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“I’ll just ask the obvious question,” Bones said as they hurried down the path at a near-jog, as fast as they dared move in the darkness. “Why are we in such a hurry? We’ve got all three magic doodads, and you obviously know how to use them. They mess with us again, just put the whammy on ‘em.”
Without breaking stride, Kismet looked back over his shoulder. “You ever see Wizard of Oz?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“You remember how Dorothy killed the witches?”
Bones shrugged. “Sure. She dropped a house on one, and melted the other with a bucket of water.”
“She got lucky. Twice. I got lucky back there. I caught them by surprise. But they know a lot more about these things than I do, and maybe I won’t get lucky a second time.”
Maddock thought about his answer, remembering how Aliyah had tried to use the Apex and the Magna of Illusion together—tried and failed. Kismet was wrong, he decided. When it came to tapping the power of the elementals, the magicians were as much in the dark as everyone else.
Still, probably best not to put all their eggs in that basket.
They descended the moss-slick stairs and hurried out onto the pier. The rain was coming down harder now, the seas noticeably rougher. Storm waves, rebounding off the headlands and coming in from every conceivable direction, were pounding the cliffs and throwing curtains of spray over the pier. When they reached the steps leading down to the dock, Maddock half-expected to find their boat gone, torn from its mooring, but instead there were now three Zodiacs tied to the cleats. Both the dock and the inflatable boats were rising and falling a good three feet with each swell that rolled through.
By mutual accord, Maddock and Bones hurried ahead to the nearest boat, steadying it, at least to the extent that was possible, so the others could board. Rose climbed in first and as soon as she was seated, Maddock passed the box with the Magna of Illusion over to her. She accepted it without comment, slipping it into the pack with the orb. Jade boarded next but Kismet moved past them, to the next Zodiac.
“What? You too good to ride with us?” Bones called out.
Kismet laughed. “I’m not going to ride in it.”
His hand dropped to his waist and, with a noise like fingernails on a chalkboard, he drew an enormous kukri knife from a concealed sheath and slashed it across the bright yellow inflatable gunwale. Air rushed from the ruptured cell in a flatulent whoosh. The boat did not immediately sink, but as the buoyancy chamber emptied, the craft settled lower, and water began sloshing over the gunwale, filling the bilges.
“It leaks.”
He did the same to the other boat then sheathed his knife and rejoined the others, clambering into the Zodiac with Rose and Jade. Maddock went next, immediately settling into the pilot’s chair, while Bones loosened but did not release the knot around the cleat. With the raft still rising and falling crazily with the sea, their timing would have to be perfect. Cast off at the wrong moment, and they might get thrown against the pier.
After checking to make sure the shift lever was in the neutral position, Maddock hit the electric starter switch, revved the motor once, twice, and then looked out to sea, watching the swells roll in. The Zodiac dipped as one wave passed, and then just as quickly began rising with the next. When it reached the crest, Maddock shouted, “Now!”
Bones gave the rope a deft twist and then leaped into the prow. His momentum caused the front end to swing away from the dock, and as the boat tilted toward the backside of the wave, it fell away from the mooring, sliding faster down the wave. At the same instant, Maddock engaged the screws and opened up the throttle. The Zodiac shot forward but almost immediately began to nose up, into the next swell.
“Hang on!”
The boat angled up, climbing the fluid slope, but as it neared the crest, he eased off the throttle to avoid shooting off the top like a rocket. Their momentum carried them over the hump and then they were falling again.
This roller coaster ride replayed again and again as they fought clear of Drake’s Island. The rain continued to lash them, but as they reached the deeper water in the channel, the ride finally smoothed out a little, so Maddock gave it more throttle and pointed the bow toward Plymouth harbor. The city lights appeared to undulate up and down as the Zodiac skipped over rough seas, a tapestry of stars waving up and down as if being shaken by a giant.
But two of the lights were different. Low on the horizon, they didn’t move the same as the others. More precisely, they were moving, detached from the fixed cityscape which only seemed to be in motion.
Two boats, exiting the harbor, heading out into the storm-tossed sound.
Probably nothing. A couple of fisherman taking their boats out to deep water to avoid the incessant pounding of the storm surge.
But Maddock’s instincts told him otherwise.
He cut back on the throttle, which eased the relentless hammering vibrations from the hull smashing through the waves, but perversely made the nausea-inducing rise and fall even more pronounced.
Bones crawled back to him. “You saw ‘em, too?”
Maddock nodded. He resisted the urge to dismiss what he had seen, what he was feeling. If it was nothing, it was nothing, but if it wasn’t nothing, denial would only make the situation worse.
“You think witchy-poo had some reinforcements standing by?”
“Could be.”
Kismet joined them. “There’s another possibility.”
“Prometheus.”
“They might have been hanging back, waiting for us to do the heavy lifting.”
“Bastards,” Bones snarled.
“Typical,” Kismet said, affirming the sentiment.
Maddock nodded. “So how do we—down!”
Tiny flashes of light, barely visible beside the brighter spotlights of the approaching vessels, eliminated the first possibility.
Definitely not nothing.