Did Tenn know Aidan existed? That he had liberated Scotland?
America had put up its walls long before the Kin took control. Even while the rest of the world cried for help, America remained ambivalent—if not entirely averse to—the rest of the world’s problems. But Aidan had a hunch that Tenn would know about Aidan’s triumph. He had to. It would almost be unfair if he didn’t.
Even if Aidan’s name hadn’t spread overseas, there was always Tomás to tell him of Aidan’s existence. It seemed like the Howl was playing the two of them, and Aidan wondered what the game was. Jealousy flared within him for a moment, Fire hissing that Tomás shouldn’t be with someone else, but he burned it away before it could fester. He wanted the incubus, yes. But only to use him.
Aidan was a king. And that meant everyone else was just a peasant. Including the Howl who thought himself a god.
Aidan thought, and Kianna drove, and around midnight he realized there was a glow on the horizon.
“What’s that?” Gregory asked, shifting up in his seat.
The glow was harsh and white, electric. Faint at first, barely a haze through the rain, but it spilled above the dilapidated buildings before them in a corona, a curse. Aidan hadn’t seen that much electric light in years.
“London,” Kianna said. Her words were dull. Depressed.
Aidan couldn’t even imagine what sort of homecoming this was for her—the street tangled with cars, the cityscapes melted and transformed. He could see the clench of her jaw in the light of the dash and the glow of the horizon. If he was any other guy, and she any other girl, he would have reached over and put a hand on her shoulder or thigh to let her know that he was there for her, and he cared.
Since it was the two of them, though, he did nothing but rap his fingers on the door, staring idly at the accumulated dirt under his chipped nails. He needed a spa day.
The thought made him chuckle, and Kianna stared daggers at him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “So.” He shifted in his seat, leaning against the door to look at her. “What’s the plan?”
“We should probably stop soon.” Kianna yawned.
“Sounds good to me.”
The London glow was still miles away, and the road was getting worse the closer they got. That was the trouble with cities—for the Howls and necromancers, cities were smorgasbords. Especially since—with a few well-placed necromancers—all exits could be destroyed. It didn’t take long to suck the breath or the heat out of a congested street. Just as it didn’t take much to burn a crowd and leave the bones to the beasts.
Or turn them all into beasts.
Another reason why Aidan tried to avoid the big cities when he could. They just felt like graveyards.
He wanted to tell her to keep going, keep calm and carry on and all that, but the truth of it was, he was ready to sleep. Preferably somewhere that wasn’t jostled every five seconds. Preferably without Kianna’s curses a grating lullaby in his ears.
Around them, whatever borough this had been was completely demolished. He could see for miles over the rubble. Rows of flats and shops reduced to piles of charred stone, cars turned and toppled, small bits of flora poking between the debris. He wondered idly just how many people had been killed here, and how quickly it had come about.
“Shite,” Kianna said.
“What?”
She nodded, and he looked forward.
The road ahead was completely clogged. All of the cars pointed directly at him, all of them trying to leave the city. Clearly, none had made it. Not with the gaping crater taking out a full swath of road and half the surrounding flats. There was no way around it—the rubble on each side of the street was too high to drive over, and it traced all the way behind them like a half pipe.
Kianna grunted and shifted into Park. “Looks like we’re walking,” she said, killing the engine. “Either that, or we reverse and hope there’s another route.”
“Walking? I thought you wanted to sleep.”
Kianna shrugged off Aidan’s question. “We’re exposed out here, and I don’t see any places nearby to rest up. Unless you want to take your chances sleeping in the open?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She hopped out of the vehicle and began walking. Aidan was right after her, though the others hesitated a moment before joining. He couldn’t really blame them.
Theoretically, it should have been safe. The Guild ahead should have cleared the nearby land of Howls. Especially a Guild as large as London’s. But the fact was there—if scouts had gone missing, something was wrong. And that meant they couldn’t take any chances.
“Lead on then,” Aidan said. His foot caught on a flier. SINNERS REPENT. Chills raced down his spine, despite Fire’s constant caress. “Just get us sinners somewhere warm.”
“Hell’s warm,” Kianna said.
“Clearly not,” Aidan said, and spread out his arms like a crucifix.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It felt like they wandered for hours.
Through deserted streets. Jumping at shadows. Margaret was open to Air and scanning, but she never once sounded an alarm. Civilization was still ages away, and with it, any chance of human contact. Aidan clutched Fire as tightly as he held on to his daggers. Kianna had Kindness in one hand and a vicious ax in the other. Even Gregory seemed serious, his eyes shadowed and his sword held tight as Earth hummed in his gut. They trekked closer to the glowing white of the Guild, scouring the land for a flat that at least had a roof.
Honestly, though—he didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.
He couldn’t put his finger on it. He’d been over all of Scotland, had seen more ruined or battle-stained or bloody places than he could recount. But this felt different. London didn’t just feel abandoned. It felt hollow. Hungry.
