She was officially insane and she had decided to do Jennifer a favor and kick the bucket.
Four lean shadows shot out across the parking lot, heading for her, two from the north and the two by the overpass. Desandra spun and sprinted away, running east, long legs moving fast, feet pounding the pavement.
I dropped to the ground, by the wall. Robert flattened himself next to me. Behind us Ascanio and Derek froze, trying to blend in with the rocks.
Four vampires tore past us, eyes glowing, talons scraping the pavement.
We had mere seconds before reinforcements arrived.
In the distance Desandra’s throaty laugh echoed from the ruins. Apparently she was having fun.
I jumped to my feet and sprinted like my life depended on it. Robert and the kids shot by me like three bullets out of a gun. The apartment building flashed by. Sidewalk . . . street . . . I just had to get behind the pile of rubble. Circles swam in front of my eyes.
The door of the nearest minaret opened and vampires spilled onto the wall, scrambling over it like pallid lizards.
I dove behind the rubble, slid on icy dirt, and nearly collided with Robert leaning against a huge chunk of concrete. A dark hole gaped under it. Robert jabbed at the hole with his hand. I leaped into it, fell about twelve feet, and landed on hard ground in a shaft about six feet wide. The impact punched my feet.
In my head I could feel six undead moving toward us, their minds spreading wider apart as they fanned through the parking lot in our direction.
Ascanio jumped into the hole. I shied back against the wall and his feet missed me by half a second. Derek was next.
One of the vampires headed straight for us.
Robert leaped into the hole and yanked a metal lever in the wall. Above us, a metal platform moved, carrying the concrete boulder with it. The platform slid into place, plunging us into complete darkness.
We stood completely still.
The vampire mind was right on top of us.
My body screamed for air, starved of oxygen after the run. I opened my mouth and concentrated on breathing slow and quiet. Inhale. Exhale. Quiet.
A faint scrape came from above, claws sliding on concrete. The undead was sitting right on the boulder.
My lungs were on fire.
Go away.
A minute dragged by. Another.
“Team Two Leader to Mother,” a muffled female voice said above. “Home envelope sealed, no pulse, no bogey, repeat no bogey, advise?”
Go home, I willed. Go home.
“Roger. Team Two, sweep complete, bingo to Mother.”
The vampiric mind turned and fled, heading toward the Casino.
Everything went quiet. I remembered how to breathe properly.
“Go forward,” Robert whispered to me. I put my hands out around me. My fingers found stone walls on either side. The opening between them was barely wide enough to pass through. Dark, cramped, and scary. My favorite.
I squeezed into the narrow hallway and blundered forward. The walls narrowed even further. My shoulders scraped the rock. You’ve got to be kidding me. When I got out of here, I’d kill Hugh for this. Slowly. With something dull.
The hallway needed to end. The walls were closing in on me.
What if the ceiling collapsed? I didn’t even know what the hell was above me. I’d just end up buried here, under tons of dirt and rubble.
Any time now with the ending.
Now would be good.
How long did this place go on?
Suddenly the walls parted. I froze. With my luck, taking a step would land me into a pit of rabid vipers or molten lava. No wait, lava would be good. At least I’d be able to see something.
“Reach forward,” Robert murmured behind me.
I groped blindly and touched something metal. A ladder. Okay. Now we’re in business. I grabbed onto it and climbed upward in total darkness. Robert was right. I wouldn’t have found this place in a million years.
My head connected with something hard. Ow.
The ceiling above me moved, letting in a pale glow. A hand with long clawed fingers grabbed my wrist and yanked me up. A horrifying face swung into view, illuminated by the faint blue light of a feylantern: pale, with patchy fur and a pink nose at the end of a tear-shaped muzzle. Long stiff whiskers fanned from a mouth studded with finger-long incisors. Dark, disturbingly human eyes stared at me.
My mind cycled through a chain of thoughts in a space of half a second. Kill. Wait. Wererat in a warrior form = friend. Stop.
I stopped the throwing knife a quarter of an inch before stabbing it into the wererat’s windpipe. It’s good that I had fast reflexes.
