shook so violently, Lake shuddered awake. “Just let me get this under control.”

He didn’t get the chance. Two shots were fired from below, and they were too close for comfort. The helicopter swerved dangerously, tilting us over with a violent jerk. I held on to my seat belt for dear life, my body half raised out of my seat as James tried to get the helicopter level.

“What’s happening?” I screamed. “What was that?”

James shook his head, his jaws clenched. “I don’t know!”

Belle was trying to see where the shots had come from, but soon another two rang out. The haunting, whalelike cries of a phantom pierced the air as one of the bright flares blasted into the sky in front of the cockpit.

“It got hit!” Chae Rin looked out her window, eyes wide as the phantom that had been following alongside us barreled high into the sky, screeching with agitation, its tail burned off. “The phantom! The phantoms are being attacked, not us!”