“Tell me you called your females,” Qhuinn shouted.
“Tell me you can keep us up off the ground.”
“Not without lying.”
“Bank us harder east.”
“What?”
“East! Go east!”
Z zoomed in on the map and started running his fingertip in one direction, east to west.
“You want to land this way—behind the mansion!”
Qhuinn supposed he should take it as a positive sign that the guy was making landing plans that didn’t involve fireballs. And the suggestion was a good one. If they could orient themselves along the long side of that big-ass house, on the far side of the swimming pool, they might wipe out a line of fruit trees…but there would be roughly the same amount of field they’d used to take off from.
Better than slamming into the huge retaining wall that ran around the property— The engine didn’t pop this time. It just went dead, like it was tired of playing hard to get, and was going to take a permanent TO.
At least they were within landing range.
One shot. That was all they had.
A single attempt to land them on the ground that, assuming he could coast them into the vicinity of the property, penetrate the mhis, and manage not to hit the house, the Pit, the cars, the gates, or anything of real or other sorta property…would result in him delivering the proud father and loving hellren and superb fighter…back into the arms of his family.
But Z wasn’t all he was thinking about.
The Primale would oversee Layla’s health and safety. Blay had his loving parents and Sax. John had his Xhex.
They were all going to be okay.
Qhuinn wrenched around. “Get in a seat! Back there! Get into a seat and strap yourself in—”
The Brother opened his mouth, and Qhuinn did the unthinkable. He slapped his open hand over the male’s lips. “Sit the fuck down and strap in! We’ve come this far—let’s not be the reason this fucks up!”
He snatched the phone back. “Go! I got us!”
Z’s black eyes locked on his, and for a split second, Qhuinn wondered if he wasn’t going to get thrown out of the cockpit. But then the miraculous happened: An instant connection sprang up between them, a chain with links as thick as thighs locking in from one to the other.
Z lifted his forefinger and pointed directly into Qhuinn’s face. After he nodded once, he disappeared into the rear.
Qhuinn refocused.
Their coasting was keeping them aloft, and thanks to Z’s direction, that little extra pull to the right had set them up well. According to the GPS, they were closing in on the juncture of roads that split around the base of the mountain, inch by inch. Inch…by inch…
He was pretty sure they were over the property now.
As the plane sank farther, he braced himself, continuing to pull back hard on the steering staff until his shoulders bit into the seat behind him. There was no landing gear to put down—the shit had been locked in place all along— A sudden whistling noise penetrated the cockpit, and that, along with an abrupt change in angle, announced that gravity had started to win the fight, claiming the fiberglass and metal construction along with its pair of living-and-breathing as its prize.
They weren’t going to make it—it was too soon—
A wild vibration followed, and for a moment, he wondered if they hadn’t hit the ground and not noticed—treetops, maybe? No. Something…
The mhis?
The sudden buffering seemed to extend upward, and what do you know, the plane reacted differently, the nose leveling out through no effort of Qhuinn’s or help from the deadweight of that engine. Even the side-to-side teeter-tottering stopped.
Apparently, V’s invisible defense not only kept out humans and lessers, it could hold a Cessna in the air.
Except then he had another problem. That vital lift didn’t seem to let up.
With the way shit was going, it was like he was going to float up here for frickin’ ever, overshooting the only landing strip they had— Abruptly, the rattling resumed, and he checked the altimeter. They’d sunk down about twenty-five feet, and he had to wonder if they’d penetrated the barrier.
Lights. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, lights.
Out the side window, down below, he could see the glow of the mansion, and the courtyard. It was too far away to make out the details, but it had to be—yup, the small offshoot had to be the Pit.
Instantly, his brain three-dimensionalized and reoriented everything.
Fuck. His angle was wrong. If he kept going like this, he was going to land front to back on the property rather than down that long side. And the bitch of it was, he didn’t have enough lift to execute a nice fat circle to get them pointed in the right direction.
When you were out of options, you had no choice but to make it work.
His biggest problem remained missing the back lawn. There was only one clearing on the mountain. Everything else? Trees that were going to chew them up.
He needed to be lower, like now.
“Brace yourself!”
Even though it was counterintuitive, he shoved the drive shaft forward, and pointed them at the ground. There was an instant spike in speed, and he prayed that he could recover from it when he got into the strike zone. And shit, the intense shaking got even worse, to the point that it made him dizzy as hell, and his forearms stung from holding on to the wheel.
Faster. Closer. Faster. Louder. Closer.
And then it was time. The house and gardens were up ahead, and coming at them at a dead fucking run.
He pulled up hard, and the new velocity gave them a brief lift.
Over the house…
“Get ready!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
As slow-mo took over, everything was magnified: the sounds, the seconds, the sting in his eyes as he stared straight ahead, the feel of his body thrusting back into the seat— Fuck. He didn’t have any kind of harness on.
He hadn’t bothered with it. Too much else to think of.
Dumb-ass—
At that very instant, they made contact with something. Hard. The plane bounced up, hit something else, ricocheted off-kilter, bounced again. All the while, his head smacked into the panels above him, and his ass got spanked by the seat, and his— Cue the paint mixer.
The next phase of the landing from hell was a shake-rattle-and-roll that nearly threw him out of the cockpit. This was the ground—had to be—and damn, they were going fast. Lights whipped by the side windows, everything going Studio 54 until he was practically blinded. And given which side the strobe lighting was on, he figured they were in the garden—but they were running out of space.
Wrenching the wheel, he sent them into a tailspin, hoping that the same laws of physics that applied to out-of-control cars could translate here: no brakes, limited field, and the only way to slow their momentum was drag coefficient.
Centrifugal force slammed him against the side of the cockpit, and snow pelted his face; then something sharp.
Shit, they weren’t slowing down at all.
And that twenty-foot-tall, eighteen-inch-wide security wall was coming up fast.
Talk about your full stops….
TWENTY-ONE
Blay dematerialized to the mansion the instant the last slayer in that clearing was sent back to the Omega. With Qhuinn up in the air with Z, there was no reason to waste time waiting for another squadron to make an appearance.
Although really, like there was anything anyone could do to help the pair of them?
Re-forming in the courtyard, he—
Directly above him, making no sound at all, that godforsaken airplane blocked out the moon.
Holy shit, they’d made it—and goddamn, they were so close, he felt like he could reach up and touch the undercarriage of the Cessna.
The stone silence was not a good sign, however….