Page 5

Chance

Before Kerry lifted the heavy, flat boulder, I looked around to make sure no one was watching, but I needn’t have bothered.

This part of Central Park was dead empty at two in the morning.

Still, I stood guard as he moved the giant rock and grabbed something from a deep recess.

Then we made tracks to where the others waited.

“Rome, let me sit up front so I can give Chance directions. I need to see landmarks,” Kerry explained.

I waited until they’d switched places, then got into the driver’s seat again.

“Where to, good sir?” I wasn’t sure humor would help in this situation—and he was fairly unaware of it most times, anyway—but my nature drove me to make people feel safe and comfortable.

He mumbled directions while he rummaged around in his leather-wrapped wooden box. When something jingled, I glanced over to see him slip a bundle of silver bangles into his coat pocket.

“Is that your ill-gotten loot?” Jax leaned over the seat and braced his arms between us.

Good thing Mira’s car was so big; Kerry wouldn’t have been able to stand it if Jax were any closer.

“Yeah.” He tossed Jax two cartons of cigarettes. “Here. Ditch these before I’m tempted.”

“At least your loot is going to good use now,” I said. “And your knowledge of how the Diabolical world works is going to save our friends’ lives.”

“What all do you have in there?” Jax reached for the box, and Kerry handed it to him.

I listened as Jax listed off the contents: Zipper bags packed with gold, strapped stacks of hundred-dollar bills, a flash drive, five fake driver’s licenses in a variety of names, envelopes stuffed with photographs, fine jewelry, gold coins, and a black velvet bag of—

“Are these diamonds ?” Jax screeched. “Really real diamonds ?”

“Yeah,” Kerry said.

“Can I have one? Wait. They aren’t Cursed or anything, are they?”

“No, they ain’t Cursed. What are you gonna do with it?”

“Eventually, I’m going to ask Gigi to marry me. A ring with one of these babies would impress her.”

Wow. He’s so sure we’re going to get Gigi back that he’s planning his future proposal. That’s some powerful positive thinking.

“Oh. Sure. Go ahead and take one. Save yourself twenty grand.”

“ How much?”

“I haven’t been following the market lately, so they could be worth more. They’re high quality.” He dug the Divinity detector out of his pocket and passed it back. “And here. Put this in one of the bags. I don’t want it glowing every time someone opens the box.”

“How much do nephilim sell for?” I wheeled the big car between a limo and a taxi.

“They’ll want a hundred for Gigi and probably one fifty for Boots.”

“Whoa. Wait.” Jax held up one hand. “That’s all we’re worth? A benjamin ?”

“I think he’s talking thousands,” I said.

“A hundred thousand ? One-hundred thousand dollars ?”

“Well, yeah.” Kerry shrugged.

“It’ll take me a century to pay you back!”

“Shut up! I never wanna hear anyone talk about paying me back. I have plenty of money hidden around the city, and they’re my friends, too. ’Sides, like Chance said, I’m glad to put it to good use.”

Jax calmed down, then got worked up again when he realized Kerry said Gigi would be fifty grand less than Mira.

“Why?” he demanded. “She’s worth just as much!”

“You’re right. Gigi’s precious. Mira’ll fight, though. They like that.”

Rome, who hadn’t said a word since we headed toward the city, made a strangled noise.

“Kasparian won’t hurt them,” Kerry tried to soften it, “or let the raiders knock them around too much. He won’t get as good a price if they’re damaged.”

Jax shut up after that, and Kerry did, too.

That made me leery.

He was hanging onto sanity by his fingernails. I tried to help, but couldn’t do a thing about the firestorm raging inside him. Terror for Gemma, frustration with Clem’s absence, fury toward everyone … Well, let’s just say that, as empath, I found it hard to even sit next to him.

We motored for the Hoboken side of the Hudson. I had to stop for gas; Mira’s old girl guzzled it down like a cheap drunk. While Rome worked the pump, Jax checked his phone’s tracker app.

“We’re still on the right course,” he confirmed.

“Good.” Kerry dropped his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. “I know I’m right, but I’m pretty much running on auto-pilot. Guess I used too much juice killing that raider.”

“How is the market set up?” Jax asked as Rome crawled back in the car. “Is it indoors or open air?”

“It’s in a pair of warehouses on an abandoned wharf.” Kerry opened his eyes enough to look at Jax. “I’ll go in alone. They know me and won’t think twice about it.”

Jax yammered, but Rome got it right away.

“Listen, it galls me to sit in a car and wait, too,” he said, “but I understand the logic. It’s the safest, surest, fastest way to get them out in one piece.”

“We have Kerry freaking Harker!” Jax argued. “We could tear this place down!”

“And maybe get them killed. Plus Kerry isn’t anywhere near full strength right now. Stop arguing, Jax. Waiting is what we can do to help.”

Rome was probably the only guy I knew who could see the logic of someone else rescuing his girl, accept it, and roll with it.

He was far from calm about it, although Jax and Kerry probably couldn’t tell.

If I hadn’t been friends with him so long, I wouldn’t have realized it, either.

Under his cool mask, he seethed with the same frustration and fury that Kerry didn’t bother to hide.

