Chapter 73

“Hell yeah, we’re ready,” Mikali answered, excitement for the attack oozing with every word.
“Let’s go!” Mila chimed in.
“Remember to wait for Cassidy’s signal before you begin your descent,” she reminded them, as if they wouldn’t keep that in mind. Mikali nodded, and Jo turned to her aunt who was at her elbow. “Can you let Adrian know we’re going in?”
“Yep,” Cassidy replied. She was the only one who could communicate mentally with the Souled since she had telepathy.
“All right, then.” Jo looked down at the roof of the palace where it jutted out of the mountainside. It was so far below her, it was difficult to see. Snow was falling to help block her view, and at this angle, it was hard to see anything at all except for a narrow roof line and plenty of turrets jutting up higher than the main building. There could be Vampires keeping guard there, so Cassidy would have to move them to the chimney quickly. How she would do that with this view was beyond Jo. She’d just have to trust that her aunt knew what she was doing.
Before she launched the attack, she sent a quick message to Zane, who was at the gate, ready to draw as many Vampires away from the interior of the palace as possible. “Good luck,” she said.
“You, too,” he replied. It wasn’t everything she had wanted to say to him, and she doubted it was all he wanted to say to her, but for now, it would have to do.
Jo had never been a huge fan of levitating so when she found her feet leaving the surface of the mountain, it was unsettling, especially when Cassidy started moving her rapidly out over empty space and then down so fast, no roller coaster could possibly go this quickly. The snow hit her like bits of ice until she was out of it. A rush of air all around her obscured her view as Jo tried to see where she was going. The palace roof was getting larger by the millisecond. When the chimney opening finally came into view, Jo realized quickly they had a problem they hadn’t expected and no one on the ground had pointed out to them. “Smoke!” she screeched, praying her aunt had time to stop the living projectile that was her body before it went down the chimney into the fire.
“Shit!” Cassidy said in her head as Jo’s body went down the brick protrusion. “Hold on!”
What that meant exactly, Jo didn’t know, but it was mighty warm inside of that tube. She stuck her hands out to brace herself against the bricks, thinking that was the only thing she had to hold on to. Cassidy stopped moving her, and Jo came to a lurching halt about halfway down the chimney, flames from the fire visible ten or fifteen feet beneath her.
“What are we going to do?” Jo asked, but her aunt didn’t answer. Instead, Ingrid appeared above her in the chimney, her boots pressed against the walls the same way that Jo’s were. She was only inches above her head. “Are you still going through with this?” she shouted at her aunt.
When Dax joined them, only the sound of his raspy breathing letting her know it was him, she got her answer. Jo didn’t know if all four of them would fit in the chimney as far up as she was, but the heat from the fire was a deterrent from her lowering herself. The fire couldn’t kill her, but it would hurt if the flames touched her skin, and they had no Healer with them. Scott would be down the mountainside eventually, and Cale was on the other side of the gate with Elliott, but that wouldn’t do her a whole lot of good. She had to assume Cassidy had a plan for getting them all out without alerting the Vampires that something was up with the fireplace, or else, she wouldn’t have continued to move the team in.
“I’m on the roof,” Cassidy told them. “There’s no one in the room where the fireplace is located right now. I’ll put it out and start it again, but I will need to see it to do that,” she explained.
Jo wished she would’ve just had Cassidy move them all to the roof and then sent her aunt down the chimney first, but she hadn’t thought of that until just now. “Can you move us all out?”
“No, this roofline is unbelievably narrow,” Cassidy said, “and I can see Vampires in the turrets. They just haven’t noticed us yet. I’ll need you to move down about five feet closer to the fire.”
“Are you shitting me?” Jo spat. “It’s already hot in here.” She wasn’t affected by weather, but this was different. Fire was a potential weapon. She could feel its heat. The realization that this fire was started by a Vampire made her wonder if it actually could burn her. If a Vampire held a flame to her skin, it would burn her. Why would this be any different?
“Just stop being crazy and scooch down!” Cassidy said. “I’ll take care of it quickly enough if you move!”
Jo didn’t appreciate her tone, but she knew there was nothing she could do at the moment. There were two bodies between her and the safe opening of the chimney, so that only left the hole beneath her as an exit. Mumbling to herself, she lifted her feet off of the wall completely and stopped pushing so hard with her hands until she was moving. She slid down the walls about five feet, until the flames were close enough that she could see the tips of purple and orange, and then pressed her hands and feet back into place.
Ingrid and Dax moved down, too, and then, when Jo thought she couldn’t handle the fire much longer, it went out, and she was moving faster than a bullet again, headed through the hot coals and out into a large hall.
She moved aside quickly, finding a hiding place in the shadow of a large hutch on one side of the fireplace. Ingrid and Dax each landed and moved aside quickly, and then Cassidy was with them. How she started the fire, Jo didn’t know, but it was blazing again. She had no idea her aunt had a power that could do that, unless she’d just managed to reignite one of the hot coals.
Cassidy would need a moment to concentrate and feel out with her mind so that they could find Holland and move in her direction, but they’d passed the first hurdle. They were inside Skyrty Palac and moving in on Holland as planned. Even if things hadn’t gone as expected so far, they were on track to find the Red Queen and bring her in.
Cassidy was standing in a shadow on the other side of the fireplace, her eyes closed. Jo watched her for a few seconds, praying it didn’t take her long to find their mark. Cassidy’s eyes flew open. “This way,” she said, confidently. Jo nodded and fell into step behind her aunt, hoping there were no more surprises.