Page 89 of Bishop's Flight
“Oh thank God.” Brigid reached him and grabbed him around the chest. She could smell blood and felt a chunk of glass under her arm, embedded in the boy’s chest. “Tell me what hurts.” She didn’t wait for his answer but began to swim toward the beach in the distance.
The houseboat had been moored near a sandy inlet at the base of a sheer red rock wall. Boulders curved out into the water, creating a small, crescent-moon beach, but the entire spit of land was no more than a dozen feet deep and maybe only thirty feet long. Scrubby bushes grew in the cracks of the rock, and the waves lapped at the red stone walls as the water around the burning houseboat tossed its remains against the shore.
“I can’t hear you.” Lucas tried to turn toward her as they swam. “I can’t hear you.”
“Dammit.” The blood she smelled wasn’t enough to be life threatening, but she’d have to wait and see when she took him out of the water. “You might have burst eardrums.”
Even as she swam for shore, she scanned the water around her, waiting for Zasha to emerge. It was too much to hope that they were dead. According to Zasha, fire didn’t hurt them, though Brigid only had the other vampire’s word on that.
She could feel cool water against her nape and knew that much of her hair had probably burned off again. As she passed the houseboat, she blinked and paused, trying to understand what she was seeing.
The back of the houseboat, where she saw the remnants of pipes and walls, was relatively intact, with the metal shower doorframe still dangling from a single standing wall.
The front of the houseboat, on the other hand, was demolished.
Brigid blinked and the corner of her mouth turned up. “I directed it.”
For the first time in her immortal life, the fire had listened to her. She’d pleaded with it not to hurt Lucas and it had listened. The blast had touched the bathroom where he’d been sheltering, but not badly. Most of the force of her fire had been directed at Zasha.
“Brigid, I can’t hear you. I can’t hear anything.”
She patted his shoulder and leaned in to his ear. “Can you hear that?”
He nodded, and she felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.
“Your ears are damaged, but it’s probably not permanent.”
Brigid struggled to the shore, spitting out lake water as it rushed into her mouth. Once her feet touched the sandy bottom of the beach, she helped Lucas find his footing. He limped a little bit, but otherwise, he was fine.
That was until he realized she was naked.
“Oh.” He swiftly turned and showed her his back. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Brigid looked around the water for anything that might cover her body. No use embarrassing the poor boy more than he already was. She saw a torn blue-and-white-striped towel floating in the distance and walked over to grab it, wrapping it around her body before she turned Lucas around. “Look at me.”
She could hear motors in the distance, and Lucas was looking at his feet. Were the motors Zasha’s people? Carwyn? The Ankers? Anything was possible. “Look at me, Lucas.” She tilted his chin up to get a good look at his injuries.
His face had cuts and a few bruises starting to bloom, but his eyes were undamaged. One ear was bleeding, and his lip was cut. He’d already plucked the piece of glass from his chest, and the wound was shallow.
His pants were hanging around his waist, relatively intact. His shirt was torn, and there were other small glass pieces scattered over his chest and shoulders, but none of the cuts appeared to be very deep.
You did it. You kept the fire away from the boy.
Thank you.
She let out a sigh of relief. “Lucas?”
He stared at her and narrowed his eyes. “I can hear you a little bit.”
She turned and looked in the distance; there were lights coming toward them. She turned back to the kid. “We need to find a place for you to hide.”
He looked around and shook his head. “There’s no place here. Didn’t that kill Zasha?”
“Probably not.”
She picked her way through the debris on the shore, heading to an outcropping of sandstone boulders that jutted out into the water. “Get to the top of this and see if there’s some place on the other side where you can hide.” She boosted him up the first boulder. “Climb over and hide. I’ll get you when it’s safe.”
“Brigid.” His eyes went wide. “Don’t leave me.”