When we reached the market, I pulled into the crumbling and weedy lot surrounded by a chain-link fence, then circled around and parked close to the entrance. I wanted a straight shot to the exit.

“You can probably buy information on just about anything in there, right?” I asked Kerry.

“Yeah. Gotta be careful who you ask and how, but yeah.”

“See what you can find out about the Alchemists.”

“Or the djinn,” Rome said.

“Or the bounty on the miracle worker,” Jax said.

“Or Gemma ,” he barked.

“Asking about any of those other things will lead to information about Gemma,” Rome told him. “But I wouldn’t use her name in there. Names have power and the less her captors know, the better for her.”

“I can set your phone up to record.” Jax held out his hand. “Then we can all hear what you find out and go over it as many times as we need to.”

Kerry fished his phone out and handed it to him to work his magic.

“Well,” I said, “you want calm or apathy?”

“Ain’t nobody in there gonna try me, and Kasparian won’t do or say anything that’ll make me crush him through a wall. Calm will work well enough.”

I poked my index finger into his palm just long enough to zap him.

“After I leave,” he said, “you all stay in this car and keep the engine running. Jax, gimme my box.”

Jax handed it to him, and he laid it on the seat between us. He took a stack of cash and stuffed it into his coat pocket, then grabbed five gold coins and slid them into a pants pocket. Finally, he counted out some diamonds into a smaller velvet bag and secreted them somewhere inside his shirt.

“You’re relying on the broker accepting diamonds over money?” I asked.

“Relax. I’ve done this enough to know what Kas wants. ’Sides, I don’t have a bag or anything to put twenty-five stacks in.”

“Are you taking enough, though?” Jax asked.

“Yeah. I told you he’ll want a quarter of a mil for the girls.”

“But there might be others in the pens.”

“So what if there are?” His face screwed up.

“You can’t leave them for something Diabolical to get its hands on.”

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes.

“No, not whatever.” Jax leaned over the seat again, snatched another stack of money from the box, and held it out to him. “You need to buy them, too.”

“You want me to waste my money on some strangers?”

“I thought you said you were glad to put it to good use. And it’s the right thing to do.” He waved the wad of money under Kerry’s nose. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Is this more of that virtue stuff, like mercy?” Kerry’s upper lip curled.

“Are you telling me that you would walk right past other nephs, buy Gigi and Mira, and leave?” Jax shook his head. “I refuse to believe that.”

“All right, all right! I just didn’t think of it.”

I was fairly sure he was lying.

Brushing the cash aside, he told Jax to give him two baggies of gold nuggets. Jax passed them over the seat, then handed him his phone and showed him what to do.

“Listen, Ajax,” Kerry rumbled, “do not follow me. You, either, Rome. If you do, you could get me killed. Or the girls. Or yourself.”

“Understood. We’ll stay in the car,” Rome promised.

“But if things go south,” Jax said, “send up a flare and we—”

“I ain’t gonna let it go south. I’ll get her out, Jax. I swear it.”

“I know you will.”

They bumped fists, then Kerry got out of the car, and we could only watch as he strode alone into the lions’ den.

#

Kerry

I walked through the grimy halls like I owned the place. As I predicted, everyone dodged out of the way, although one dust dealer was brave enough to try to get my attention. I cut my eyes at him, and he melted into a dark doorway. I didn’t need a mirror to know I looked as dangerous as I felt.

Then I felt a tingle of warning between my shoulder blades and spun around in time to stop the knife with my hand instead of my spine.

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the little skeleton grinning up at me.

Hinge always tried to ambush me when I came to the Market.

Usually, I didn’t mind, but today it was costing me time.

“Hinge! You creepy, lil monster! You’re gonna get yourself killed doing that!”

“Aw, Kerry. No one plays with me anymore. Besides, I’m already dead.”

“Yeah, well, you can get a lot deader,” I muttered and started walking away.

“Where have you been?” He hop-skipped alongside me, obviously not getting the hint. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“Around. Doing stuff you don’t need to know about.” I knew I’d have to think of something to distract him or he’d follow me like a puppy all the way to the pens. “Hey, you wanna do a job for me?”

“What does it pay?”

“What do you want?”

Paying Hinge wasn’t always easy. He was just a kid and usually wanted stuff like toys and bikes and games, but sometimes he asked for the craziest things.

“Depends on what the job is,” he said now.

“Just an errand.” I shrugged. “Go tell the shebas to get my ride ready to pick up.”

“I don’t need paying for something that easy.”

He reached for the knife he’d tried to stab me with, and I jerked my hand up. He was trouble enough without a weapon.

“I was only playing, Kerry. Give it back!”

“No. Where’s Bit?”

“Taking a nap. Give me my knife.”

“No. How’ve you been?”

“I’m surviving.” He shrugged his bone shoulders and how he managed to look so sad when he didn’t have eyes—or skin—I didn’t know. “Just … surviving.”

I sighed. He was a kid stuck between life and death, had been for centuries, and every year his hope faded a little more.

If my angel was here, she’d—

My vision darkened.

“You want me to go over to the garage right now, Kerry?”

“Yeah, then meet me in the parking lot. I’ll give you a little something for your trouble. Gimme about thirty minutes.”

He did a little happy dance and took off.