by Eva Chase
He rounded the corner—and stopped in his tracks. I peered through the slightly blurred view of the world beyond the shadows to make out what had startled him.
Oh. Sorsha’s red hair was just visible down the alley where we were meant to meet, as were Snap’s golden curls. The devourer had just leaned in to steal a kiss.
Leland’s hands balled into fists at his sides. He couldn’t have known from that glimpse that Snap was shadowkind—but maybe he could guess it, knowing what sort of beings Sorsha had been canoodling with lately.
Before he could move again, the two figures headed deeper into the alley where I’d need to join them. A scowl twisted Leland’s lips. He strode on by with an aura like a storm cloud, fury and betrayal radiating off him so thickly I barely had to reach out my powers to taste it.
As if she owed him anything at all at this point. I had far more reason to wince at the sight than he did, and I barely had any at all. I’d told her to take all possible pleasure wherever she could receive it, after all.
But I did wince a little as I flitted toward the alley. Not because of the kiss with Snap. Not because I’d sensed the closeness between her and Thorn continuing to develop as well. Hell, at this point I didn’t think even Omen was unaffected by her presence.
That would have been fine. She could have been kissing thousands of shadowkind, and I’d have said, “The more the merrier”… If I’d been letting myself kiss her too.
Okay, so I might not have exerted the greatest self-control in that area. My lips had stumbled into hers once or twice despite my best intentions. But every time they did, the deeper longing inside me welled up more potently.
If I couldn’t have the fun without the pain tagging along, I had to go cold turkey on the whole endeavor. Let the longing be just a pang at moments like this rather than a full-out heartache. Who the fuck ever heard of an incubus with an aching heart anyway? Much more of this and I’d be a disgrace to my kind.
If there’d just been a way to enjoy her without those other desires creeping in as well…
I told the little voice in the back of my head to shut up and sped through the alley’s shadows to our meet-up spot. The other four had already reached it. As I materialized next to Thorn, setting my mouth in a triumphant smile at the thought of the news I had to share—and shoving all other feelings down as far as they would go—Sorsha looked up from her phone.
“I just heard back from the shadowkind Jade said might be up for joining the cause. They’re ready to meet us. Why don’t we go see if they’ll be more help than our mortal allies?”
19
Sorsha
The first words Omen muttered when our potential new allies came into sight by the looming wood-and-metal mass of the Finger were, “Fucking tourists. Of course.”
We paused on the opposite side of the street from the courtyard, waiting for Thorn to give us one final signal that the coast was definitely clear. After the Company had managed to find us on the fairgrounds, we weren’t taking any chances even when it came to other shadowkind.
I glanced over at the hellhound shifter. “Tourists?”
The two shadowkind hanging out by the fountain didn’t look like my stereotypical image of tourists: no Hawaiian-print shirts or cameras dangling from neck-straps. They would have fit in pretty well at Jade’s bar, actually. The guy was a burly teddy-bear type with a glossy chestnut mane of hair that spilled over his scalp from a loose mohawk. The girl, slim and doe-eyed, had dyed her spiky bob with streaks of so many hues I couldn’t tell which was the base color. Their casual but well-tailored clothes gleamed with even more color and, in the girl’s case, a heavy dose of glitter.
I suspected she and Luna would have gotten along well. If Thorn hadn’t already identified the two as “equines” when he’d reported back to Omen, I’d have pegged her for a fae like my former guardian.
“Easy to tell from the look of them,” Omen said with a hint of a sneer. “The type of shadowkind who come mortal-side like it’s a recreational endeavor: take a little trip, indulge in the mortal lifestyle for a week or two when it suits their fancy, then back to the shadow realm before any of the logistics get too difficult. They don’t care about anything other than enjoying themselves.”
I could think of worse reasons to come to the mortal realm, but given Omen’s general attitudes, I wasn’t surprised that sort of cavalier traveling irked him. “Well, these two care enough about something else that they told Jade they wanted to take action. That’s more than your gang buddies offered.”
