Larkin appeared in front of me, blocking my exit. “Justice, if we do this, you cannot be seen. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “Trust me, the last thing I want is for the weavers to figure out what we’re doing and be waiting for us when we get back. We’ll get the information we need and get out. Simple.”
Kash joined us. “I know where they’ll be meeting,” he said. “Trinity’s house, but the place is guarded by hounds.”
“I can get in. I can use the shadows to take me to Payne.”
“We can’t risk the others seeing you,” Kash reminded me again.
“Besides,” Larkin said. “Your ability may not even work here. It could be twisted into something entirely different. Most weavers that are banished here lose their power completely, or it manifests in small ways. Like I said earlier, the connection to the weave here is tenuous at best.”
I threw up my hands in agitation. “So, what do we do?”
“I can keep the hounds busy,” Larkin said. “We’ll play a little peek-a-boo. I’ll draw them away and give you two time to get inside.” He fixed his orange gaze on me. “No engaging. No lingering. Get what you need and get out.”
Time was running out. I could feel it in my bones, and if we didn’t find the information we needed, then I’d have to face the real possibility of leaving without my father.
I wasn’t ready for that.
* * *
The village hall clock struck midnight as we skulked through the town. Trinity Lane was a regular on Lunar Creek. The last season hadn’t featured much of her, but she’d dominated the season before that. I’d never been as into the show as other supes, but I’d watched it enough to know she was a hard-ass with a dark past and some kickass moves. Her parents had died when she was young, and she’d been raised by Principal Lane and his wife. The principal was a hard man, not prone to showing affection, but he was fair. It was probably why she’d decided to go into teaching herself.
Trinity’s early years on the show had been a wild ride as she searched for her niche.
Looked like she’d found it, not just with the teaching but with the monster-slaying too.
We approached the Lane property—the rambling, old, moss-covered mansion we’d passed on the way in. Gates stood partially open and falling off their hinges. But they didn’t matter, because the Lanes had hounds to ward off trespassers. A neat sign had been hammered into the ground a meter away from the gates: Trespassers will be devoured by huge, hungry hounds. Don’t be suicidal.
I couldn’t help but smile. Nice.
We stopped at the sign, and Larkin’s ears twitched as he sniffed the air. “The hounds are close. I’ll go first and lead them away. Please, be quick.”
I gripped his shoulder. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
He blinked up at me as if surprised by my concern and then grinned, showcasing his sharp teeth. “Hounds are no match for the likes of me. Wait for the count of five, then go.”
There was still so much we didn’t know about Larkin: what his world was like, what his people were like, why the weavers had chosen him to drag to this world. But these were questions that would have to wait.
“Be careful,” Kash said.
Larkin nodded and then sped off, moving fast from pocket of shadow to pocket of shadow.
Shadows that were useless to me here. Fuck.
“Five, four, three, two,” Kash counted down. “Let’s go.”
He took my hand, and we slipped through the gates and onto the Lane property.
The lights on the lower floor burned bright, spilling onto the lawn in huge rectangles, which we skirted expertly.
Kash and I moved as if our bodies were in tune, like we’d been running across lawns and dodging lights together forever. No need to nudge or tug, we glided across the lawn in unison and then pressed to the wall of the house, side by side, beside a set of patio doors that were slightly ajar.
He held a finger to his lips, and we sidled closer to the entrance. A shadow fell across the huge oblong of light on the lawn, and Kash rolled away from the door. I grabbed him around the waist, pulling him against me and deeper into the shadows.
Voices drifted out of the building, male and female, but my senses were locked on Kash. His lean, hard body was flush against mine and my lips mere centimeters from the pulse at his neck. I could hear the rush of blood beneath his skin and smell the sweet, luscious scent of his body. This wasn’t a lotion or body wash. It was him. This was his body odor. Fuck, I wanted to taste him.
His hands flexed on my waist, and then he leaned back a fraction, enough to lock eyes with me. His expression was saturated with intensity. I lifted my chin slightly, and my lips grazed his chin. I resisted the urge to lick him and tuned into the conversation.
“—do we do?” a female voice said.
“We scout the surrounding areas,” a male voice replied. “All the abandoned haunts.”
“Earl’s sedated. He’ll be fine,” another male voice said, gravelly in timbre. “I’ve loaded him into the van. I’ll take him back to the inn and tuck him into bed. Eloise is probably worried sick about him. God knows what possessed him to go for a walk this late at night, especially with how busy they’ve been the last few days.”
“Thanks, Blake,” Trinity said. “But you know Earl suffers from insomnia.”
“Harrumph. Are we working this case tonight?”
“Yeah,” Trinity said. “The others will be here soon. Bring pizza. We need to eat before we hunt.”
“Half and half?” Blake asked.
“You know it.”
A door shut, and there was a moment of silence.
“You were great out there tonight,” Trinity said.
“I didn’t do anything except be there,” Payne replied.
“I know I don’t say it often, but I’m glad you came back. I’m glad you’re alive, Dad.”
My heart skipped a beat, and every muscle in my body tensed up.
Dad?
What. The. Fuck.
