Page 104 of Shadow Blind

O’Neill cast him an unreadable look. With an exaggerated shrug, he lengthened his stride and pulled ahead.

Wolf slowed his pace, allowing O’Neill to gain distance. Overhead, a cloud swept across Heemitia’s face, obscuring her shine. Wolf picked up his pace again. With the clouds came snow—and the low pressure ridge they’d been warned about. They needed to get in the air before the bad weather and the Russian fighters arrived.

Thanks to the Russian’s staggering, wandering, drug-induced state, Samuel and Kuznetsov had dropped from first out the door, to two of the last to board. Only O’Neill and Wolf walked behind them. If Wolf had been in charge, he would have grabbed Kuznetsov and tossed him into the cargo hold by now. His second was far too gentle.

The vision hit when he least expected it, as always.

It started with a loud, electrical buzz in his head. Not his ears…his head. The visions always announced themselves with an intense hum. Several seconds of blindness followed the buzz. When he could see again, it wasn’t through his eyes, it was through his mind, like a dream. A waking dream.

Everything looked…the same, yet different.

The same vista surrounded him, but not in color, in shades of black and white. The Thunderbird crouched before him, the view partially blocked by O’Neill’s broad, chrome colored back. Heemitia was a bright silver sphere in the sky, the tail of a cloud drifting off to her left. The snow-scraped ground beneath his boots writhed with shadows and light. The vicinity surrounding the Thunderbird was clear of warriors—except for Samuel and O’Neill, who was partially turned.

Whatever was about to happen would happen here. And soon. The Thunderbird, the moon, the incoming clouds, O’Neill—they were all things he’d just seen through his eyes, in color and true life.

He turned in a slow circle, scanning the night as seen through the vision for imminent death. Visions always heralded danger. Disaster. Death. Always.

What was this one warning of?

Off to the right, next to one of the small sheds strewn throughout the compound, a silver flare lit the night. A thick, percussive cough followed. He recognized both the flare and the cough. Although in true life, the flare was red, not silver.

An RPG launch.

The recognition had barely registered when O’Neill was swallowed by fire.

The vision vanished as suddenly as it had hit. Wolf released a choppy breath. It gusted out on the tail of a name.

O’Neill.

A quick look up revealed the Heemitia was clear, the cloud that wreathed her earlier drifting off to the left. His gaze shot to O’Neill, who was turning. He must have heard Wolf gust out his name.

The RPG was about to strike. O’Neill was about to die. Wolf launched himself forward. Shouting would do no good. It would take a second or two for O’Neill to react, to drop to the ground. And those seconds carried his death.

With the silver case anchored to his chest, he slammed into O’Neill, driving them both to the ground. The percussive cough sounded behind them. Beneath him, O’Neill lay still as the RPG whistled over their heads, striking the ground ahead. Wolf lifted his gaze and blinked grit from his eyes.

Fire clawed at the sky where Samuel and Kuznetsov had once walked.

Chapter forty-one

Day 17

Petropavlovsk, Russia

He was supposed to be dead.

His unfocused gaze locked on his boots, O’Neill sat perfectly still in the chair closest to the cargo hold door. The vibrations from the Thunderbird’s engines skimmed through the aircraft’s walls and floor, aggravating the ache in his shoulder and the band of pain across his torso. If he kept still, the throb in his shoulder and the agony around his chest let him breathe.

But the injuries he was trying to ignore were nothing when compared to death, and he should be dead.

If the ton of bricks called Wolf hadn’t slammed into him and knocked him to the ground, he would be dead.

His gaze tried to stray toward the back of the Thunderbird where the spirit healers were trying to prevent Samuel from crossing into the web of his ancestors. There could be no healing of his or Wolf’s injuries while the Hee-Hee-Thae were struggling to keep Samuel’s spirit and body tied.

But then, O’Neill’s and Wolf’s injuries were not life threatening. Samuel’s were.

He hoped that the wanatesa weapon, within its silver case, had not broken open as they’d hit the ground. He thought not. The case had been crushed between his and Wolf’s bodies—indeed, it had caused a fair share of their injuries. But they hadn’t opened it to check on the weapon. Instead, Wolf had locked the case in the outside box on the Thunderbird’s skids.

No good came from worrying over things he did not control. There was nothing to do but wait and see if the container inside the case had broken open and infected him.

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