Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(82)

The cord cut into his hands, but that was good, because it was cutting into Hammett’s windpipe, too. The gun fell from Hammett’s hand and thunked against the floor as Hammett reached over his shoulder, scrabbling to pull Bo off of him, stumbling backward. The man was filled with wild fury.

But Bo was filled with vengeance.

Bo’s back hit the wall of the pilothouse. Hard. The impact shattered the dangling headset on one side of the cord and nearly knocked the wind out of Bo. He didn’t let go. He dodged Hammett’s flailing fist, only to be elbowed in the side. Pain knifed through his ribs, but he was too far hell-bent to care. He choked Hammett as if his own life depended on it. He choked Hammett for Astrid. And as his hands went numb and the big man slammed into him again and again, he hung on.

And on . . .

Whether seconds or minutes passed, he wasn’t sure, but he felt the moment Hammett stopped crushing him. The man tried to wedge his fingers between the cord and his throat. In vain. His muscles slackened, and his weight shifted.

Dead.

Dead or passed out. Bo didn’t really care which. He shoved the man’s limp body aside with a loud grunt, crawled to the gun, and snagged it off the floor. After checking the pistol’s magazine for bullets, he left Hammett and the pilothouse behind and raced down the outer deck stairs, coat blowing open as wind ripped across the ocean, only slowing when he approached the door to the main cabin.

He flattened himself against the cabin’s wall and peered inside the framed glass doors. The lights were on. No one guarded the door. Hard to tell, but it looked as though everyone was crowded in front of the piano. How many? Five? Six? The survivors, a voice inside his head said. They were all here together. For a moment, he thought Mrs. Cushing’s blond head belonged to Astrid, until his brain rejected the body. Not Astrid.

Where was she? His heart slammed against his aching ribs. He pushed hair out of his eyes and said a small prayer, and then he opened the door.

The wind betrayed him, howling into the cabin. Heads lifted. He registered the alarm on their faces, but his eyes were scanning for weapons. And for Astrid.

“Sibyl!” someone cried out as the crowd parted.

Bo was aware of the doors at his back and the wind gusting through them. He didn’t want Hammett coming downstairs and surprising him, so he quickly sidled toward the bar to get a better angle, and that’s when he finally spotted Max leaning against the piano—as if he could barely stand on his own. And in the center of the crowd, Mrs. Cushing was bent over the piano stool.

Over Astrid’s limp body.

“What have you done to her?” Bo shouted.

Mrs. Cushing finally looked up. Her eyes blazed with anger when she saw him. “Nance! Hammett has failed.”

“Astrid!” Bo roared, pointing his gun from head to head, unsure who he should target. Seven rounds in the Colt. If he didn’t miss . . .

“She’s not conscious,” Mrs. Cushing said. “And if you want her to live, you’d better put that away.” The woman snatched up Astrid by her hair and roughly jerked her until she sat up on the piano stool to make her point. “See.”

“What have you done to her?”

“Sibyl, the ritual!” Nance rasped, blood spattering as he coughed.

Mrs. Cushing’s face softened. She smiled at Bo. “Allow me to perform the ritual and the girl will live. Kill any of us, and she’ll die. She’s connected to us, and you know this, otherwise you wouldn’t have been looking for the symbol.”

Bo aimed at Cushing.

“Bo . . .”

“Astrid!” Bo shouted, stalking forward.

“Not her,” Astrid mumbled as her eyes fluttered open. “Max.”

Cushing gripped Astrid’s hair tighter, making her groan. “I’m warning you. If you harm anyone here, the girl will die. Don’t be foolish.”

Bo hesitated. What if Cushing was right? Astrid was connected to them. She possessed something of Nance’s energy—Velma had seen it. Stand or fall together. That’s what Nance had said in the pilothouse.

But when his gaze met Astrid’s, he saw something there that he knew as well as his own name. Magnusson confidence mixed with Magnusson temper. Her tired eyes said: If you don’t trust me now, Bo Yeung, I swear to God, I’ll die just to spite you!

And that was all the confirmation he needed.

He’d wanted to kill the son of a bitch, anyway.

He rotated his aim to Max, closed one eye, and fired.

The thunderous shot echoed around the cabin. Max’s body flew backward as the bullet struck his chest. Bo fired at him again, just to be sure, and watched him collapse on the floor.

Cushing’s scream circled the room and blocked out the howling wind as a white light rose out of Max’s body and shot through the yacht’s ceiling. Bo struggled to train the gun’s sight on the other five, who were scattering around the room, crying out as if in pain. One by one, they all teetered mid-step, seemed to dry up, and burst into clouds of dust.

Cushing released Astrid’s hair, and as she stood, Astrid’s hand shot up and grabbed a chain around the woman’s neck. It broke free, and Cushing jumped as if she’d been struck.

“Catch!” Astrid yelled, and tossed a necklace toward Bo.

He saw the turquoise sphere and chain sailing toward him, but Astrid’s throw was weak, and he had to dive forward to reach it. Inches from his fingers, the turquoise crashed against the floor and shattered into bright blue shards.