“I told you before, they’re not my bud—” Omen started.
He cut himself off at a flash of a signal from Thorn by the other end of the courtyard. The warrior and our other two companions were going to stick to the shadows, ready to spring out as need be, while Omen and I talked with the newbies. We’d picked this central location for our meet-up hoping that it’d be way too public for the Company to stage any sort of attack here with all the human tourists around.
Omen started forward. “Come on. Let’s see what these doofuses you dredged up think they’re getting into.”
The two shadowkind had been leaning against the wooden base of the statue, seemingly oblivious to the passersby who’d stopped to try to read the plaque they were blocking. As we approached, they straightened up, probably recognizing Omen’s otherworldliness with just a glance and a sniff.
“Hi,” I said with an awkward little wave. “I’m Sorsha. This is Omen—he’s sort of—”
“I’m the one who calls the shots,” Omen broke in, staring down both members of the couple in turn. “I don’t know what you heard, but this isn’t fun and games. There won’t be any prancing around or sight-seeing or whatever else you usually get up to on this side of the rifts.”
“Obviously,” the girl said in a voice that practically twinkled, her doe-eyes growing even rounder. “You’re after the jerks who took Cori, aren’t you? We’re not going to mess around when it comes to getting him back.”
“Cori?” I asked.
“Coriander,” the guy said with a droop of his head and his voluptuous mohawk. “Our best bud. We’ve partied all across the mortal realm with him, but just a few weeks ago, these dudes in silver-and-iron clothes grabbed him out of nowhere.” His expression turned sheepish. “That night, we were all high on the LSD a little more than was really good for the reflexes.”
Ah, so we were talking partying hardcore. Omen’s mouth flattened at the mention of drugs, but his tone stayed even. “Who—and what—are you?”
“Bow,” the guy said, pronouncing it so the W at the end of the name was obvious. His gaze flicked to judge the distance of the nearby mortals, and his voice lowered. “I’m a centaur, sir.”
“Glisten, unicorn shifter,” said the girl with less concern. “I prefer to go by Gisele if you don’t mind.”
She held out her hand in an offer to shake. As I accepted the gesture, I noticed the shimmering braid of what appeared to be hair wrapped around her wrist—hair that was growing from the underside of that wrist? Found her shadowkind trait. And I was guessing Bow’s mohawk was literally a mane.
Fantastic. I knew of centaurs and unicorns, obviously, but the way all kids do from storybooks. I’d never met the real deal in the flesh before. What were the chances I’d get to see either of them in their shadowkind forms?
Possibly pretty low if Bossypants here had anything to say about it. Omen adjusted his stance, looking as though he wasn’t sure whether to be more mollified by the “sir” or offended by the fact that Gisele had taken on a mortal name. “And what exactly do you think you can do for us?”
“Whatever you want, sir,” Bow said eagerly. “I’m pretty strong, and Gisele is awfully fast and fierce when she’s shifted, and, well, we’ll try just about anything if it helps us get Cori back from those hunters or whoever they are.”
Gisele nodded. “And if we need a getaway vehicle, there’s plenty of room in the Everymobile.”
Omen raised his
eyebrows. “The ‘Everymobile’?”
“You’ll see! Come with us.”
As Gisele bounded off across the cobblestones, Omen shot me a pointed look. I held up my hands. “Let’s see what they’ve got. There’s strength in numbers, right?”
“Depends on what those numbers are made up of,” he grumbled.
The vehicle Gisele stopped at, parked half a block from the courtyard, looked for all the world like a typical city bus, though empty with a Not in Service message blinking on the display over the windshield. Gisele swiped her palm across a spot next to the door, and it hissed open for her. “All aboard!” she called out, and glanced at the shadows around us. “And I do mean all of you, unless you’d rather creep around in the dark spots out here instead.”
