“Felgar’s Horn is two miles south of the DC city line.” Venga’s human hair swung beside his haggard face when he turned to look at Corian. “I cannot hide my trail.”
“We’ll do it for you.” The nightstalker nodded and opened another massive portal.
Persh’al groaned and stepped away from the warehouse door. “It’s like nobody even cares about being seen out here.”
L’zar shrugged. “We’re keeping our eyes on the much bigger prize, Persh’al. Let the rest work itself out.”
“Oh, sure. Yeah. Work itself out while we get ported across the state fifty times in one day.” The troll stalked over to the portal and tossed his hand at it. “So, who’s leading the way?”
Venga’s scraggly gray human eyebrows drew together as he looked Persh’al up and down. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”
“I guess that’s you, then. We’ll follow the old man.” The troll clapped his hands together and waited for everyone else to move toward the portal. The other magicals cast their human illusions again.
Cheyenne slipped out of her drow form and met Ember’s gaze as the fae reached into her pocket and slid on the illusion-charm ring. Her pink skin and luminous purple eyes disappeared, but when she glanced down at her feet, they still hovered half an inch off the asphalt. “Here’s hoping nobody notices.”
“Trust me, Em. Out of everyone in this weird-looking group, you’ll draw the least amount of attention.”
Byrd and Lumil followed hesitantly. The goblin man pointed at the shadow moving across the asphalt behind Venga, which stretched three times longer and wider than it should have. “He didn’t really shrink, did he?”
Lumil elbowed him in the ribs. “Man, Maleshi’s not stupid enough to even try shifting someone else. Especially not that hulking pile of scales.”
Venga headed for the portal, and though it stretched at least six feet over the top of his human-looking head, he ducked and hunched his shoulders even tighter before passing through. The rest of L’zar’s rebels followed quickly and quietly. L’zar wore his usual grin, though no one else seemed to find this odd turn of events amusing in the slightest.
When the portal closed behind them, they stood in the center of a relatively quiet DC neighborhood, the street empty in the middle of the day. Cheyenne looked at Maleshi as the general walked up beside her. “You had to cast an illusion for him?”
“Oh, good.” The general cocked her head. “I’m glad that was what it looked like.”
“Huh. Guess I’m not the only magical who can’t cast spells.”
Venga’s hooked human nose was the first thing she saw before his head turned farther so he could look at her over his hunched shoulder. “Did you leave your magic behind in an O’gúl vessel too?”
“Uh, no.”
“Hmm.” He stared at her for a moment, then turned around again and shuffled slowly down the street.
Cheyenne shot Maleshi a sidelong glance and whispered, “Magic in a vessel?”
“Everyone’s got different ways of dealing with their issues, kid.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
Ember cleared her throat. “What exactly is this Felgar’s Horn place we’re going to?”
Venga hissed, which was weird coming from a stooped old man with long, stringy hair and dark circles under his eyes. “The Bull’s Head Earthside vault.”
Chapter Seventy-Six
Ember cocked her head and stopped in the middle of the residential street. “The what now?”
“That is Felgar’s Horn,” Venga grumbled. “And that is where we will all find what we seek.”
“And by ‘we,’ you pretty much mean you and L’zar, huh?”
The newly liberated prisoner didn’t answer. Cheyenne waited for Ember to catch up with her so they could all keep moving.
“Is this guy for real?”
Cheyenne shrugged. “Wish I could say magical prisoners broken out of Chateau D’rahl have no reason to lie about something like this, but my only experience so far is with L’zar.”
“Yeah, but,” Ember leaned in to whisper, “The Bull’s Head Earthside vault? I mean, I can’t even pick which part of that is the most disturbing.”
“I know. But if Venga can take us right to the Bull’s Head, we’re hitting two birds with one stone, right?”
The fae cast Cheyenne a sidelong glance. “That was a missed opportunity.”
“For what?”
Ember shrugged. “I would’ve gone with something like ‘hitting two magical deals with one vault raid’ or something. Maybe that sounded better in my head.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Well, however we wanna say it, if Felgar’s Horn is still where Venga thinks it is, and the Bull’s Head is still there, we get the chance to wipe them out, handle the war-machine problem, and snag this last piece L’zar seems to think is so important for me to dictate my terms to the Crown.”
They followed the rest of the group in silence for a moment, then Ember muttered through the side of her mouth, “I seriously hope we can trust this escaped convict a lot more than the last one.”
“That makes two of us, Em.”
The group of magicals disguised as an odd assortment of humans following an old, hunched, homeless-looking man walked another three blocks through the neighborhood before the streets started to narrow. Then Venga pointed a crooked finger down the next intersection and turned right. “This way.”
A blue Ford Focus parked on the corner squealed and wobbled as Venga took the right turn. The front wheels slammed up onto the sidewalk, but the ex-prisoner kept moving and paid it no attention. Cheyenne frowned at the car and turned behind the others down the much narrower side street, which was practically an alley. As Venga passed down the center, cars on either side of him squealed and indented, shoved aside by an unseen force. Two car alarms activated and blared.
Lumil gestured at a Subaru parked by the curb. The car’s back fender crumpled and the vehicle bumped the car parked in front of it as Venga moved past it. “Anybody else see something wrong with this?”
Maleshi flicked her fingers at the crashed cars, and the alarms stopped.