“You’re everything I could have hoped for,” Payne said. “We’ve missed out on too much. I don’t want to miss a second more. Once we wrap up this case, we’re out of here. Road trip for two.”
“You mean that?”
There was a slight pause and then … “Of course I do.”
I was shaking, trembling with fucking rage. How dare they? This was my dad, my road trip, my fucking life. I wanted to burst into the room, smash Trinity in the face, throw Payne over my shoulder, and get the fuck out of this reject reality.
“Easy,” Kash whispered in my ear.
I did my calm-down breathing, but it just made me more pissed off.
“In through the nose and out through the mouth,” Kash instructed.
“Problem is, they can blend in,” Trinity said. “They’re so bland, we can’t notice them during the day.”
“Which is why we hunt them at night,” Payne replied. “When their true form is on display.”
Through the fog of jealousy and anger, realization began to bloom in my head.
“We have the warehouse, the farm, the drains,” Trinity said.
No, no, and no. Another possibility had surged up in my mind.
I gripped Kash’s bicep. “I know where they are.”
He didn’t look shocked. Instead, when I looked up into his eyes, I saw my revelation mirrored there. The possibility that the suckers didn’t have to reveal their true form, that they weren’t constrained by night, that maybe they only shifted to feed. The connection with Earl, with the mention of the inn having been busy these past days.
“The suckers are at the inn,” we said in unison.
And Blake was headed back there with wounded prey.
Fifteen
We made it off the Lane property in less than a minute.
“Larkin?” Kash whisper-hissed. “Larkin, where are you?”
Larkin burst out of the gates a moment later. The sleeve of his shirt was torn, and his hair
“Damn, those hounds were fast.” He brushed himself off and ran a paw over his hair.
I stared at his disheveled state. “You didn’t go invisible?”
He sniffed. “That aspect of my abilities doesn’t seem to work here. Shame, considering I’d been counting on it.”
How much time did we have left now? I was too scared to think about it.
I needed to focus on the task at hand. “The suckers are at the inn. I believe they’ve been checking in over the past couple of days. Earl, the owner, was an easy target. One of them must have seen him leave for his walk, followed him, and attacked. Now Blake has taken Earl back there. They’re in danger.”
“Shit,” Larkin said.
I paced. “We have to save Blake. I’ll head to the inn and scope it out, see if I can get Blake out. You need to alert Trinity about the sucker location.”
Larkin shook his head. “It’s too risky. Your being there could mess with the show. You can’t have contact with Blake.”
Annoyance licked a trail of flames across my chest. “I think a life is more important than a fucking show.”
“You know what I mean?” His eyes gleamed with annoyance. “If the weavers catch you on their feeds, then even if we do get Payne out, they’ll hunt him down. Payne needs to disappear. To do that, we can’t leave any clues.”
He was right, but … “We can’t just let the guy die.”
“No,” Kash said. “I agree with Justice. If we can save Blake, then we should, but Justice…” He looked at me. “You need to measure the cost of that life if you decide to act. Remember what you’ll lose if we’re discovered.”
Urgh. Why couldn’t we go back to the days when things had been simple. Kick ass, get paid, get laid.
I sighed. “Find a phone and alert Trinity and Payne. I’ll head to the inn and watch over Blake. Hopefully, Trinity will get there in time. Hopefully, I won’t need to do anything.”
I didn’t wait to hear their arguments. If I did, I might have lost my nerve.
* * *
The inn was dark, not a single light on, which, considering the late hour, would have been fine if not for the waves of wrongness emanating from the building. My nightblood senses alerted me to the presence of other predators. Warning me to beware, to be ready for a fight. The hackles on the nape of my neck rose, and a low growl collected at the back of my throat.
Yes, the suckers were here. There was no doubt in my mind. I’d blurred here, the ability unaffected by this place. It had taken me one minute tops, but for Payne and Trinity, it would be longer, ten minutes maybe?
Blake could be dead by then if he wasn’t already. I inhaled, searching for the tell-tale copper tang in the air that signaled death.
Nothing.
Maybe the suckers were neat eaters, or maybe they didn’t like to kill on home ground. If they’d descended on this inn en masse, then this was their temporary home. What had been their plan? Lodge at the inn and slowly pick off the residents?
Dumb plan.
Someone would have noticed eventually.
I skulked closer, keeping low, keeping to the shadows until I was up against the side of the building. I needed to get inside. A back door or an open window, maybe?
I ran down the side of the building, scanning for an access route. There … Second-floor window. Half-open. Could be an occupied room. Could be empty. Could be a corridor.
A low, pain-filled moan drifted out to my ears. My senses went into high alert, and then the thud of a human heart filled my head. Slow. Too slow. Someone dying, someone bleeding out.
And there it was … a hint of copper on the breeze.
Blood.
Shit.
I had to stay out of the shot, out of the mainframe of the fucking show the weavers would be splicing together, or I could compromise our mission. Watch and listen only.
“Please … stop …”
The plea was male. Weak.
Shit, shit, shit. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, battling what was right with what needed to happen, and then I sprang at the wall, fingers hooking brick, boot toe tips barely grazing the wall as I climbed and arched through the half-open window.
