Dangerous Creatures

by Kami Garcia

  “Principal Harper isn’t Silas.” Ridley was doubtful. But Link was starting to calm her down, smoothing out her rough spots, like he always did.

  “Maybe. But Silas also isn’t the most powerful Blood Incubus of all time. Maybe we can ditch him. Maybe we can buy ourselves some time.”

  Until Abraham gets involved again, Ridley thought. Which I hope is never.

  “So what now?” She looked at him. Back in the Beater once again, where everything that had to do with Link began and ended. Where Lena had met Ethan, now that she thought about it. The Beater had seen it all. It was a wonder the thing could still move.

  Link looked sideways at her. “What do you mean, what now?”

  “We can’t go back to New York.”

  “No, ma’am. Not unless you’re fine with a permanent stop at His Garden of Perpetual Peace,” said Link. “Then we could haunt just about anywhere we felt like it. Seein’ as we’d be dead.”

  “Stop joking around. I’m serious. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here. It might as well be a Caster death sentence. We’re done. And nobody will ever hire you again. Forget Sirensong. You can kiss your whole music career good-bye.” Please, she thought desperately. Please, please, kiss it good-bye.

  Link tapped the wheel. “Aw, Chicken Wing.”

  Ridley practically screamed. “Don’t. Call. Me. That.”

  He grinned, ignoring her. “We’re only done in New York, darlin’. Weren’t you listenin’ to me all those other times? When I told you how all those bands made it big without ever settin’ foot in New York?”

  She just looked at him. “You’re crazy. You know that?”

  “Hey, I may not have a band, but I have you, don’t I?”

  “Don’t you always?”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  Link pulled her hair back until he could see the tiny sparkling S studs in her ears. “What are those?”

  “The earrings? I guess I forgot to take them off.” S for Siren. S for Sirene. From a certain Caster closet. They reminded her of dinner under the stars, on the roof of the Met.

  Cinderella at the ball of the damned, she thought.

  “Those real diamonds?” Link looked at her. “Don’t tell me.” He shook his head. “I can’t compete with that.”

  “With what?” Ridley smoothed her hair back over her ears, self-conscious now.

  “With Mr. New York City. With all the flash and the cash.”

  “Mr. New York City saved our lives,” she said.

  “Sure, from himself. From what he was plannin’ to do to us in the first place. If you want to get technical.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m not him. I’ll never be him.” Link fixed his eyes on the road. “I’m a Southern boy. When I get you earrings, they’re gonna come from the mall. You should know that by now.”

  Something inside Ridley broke. She was overwhelmed by feelings, more than she’d ever wanted. More than she knew what to do with.

  For what I have, and what I’ve lost. Who I have, and who I’ve lost.

  But Ridley and Link had survived. They were together. They had now, and they had each other. That was the most important thing.

  She only wished she knew how to tell him that.

  Ridley looked at Link. “I don’t want you to be anyone except Wesley Lincoln, from Gatlin, South Carolina.”

  “That’s sweet as sugar, Sugar. I wish I believed you, but that doesn’t make it any less sweet.”

  “Link.”

  “Come on. We both know Lennox Gates owns guys like me.”

  Rid touched his shoulder. “I don’t care about any of that. I just want you to kiss me, you idiot.”

  She realized it was true the moment she said it.

  Link bit his lip, thinking. “No way. If you’re going to be with me, it’s not going to be because we made out in the alley one time and then you felt sorry for me.”

  “We’re not in an alley. Now kiss me.”

  “I said no. If we’re going to be in this together, it’s going to be because we both want to be. Because we respect each other, and we need each other. And we love—”

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  Slowly, he pulled the car over to the side of the highway.

  Link walked around to the passenger side of the Beater and pulled open the door. He was down on one knee, mostly because that was the only way he could fold his supersized body compactly enough to bring his head to her level.

  Ridley looked down at him from her seat. “Can I help you, Wesley Lincoln?”

  “Ridley Duchannes. Is there even one stupid tiny little part of you that loves one stupid tiny little part of me?”

  She looked at him, blinking back tears. She could’ve prevented all this if she had just flung her arms around him the first time he’d told her he loved her, and kissed his sweet face, and confessed that she’d always loved him, too.

  They wouldn’t have fought. She wouldn’t have fled the country and, ultimately, the whole Mortal world. She wouldn’t have tried to lose herself in a stupid card game.

  Suffer was the perfect name for the club where she’d almost lost it all. And it described what both of them had been doing since the moment she’d set foot in that place. But if Ridley was honest with herself, she had already been suffering for three months by the time she found her way there.

  Why?

  Because she couldn’t tell one stupid boy who she loved with every muscle in her stupidly broken heart that she loved him more passionately and more deeply than she’d ever loved anyone in the world?

  Ridley couldn’t go back to that afternoon in the Dar-ee Keen. It hurt too much. She couldn’t walk back through any of the wrong paths she’d taken.

