Page 43 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

“Who are you?” Evangeline snapped, leaning over the vampire. “What the fuck do you want?”

The vampire struggled against Pothos’s weight. Huge thorn-red claws slid out of the grassy paw, pressing against the man’s chest. They weren’t digging in yet, but it sent a very clear message.

“Sorry, sorry. Nothing personal.” He gasped. “It’s just that there’s the bounty, and times are hard!”

“What bounty?” Evangeline snapped.

“For him!” The vampire started to point at me, but Pothos snarled sharply, and he lowered his arm immediately. “For… for the imposter Gabriel De Montclair. Some sort of changeling stole his face, and there’s a reward for its capture!”

“How big a reward?” I asked.

Evangeline let out a low whistle when the vampire gave us the number. I swallowed hard. Very few people would turn up their noses at that amount of money.

“Tell us what you know about this bounty,” Evangeline demanded. The vampire hesitated, and she raised an eyebrow. “Tell us, or I’ll let my cat play with you for a while.” The claws dug in just a little. It was enough.

“The imposter’s to be brought to the citadel,” the skinny vampire said quickly. “Alive. No staking him, or the deal’s off. S’posed to be taken directly to Lord De Montclair.”

Evangeline met my eyes over Pothos’s back.

“Who knows about this?” she asked the vampire.

“Everyone, lady,” he said. “Where’ve you been? It’s in the news and everything.”

“We should go,” I muttered. “We should go right now. We’ve drawn too much attention.”

And we had. Above us, curtains twitched as the people hidden away in their homes watched us. A little ways away I heard a door creak open slowly, as though whoever was peeking didn’t want to be noticed.

People appeared from the side streets and doorways. I spotted a few gaunt vampires moving alone or in pairs, and a handful of werewolves stuck close together. A bounty that large would be tempting, even split between an entire pack.

“You’re right, we need to get out of here,” Evangeline said. We were back-to-back now, trying to ensure that at least one of us had eyes on each possible attacker.

“Now would be a good time to teleport away,” I muttered, quiet enough that the skinny vampire couldn’t hear it.

“And let all these people find out I can do that?” Evangeline whispered back.

I risked a glance over my shoulder at her, and she tilted her head toward Pothos. “Follow my lead,” she said. She broke out of our makeshift formation and threw herself up onto Pothos’s back like he was a horse, reaching a hand down for me. I took a split second to curse the choices I’d made in my life that had led to this precise moment and swung myself up behind her, burying my hands in Pothos’s mane. The huge cat charged, bounding down the streets, and leaping over the pack of werewolves.

Our surroundings blurred as Pothos ran, growling happily to himself. I could practically feel the cat’s delight. After so long cooped up in the apartment, he could finally run as fast as he wanted to.

Toward the edge of town, Pothos’s energy began to wane, and he started to get smaller and smaller, until riding him became comical, then impossible. Our feet hit the ground, and then he was the size of a regular cat. Evangeline scooped him up and scratched his cheeks.

“You did so good, buddy,” she told him. “You were so, so fast! You’re gonna get an award for being the best at zoomies.” She looked at me expectantly.

I floundered for a moment. “Yes,” I said finally. “We’re all… very impressed. I’m sure your trophy will be sent out posthaste.”

Evangeline nodded in approval. Pothos yawned at me, showing every single one of his teeth. They went deeper back into his maw than they should have. It was oddly hypnotic.

Then, nearby, footsteps. This part of town had rough cobblestone streets, but the steps fell confident and even. Heavy steps, not trying to be quiet. The layout of the area made the sounds echo oddly, bouncing them across the space. It made it hard to track by ear.

I didn’t have to worry about that for long. The man who stepped forward was hard to miss. He was tall and broad, perhaps towering to eight feet. His coat added to his bulk. It was a leather duster, the sort of thing that, on someone without the confidence to pull it off, would look like a try-hard affectation. The man in front of us looked like he had never thought about affectations, nor did he look capable of spelling the word. His hair rode the fine line between dramatic widow’s peak and premature balding and was pulled back into a short, tight ponytail, giving the effect that his head had been painted a dark brown.

Evangeline muttered a curse.

“Is that Pothos?” the man asked with the voice of someone who smoked a pack a day and followed it by eating a sheet of sandpaper.

I started. How did this man know Evangeline’s cat? His eyes narrowed. They were so dark there was no telling where the irises started and the pupils ended. I’d seen eyes like that before, but only ever on the fair folk. He had a hand on his belt, clearly ready to draw a weapon.

The huge man cocked his head. “Where Pothos is, Evangeline’s never far behind.”

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