Her nostrils flared. “Of course.”
“No, I mean family-family.”
“He was Istral’s mate.”
Istral, the sister I’d seen murdered by goblins last week. She had died screaming, from ammunition created to protect the Triads, without Max lifting a finger to help. Max. Even thinking the gargoyle’s name infuriated me. I’d once considered him a friend, only to have him step casually aside while I was kidnapped by Kelsa and her goblin horde.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She nodded. “As am I. I have lost my sister and now her husband, and I have very little to show for these sacrifices.”
“You’ve got a direct line to the bad guys.” No reaction. “And you saved my life because of it.” Nothing. She did sullen better than I did. “Well, I don’t know how much Eleri told you, but Phineas is setting himself up as a traitor to the Triads. He told Call that we know about tomorrow night’s meet and are going to stake it out, both of which are true.”
“Eleri imparted something similar when we spoke. Call’s supposed plan is simple, but potentially deadly.”
“Lure the Triads in and then attack, right?”
“Precisely.”
“So we need to outflank them before they get us.”
“Correct.”
This was getting more complicated by the minute. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” I muttered.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. So the best thing for us to do is continue our surveillance like normal, so no one in this little Dreg militia suspects we’re onto them, and hope no one gets hurt.”
“Sacrifices are inevitable in a time of war.”
I started. “We aren’t at war.”
“Are we not? Consider your path since the night your friends turned their backs on you, Evangeline. Events are in motion that shall lead to a conflict greater than any of us can truly foresee.”
“You read that in your crystal ball?”
Her smile was cold. “I have walked this Earth for two centuries, child, and in those decades have never seen the level of hostility between our species as I have these past ten years. And not simply humans and vampires but among all of the others, including the Light Ones, who choose to hide underground.”
I could have told her the Light Ones—sprites and gnomes and dryads and pixies—hid underground so they could protect a gateway that kept demons from spilling over into our world. But if she didn’t already know about First Break, it wasn’t my job to educate her.
“So what?” I asked. “You think this is some sort of plot ten years in the making, that’s only now coming to fruition, and we just happen to be stuck in the middle of the fucking thing?”
She raised a single slim eyebrow. “You believe it is coincidence that the Triads were officially chartered ten years ago?”
I stood and heat flared through my aching stomach, protesting the sudden movement. But it was the only way I could tower over her—as long as she stayed sitting. “Are you saying this fuck-fest is the fault of the Triads?”
“Look at their history, Evangeline, and then make up your own mind. If they are at fault for, or simply a reaction to, a growing threat.”
Yeah, I’d do that, sure. Number sixty-eight on today’s To Do list. A list that was only growing. “If I thought I had time to make up my own mind, I wouldn’t be asking you for clarification.”
“I have none for you. I returned to the city only six years ago, after a two-decade absence. Talk to the people who were here, not to those of us who were not.”
She meant Wyatt and Rufus, the two most tenured Handlers in the city. Fat chance I’d get the answers I wanted from the brass, even if I could track them down in the next two or three days—and given my streak of luck so far, that was looking less and less likely. Kismet, Baylor, Willemy, and the others had come around within the last seven years. Longer than I’d been a Hunter, but they hadn’t been around ten years ago.
Hell.
“What are you thinking?” Isleen asked.
“That I need to go talk to Rufus again.”
“Why Rufus?”
“Because sometimes a person facing certain death will be more honest about things he’d rather not discuss.”
She nodded. “You are learning.”
I snorted. “Well, all this investigative bullshit is new to me. I’m not a detective, I’m a Hunter. They point and I kill it, not question it to death.”
“Occasionally the acquisition of answers requires a lighter touch.”
“Like I said, not my job.”
“It seems to have become your job. And if you wish to protect your friends and your species, I suggest you learn quickly.”
“Why do you care?”
“As I have stated, Evangeline, we vampires are content with our place in society. The unrest is not of our design; however, we do wish to assist in settling it.”
“Terrific.”
A muffled clanging of music trickled into the room. I listened. Pinpointed it in the bathroom. Cell phone. I dashed in, found it in the back pocket of my discarded jeans, and flipped it open.
“Stone,” I said.
“Evy?” Aurora’s voice was soft, practically a whisper.
Just what I didn’t need. “Yeah?”
“Can I talk to Phineas, please?”
I’d have loved to talk to Phin my own damned self, but the quiver in her lyrical voice stopped me from snapping at her. Kept me from saying anything about the last few hours. “He’s not here with me, Aurora. What is it?”
“Can you come home, please?”
“I’m a little busy right now.”
“Leo scares me, Evy. He’s scaring Joseph, too. Joseph thinks we should leave and find somewhere else to stay, but Phin promised we’d be safe here.”
I barely resisted the impulse to kick the bathroom wall. “What’s he doing that’s scaring you?”
“He broke a glass.”
Not exactly an apocalyptic event. “I’m sure it was an acci—”
“He threw it against the wall.”
“He what?”
“We were watching a program on television, trying to pass the time. He never sat still, kept fidgeting and tapping his feet. Then he just stood up and threw his glass at the wall. He yelled at Joseph for trying to clean it up. Then he went into his son’s bedroom, slammed the door, and has been making noise in there ever since.”
My anger flared white-hot. “What sort of noise?”
“Banging, mostly. He swears a lot, too.”
Join the fucking club.
I stalked out of the bathroom and stopped halfway to the door. “Stay put. I’ll be there soon.” I shut the phone and slid it into my pocket. “I need a ride,” I said to Isleen.
“Arlen can drop you anywhere you wish.”
“If Eleri gives you anything else on this meet—”
“I will contact you.”
I scribbled my phone number on the motel’s complementary notepad, mentally making a list of all the ways
