Sin & Surrender (Demigod of San Francisco #6)(73)

I fled through the door and ran down the hall, finding the body of a staff member with the customary spirit standing beside it. Farther on, nothing.

“This way!” I looked back, and one of the second stringers whose name I couldn’t remember—I’d never actually spoken to him, which now seemed shitty of me—stood at the opening of the hallway we’d just passed. He waved us toward him.

More bodies lay down the hall. More souls stooped, drained. We turned in that direction, following the string of dead. The Line pulsed as it followed me, happily accepting the wayward spirits I fed it.

Screaming cut through the quiet hallways. A pack of magical people rounded the corner and came into view, racing toward us. A distant crash sounded and the floor shook.

That must’ve been Thane.

Two people broke off from the group, turning my way. They waved their hands at me to turn back.

“There’s a zombie,” the woman yelled, trying to grab my arm as she raced past. “It’s killing people. And a Berserker! It’s out of control.”

“Where’s the zombie?” I yelled.

The woman tried to keep running. Bertha grabbed her by the shoulders, slapped her across the face, then turned her toward me as though she were a rag doll. “Answer her!” she shouted.

“Where’s the zombie?” I repeated.

“Down… Down…” She pointed left, toward the crashing of Thane.

Was Harding actively seeking out my crew?

Fire sparked within me, kindling into rage. What game was he playing? He knew I would fight dirty when my loved ones were on the line.

Maybe this was his way of bringing me to him.

My legs had never moved so fast in my life. I didn’t even register the anxious tightness in my chest as I flew around the corner, nearly tripping over a dead body, and slammed into a person running to get away from the danger behind them. I was on the right track.

I fought through a swell of people that came after, everyone fleeing without sense, panicked to the point of hysteria. Harding had been at their souls.

At least he wasn’t killing everyone.

At the next intersection, the hallway was a mess. Magical people packed the space, all of them trying to get past me. Some sort of gathering or public battle must’ve been underway farther down the hall, before everything had gone to hell.

I fought through them as best I could, but the mass of them continually pushed me back. I could barely see the point where people were shoving into the hallway, but I knew it had to be a door.

“Bertha!” I shouted.

“I gotcha.” She pushed in front of me, forcing people out of the way like a linebacker. With the brute strength of ten men and the determination of someone who’d crack some heads to get her way, she created a hole and dragged me behind her. The cats stayed tight to my legs, working in with me.

The walls around me shuddered and the ground rumbled. Something enormous crashed away left. That was clearly Thane. Which meant he hadn’t caused this mad dash.

We found the door—an entrance to a large hall with tiered seating—and squeezed through it. Once inside, I could just see a glowing exit sign across the way, above another door stuffed with people, no doubt. Tables lined with various types of technology stretched out along the sides of the room. One had been overturned, the electronics on it scattered and trampled. In the rear, a large stage held a podium and a large white screen, only a corner of it catching the image from the projector, which had been bumped off-kilter.

Souls I knew registered in the far corner of the stage, my group huddled together with Donovan, Zorn, and Amber out front, their faces a mask of cool efficiency. Red and Bria stood on the sides, blocking Jerry in the middle, who stood in front of Daisy and Mordecai in his wolf form. Boman was at the back of the stage, working at a door under another exit sign. Given he’d been reduced to battering it with his shoulder, he wasn’t having much luck. Dylan and Henry were gone, and fear gripped me. I hoped to hell they were with Thane and not dead.

Unless Boman worked some serious magic, the crew was trapped, blocked off from the other exit by the cadaver pacing in front of them, walking with a smooth grace that shouldn’t have been possible. From this distance I couldn’t do much but a quick assessment of the situation.

He’d barricaded his spirit in the body with thick, beautiful prongs woven of spirit and power. I widened my eyes at the mastery, delicate yet extremely strong, something that would be a bitch to break through. His magical power pulsed in thick and heady waves, and my heart beat faster. Above a level five. Far above. Not quite the power of a Demigod, but damn near close.

How the hell was that possible?

His soul burned black and dense, malicious. I suspected it would take me a second to talk him around.

The thing was, I had been prepared to talk to Harding.

This was not Harding.





21





Kieran





Kieran glanced away from the speaker in the large meeting hall as emotions poured into him from the soul link and his connections to the crew. Something had pulled Lexi and her portion of the second string away from the tea party. She had now reunited with most of the crew, and it felt like they were preparing for battle.

Something must have gone wrong. The tea party wouldn’t have ended so early, and even if it had, there was no reason for anyone but Thane to be fighting. And while Kieran sensed Thane had changed and was busting heads, it felt like he was still in the building. The Berserker battle should be outside, on the grounds.