  Instead, she closed her eyes and started to cry, really cry.

  She melted into Link’s arms, burying her face in his shoulder, pressing her runny nose into his spiky hair, like he’d been waiting for her to do since that first time he said it.

  Wesley Lincoln finally got his answer, even if it was wet snot on his neck. Even if Ridley Duchannes was speechless and all she could manage was a nod.

  Even if it was a long time coming, longer than back-to-back Shark Weeks, longer than a whole summer vacation of E-rated video games, and even longer than Summerville’s marathon Battle of the Bad Bands.

  Link would take it. He could wait for the rest, even if it took the rest of his long life.

  In that moment, the longest standoff in recorded history—at least, all the history recorded between this particular Caster and this particular quarter Incubus—came to a short, sweet end.

  Together they were ready to take on the world.

  Or hide from it, indefinitely.

  They were still working out the plan.

  “Next question, darlin’.”

  “You’re full of questions today, Shrinky Dink.” Ridley sat with her pink toes in his lap while he drove, and Link held on to them with his hand.

  She wiggled them and he smiled.

  “Only one more question, and I promise this one’ll be easier than the last.”

  “All right, then,” she said.

  “Should we go back to Gatlin?”

  He was wrong. This wasn’t easy, either.

  This one kept them talking for a hundred miles.

  As much as Ridley wanted the answer to be yes—more than she’d ever thought she’d want to go back to Gatlin, to everything that meant—she knew in her heart there was no way she could risk everyone she cared about. She wouldn’t even risk telling them where she and Link were headed.

  Not when Silas Ravenwood was involved. Or worse, Abraham.

  “Then where do we go? If we can’t stay in New York, and we can’t go home?” Ridley hadn’t quite figured that out yet.

  “Did you actually call Gatlin home?”

  “Don’t avoid the question,” Ridley said, avoiding the question.

  Link grinned, tapping on the steering wheel. “Where are
we goin’? You and me? That’s music and magic, Babe. I got just the place. There’s only one.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sure. It was supposed to be chapter ten in my autobiography. You know, Carolina Icon. Did I ever tell you that one?”

  Rid had to think about it. “Viva Link Vegas?”

  “Nah, that’s all fake magic. Plus, that’s chapter twelve, the one with the white tigers. For when my vocal cords are shot and I’m fat from eatin’ fried peanut butter.” He winked at her.

  Ridley smiled. She hadn’t known they weren’t shot now. “Where, Hot Rod? Don’t die on a toilet before you tell me.”

  “Aw, come on. It’s not the worst way to go.”

  Ridley didn’t know about that, but at least it wasn’t a fire or chains. She wondered what Nox’s third vision was, the last one he’d seen.

  The one he wouldn’t tell her about.

  Rid looked back at Link. “Cough it up. Where are we headed?”

  Link was going to tell her, but then “Stairway to Heaven” came on the radio, and they had to stop talking.

  It was the only rule of the Beater.

  Ridley would have to wait a few minutes to find out.

  She wrapped a strand of pink hair around her finger and thought about where she was going and what she was leaving behind.

  Link was singing, the radio was playing, and the wind was blowing. Rid’s window was down and her hand was hanging out to feel the warmth of the sun. There were cows on one side of the highway and horses on the other. Everywhere she looked, round bales of hay sat tied up with string, like birthday presents.

  Ridley felt pretty good, for someone with a banged-up heart and a bounty on her head. Her ring tapped against the side of the car, but she couldn’t see if it was glowing, and right now she didn’t care.

  Which was also the reason she didn’t see the truck coming right at them.

  Sugarplum—

  People said the gas tank alone burned more than two stories high.

  Hot Rod, don’t you leave me—

  The back of the Beater? Smashed like a dropped accordion.

  Stairs. Flames. The sky.

  “Stairway to Heaven” kept playing right up until the radio caught fire.

  To be continued…

  Acknowledgments

  SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE WORKED together to bring our readers the continuing adventures of Link and Ridley and the Caster world in the Dangerous Creatures novels. The last six months have been nothing short of miraculous.

  Our agents, Sarah Burnes (and everyone at the Gernert Company, on behalf of Margie) and Jodi Reamer (and everyone at Writers House, on behalf of Kami), have collaborated, as always, with grace and general awesomeness.

  Our editors, Kate Sullivan (for Margie) and Erin Stein (for Kami), as well as our former editor, Julie Scheina, have been not just patient and brilliant but passionately #TeamLinkAndRidley from the start.

  The publishing, sales, editorial, marketing, publicity, school and library services, art direction, and copyediting groups at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers have continued to work tirelessly on behalf of Casters everywhere.