“Conssshort,” the nightmarish creature said. “What are you doing here?”
I made my mouth move. “Looking for you.”
The wererat smiled. My body flinched and tried to run away out of sheer self-preservation, and if I hadn’t been hanging suspended over a dark hole, it would’ve succeeded.
“You found me!” the wererat announced. “I alwayshh wanted to meet you. I am sshhho ffflatterred.”
Robert’s head poked out of the hole. “Jardin, put the Consort down before you dislocate her shoulder.”
“Alpha!” Jardin deposited me to the side. “Itshh shhuch an honor.”
Robert pulled himself up into the room. Derek and Ascanio followed. I looked around. We were in a narrow, rectangular space about as wide as an average van. Three walls looked like concrete; the fourth was covered by a dark curtain.
“Any activity?” Robert asked.
“Not in the lasssht ten minutesh. Before that, very exshiting. I shaw Wolf Beta run by. There were vampiresh chassing her. She was yelling, ‘Bill me, bloodshuckers!’”
Yep, that’s the wolf beta, alright.
“I think I’m in love,” Ascanio said.
Derek smacked the back of the bouda’s head. Ascanio snapped his teeth at him.
“Stop it,” I growled under my breath.
Jardin tossed a rag over the lantern. Darkness drowned the room. The curtain whispered as he moved it aside, revealing a long narrow space, filled with moonlight. Jardin hunched over, bending his six-and-a-half-foot body, and slipped through the opening. Robert followed and I did, too. My eyes acclimated to darkness and I saw Robert and Jardin leaning against the wall by a narrow gap in the concrete. The space was barely large enough for the five of us.
I crouched next to them and glanced through the gap. A hundred yards to the left the Casino glowed. Vampires scoured the walls, crawling on the textured parapets. We were inside the overpass.
“How did you even find this place?”
“By accident,” Robert said so quietly, I barely heard it. “Before the overpasses collapsed, they crossed in this spot. This is a reinforced section, designed to hold the weight of all three in case a collapse occurred. When the top overpasses crashed, the magic began eating them from the inside, and eventually the three sections of the road fused, forming this hole.”
“To what to I owe zhe pleashure?” Jardin asked.
“We’re at war,” Robert told him. “Someone in the Pack killed Mulradin.”
The wererat blinked. “Oh. I ssshaw him leave the Casino tonight.”
“How long ago?” Derek asked.
“Five houuursh.”
Mulradin must’ve bailed right after Ghastek left for the Conclave. What could’ve been so urgent?
“You said you saw him in the Warren before as well,” Robert said. “Where?”
“Corrrner of Marsharet and Joneshhboro.”
Robert’s eyebrows crept up. “The Fox Den?”
“Yessh.”
“Did you see with whom?” Robert asked.
Jardin shook his head. “But I sshaw him there twice.” He raised two long fingers.
“The Fox Den is a hit-’n’-split,” Robert said to me.
A hit-’n’-split was a lovely post-Shift euphemism. It wasn’t exactly a whorehouse and it wasn’t exactly a hotel. Most
of the hit-’n’-splits were run out of converted apartment buildings. If you wanted to have sex with something that grew fur, scales, or feathers and you wanted to do it privately, you went to a hit-’n’-split, worked your kinks out of your system, and left with your humanity mostly intact. Nobody would be the wiser.
I’d run across a couple of hit-’n’-splits in my time with the Guild and the Order. Most operated under the radar. A prospective client somehow got hold of a phone number, called the management, stated their preferences, and paid the quoted price. In return he would receive a key in the mail. At designated times he’d show up at the apartments, use the key, get his freak on, then leave. It was an “at your own risk” kind of venture. No security, no front desk, no witnesses. The management charged both parties a flat fee, but there was no pimp and no madam. Everyone operated independently. If Mulradin frequented a hit-’n’-split, he had a fetish and he wanted to keep it hidden.
“Red brick building,” Jardin said. “Second one from the easht.”
