Page 51

EIGHTEEN

Ruse

I might not have shared Omen’s contempt for most things mortal, but the community center where Sorsha’s Fund had gathered for their current meeting definitely wasn’t the highlight of this realm. The stale sweat smell reached my senses even in the shadows, and the pounding of the basketballs in the gym next door filtered through the conversation so loudly I couldn’t make out some of the words.

It did beat the smell of burning camper-van upholstery and the blare of machine-gun fire we’d left behind at the fairgrounds yesterday—I’d give it that.

One thing was clear without hearing any of the words: most of the members weren’t happy. The leader with the black hair and sharp eyes had her hands on her hips as she spoke to Sorsha. “That was your apartment, wasn’t it—that building that caught fire, where they found those dead bodies? And the victims found by that mini golf—they were smashed up the same way…”

Her wife and co-leader with the frizzy hair grimaced. “I saw the photos. Those injuries look like they were caused by shadowkind strength. What are these beings you’ve gotten yourself involved with?”

Sorsha was standing on the other side of the room’s long table, only her friend Vivi next to her while they faced off against not just the group’s leaders but the several other members who’d shown up and appeared equally disturbed. Clearly those people had no appreciation for Thorn’s skill with his fists. What was he supposed to have done—tied up our attackers with a silk ribbon and asked the police to pretty please toss them in the clinker?

Our mortal—or whatever exactly she was, unexpected powers taken into consideration—looked as stubbornly stunning as ever, even though she’d had to rush off here with barely any notice. Her hands had clenched where she’d rested them against the table.

“We’ve been attacked,” she said, dodging the question. “Repeatedly and violently. The people the Company of Light has sent after us have practically killed me at least half a dozen times at this point. Anything you’ve seen in those reports was self defense.”

The ones that hadn’t been strictly necessary, like the dope Omen had asked Thorn to off after we’d questioned him, we’d been able to dispose of more carefully since we hadn’t been fleeing for our lives at the same moment. I could tell from the tension in Sorsha’s jaw that she hadn’t forgotten those deaths, even if she wasn’t going to mention them to her fellow Fund members.

The Company assholes would have seen all shadowkind tarred, feathered, boiled in oil, and hung for good measure if they’d gotten the chance. Why should any of us be wracked with guilt over their loss of life? Mortals and their tender hearts.

Not that I minded Sorsha’s. She had plenty of steel in there too… and if that heart hadn’t been at least a little tender, she’d never have forgiven me for my broken promise.

“We’ve only got your word on that,” one of the other members said. “None of us has seen any evidence that this ‘Company’ is doing anything at all to shadowkind.”

“ I saw what they did to one of their own guys,” Vivi piped up. She might have screwed us over a little with her initial nosiness, but the flash in her dark eyes as she defended Sorsha earned her plenty of points. “They killed him and mutilated the body—these aren’t anyone you’d want to make friends with.”

“Do you even know for sure it was mortals who killed that guy?” asked the stout young man with the soft, gloomy face. “Or did you need Sorsha to tell you that too?”

He was the one Sorsha had once had some brief dalliance with. Not the massive asshole who’d vanished on her with a brief note about her vague inadequacies, whom I’d have liked to tar and feather myself, but the almost-as-massive asshole whose emotions churned with resentment and indignation—but not a hint of regret about his own behavior, funnily enough—whenever he’d looked at her. Leland something-or-other.

It’d been a pleasure to trip him in the movie theater where the group had met a couple of weeks ago. I slunk closer in case I got another chance to poke a foot from the shadows and knock him face-first onto the floor.

Vivi gave him a look as if she were contemplating doing the same thing. “Are you suggesting that Sorsha—the Sorsha who’s worked with the Fund for more than a decade without getting into trouble—is suddenly orchestrating some kind of huge conspiracy that includes murdering random men, all to take down a bunch of people who’ve actually done nothing wrong?”

Leland shrugged, his expression turning even more sour. “She might not know either. The shadowkind can be manipulative.”

Oh, I’d show him manipulative. I’d like to see him licking his own ass after I’d had a little charmed chat with him. From the emotions clouding his mind now, I didn’t think he was even considering that Sorsha’s story about the Company might be true. As far as he was concerned, she’d snubbed him and that meant she must be misguided in all things—just a dupe of vicious shadowkind.

He’d gotten to share all those bodily intimacies with her, but he didn’t know her at all.

“Yes, some can look to mess with ours heads. That’s why I wear this.” Sorsha tugged down the neckline of her blouse to show the silver-and-iron trinket pinned to her undershirt. Probably for the best that she didn’t mention the few times she’d taken it off—and what she’d gotten up to with me and sometimes Snap during those times. “Believe me, I’d like this fight to have a lot less blood in it, but that’s not on us. The shadowkind just want to survive.”

The first of the leaders had raised her pointed chin. “I’m afraid that given the evidence we’ve encountered, none of us feel comfortable pursuing this issue any further. And I think it’d be best if you got yourself out of whatever you’ve become mixed up in too.”

Sorsha’s mouth tightened. You don’t need these putzes , I thought at her, but some part of her seemed to believe she did.

“ I’m not willing to walk away from the shadowkind when they’re facing this kind of threat. Did you find out anything else with all the digging you obviously did?”

“Yeah,” Vivi said. “What about the addresses Sorsha passed on—did you get anywhere with those?”

The addresses our hacker had uncovered from us thanks to Vivi’s efforts. The twitch of the older woman’s eyes told me she knew something, all right, but she locked it away with a purse of her lips. “The matter is closed. We’ll resume our regular meets at the usual time and place this weekend. You’re both welcome to join us for our regular business there—it’s up to you.”

“Huyen,” Sorsha protested. “Ellen. Please. I swear?—”

The frizzy-haired woman was shaking her head. Sorsha took in their expressions and must have come to the same conclusion I had about ten minutes earlier: this bunch was useless. With a curt sigh, she stalked out of the room.

“Really?” Vivi said, glowering at her colleagues, but the other Fund members held steady. She flounced out after her best friend.

Which was why it was a good thing Sorsha had agreed to let us stake out this place—me inside the rec center and my three companions patrolling the neighborhood around it. You couldn’t get a more perfect spy than a shadowkind lurking in dark corners.

Ellen rubbed her mouth, the only one who looked at all conflicted about what had just gone down. She turned to Leland. “We should keep an eye on the activity around that building in the docklands, as much as we can, just in case. I wouldn’t have thought Sorsha would get involved with anything disturbing. If there is an organization hunting the shadowkind on this scale…”

Leland snorted. “All I found was a record of some trucks arriving at the place ten days ago. No way of knowing what was in them—and it’s not like trucks are a strange sight on Wharf Street.”

Ten days ago—that’d be right after we’d stormed the facility to break Omen out. Exactly when the Company would have needed to move its other captives. And one of the addresses our charmed hacker had matched to the Company’s shell organization was on Wharf Street. Thank you so much for the tip, my glum friend.

A little more muttering followed between the various Fund members, but nothing of much interest. I slipped along through the shadows after them as they left. They wandered off in different directions, Leland heading across the street in the same general direction as the spot where I was supposed to meet up with Sorsha and the others. I followed right beside him, watching for a good moment to send him stumbling.

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?”