  The teachers, librarians, booksellers, bloggers, journalists, tumblr-ers, tweethearts, Facebook followers, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, writer friends, YALLFestians, and most of all DEAR READERS (NOTE: THIS IS YOU) who make up the larger Caster world have become the GREATEST FANDOM OF ALL HUMAN HISTORY.

  We offer up a giant, Wesley Lincoln–sized thank-you to all of you.

  But most especially, we want to thank our families. You, darlings, are the collective loves of our respective lives. You Charm us every day.

  Lewis, Emma, May & Kate, and Alex, Nick & Stella, we’ll save you the biggest cherry lollipops of them all.

  XO,

  Margie & Kami

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Kami Garcia, LLC, and Margaret Stohl, Inc.

  Excerpt from Icons copyright © 2013 by Margaret Stohl, Inc.

  Excerpt from Unbreakable copyright © 2013 by Kami Garcia, LLC

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  Visit our website at lb-teens.com

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  First Edition: May 2014

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Garcia, Kami, author.

  Dangerous creatures / by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl.

  pages cm

  Summary: “Siren Ridley and her rocker boyfriend Link move to New York City to make it big with their supernatural band mates in Sirensong, but Caster trouble follows them”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-316-37031-8 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-316-37626-6 (special edition hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-316-40545-4 (international paperback edition) [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Sirens (Mythology)—Fiction. 3. Rock groups—Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction.] I. Stohl, Margaret, author. II. Title.

  PZ7.G155627Dan 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013048080

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  RRD-C

  Printed in the United States of America

  E3

  GUARD YOUR HEART.…

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  The Pietà of La Purísima

  Feelings are memories.

  That’s what I’m thinking as I stand there in the Mission chapel, the morning of my birthday. It’s what the Padre says. He also says that chapels turn regular people into philosophers.

  I’m not a regular person, but I’m still no philosopher. And either way, what I remember and how I feel are the only two things I can’t escape, no matter how much I want to.

  No matter how hard I try.

  For the moment, I tell myself not to think. I focus on trying to see. The chapel is dark but the doorway to outside is blindingly bright. That’s what morning always looks like in the chapel. The little light there prickles and stings my eyes.

  Like in the Mission itself, in the chapel you can pretend that nothing has changed for hundreds of years, that nothing has happened. Not like in the Hole, where they say the buildings have fallen into ruins, and Sympa soldiers control the streets with fear, and you think about nothing but The Day, every day.

  Los Angeles, that’s what the Hole used to be called. First Los Angeles, then the City of Angels, then the Holy City, then the Hole. When I was little, that’s how I used to think of the House of Lords, as angels. Nobody calls them alien anymore, because they aren’t. They’re familiar. We never see them, but we’ve never known a world without them, not Ro and me. I grew up thinking they were angels because back on The Day they sent my parents to heaven. At least, that’s what the Grass missionaries told me, when I was old enough to ask.

  Heaven, not their graves.

  Angels, not aliens.

  But just because something comes from the sky doesn’t make it an angel. The Lords didn’t come here from the heavens to save us. They came from some faraway solar system to colonize our
planet, on The Day. We don’t know what they look like inside their ships, but they’re not angels. They destroyed my family the year I was born. What kind of angel would do that?

  Now we call them the House of Lords—and Ambassador Amare, she tells us not to fear them—but we do.

  Just as we fear her.

  On The Day, the dead dropped silently in their homes, never seeing what hit them. Never knowing anything about our new Lords, about the way they could use their Icons to control the energy that flowed through our own bodies, our machines, our cities.

  About how they could stop it.

  Either way, my family is gone. There was no reason for me to have survived. Nobody understood why I did.

  The Padre suspected, of course. That’s why he took me.

  First me, and then Ro.

  I hear a sound from the far end of the chapel.

  I squint, turning my back to the door.

  The Padre has sent for me, but he’s late. I catch the eye of the Lady from the painting on the wall. Her face is so sad, I think she knows what has happened. I think she knows everything. She’s part of what General Ambassador to the Planet Hiro Miyazawa, the head of the United Embassies, calls the old ways of humanity. How we believed in ourselves—how we survived ourselves. What we looked up to, back when we thought there was someone up above.

  Not something.

  I look back to the Lady a moment longer, until the sadness surges and the pain radiates through me. It pulses from my temples and I feel my mind stumble, folding at the edge of unconsciousness. Something is wrong. It must be, for the familiar ache to come on so suddenly. I press my hand to my temple, willing it to stop. I breathe deep, until I can see clearly.

  “Padre?”

  My voice echoes against the wood and stone. It sounds as small as I am. An animal has lurched into my leg, one of many more entering the chapel, and my nostrils fill with smells—hair and hides and hooves, paint and mold and manure. My birthday falls on the Blessing of the Animals, which will begin just hours from now. Local Grass farmers and ranchers will come to have the Padre bless their livestock, as they have for three hundred years. It is Grass tradition, and we are a Grass Mission.