“We need to get back to Centennial Park first,” I told him. I wouldn’t leave Desandra stranded. Not after what she did. As far as I was concerned, she’d earned whatever support she wanted from me.
“You can ushe the other tunnel, but you can’t leave now. The sshift change is in ten minutessh and they will do a shweep right past the entranshe.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Sssshoould be clear in forty minutessh.”
“We wait, then.” I curled against the concrete.
Ascanio landed next to me. “Are you still mad at me for coming with?”
“Yes.”
“It will be okay,” he told me.
Derek sat down across from us.
“Did you know about Ascanio’s master plan?” I asked.
“No,” Derek said. “But I saw him walk off into the woods while everyone was talking.”
“I don’t know Desandra,” Ascanio said. “I don’t know Robert either.”
“I do know Desandra,” Derek said. “Ascanio’s annoying, but extra backup is always nice.”
Robert chuckled quietly. “You two were planning to fight me?”
“Not planning,” Ascanio said. “Just ready. In case.”
Teenage bodyguards. I closed my eyes. It would be a long night and I needed every drop of sleep I could get. I let myself drift, as Robert’s and Jardin’s soft voices receded into drowsiness.
“Thank you, Jardin. This will help us tremendously.”
“Happy to hhhear it, Alpha.”
“Once we are gone, I need you to return to Rat House.”
“I have ennough food for two weekssh,” Jardin said. “I could be ussheful.”
“No,” Robert said. “You’re too valuable to us and this post is too dangerous. Your life isn’t worth the risk . . .”
Sleep cushioned me, like a blanket wrapped around my body.
• • •
THE SEA WAS smooth, like the surface of a coin. I was lying in the sand next to Curran. My cheek rested on his chest, his skin heated by the sun. My hand was on his stomach, the ridges of hard muscle hot under my fingertips. His right arm was around me and he was playing with a strand of my hair. Lazy waves splashed against our feet, warm and soothing.
“We have to get up, baby,” he said.
“No.”
“We have to get up. Tide is coming in.”
“Let it come,” I murmured. “I just want to have more time. There’s never enough time . . .”
“Kate . . .”
I hugged him to me.
“Kate.”
Something touched me. I moved. My eyes snapped open. I was sitting on top of Jardin, holding my sword to his throat.
It was a dream. It wasn’t real. Curran was still gone. I wanted to howl like an animal.
It wasn’t real.
Losing him hurt like a punch to the gut. I was awake and back to my nightmare.
“Ssshecond time,” Jardin smiled.
“Sorry.” I got off of Jardin.
“Pay up,” Derek said to Jardin.
The wererat rolled to his feet and dropped a dollar into Ascanio’s palm.
“Did the two of you bet him I’d do this?”
Derek’s eyebrows rose. “We can neither confirm nor deny that a bet took place.”
“But we have seen you wake up when you’re stressed out.” Ascanio winked.
“I can’t wait to get back to the Keep,” I growled.
“So the two of them would start bickering again?” Robert asked.
“Exactly.” This united Derek and Ascanio team was getting on my nerves.
Robert rolled to his feet. “Thank you again, Jardin.”
“I could ssshtay,” the wererat offered.
“No.” Robert said. “You’re going home. Your job is done. Now it’s time for us to do ours.”
He was right. Time to get it done and get out of here.
7
WE FOUND DESANDRA sitting in a tree above Cuddles. Her clothes were splattered with blood. She grinned at us.
“Lovely perfume,” Robert noted.
“Glad you like it.” She hopped off the branch. “I call it Dead Vampire.”
“How did you get away?” Ascanio asked.
“Please.” She gave him a look. “I’m a werewolf raised in the Carpathian Mountains and they can’t smell or track for shit. I can outrun them in my sleep.”
I mounted and we headed east. Twenty minutes later we turned south and made our way into the dense tangle of streets that was the Warren.
