Page 194 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Two

Riva

S omehow it feels odd to look around and see all the signs up and down the city street printed with English words. Many of them I can’t fully make out in the hazy light of streetlamps through the night, but it still gives the neighborhood a sense of home that I hadn’t realized I was missing.

This isn’t the first time any of our recent keepers have sent us on a mission to an English-speaking place. The gala we attended, where I carried out my political assassination, must have been in the US.

But that one time, our escort dropped us off right at the site of the job. We had no chance to look around, let alone roam.

Every other place Balthazar or even Clancy sent us was someplace beyond the continent where we grew up, often unidentified and made even more indecipherable by that lack of information.

Here, the recognizable language showing in shop windows, over their doors, and on the ads in a bus shelter grounds me.

Balthazar and his people didn’t tell us what city we were going to, but it’s warm for the late autumn.

I guess it’s possible we’re in Australia, but the look of the place, the sounds and smells and the overall atmosphere, strike me with a sense of familiarity.

We’re probably somewhere in the southern US. Maybe I’ll see a reference to a state or the city itself on one of the buildings we pass.

Not that the information will necessarily tell us much of anything about why we’re here or how it matters to Balthazar, but I’ll take every scrap we can get.

His driver has chosen our stopping point well for keeping Zian, Andreas, and me in the metaphorical dark as well as the literal, though.

Most of the structures we slink by on the short walk to our target are bland office buildings with vague company names that give away nothing about what services or products they offer.

If the few street signs we pass include the city name like I’ve seen some places, it’s in a print too small for me to make out in the night.

I spot our destination up ahead: another office building, slabs of concrete around horizontal rectangles of glass. Our instructions said it’d be on the corner, with a large logo like a red daisy cut in half etched on the wall beside the front door.

Pausing on the opposite side of the street, I reach back to touch the small bag slung across my back. Confirming I’ve got my cargo.

Today we’re not stealing anything but dropping something off. Which somehow seems more ominous, since I can’t imagine Balthazar’s offering is actually any kind of gift.

For a second, I could imagine I’m alone on the street corner. Only three of us headed out from the villa for this latest job, and Andreas’s only role was to use his expanding powers to turn Zian, me, and my cargo invisible. Zee and I left him back in the van.

The faint huff of a breath confirms that Zee is still there beside me. I have the urge to reach toward him, to solidify his presence in my mind with a touch, but that seems particularly risky when he won’t even be able to see my hand coming.

“Ready?” I ask under my breath. I don’t see anyone around, but the caution comes automatically.

Zian replies with a repetition of the next part of our instructions. “Middle of the south side, twelfth floor.” He inhales audibly. “Let’s get it done.”

Balthazar picked the two of us for the main part of this job mostly for our supernatural strength. None of the other shadowbloods could have fit their fingers and toes into the small ridges in the concrete and hauled themselves up twelve floors without fear of falling.

Okay, not much fear. Given the choice, I’d rather have a climbing rope.

But Zian and I clamber upward with no further conversation, only the soft rasp of exertion in our breaths. I sense him just a foot away from me in the shifts of the air with his movements.

When I’m looking straight up, not paying any attention to the area beside me, my mind fills in his image there as if I could see him after all.

My limbs move even more effortlessly than I’m used to. All of Matteo’s “procedures” have continued enhancing my strength and speed as well as my banshee scream.

With my conversation with Andreas in the back of my mind, the things he said about how our powers could work for us as well as other people, exhilaration trickles through me.

I don’t like that I’m performing this feat for Balthazar’s benefit…

but there is something thrilling about the fact that I can accomplish the climb at all.

There’s one row of the three-by-four windows for every story. Pushing myself a little faster and reveling in my speed, I count them off in my head until I reach twelve.

Then I hook my fingers and the claws I’ve extended as deep as I can into the small concrete lip I’m clutching, bracing myself to hang there for at least a couple of minutes. “Go ahead.”

This part, only Zian could do. Balthazar wants us coming and going without leaving an obvious trace of our presence.

