Page 42 of Legacy of Chaos

There were weak spots? Before Cyan could speak—not that she could get a word past the lump in her throat—another flight attendant appeared from the back of the helo with sparkling water for Cyan and an iced coffee for Stryke.

After she left, Cyan frowned at their drinks. “Is that what you wanted?”

He rattled the ice in his glass. “Yep. Why?” He gestured at her water. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I was just thinking that I’d die for a glass of sparkling water, and here it is.”

“Oh, yeah. Delwhin can read minds. And her claws are poisonous, so if anyone thinks about killing me, she’s got my back.”

Ah. Of course. Didn’t everyone have a poisonous flight attendant bodyguard on their payroll?

As the bird lifted off, bucking and jolting, she concentrated on keeping her mind from reeling and her drink from spilling.

The overhead speaker squealed, and the pilot’s deep voice came on. “Mr. Stryke, we should be at the rig in approximately twenty minutes. We’re flying into the storm, so things are going to get rough. Hold on and enjoy the flight. And try not to puke.”

“He always says that,” Stryke muttered over the rim of his glass. “I only did it once. Bastard.”

“Why do you employ him if he’s so annoying?”

Stryke put down his coffee. “He’s an excellent pilot. And a luck demon. I figure the odds of me making it to my destination alive go way up with him on board.”

“Hmm.” She leaned back in her creamy leather seat. “Luck demons build up bad luck that has to be passed off. So, if you’re getting the good luck, who gets the bad?”

“My enemies.” His dark smirk was both sexy and chilling. “Behvyn isn’tjustmy pilot.”

“Nice.” His ruthlessness was kind of hot. She took a gulp of seltzer to keep it from sloshing over the rim of the glass. “Okay, so the oil company drilled into Sheoul. I’m guessing we’re going to try to plug the hole?”

“We plugged it a month ago.” He gazed out the window. The clouds had broken up, allowing brief glimpses of whitecaps on the rough water below. “A few weeks ago, X-Oil contacted StryTech about some incidents on one of their rigs. Equipment was malfunctioning, the drill kept breaking, and then people started dying. They thought they were haunted.”

“But they weren’t.”

“No.” He took a drink of coffee. “We determined that the drill had broken into a body of water in the demon realm, and aquatic demons were spilling into our realm.”

The helicopter banked hard enough for Cyan to white-knuckle the table with her grip, but Stryke barely seemed to notice.

“We bought the rig and sealed the breach with the help of a technomancer. I’ve got mercs hunting down the demons that came through the rift before we patched it, and I stationed mages on the rig to maintain a ward to protect the platform. It’s been secure since.” He glanced again at the rain pelting the window. “Or so I thought. My foreman called today to tell me that at least one demon got through the breachandpast the mages. We need to figure out how to repair the breach before demons that can’t otherwise leave the hell realm realize they have a way out.” He paused, concentrating on the thrashing sea below. “Aquatic demons are especially hard to deal with.”

“Why is that?”

He turned back to her. “Not much is known about them, even inside Sheoul. They’re hard to predict and harder to kill. Just afew could disrupt the entire planet’s oceanic ecosystem. No more whales, sharks, or dolphins. Eventually, no more anything.”

She swallowed dryly and wished she had some vodka to mix with her seltzer. He was describing some seriously apocalyptic shit. The oceans fed the world, and dead oceans meant dead everything. She might not necessarily want to help Stryke, but she couldn’t say no to helping the planet.

Suddenly, the flight attendant appeared with two mini bottles of vodka and a fresh bottle of sparkling water.

“Oh. Um, thank you,” Cyan said. The female nodded and disappeared. As she poured one of the vodkas into her glass, she considered the aquatic demon issue.

“Fire and air are often effective against aquatic lifeforms,” she offered. She’d excelled in her Weaponized Biology class in college.

“So I’ve been told,” he murmured.

The intercom chirped, and the pilot’s voice rang out. “We’re approaching theSea Storm. Should be on the platform in a couple of minutes. Could be a rough landing, so if you’re not wearing your seat belt, now is the time to buckle up.”

The chopper slowed and started to descend, and she looked out the window in time to see the lights of a massive oil rig come into view in the distant darkness.

The janky landing made her glad for the harness-style seat belts and sturdy armrests. When she told Stryke as much, he seemed amused.

“This is nothing. I’ve been on a few flights I didn’t think I would survive. Probably wouldn’t have without Behvyn.”

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