"They know about the website?" Arrabelle asked. "They know the police might be waiting in Vegas to collect them?"
Evan snorted.
"I wouldn't want to put money on that encounter going in the police's favor."
Arrabelle agreed with him, but she knew what guns could do against unarmed civilians and it was not a pleasant thought. It made her worry about the Eagles and about the women they'd rescued.
"They know," Lyse said. "And I don't think they're worried. But I encouraged them to stay under the radar. Jessika said she has a friend in naval intelligence who owes her a favor. She didn't say so, but I think she might be commandeering a ship so they can stay out at sea, bring in people to help the women offshore . . . where it's safe. All of this not in Las Vegas, obviously."
"If they can be helped," Arrabelle said, looking at Niamh. The poltergeist creature had said the women's bodies were just vessels and would stay that way until The Flood was defeated. She wasn't sure what any medical doctor, herbalist, or psychiatrist could do to make a difference in the face of something like that.
"See you guys on the other side," Jessika called over to them, giving a wave.
They watched as she hopped into the helicopter's cabin and climbed into the pilot's seat, the door closing behind her.
"That woman is incredible. I wish my brain worked the way hers does," Arrabelle murmured.
They watched Jessika put on a headset, then flip a few switches on the control panel. There was a loud hiss and then the helicopter's rotor blades began to engage. Jessika gave them a quick wave through the glass of the cockpit, and the metal machine slowly lifted into the air.
"She's not someone I'd ever want to screw with," Evan said, shaking his head. "I met her at a sweat lodge in North Dakota. We were both there studying with a Cree shaman-she's an herbalist like us, Arrabelle. She was finishing her time with him and I was about to start mine. We hit it off right away, but, honestly, she's always kind of intimidated me. She's a real badass."
Arrabelle wondered if she should feel jealous about Evan's friendship with the other woman. But she was just so in awe of Jessika, she wouldn't have faulted Evan if he was a little in love with her. Heck, she might be a little in love with Jessika and the rest of the Shrieking Eagles herself.
As the helicopter lifted into the sky, the Humvee engines roared to life and began the arduous journey of returning to civilization. Their giant wheels kicked up dust as the convoy headed out into the desert, the sound of their progress echoing back at Arrabelle and the others for a long time after they'd gone. But soon even that last trace of the Shrieking Eagles and their charges died away, the night swallowing them whole . . . and leaving the four of them-Arrabelle, Evan, Lyse, and Niamh-alone by the entrance to the now-empty mine.
"Now we walk," Arrabelle said, answering the unspoken question in all their minds. "The car's parked about two miles away. From there, we head back to Los Angeles."
There was no acknowledgment that they were exhausted, that they'd already battled the forces of evil once that day and deserved some well-earned rest. Instead, there was merely silence as they embarked on what would prove to be the beginning of a very long journey.
• • •
"No word from Freddy or Dev?" Lyse asked, leaning her chin on the back of Arrabelle's seat. "No word back from Italy?"
Arrabelle knew she'd received nothing since the last time she'd looked at her phone-five minutes previously-but she rechecked it again anyway. As the screen lit up in the darkness, she held the cell phone up so Lyse could see it.
Nothing.
"Maybe we can try texting again in a few minutes?" Lyse asked, and Arrabelle nodded, letting the screen go dark again as she set the phone back in her lap.
"Of course. But Freddy hasn't replied to anything I've sent, and when I call it goes straight to voice mail."
"It was two days ago," Evan said from the driver's seat. "Maybe something else happened. Two days is a long time to be incommunicado."
"I hope nothing else has happened to them," Lyse murmured, sitting back in her seat. "It's bad enough already."
She and Niamh were in the rear of Arrabelle's rental car, the same one she'd put on her credit card at the Sea-Tac airport Hertz Rent-A-Car days earlier. It was crazy how long ago that felt . . . like she'd lived a whole lifetime since then. She knew she was going to get killed on the overages-she hadn't even called to let them know she was taking the little red car out of Washington State-but, at this point in time, she didn't really give a shit what they charged her. She was obviously not going to be returning the car anytime soon, and they had her card. Let them have fun running it up to its limit.