Page 143 of Anchor

“You need help.” And I said that very honestly.

“And you need to learn to accept that there are some things you just can’t do.”

I stopped on the sidewalk—and so what that people were watching? I didn’t look like me anyway. “Then why are you here, Seth? Why the hell did you come here?” I didn’t invite him. On the contrary—he basically begged me to let him into the car.

“Because Radock made me. And also because my brother’s here and if there’s a chance we can save him, no matter how slim, I wanna try. That doesn’t mean that I don’t half-regret being here, though.”

Impossible,was the word that came to mind. “How the hell did Taland turn out normal?” I wondered out loud just to spite him again, and I carried on down the street.

“You think Taland’s normal?” He laughed his heart out. “Oh, boy. You’re in for a surprise. You just wait.”

I rolled my eyes but said nothing because the deeper into the neighborhood we went, the more people came out of buildings and shops to look at us, as if they’d been notified by somebody already that we were going to walk past here, and they were curious to see us.

So many people…

“Seth, are you sure we shouldn’t go back and try to sneak in here when it’s dark?” Because if so many people were going to try to stop us when we got to Taland…Shit.A little voice in my head had already begun to insist that I was, in fact, going to die here.

“That’s the only idea in the world that’s worse than this,” Seth said. “Remember what I told you about the Devil and his people?”

I swallowed hard. “Kill first, ask questions later.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Just keep walking. They’ll stop us eventually.”

I did.

Six minutes later, we turned a street corner to find a hulking guy with a goatee and chrome-colored glasses on, waiting for us in the middle of the street. No cars passed by here, no bikes, barely a few people.

We stopped in our tracks, and every instinct in my body became perfectly alert. He was a tall guy, over six foot five, witha leather vest on and tattoos for sleeves, and he was a mage—Whitefire if the bones hanging from a leather cord around his neck were anything to go by. Definitely a mage, though I could have sworn that most people we passed in this neighborhood were human.

“There they are,” said Seth under his breath, shoulders rigid.

“Now what?” I asked because my magic was ready to burst out of me and that gun in the waistband of my jeans was making my index finger itch to pull its trigger. Unload those bullets right into this guy’s forehead.

Something about the way he was looking at me—and I could tell even though he was wearing those weird sunglasses.

Something about the way he smiled, then raised his hand and moved two fingers to tell us to come closer.

“I guess we go talk to them and ask them if they can hand over Taland to us nicely.” Seth moved ahead. “Come on, Rosabel. Don’t be afraid now. We either die or we don’t.”

Sweat beads lined my forehead. It was all I could do not to grab that gun, not to start chanting the spells that were at the tip of my tongue. People watched us, and more that were dressed in those leather vests just like our friend standing in the middle of the street were around us. Near cars. By the shops. By the entrances of the apartment buildings, some even sitting on the ground, smiling ear-to-ear.

When we stopped in front of the sunglasses guy, it was so, so hard to breathe. The air was so damn thick with magic.

“Hey, there, big boy. I’m Seth Tivoux, looking for my brother Taland. A little birdie told me he came here a few days ago. Mind pointing me in the right direction?”

The way Seth spoke, you could never tell that something was up with him, that he was afraid, or that he believed he was going to die here today. Nothing about his voice or smile or demeanor indicated that he wasn’t talking to an old friend.

Then Sunglasses Guy smiled and turned his head to me. The way his black goatee moved on his chin was kind of disgusting, but he said nothing. He just turned around and started walking down the street, right there in the middle. Another six guys joined him, while four came behind us, two near Seth and two near me. They weren’t all as big, and I doubted any of them was particularly strong, but there was strength in numbers.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.What the hell was Taland thinking, turning himself inhere?

“Shall we?” Seth said, waving for me to follow Sunglasses Guy, still looking perfectly at ease while I had given up on trying to shield my emotions. I’d gone a lifetime doing that—I refused to do it anymore, at least when it didn’t matter.

Together, Seth and I followed the men, and the other four followed us, and we turned another two corners until we were in front of the only house in the entire place. It was two stories high, wide, with a red rooftop and peach-colored walls.

A few men wearing leather were spread all around the wide yard, and the first one who pulled the fence gate open for Sunglasses Guy was wearing Taland’s jacket.

My heart skipped a beat. My eyes were stuck on him and I could barely make out his face—just the jacket.Taland’sfucking jacket.

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