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The drive from Angelthene to Yveswich would take about twenty-two hours if you drove the speed limit and made no stops along the way. While stopping was inevitable, the speed limit wasn’t, especially if you were good at reckless driving without getting caught.

Darien merged into traffic on the interstate, truck engine giving a violent growl. Beside him, in the passenger’s seat, Tanner had a number of programs open on his laptop, one of them scanning for speed traps. Loren was in the back, her socked feet in Joyce’s lap. Joyce—who hadn’t complained once, and who’d insisted on sitting in the back instead of taking the front seat when her son had offered it to her. For a woman whose life had been uprooted so suddenly, she sure was handling it well.

Jack and Ivy were following in Darien’s car. He checked on them in the mirrors every few minutes, making sure all was good. Without the ability to call or text, they would all need to be more observant.

One last message landed in Darien’s phone with a loud buzz that vibrated his pocket. The message he’d been waiting for, the confirmation he needed for ease of mind. He’d sent a single message to Malakai shortly after leaving Hell’s Gate, and the Reaper had only just responded. Darien read them both now—his own message and the one from Malakai.

Darien

You’ll remember what I told you?

Malakai

I’m not that forgetful, dumbfuck.

Darien almost smiled. It was the best consolation he’d get from someone like Malakai, and he accepted it gladly. Look out for the others at all costs—that was the deal. He’d have to trust that Malakai would see it done.

With a deep breath, he shut off his phone.

As he drove through the dark streets of Angelthene, he cracked open his window, breathing in the smoky hint of creosote and the cool bite of sage—the smells of home.

A swarming of vampire bats flew over the interstate as the truck and car sped under a road sign. This time, when Darien read those three words, printed in stark-white paint, they meant far more to him than they ever had before.

9

S. Coastal District

YVESWICH, STATE OF KER

The overcast sky began to spit rain as Shay Cousens stapled a poster to a telephone pole in the South Coastal District.

This was poster number two hundred and forty-one. Shay had printed two hundred and fifty, and she’d put up the majority of them herself. She’d brought help in the form of three Selkies, but as it turned out her friends—if she could even call them that—were easily distracted.

Shay turned her back on the missing person poster—the image of her sister that would soon be blurred by the rain—and followed the chatter of voices and the rattle of spray paint cans.

It was mid-morning, and the South Coastal District was bustling with foot traffic. Shay dodged people on the sidewalk as she made her way, turning her body from side to side, others doing the same to keep from brushing shoulders with her. Here in Yveswich, physical contact was avoided just as much as eye contact, especially when you were alone. Especially when you were female and alone, a sad reality that stalked every city the world over.

Stranger danger had been nailed into Shay at a young age. Not by her mother, who’d barely had a hand in raising her, but by her older sister Anna. Shay had Anna to thank for most of what she knew, her street smarts being highest on the list. Anna had taught her practically everything—how to cook, how to sew, how to drive, how to throw a punch. The one thing Shay could say she had taught Anna was how to steal—and not get caught.

Stealing from Roman Devlin was the kind of milestone she and Anna would’ve celebrated by spending a night on the town. But Anna wasn’t here anymore—a painful truth that was setting in deep, like claws curling into her stomach.

A fat drop of rain hit her cheek, in the same spot where the tear of the Riptide adorned her skin in blue ink. It was the closest she would come to crying. She never cried—not if she could help it.

And not when she was certain Anna would come back. She always came back.

Shay found the three Selkies halfway down a narrow alley a block over, laughing and talking over one another as they added a penis to the mural of Yveswich’s governor. These murals were all over the city, painted on nearly every flat surface you could find—but the governor didn’t usually have big, hairy dicks in his mouth.

Shay adjusted the straps of her backpack and cleared her throat.

The Selkies kept giggling, pushing each other out of the way to add more obscene details to their masterpiece.

Pia, Beatrice, and Kailani were three of the Riptide’s finest Darkslayers. Pia, with her voluptuous figure, short black curls, and dark skin that seemed to glow, was the kind of beautiful that stopped people dead in their tracks. She was one of Anna’s closest friends—and one of Shay’s only friends.

The other two were here mostly because Pia had convinced them to come. Had Shay alone asked them, they likely would’ve declined. Beatrice was fair and slight, her eyes colored like the ocean. Kailani was raven-haired, honey-skinned, and soft around the middle—the most beautiful of all the Selkies.

But right now, ‘beautiful’ was the last thing Shay would call any of them, even Kailani. No, right now they were just annoying.

“Yoo-hoo!” Shay crowed, waving a gloved hand in the air. “You guys are supposed to be helping me, not tagging.”