The trio took the hint. As we tramped onto the bus, they reformed just inside—in a space that was several steps up from any public transportation vehicle I’d ever ridden on.
Behind the front seat with its violet velvet covering, the bus opened up into an immense RV. We were standing at the edge of a living room-slash-kitchen with a full sink surrounded by slick counters that sparkled like Gisele’s blouse, hardwood cabinets, and a semi-circle of padded pearl-gray sofa-bench large enough to seat eight, which curved around a sleek table. A narrow hall led from there to a few other doorways, the open one offering a glimpse of a four-poster bed.
“Holy mother of manticores,” I said, taking it in. “You’ve got yourself a mansion on wheels. It has a glamour on the outside?”
Gisele swept her hand toward the dashboard. “Programmed with multiple variations!”
The multi-colored buttons were carefully labeled. There was City Bus, naturally, as well as Tour Bus, Cargo Van, School Bus, and some particularly unexpected options like Train Locomotive and— “Military Submarine?” I couldn’t help reading out loud in disbelief.
“We’ve never had the opportunity to use that one so far,” Bow said from where he’d shut the door behind us. “It’s too bad. It looks pretty amazing.”
“Very slick,” Ruse said with approval, and promptly sprawled out on the leather sofa cushions. “I approve. We did need new digs.”
“Assuming our walking disaster here can manage not to get this latest vehicle blown to smithereens too,” Omen muttered, but even he couldn’t hide a glimmer of awe as he took in the space. “How did you two manage to get yourselves a ride like this?”
Gisele shrugged. “We already had the RV. Mortals have a tendency of wanting to make me happy. Cori crafted it bigger than it was before with his magic. But we were getting into trouble finding places to park it around the cities where we usually wanted to hang out. Then we helped a fae lady through a bad trip, and she repaid us with the glamouring.”
I guessed knowing your way around psychoactive substances could have its benefits too.
Bow peered into one of the cupboards. “Do you all want anything to eat?” Beside me, Snap immediately perked up. The centaur licked his lips. “We’ve got grass and hay and a little clover with the flowers still on it…”
The devourer’s expression fell again. Bow glanced back and caught our lack of interest in what I guessed were delicacies to equine types. A slyer smile crossed his lips. “We do also have the other kind of grass, that’s not actually grass. Good stuff.”
“None of us except the lady need physical sustenance,” Thorn put in.
“Oh, the point of smoking this stuff isn’t to fill your belly. Although I’ve made some pretty good brownies with it before.”
I guessed Omen had decided the vehicle was too useful to pass up even if its owners weren’t his cup of tea. He cleared his throat. “We’re glad to have your assistance, but I think we’d better hold off on addling our minds until we’ve decided on our next course of action. Ruse, you mentioned a solid lead on our way over here.”
“Yes!” Ruse straightened up with a clap of his hands. I dropped onto the sofa next to him, and Snap squeezed in beside me. Our hosts settled in across from us.
“That dark cloud you call an ex spilled the beans after you left,” the incubus said with a tip of his head toward me. “There’s a factory on Wharf Street that had a bunch of trucks arrive the day after we broke into the facility where they were holding Omen.”
Thorn’s attention jerked to us from where he’d been studying the street outside through the window. “One of the addresses the computer adept gave us lay on Wharf Street, didn’t it?”
“Right you are, my friend.”
For the first time since we’d fled the fairgrounds, Omen’s mouth curved into a smile. “We’ll have to scope the place out surreptitiously to confirm, of course,” he said. “That’s work for tonight, when we can hope at least some of the employees will have gone home for the day. But now we’ve got the perfect cover for cruising through the neighborhood.”
He patted the Everymobile’s sparkly counter and, shockingly, deigned to turn his smile on the tourists he’d snarked about less than an hour ago. “I’d bet the Company of Light has your friend there too. I think it’s time to crash their party.”
20
Sorsha
“And then while we’re getting the prisoners out of there, the virus your hacker programmed can be spreading all through their computer systems, erasing their data!” Gisele bounced on the RV sofa, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “It’s the perfect plan.”