I rode Cuddles. Derek pulled ahead to scout; Ascanio ran on my left, Desandra and Robert on my right. The Warren peered at us with the black eyes of broken windows: mean, suspicious, and predatory, like a thug who’d gotten his face bashed in and was looking to get even. Jonesboro, the most direct route, was out of the question—too obvious and too well patrolled—so we wove our way through the twisted back streets. Long scars gouged the walls of the run-down houses, as if a tornado of steel blades had brushed by them. On Harpy’s Drive we passed a row of trees, each one with its trunk unnaturally bloated and covered with black fuzz. I had no idea what the fuzz did, but we steered clear of it. The law of navigating post-Shift Atlanta was simple: if you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it.
The moon was rolling down. It had to be around three in the morning. The winter night had caught the city between its teeth and bit down hard. Here and there an ancient vehicle hunkered down. The tips of my fingers had turned to painful icicles. Any colder, and I’d have to dismount and walk next to Cuddles just to warm up.
I wanted Curran back here with me. It was a completely selfish need, as urgent as breathing. I wanted to know that he was fine. I missed him. If I concentrated enough, I could conjure his voice in my head. Funny, yesterday I couldn’t wait to escape the Keep with him and run away to Black Bear Lodge. Now I would happily sit through a hundred Council meetings back to back for a ten-second phone call from him letting me know he was okay.
In the distance something screeched. It was the triumphant violent shriek of a predator that’d connected with its prey. The Warren was in its usual form tonight. Come to think of it, that was the first sound I’d heard in a while. It was too deserted and too quiet. The cold or the People must’ve driven the Warren’s scavengers indoors.
I could feel two vampire minds behind us. They were about a mile and a half back and not moving. Most likely an observation post that got staffed after we passed through.
We passed a rusted wreck of a truck. Ice slicked the road. Probably an overflowing sewer or a busted waterline that spilled water over the street before it had frozen solid. Up ahead a hole gaped in the pavement, about five and a half feet wide. A manhole cover lay frozen in the ice. Looked like something tore out of the sewers and pulled a good deal of soil with it. If some mysterious mole people cornered us, I’d point them toward the Casino and tell them that’s where our leader lives.
A man in dark clothes wal
ked out into the middle of the road and blocked our way. He was lean, with short dark hair. He raised his head and looked at me. I developed a sudden urge to check for the quickest exit.
“That’s the bastard who shot me. Well!” Desandra cracked her knuckles. “Let me just take care of this . . .”
“Wait,” I told her.
“What? Why?”
“Yes, why?” Robert asked.
“Do you remember the Red Stalker thing? The serial killer who collected and tortured women and ate vampires?”
“Yes,” Robert said.
“He ate vampires?” Ascanio asked.
“Before your time,” Derek told him.
The Red Stalker also killed Greg Feldman, my legal guardian and the knight of the Order who took care of me after Voron died. It was my first time interacting with the Pack, my first time meeting Derek, and the first time, but not the last, I had felt an irresistible need to punch Curran in the arm. “During the investigation, the Pack captured a crusader.”
“I remember,” Robert said. “He smelled like rotting food. I think we had to dip him. He had lice.”
I nodded toward the man. “That’s him.”
Robert squinted. “It can’t be.”
Back then Nick looked like a hobo. He wore a filthy coat smeared with trash and old food, had greasy hair down to his shoulders, and cultivated the kind of hygiene that guaranteed him loads of personal space from anyone with a nose or a pair of eyes. Cleaned up, he looked fit and athletic, but average. The man in front of us now looked hard and mean, stripped of all softness. His hair was cut so short, it was almost stubble. His triangular jaw was clean shaven. He looked like a soldier or a fighter, clean, spare, and hard.
“It’s him,” I said. “I’ve seen him before with Hugh at the Midnight Games.”
So this was Hugh’s game plan. He wanted to separate me from the Pack. When we had talked during the Black Sea trip, he’d said that prying me from the Keep would be too difficult. He dangled the crime scene in front of me like bait, stationed his people along the approaching routes, and waited. Nick wasn’t here to kill me. He was here to delay me. He probably sent a signal to Hugh, letting him know he’d sighted me, and now he would do everything he could to stall until Hugh got here.