Page 96

TWO

Snap

The gash on my arm was already closing up, but it still stung beneath the gauze Thorn had wrapped around it. The way I’d gotten that gash stung far more, though. First Omen had lunged at Sorsha, and then he’d attacked the rest of us when we’d started to intervene. During that skirmish, one of his hellhound claws had sliced through the flesh just below my shoulder almost all the way to the bone.

If we hadn’t been so shocked by everything we’d just found out and by his sudden hostility, surely between the three of us, we could have stopped him? But I hadn’t been prepared to tackle our leader as an enemy. When he’d hit my beloved, my first reaction had been confusion. All those precious seconds I’d lost while I realized I wasn’t mistaken, he really did intend to carry her away from the rest of us, perhaps to the Highest who wanted her dead…

Our failure clearly weighed heavily on Thorn too. He strode back and forth in the narrow hall of the Everymobile, his expression the grimmest I’d ever seen it, and he wasn’t a being who spent much time smiling even on good days.

When Omen had charged off with Sorsha’s limp body, we’d chased after him, but in his hellhound form he’d outpaced us in minutes. After he’d vanished into the sparse wilderness where we’d parked outside San Francisco, we’d retreated to regroup, but looking at the gouge marks on the glittery cupboards and the crack now running through the table, I only felt more scattered.

Could Omen really mean to turn Sorsha over to beings who’d kill her? The thought of losing her caused the most stabbing pain of all, so sharp I could barely breathe.

It was hard to imagine him taking that step. While, yes, he’d been annoyed with her now and then, they’d seemed to be getting along well enough in the past couple of weeks. She’d done so much for us. How could he think she’d ever turn around and harm us, let alone all the other beings in both realms?

The little dragon our mortal had looked after appeared to be equally bewildered. Pickle darted here and there through the broken shards of plates and wine glasses that littered the floor, letting out harsh little squeaks at no one in particular. I tried holding out my hand and clucking my tongue at him the way I’d seen Sorsha do, but he just snorted louder and snapped at the table leg as if it were responsible for her disappearance.

Thorn opened and closed his massive fists at his sides, still pacing. His low voice boomed through the room. “If he’s already harmed her—he’ll face a reckoning, I can say that much.”

The other wingéd among us, an equally massive shadowkind man named Flint who’d joined our party only a few days ago, glanced up where he was sitting across from me at the table. “If he saw something in her that made him feel she was that much of a threat?—”

The warrior rounded on him. “You don’t know anything about her! He would still be in the Company’s clutches, enduring their torture, if she hadn’t helped us free him. She is the kindest and most compassionate being I’ve ever had the honor of standing beside. I’ve never seen her hurt any who didn’t deserve as much ten times over.”

Flint set his jaw as if it were made of the same stone as his name, apparently deciding it was better not to speak at all. Omen had wanted to keep the full secret of Sorsha’s identity secret from the newer shadowkind in our group, so we hadn’t shared the entire story with them, but it’d been impossible for them not to notice him tearing off with her. I supposed we’d have to tell them some version of the truth, just not all of it.

Ruse swiped his hands over his face, which had turned pallid in the time since Omen’s betrayal, and looked up at us from where he was leaning against the wall near the driver’s seat. “All that is true, and Omen could still be doing whatever the hell he wants with her. How can we stop him? It could already be done.”

“He might not have completed that betrayal yet. He knows how valuable she is to his cause, and he wouldn’t want to jeopardize that. I know he’s dedicated to ending the Company’s plans.” Thorn swung around again, a dark crimson gleam flashing in his near-black eyes. “I might not have anticipated this, but I have known him a long time. If he’s still in the mortal realm, I may be able to locate him.”

My heart leapt, and I sprang to my feet with that sensation. “What are we waiting for, then? Let’s find Sorsha.”

The incubus straightened up too, but Thorn shook his head at both of us. “I’ll move much faster on my own with no need for explanations, and I’m the only one of us who has any chance of matching him if it comes to a fight. I’ll return as soon as I’m able.”

“Thorn!” Ruse protested, but the warrior didn’t respond. He vanished into the shadows and had raced off beyond the range of my awareness before I’d so much as blinked.

“Big bad angel taking off without the rest of us,” Antic muttered in a sing-song voice, crunching broken shards under her feet in time with the rhythm. The imp took a couple of jabs at the kitchen counter, which was about the same height as her head. “I’d give that hellhound what-for.”

“Yes, and a few seconds after that, you’d be cinders,” Ruse said dryly, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in the attempt at humor. He grimaced at the floor. “I should have realized as soon as he started talking about—all of it. I should have… I don’t know. Fuck.”

He cast about as if looking for something to hold onto, and a glimmer of an idea quivered through my head.

“Did he touch anything?” I asked, glancing around.

Ruse paused and stared at me. “What? Who?”

“Omen. When he was in here.”

“I don’t see what that matters after?—”

I didn’t normally interrupt my companions. Normally I listened carefully to whatever they were saying, since all of them had much more experience than I did in either realm and especially this mortal one. But the sting of Omen’s violent departure and my wrenching worries for Sorsha sent a surge of determination rushing through me.

I had a purpose here. There was a reason Omen had brought me onto this mission—there were things I could do .

“Of course it matters,” I cut in with a voice louder and more forceful than felt totally comfortable. A twinge ran through my chest at the stricken expression that crossed the incubus’s face, but maybe it was time he listened to me for once. Sorsha was mine, and I was hers, and if there was a way to save her, I would find it.