Like in Edinburgh, there was an emptiness here that tugged at his Sphere, made chills race down his spine despite the flames flickering around his body. But unlike Edinburgh, this didn’t feel like the creation of a Howl. It felt...unnatural. In a way that even the Kin never did.
“Do you feel that?” Gregory asked.
Aidan nodded.
“Feel what?” Kianna asked from ahead.
“The emptiness,” Margaret said. Her eyebrows were furrowed, pale blue light from her throat glowing against her skin. “I can’t feel anything out there.”
“The Guild is still further on,” Kianna said.
“That’s not what I mean. There’s nothing. No people. No animals. No...” She trailed off, biting her lip with worry.
“What?” Aidan asked.
She didn’t answer right away. They had all paused, rubble spread out around them in a field of despair, the only sound the click as Kianna turned off the safety on her gun.
“It feels like this place eats magic,” Margaret finally said. She shuddered and shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s not right, whatever it is. And whatever it is, it doesn’t want us here.”
“Sounds like London,” Kianna said. “Never really liked tourists, even before the Resurrection. Now you know why I don’t go home.”
She looked to Aidan, as though daring him to say the real reason.
Obviously, he didn’t.
She turned and led them away from the road, toward a row of buildings that didn’t look as derelict as the rest. At least these appeared to have roofs. And seeing as the rain had followed them, that alone was a godsend.
Aidan sat on the front stoop, Fire a low burn in his chest and his comrades sound asleep in the room behind him. It hadn’t been a flat like they’d hoped. Rather, it was a corner store that had been thoroughly raided in the previous years—no crisps or snacks on the shelves, shattered glass everywhere. The flats above had been blown clean off, and parts of the ceiling let in the drizzling sky. But it was dry. Ish. And covered. Ish. There might not have been beds, but after
they’d blown the glass away and settled in with some blankets from the car, Aidan feeding a small fire in the middle of the shop, it would act as a fair base. For now.
Aidan was antsy.
He wasn’t used to being cooped up in a car all day. He wasn’t used to sitting still, to not training. Or killing. He wanted more than anything to uncurl Fire and burn through his frustration. Start a wildfire and see just how far he could make it spread. That sort of thing. The sort of thing that would make Kianna doubt his ability to keep the damned Sphere under control.
So instead, he sat, legs tight to his chest, watching London glow just as he had watched Edinburgh a few nights before. Another potential conquest. Another chance to fight. To burn. To rule. To die.
Fire whispered through his thoughts, dreaming up the sort of strength he could gain from this strange shard. Tomás said it would make even death bow to him. Not that he took the Howl at his word, but still. If it had brought Calum back, it had to be powerful. No matter what, it would help him rule. And when Tenn appeared, it would keep the boy in his place.
But it wasn’t just thoughts of magic that made his lips twitch into the occasional grin. It was the thought of how it would feel to rule from London itself. After all, if the Guild here was compromised, overrun with necromancers or something, there would be no one to stop him from claiming it for his own after the threat was eradicated.
Fire told him that of course the threat would be eradicated.
The rubble beyond shifted. Aidan jerked to awareness, a dagger in hand and Fire glowing bright, tendrils of flame curled around his fist. Light flared bright enough to see the intruder.
Aidan let out a sigh and collapsed back against the door.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he asked the fox. The beast was tiny, fur glimmering orange and red in the light of Aidan’s flame. It didn’t seem at all put off by Aidan’s glow. Instead, it took a few steps closer, its eyes calm and unwavering, ribs slatted and shadowed with hunger.
It was rare to see animals anymore, especially in cities. The Howls had fucked up the entire ecosystem with their hunger. Aidan had overheard more than one conversation about how the world would collapse even if the Howls were banished—everything was out of sync, whole ecosystems destroyed, weather patterns shifted, the world collapsing. The only creatures that survived anymore were the small scavengers. The ones that could hide. But this guy...he wasn’t hiding at all.
“Aren’t you supposed to be scared of me?”
But the fox just stepped closer. Aidan stayed still. Let the fires around him fade, until there was just a small sphere of light hanging above him. They locked eyes, and there was an intelligence there that startled him.
For some reason, those eyes made him think of his mother.
The fox blurred as tears formed in his eyes. Aidan blinked them away. He couldn’t think that about her. He couldn’t let regret overtake him. He’d done all he could. And now, he was doing what he could to avenge her. He had to tell himself that—ending the Howls was all he could do. He sniffed and pulled through Fire, let it burn through his veins, let it boil away the depression. His tears turned to puffs of steam.
Still, the fox watched him. Examining him.
Your hatred will destroy us.
Aidan jolted and looked around.
The voice was feminine, but not the oceanic hum of the Dark Lady. No, this was different, lilting. Innocent.
There was no one nearby. No one but the fox.
“Jesus,” Aidan whispered. “Get a hold of yourself.”
The fox cocked its head to the side. Licked its lips. Aidan wondered if maybe he had a snack he could give it.
