Grave Phantoms
Page 81

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.
Astrid gaped.
Cushing froze. Strands of her hair changed from blond to white. Her skin began wrinkling. But Bo’s gaze flicked to the spot below her feet, where the floor opened up and a bright blue circle of water swirled like a waterspout, crackling with electricity.
“Bo! The yacht—”
She didn’t need to finish. Something terrible was happening. The air was breaking down around them, getting heavier. He gasped but couldn’t seem to inhale anything into his lungs.
He didn’t think, just raced to Astrid and snatched her around the waist. Cushing rose up in the air over the blue funnel as Bo dragged Astrid toward the cabin’s open doors. He didn’t care enough about what happened to the woman to look back.
There was no time to lower a lifeboat; the yacht’s floor was melting. The wind whipped up Astrid’s hair as they came to a stop on the deck. She looked at him and understanding passed between them. She grabbed his hand, they vaulted over the railing together . . .
And jumped.
For a long, suspended moment, there was nothing but cold and darkness as they plunged into the ocean. His body was too shocked to react. To move. To do anything but wonder if he’d never stop sinking. But he did, and when he regained control over his limbs and floundered in the icy water, he’d lost Astrid’s hand.
He couldn’t see. Couldn’t feel. Couldn’t call out for her. All he could do was hope.
His lungs felt as if they might burst. He despaired and pushed himself up through the water—was this up? He couldn’t tell anymore—fighting against the cold and the friction that longed to pull him back down. Up, up, until he exploded through the water’s surface and gasped for breath.
He gulped air and paddled as he called for her. “Astrid!”
It was so dark. So black. So cold. He twisted around, waves crashing over his head, until he saw the yacht silhouetted against the dark blue sky. But no Astrid. Where was she?
Out of nowhere, a bolt of white lightning streaked across the night sky and struck the yacht. The sound was explosive. Waves radiated from the boat like a bomb had been dropped. And as they reached Bo and lifted him higher in the water, he watched in awe as the yacht simply vanished.
Gone!
Captain Haig had told them at the radio station that he’d seen the same phenomenon, but to witness it with his own eyes was startling. The radiating waves lifted him, dropped him, and when he was able to ride their undulating path and look around, fresh panic turned his stomach to stone.
The yacht was gone. Where was Astrid?
Stand or fall together.
He refused to believe Cushing. Refused! Astrid was still here. Had to be. But where? Was she under? He took a deep breath and urged his muscles into action, preparing to dive, when he heard a distant shout across the water.