“Smart-ass. Let’s go, then. If nothing else, we can clean up. You have dirt all over you.”
“You were rolling in it, too, you know.”
We hit the ground running and made it into the shadows of the alley without notice. Each step raised my anxiety level a fraction. This part of the city came alive after dark, but daytime saw just as much activity. Even the back alleys and side streets received heavy foot traffic—mostly teenagers keen on skipping school and young adults who couldn’t afford college. We probably blended right in.
No one paid us any mind, not really. But every time someone’s eyes acknowledged me, I cringed and expected attack. When you don’t know who your friends are, anyone can be an enemy.
I counted the blocks. After six, Wyatt turned us toward a stinking, rotting alley that ran next to a seven-story brick apartment complex. One of the low-rent styles with one fire escape per floor, no balconies, and bars on all the windows. He found a back door with no outside knob. It was locked tight.
“It’s hard to pick a lock without a lock to pick,” I said.
“Want a lock?” He held his hand out, palm up, and closed his eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The air above his hand swirled and crackled. He was summoning something. A lump of black metal materialized. He opened his eyes, face pale, and held up the object.
It was the door’s locking mechanism.
“Have I said lately you have a pretty cool power?” I asked.
He grinned and pocketed the lock, then nudged the door. It creaked open without protest. He led me into the bowels of the tenement, through a dank hallway to service stairs that reeked of sweat and urine. I was careful to not touch anything on our ascent, horrified by the vile substances that seemed to coat the railings and walls. Rufus St. James wasn’t well paid as a Handler, but certainly he could afford nicer digs than this dump.
Wyatt peeked out into the fifth floor, then waved me forward. Stark walls of ivory-painted cement blocks proved no homier than the outside of the building. The hallway was bare concrete, the doors a heavy, gray metal. A television blasted a laugh track as we passed one door. Several more apartments went by until he stopped in front of 512.
“You going to summon a key, too?” I whispered.
Turned out we didn’t need one. The apartment door swung open, and we found ourselves staring down the barrel of a shotgun. Across the length of it, past the sight and the arm holding it at shoulder level, I recognized the brown hair and deadly eyes.
“Look what I caught,” said Nadia, the last surviving member of Rufus’s Triad.
Wyatt groaned. “God—”
“—dammit,” I finished.
Chapter 24
16:05
The standoff lasted the space of a breath, then Nadia lowered the shotgun. Her coffee-colored eyes darted to the hall behind us, searching. She stepped back and cocked her head. “He is waiting for you,” she said.
“Who is?” I asked.
“Rufus, idiot.” Her disdain was palpable. She pointed the muzzle of her weapon toward the interior of the apartment. “Go on, then.”
Not quite the welcome of Kings, but she didn’t shoot us on the spot. I walked down a short entry hall that smelled like tomato soup and bleach—two cloying and somewhat nauseating odors. The hall opened into a surprisingly spacious living room/kitchen combo. Plain roman shades covered both windows in the living space, and the sofa had been pushed up against the shared wall. Light flared down from a single overhead fixture.
Rufus lounged in a wheelchair parked next to a small wooden side table. His left shoulder was in a sling. Bloodstained bandages poked out beneath his unbuttoned shirt. He was pale, with dark circles lining both eyes, and he was sweating like a junkie long overdue for his next score.
“Jesus, Rufus,” Wyatt said. He scooted past me and approached his old friend. “Why aren’t you in the hospital?”
“Not safe,” he replied, slurring his words. Nadia had him hopped up on something. “Halfies followed me to finish the job.”
Nadia swooped past me and knelt next to Rufus, shotgun across her lap, protecting her Handler. She continued to glare at me with open suspicion, so I glared right back. She had nothing to fear from me unless she got in my way.
“He insisted we come here,” Nadia said, her faint accent sharpening her S’s and R’s. “I told him it was not safe, but he is stubborn. He said you would know to find him here, so here he must stay.”
“And I was right,” Rufus said. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Truman. I should have helped you sooner.”
“I didn’t give you much reason to trust me, pal,” Wyatt said. “But at least I didn’t shit on my friends for nothing. We finally got the answers we wanted, and none of them are good.”
“About the alliance?”
“More like a conspiracy,” I said.
Wyatt and I took turns narrating the events of the last twenty-four hours, right up through Horzt leading us out of First Break, and Wyatt ended with our arrival at their doorstep.
Rufus had gone impossibly paler during our description of Tovin’s ultimate plan for Wyatt’s free will. His breathing seemed erratic, almost panicked. Nadia remained a sphinx, her internal thoughts impossible to guess by her body language. I might as well have told her the grocery store had a half-price special on laundry detergent, for all of the interest she displayed.
“That’s unbelievable,” Rufus said after a brief pause. “I mean, I knew it had to be something big, but from the elf? I never would have guessed.”
“He’s playing everyone,” Wyatt said. “Putting up a concerned front about a possible alliance that was all bullshit. He’s been using the Halfies, and the goblins, too. The Bloods are on to him, but the Families won’t act without proof. No one will.”
“Are we not overthinking this?” Nadia asked. Her chilly voice sparked goose bumps across my skin. “Save lying, Tovin has committed no real crime. All we need do is void your contract. Simple, no?”
Wyatt glared at her with unmasked fury. “No, not so simple, Nadia. And if you even contemplate putting buckshot into either one of us, I’ll summon your heart right out of your chest.”
Her eyes widened to comical proportions. The threat worked; she backed off. Lucky for us she didn’t know Wyatt couldn’t summon living tissue.
“We need to find Tovin,” I said, “but he could be anywhere in the city, and we don’t exactly have time for a door-to-door.”
“You can always have a go at the babbler,” Rufus said.
I blinked. “The what?”
“The babbler in the next room.” He waved his right hand at a door to the left of the kitchen. “The Halfie who tracked me to the hospital. Nadia brought him with us, but he’s pretty useless. Must be newly turned, because it didn’t take well. He’s losing it.”
“Lost it,” Nadia said.
One in five humans infected by a Blood doesn’t take to the change. Most adapt to their new cravings and lifestyle and limitations and powers, but some don’t. They can’t quite grasp that life will never be the same, and often lose their tenuous grip on reality in a mighty scary fashion. I’d cleaned up after many feral Halfies who turned their insanity against helpless innocents.
Rufus wiped his hand across his chin. “Keeps on muttering about his lost goblet, or some such nonsense. Can’t get anything else out of him.”
“Lost goblet?” Wyatt asked. “You sure know how to pick useless hostages. But I’m surprised that just one Halfie came after you. They tend to travel in packs.”
“Not if one of them’s gone feral,” I said. “Usually they kill them outright, to prevent them from weakening the group.”