Heat wafts through the air, and a thin ruddy glow spreads along the edges of the window. Zee has honed the cutting edge of his X-ray enough to aim it steadily.

As the heated line runs along the final side, the cut pane starts to wobble. I slip my fingers around the opposite edge to hold it from toppling and shattering on the floor.

When Zian has finished the cutting, he eases his own hand around the other side. Together, we lower the glass to the floor just inside.

It hisses against the vertical blinds that are closed over the window. They warble louder as each of us crawls through the space into the room beyond.

Darkness fills the sprawling office. I don’t dare turn on a light, but I do adjust the blinds so they let in some of the city glow and moonlight from outside.

The thin illumination washes over a broad mahogany desk, a row of matching bookshelves behind it, and a cluster of modern armchairs and loveseat around a sleek coffee table at the other end of the room. This dude—or dudette—has an office as big as the vast drawing room back in the villa.

I guess they’re someone pretty important. Maybe the head honcho of whatever business we’ve invaded.

It’s not like Balthazar would care about messing with some minor underling, after all.

We need to find somewhere to put his “gift.” As I give the room a more thorough scan, fingertips graze my arm.

Zian has reached out to me . I hold still, and he lets his hand linger against my elbow, fixing both of us in the space no matter how invisible we are.

He edges a little closer before he speaks. He doesn’t touch me anywhere else, but the warmth his unseen body gives off grazes my skin.

His voice is barely more than a breath. “What do you think?”

I cock my head, forcing myself to focus on the scene in front of us rather than the leap of my heart at Zee’s closeness. We’re supposed to leave the unknown item in its taped paper wrapping somewhere it can be found but where it won’t catch the eye unless someone knows to look for it.

Carefully, I adjust my arm so I can give his bicep a little nudge toward the bookcases. As we slink over to them, his touch falls away, but he stays close enough for me to feel his presence.

I pause to study the framed certificates on the wall next to the shelves.

I was right in my first guess of dude —this office appears to belong to someone named Rodney Milner.

A Rodney Milner who received an MBA and also a few different awards and commendations he was proud enough of to show them off.

Most of the organizations and honors don’t mean anything to me, but one of them is the International Clean Energy Federation. Not that I was aware of that organization either before this moment, but a frown crosses my face as I take it in.

The politician Balthazar had me murder—he had something to do with fossil fuels. Wouldn’t this guy be on the opposite side of an energy debate?

Is Balthazar just trying to throw everyone into total chaos, or is there some pattern I’m not grasping?

Zian taps my shoulder, bringing my attention back to the job at hand. I step closer to him, and we inspect the bookcases together.

“Here?” Zian murmurs, guiding my hand tentatively toward a section with some shorter books. “Or would it be too obvious if we just stuck it on top?”

I hum softly. “I think we’d want to tuck it behind something so it’s a little more hidden. Is there anything on the higher shelves that would obscure it?”

There’s a pause before Zee answers. “Mostly books, but there are a couple of liquor bottles and a cigar case.”

“How big is the case?”

“About…” He hesitates and then takes both of my hands. With a light grip, he adjusts them so they’re about eight inches apart.

A tingle races over my skin at the contact, but I don’t push for more. “I think that’s too small. And we don’t know how often he’s taking it out.”

I prod Zian farther down the row of shelves. He directs my hand toward a shelf at my chin height. “We could pull these books a little farther out?”

He’s found a spot with a row of matching volumes that are all relatively narrow despite their height.

I smile. “Good call. That’s perfect.”

As I retrieve the package from my bag, Zian pulls out a few of the books to make room for me to slide it into place. I tuck it behind the rest of the row, he replaces the removed books, and I run my fingers over their tops to confirm that the package won’t be seen poking up over them.

For now, the package is as literally invisible as we are. But from the recent experimenting Andreas has done with his powers, he said Matteo has determined that if he uses a soft touch, the invisibility will fade within several hours without him needing to intervene.

I step back to take in the wider view and raise one of my wrists to my mouth. “First bookcase on the left, four shelves up,” I whisper to the manacle.

Balthazar wanted confirmation of where exactly we left his little present.