I landed light on my feet and froze in a crouch, wrapped in the shadow beneath the window. A bed, an armoire, and a shadowy mass on the bed. Not a mass. A man with a figure straddling him. It was hunched over him, mouth latched on to the side of his neck.
Sucker.
The man’s eyes were wide, dark, and dazed, but then they latched onto me and sharpened as if in a final death glare. His mouth parted in a whispered plea.
“Please …”
He was wearing a beanie.
Fuck.
Blake.
In a few more seconds, he’d be dead. I needed to do something, but how could I help without being seen?
Shit. Fuck.
I’m sorry, Payne.
Heart pounding too fast, ready to break the rules to save an innocent life.
I stood, my skin prickling in a strange yearning. “Oi!”
The naked woman bolted upright, stringy gray hair falling down her back and saggy tits on display.
Good, her fangs were out of Blake.
I rushed her, slamming into her and sweeping her off Blake’s body. We hit the ground together, but something was wrong. Darkness was swirling around us, cocooning us, and it was coming from me. Whoa, was this part of my caster ability? Fuck it. I’d take it.
Shadows clung to my fingers as I wrapped them around the sucker’s throat and squeezed. Her eyes bugged, and her face shifted back and forth between bland human and leathery-skinned monster. The shadows poured out of my hands and wrapped around her face, obscuring her mouth and nostrils, covering every inch except for her wide, desperate eyes.
A sharp crack was followed by the sagging of her body.
Dead.
She was dead.
I stared at my hands, at the shadows sliding off the dead sucker’s face, and a chill sliced through me because I hadn’t done the bone breaking. The shadows had. They rolled around me, kissing my skin like eager puppies wanting a treat or a pat on the head. They draped over me like a cloak as I climbed off the dead sucker and stepped up to the bed.
Blake stared up at me, his throat a bloody mass. He’d bleed out if I didn’t close the wound.
“Whaa … are you?” His voice was less than a whisper.
“Hush. You’re safe now. I won’t let you die.” I leaned over him and swept my tongue over the wound.
It knit before my eyes, and then Blake’s lids fluttered closed. Crashes and bangs, the sounds of a fight drifted up to the room, and then the door was slammed open so hard it rattled on its hinges.
Trinity stood framed in the doorway, her raven hair floating about her like an avenging angel of death. Her gaze went from me to the unconscious figure of Blake on the bed then back.
She swung her crossbow up and pointed it at me. “What the fuck are you?” she said softly. Then louder, “Get away from him.”
The shadows were hiding me, protecting me, but they’d also obscured the body of the sucker I’d killed. If she shot, I wasn’t sure the shadows would stop an arrow.
Time to jet.
I blurred across the room and out the window, hit the ground, and kept going until I was in the alley across the street with a solid view of the inn. Lights were blazing, screams and thunks and crashes signaled an epic showdown. Trinity and her team were on it.
The suckers were going down.
As my heart rate dropped, the shadows retreated, sliding off me and attaching themselves to the buildings either side of me.
“Justice?” Kash came up behind me. “You’re all right.”
I nodded.
“Were you seen?” Larkin asked.
I glanced at the shadows, which were now innocuous and just regular patches of darkness. I opened my mouth to explain and then snapped it shut. This was something for Latrou, something to dissect later.
“No. I wasn’t seen.” I backed up down the alley. “We can wait for Payne at his cottage.”
Sixteen
The cottage was nestled in a woodland grove on the Lunar Creek Academy grounds. Now that the suckers had been taken out by Trinity, we were in the clear. We just needed to ensure we didn’t fall into another interesting plot the weavers might pick up for transmission.
Kash picked the lock to the pretty cottage, and we slipped inside. It smelled of pine furniture polish and lemon floor wipes.
This was Payne’s home? This place with squishy sofas, rocking chairs, landscapes on the wall, and book-lined walls? This was his refuge now?
There was an open book face down on the coffee table, an empty mug by the sink, and a knitted purple blanket thrown over the back of an armchair. It was homey and cozy. My gaze swept over the mantelpiece and snapped to a photograph of Payne and Trinity. They were staring at the camera with huge grins on their faces.
Envy and rage laced with sorrow mingled inside me.
Did he believe he was happy here? How would I convince him to come home with me?
“Don’t,” Larkin said. “We didn’t come this far for you to second-guess yourself.”
Kash frowned. “What?”
I sighed. “Larkin reads minds.”
Twin spots of color appeared high on Kash’s cheeks. “What?”
Larkin fixed his orange eyes on Kash and smirked. “Oh, yes, you dirty, dirty boy.”
Kash opened his mouth to retaliate then snapped it closed and shrugged. “Makes me wonder why you didn’t tune out.”
It was Larkin’s turn to flush, so his skin almost matched the tiger stripes on his face.
I rolled my eyes. “I do not want to know.”
Larkin wandered off, deeper into the cottage, and Kash turned to me. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Payne belongs with you. He’ll realize that, and we can go home.”
“But what if he doesn’t? What if the memories the weavers have given him are too strong? He barely knows me. We spent a few weeks together, that was it.”
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