I squared my shoulders and went on. “If Omen touched anything with his bare hands—or any other bare skin—he might have left an impression that could tell me where he was thinking of going. Do you remember whether he touched any spot on the walls or the table or wherever while he was talking to us?”

After he’d grabbed Sorsha, he’d had his hands full with her. The wreckage on the floor had mostly been caused by us colliding with objects around the room as he’d shoved us away. He hadn’t transformed into his hellhound shape until he’d been loping across the ground outside, my beloved slung across his back?—

An even stronger jolt of hope rushed through me. I motioned vaguely to the others, including the night elf who’d remained huddled in the shadows since Omen’s violent frenzy. “Take a moment to think about it. I’ll have a better chance outside anyway.”

Out in the humid air that had collected under the thick clouds overhead, I hesitated for a moment. The ground was dry and covered with patches of yellowed grass and weeds—and a jumble of faint footprints, the soles of human shoes. Had Omen’s hellhound paws left a mark anywhere? He’d run off in this direction…

I hurried between the trees. He’d definitely shifted by the time he’d reached this spot.

There—scratches in the dirt where his claws had scraped the ground. I bent down and flicked my tongue through the air over them, tasting the impressions he’d left behind.

Images even more fragmented than usual flashed through my awareness. The feel of Sorsha’s slack weight on his back, the hellish heat coursing over his skin, the effort of his swift strides—and a tangle of resolve and regret. He hadn’t been happy about lashing out at us. That didn’t reassure me much. He’d done it anyway, so who knew what other awful things he might do next?

I couldn’t pick up any sense that he’d known where he was going. He’d simply wanted to be as far as he could get from us, far from the possibility that we might stop him. What if he hadn’t decided yet?

I shoved that thought away and prowled onward, stopping here and there to test other patches of disrupted earth that appeared to be caused by animal rather than human-like feet. The impressions I gleaned tasted mostly the same as that first one. No clear sense of direction other than to keep moving as quickly as he could. He hadn’t been heading for a rift yet, as far as I could tell. That was one small relief.

When I pushed myself upright after the tenth or so testing, uncertain whether there was any point in continuing as the trail got vaguer, Ruse stepped through the trees to join me. His hopeful look faded at the sight of me. “Nothing?”

My frustration at that fact prickled through me. “Nothing that would tell us where he’s gone. But… I don’t think he was heading straight to the Highest. He felt the weight of some responsibility toward them, but he was resisting it.”

“I suppose if she’s still in this realm and alive, Thorn does have the best shot of tracking the two of them down.”

A fierceness that surprised even myself erupted out of me. “He should have given us the chance to help. If he’d waited just a few minutes, I might have been able to tell him something that would narrow down his search.” I spun on my heel, unable to stop myself from glaring at the trees. “ Omen should have given us a chance. We know her better than he does—he should have listened to what we had to say, not followed what the Highest told him. They’ve never met her at all!”

Ruse raised his eyebrows at my outburst, but when he clapped his hand to my shoulder, the gesture was gentle. “I agree with you, devourer. Unfortunately, I think Omen was also aware that the three of us have become awfully invested in our mortal’s happiness. If we’d had more of a chance to rally against him, he might not have gotten past—well, Thorn, anyway.”

“Then he should have realized we have good reason for that devotion.”

The prickling frustration was expanding, rising through my ribs and up to the base of my throat. Sorsha had saved me not once but twice. She’d woken up a whole world inside me I’d had no idea even existed. I had to protect her.

I marched onward, searching for more signs of Omen’s passing, but I was reaching the area where he’d outpaced us. I wasn’t sure exactly which direction he might have veered in from here. We were getting close to the road, where a whiff of a cloying chemical smell lingered from the occasional cars passing this way.

I pushed past another tree—and found myself faced with a portly mortal man who was strolling along the side of that road. He paused, blinking at me, and the prickling sensation dug into me like the rows of splintery teeth that could spring up within my mouth.

Everything I cared about had gone wrong, and someone needed to pay. I could rip his soul to shreds and devour it down?—

My body was moving before I’d even finished that thought, propelled by the all-encompassing hunger of my nature. The man’s eyes widened, his round cheeks paling.

“Snap!” Ruse hissed, but I was already yanking myself backward. I clenched my jaw before it could extend any farther and propelled myself away from the mortal and the tempting thrum of his life’s energy.

I was better than that. I was a monster, and I would bring out my fangs if it helped us—but not just to distract from my frustrations. Savaging that man wouldn’t bring Sorsha back.

If only I had a better idea what would.

When the RV came into sight, I stopped with a ragged exhalation. Ruse halted beside me.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said to him. The urge to rend and tear was still clanging through me. Just for an instant, a small part of me was glad Sorsha wasn’t here to see how my control had frayed.

Ruse gave me a crooked smile that looked rather painful. “You’ve already managed more than I’ve been able to contribute. Fat lot of good my charm can do for us or Sorsha right now.” He sighed. “I think I found a few places in the Everymobile that Omen touched—or rather, slashed or smacked. Do you want to come give them a taste?”

If our leader hadn’t been sure of his destination while he’d dashed away out here, I didn’t imagine he’d been clearer on it before he’d even made it out of the vehicle. But confirming that would do us more good than murdering random passers-by.

I raised my chin. “All right. And then we find something else to try. We keep trying, no matter how ridiculous it seems, until Sorsha’s back with us.”

I wouldn’t let myself consider yet what I’d do if she was lost to us forever.