Page 86
Story: City of Smoke and Brimstone
“You’re going with Darien, and so are Lace and Arthur.”
Lace blinked, taken aback. “Ivy?—”
“You just said we should make sure we all have strong enough groups,” Ivy responded evenly. “I think you should go with Darien, and Max and I will stay behind and look for Tanner. Besides, Travis is still here, too—we’ll make sure he comes with us when we leave.”
“I’m not going, Ivy,” Jack said. “Not without you. You can forget it.”
Frustrated, she turned to Darien for backup. “Darien?”
A beat of silence as he decided. And then he said to Jack, “You’re coming with me.”
Jack swore. He thumped his elbows onto the table and rubbed his eyes, muttering, “I don’t like this.”
Darien said, “You guys need a plan. The city’s huge—you need to narrow down your search and figure out where to start.”
Roman leaned forward in his seat and grabbed a plastic bag of Stygian salts from the fruit bowl. “I’ll track Gene.”
“Has anyone tried tracking Tanner?” Darien asked as Roman dumped out a small pile of salt and used the edge of a credit card to divide it into rails.
“I did,” Lace replied. “I couldn’t see him.”
“I tried, too,” Max said. “I got nothing.”
Roman snorted the rails through a rolled-up banknote and sat back, eyes shut, strands of his still-wet hair dripping down his face.
Loren’s eyes clashed with Darien’s. He took his foot off his chair and angled it toward her. “Have a seat, Loren.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit down, please.”
She walked to the other side of the table, Singer on her heels, and when she sat down, Darien leaned his arms on the back of the chair.
Kylar said, “I say we start with the kids. Tackle one problem at a time.”
“You have less than fourteen hours,” Lace pointed out. “I’m not sure one problem at a time is wise.”
“I’m going to have to side with Kylar on this,” Darien said. “If you guys split up, you’re putting yourselves at a disadvantage. The kids are the priority right now?—”
“What about Atlas?” Lace demanded, looking wounded.
“They’ll look for Atlas,” he replied in an even tone. “If you don’t find the kids, Donovan will, and we’ll likely never see them again, so right now they are the number one priority. Tanner is smart—he’ll find a way to either get to us or expose his aura so we can get to him.”
“Unless he’s in grave danger himself, and exposing it would put him at a greater risk,” Arthur called from where he still sat in the living room.
“Regardless,” Darien said, well aware that each and every one of his Devils was staring at him—desperate to find Tanner, “you can’t find Tanner right now. No matter how hard you try, you will not find him unless he exposes his aura. So here’s your plan: stay in one group, at least to begin with, find Paxton and Eugene, and the minute you have an inkling of where Tanner is,you go, you find him, and you bring him home. You utilize every last minute you have, and you do not give up until you find him. Understand?”
The room filled with murmured agreements, some of them doubtful, others determined.
“I got a read on Gene,” Roman said. The declaration was flat and distant, his eyes still shut. “Pen,” he requested, turning his right hand that was resting on the table palm up.
Ivy placed a pad of paper before him and slid a pen into his waiting hand.
Roman blindly scratched numbers into the notepad, his eyes flickering behind closed lids. Loren watched, fascinated. She’d always wondered how tracking worked. Hellsehers had more than one way to pinpoint someone’s location, and the most difficult but reliable method was by using very precise coordinates.
Lace came up behind him, phone in hand, a map of Yveswich on the screen. Her nails clicked as she typed the coordinates into the search bar.
The others crowded around. Loren stayed in her seat, Darien still standing behind her, his fingers toying with the end of her left braid.
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