Then the door opened behind him, and Margaret stepped out. The fox disappeared into the shadows like it was made of them. “Who are you talking to?” Margaret asked.
Aidan grunted and burned away the last of his weakness. “Just myself,” he said. “No one important.”
She gave him a slight smile. “Your shift is up. Go get some sleep.”
He nodded and stood. Stared out at the shadows.
The fox didn’t return. Why did he want it to return?
“Something out there?” Margaret asked.
He thought about the way it stared at him. At the intelligence in its eyes. And the voice...
He shook his head. He was just tired. Delusional. Too much time in a car.
“Nothing,” he told her, heading indoors. “Just my imagination.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
He was lost.
Two days of fleeing north through the midlands, trying to find his way along deserted roads, trying to avoid any sign of humans. He’d crossed over on the ferry—a nightmare of jostling waves, crowded people, and far-off explosions—and had abandoned the group as soon as they hit land. He knew crowds were dangerous. Crowds attracted monsters. Crowds meant he couldn’t run.
And he had been running for days.
Partly to stay alive, partly to stay away from the bloody memory that haunted him. First, to Glasgow, trying to escape. But all flights had been grounded. No one was going anywhere. So, he’d come here.
He was soaked to the bone and freezing, the sky above relentless in its quest to make him as miserable as possible. At least he hadn’t run across any more monsters. What were they calling them? Howls. He’d heard it on the radio. Seen it on the television, all channels playing the same clip over and over, as though hijacked: a woman in black with blond hair, turning a man chained to a chair into a nightmarish monster.
Howls. For the noise they made when they attacked.
Shorthand for how hollow they’d become in the process of conversion.
Magic had done this. Had done all of this. And yet he knew in the back of his mind that he would need magic to survive.
He crouched by the entrance of the abandoned hostel. He was far from the beaten path, next to Loch Lomond and surrounded by trees. It felt safe. Nothing should feel safe. He hadn’t slept a goddamned night since...since... He shook his head and fought back the tears. He couldn’t think about her. Not anymore. He couldn’t change it, either.
He just wished he could get the sound of screams and bleating from his ears.
He stared out at the rain, at the darkening night. Then at the shattered windows of the hostel. He’d been standing there for the last twenty minutes, too afraid to go in, too cold to move on. It was too easy to remember the screams in the houses and flats he’d passed along the way, the blood-splattered windows, the burning doors, the thick smoke that hung heavy over everything, clogging his lungs and filling the streets with hungry phantoms. He didn’t want to be a voice never heard from again. He didn’t want to be a number in the list of casualties claimed by all this madness.
He looked back out at the gravel path that had led him here. Maybe it would be safer out there...
“Are you coming in or not?”
He nearly pissed himself.
The question came from a girl about his age. Maybe sixteen. But even though she was young, she looked...old. Shoulders back, chin high. Eyes that had definitely seen shit. She held a lacrosse stick in one hand, a butcher knife in the other. Her hair was long and in locs, black and pink, just like the pink T-shirt and tight black jeans. Stylish, in a way. Save for the rips on her clothes that were clearly not part of the original design. Not if the splotches of blood were any indication.
“Who are you?” Aidan asked. He took a step backward. She looked like some crazy-cool zombie-killer chick who could rip his head off without blinking. Whereas he... He looked at his muddy jeans, his soggy clothes. The chunk of wood he’d been using as a weapon.
He looked like he should have been eaten ages ago.
“Kianna,” she said. She eyed him up and down. Again, he was struck by her mannerisms. She played it cool. Collected. Like she’d been prepared for this all
along. And there was a darkness in her eyes that told him preparation hadn’t been kind.
“Aidan.”
“You one of them?” she asked.
No use asking what she meant. “No.”
“Use magic?”
“No.”
“Good.” She opened the door wider.
“Do you?” he asked. What if she was a Howl? One of the more humanoid ones? Someone who could steal his breath or his heat or drain his blood like a vampire? If she was a necromancer, he couldn’t imagine her just sitting here, waiting for victims. Then again, he couldn’t imagine a Howl waiting in the middle of nowhere, either. Unless she was keeping her victims locked away in the hostel...
“No,” she replied. “Magic got us into this mess.”
He bit his lip. Looked out at the rain. He hadn’t come up here for no reason.
“I was going to attune,” he said. “I heard there’s a place up here that will do it.”
“There was,” she replied. “Are you coming in or not? You’re not exactly helping keep the warm air in.”
“What do you mean, was?”
She groaned and looked at the ceiling. “They’re dead. Just like pretty much everyone else in this world. Thanks to magic.”
“How do you know?” It wasn’t a very brave response; inside, he felt his hope deflate, his words falling flat.
“Because I was there,” she said. “Saw the place for myself. I’ve been seeking out survivors. Go figure that you’d be the first.”
He looked past her, into the darkened hostel. Maybe his hostel-prison idea was correct. Maybe she was worse than a necromancer or Howl. Maybe she was some psycho killer.
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