I thought her confidence might have been a little overboard, and Thorn appeared to agree. “We still have many details to determine,” the warrior said from where he was standing propped against the back of the driver’s seat.
“We’ll get there,” Omen assured him with the restrained smile he’d been showing more often over the last day. “It’s all coming together.”
It’d better be. After scoping out the docklands building as well as we could around the Company’s protections and surveillance, we’d spent most of the last couple of days piecing together how we could best break in and unleash the many shadowkind they held captive. The contribution from Ruse’s hacker friend meant we could also destroy any hazardous information their experiments had uncovered so far—if we got the chance to use it. But having nearly twice as many people on our side this time around and significantly more experience tangling with Company guards made the mission feel less daunting.
“I just wish I still had my scorch-knife,” I said, making a face at the thought of the blasted camper van.
Omen was close enough to jovial to give me a playful pat on the shoulder. “Maybe we’ll find you a new one, Disaster.”
“It’s time to celebrate, then!” Bow sprang up from where he’d been chowing down on a salad of clover and strawberries and beckoned to Gisele. “If we’re not storming the gates until tomorrow night when the next delivery comes by, it should be safe. Where’s the good stuff we just picked up?”
As they pawed—or hoofed?—through the contents of their cupboards, I glanced up at Omen, who despite his good cheer hadn’t relaxed enough yet to actually sit down. It was hard to resist needling him, so I didn’t. “Still pissed off that I talked to Jade about getting help?”
He glowered at me, but only for a moment. His expression lightened again as his gaze traveled around the RV. “It didn’t exactly bring us a heap of seasoned warriors… but I’ll concede that I’d rather have these two joining us than be going it alone. Especially since I doubt Rex has any more camper vans for you to get blown up.”
I elbowed him in the hip, which was as high as I could comfortably reach from the sofa. “I had even less to do with that act of destruction than I did with Betsy.”
He hummed to himself as if to say we’d see about that, but the glint in his eyes might have been actual amusement. Even if I hadn’t tamed the beast, I’d at least gotten him wagging his tail.
Before that thought could lead to me ogling his ass again—just to check whether he had a real tail at the moment, nothing more, shut up—I yanked my gaze back to our hosts. Gisele had produced a caramels
tin she popped open to reveal a hefty stack of joints.
Ah. The other kind of grass indeed. No surprise that was how these two celebrated.
“Who wants in?” Bow asked, grabbing one. “We’re happy to share.”
As he lit the joint, sending a whiff of that pungent musky smoke into the air, I shook my head. “I’ll pass. Not really my thing.” And even though we were parked in a lot of city buses looking very city bus-y ourselves, I didn’t totally trust the disaster Omen had been teasing me about not to descend on our heads.
Apparently our hedonistic incubus wasn’t one for the MJ either. Ruse waved off the offer with a crooked grin. “Even the good stuff makes me queasy. Believe me, no one’s sadder about that than I am.”
Snap considered the rolled papers with tempered curiosity. “I’ve never tried this before.”
“Go ahead,” I said, tapping his calf with my foot under the table. “Just take it easy.”
As he accepted the joint Bow passed him, Thorn loomed closer. “What possible purpose does this serve?”
Gisele smiled at him. “It’s just for fun. Helps you relax and gets your mind thinking in creative ways. Maybe we’ll figure out those details that are missing while we’re flying high.”
Or maybe they’d only be inspired to make a run for Cheetos and French fries, but I was willing to wait and see.
Thorn paused, his gaze shifting to me for a second. Thinking about my suggestion that he needed to loosen up? At his evident wavering, Bow added, “It’s easy to shake off the effects if you need to. Popping into the shadows and back eliminates the chemicals from your system.” He giggled, the weed’s effects appearing to have kicked in. “As long as you can remember that you can pop into the shadows. Oh, that is good stuff.”
