Page 144 of Veil of Death and Shadow

Present Day

Claude’s car was one of those that didn’t require an actual metal key for the ignition. There was a large button next to the wheel, but no fob in sight. After checking the glove compartment, the small little compartment under the rearview mirror, and under the seat, I was quickly losing confidence that Claude had been cavalier enough to leave it here for easy swiping.

“Well,” Kieran sighed from the backseat. “This was a good, not at all batshit idea and all, but I think we’re going to need a Plan B. Preferably one with a little more rationality fueling it, if you don’t mind?”

There was a lone water bottle in the cupholder. It sat tilted at an awkward angle, like there was something beneath it, keeping it from sitting flush against the bottom.

I held my breath, with one eye closed, and picked it up.

The fob. I lifted the small piece of plastic with a triumphant cheer.

“Um, Agony?” Kieran scooched forward, extending his arm between me and Thorne. I followed his finger to its point—the front of the bar, about twenty feet away. Claude stepped out with the bouncer, the two of them locked in what appeared to be a friendly, business conversation—any anger I’d induced in the vampire, already seemed like a distant memory. Until he looked up. Claude’s eyes landed on mine, his expression moving swiftly through shock, then straight to rage. “Assuming you want to keep living, we need to leave. Now.”

My stomach clenched as I started the ignition. The gentle rumble of the engine jolted the car to life.

Right. What came next?

Thorne grunted beside me, clearly amused by the situation as Claude started marching towards us.

The vampire was surprisingly collected and in no evident rush, which worked in our favor. He didn’t think I was actually going to go through with it.

Then again, maybe I wasn’t. When I tried tugging the stick into reverse, it didn’t budge.

“Hit the brakes, shift to reverse, then step on the gas. Now,” Kieran screamed in my ear.

For once, I did as he demanded, no questions asked. The car shot backwards with surprising speed as I pressed the pedal to the floor. There was a loud crunching noise as the back bumper ran into what I could only hope was an abandoned fire hydrant, before I managed to hit the beaks again.

Claude’s restrained anger cracked into something fiercer, his neck and cheeks flushing as he assessed the damage to his car.

Kieran’s hands gripped the back of my seat. He was clearly trying to shake it, though his hold on this world was tenuous, and the cushion hardly even budged under the pressure. “Do the same thing but shift to drive. Go!”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered. Just as Claude reached for Thorne’s door, the car went tearing forward down the street. I kept my foot on the pedal, grateful for once that this wasn’t the Before.

We were the only ones on the road, which made it easy to speed through, and my odds of accidentally killing someone were very low. My turns were, putting it gently, quite rough. Each one was accompanied by a loud, squealing soundtrack, as the rubber fought for purchase against the pavement.

Claude chased after us for a few blocks, his vampiric speed fast enough to get him within reaching distance of the back door a few times, but not quite enough to outpace his car’s full throttle. And so long as I didn’t slow down, there wasn’t much of a chance for him to grab hold of anything with enough purchase to hang on long term. When he finally gave up, I glanced in the rearview mirror. His perfectly pressed shirt was wrinkled and untucked, his impeccably combed hair now falling listlessly over his eyes. And there, clear as day in the anger pulsing from his face, was the explicit promise of my death at his hands—to be carried out the very moment he found me.

That would be tomorrow’s problem.

It took me a little while to get the hang of easing on and off the pedals, but once Claude was no longer chasing us, I grew comfortable enough to slow down a bit. Turns were a lot easier to handle when they weren’t taken at full speed.

By the time we made it back to my neighborhood, I’d only hit two curbs, which I considered a reasonable success for a first-time driver. Of course, we did lose the passenger side mirror to a rogue sign I didn’t spot quickly enough, but I figured that at the end of the day, it didn’t really matter. Claude was going to murder me, whether I returned his car perfectly intact or not.

Ideally, I’d find and get the stuff with Sora sorted before he came calling.

When I parked the SUV outside of Frank’s—poorly, judging by Thorne’s condescending smirk—the brief flare of hope I’d allowed myself deflated. The diner was still dark and locked. It was past midnight though, so I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. Even if Sora had made it back tonight, she wouldn’t still be serving downstairs.

Thorne stayed by the car while Kieran and I ran upstairs. The apartment was just as I’d left it before, no sign that Sora had been by in my absence at all. Swallowing my disappointment, I went into my room to change. There wasn’t time to wallow or worry more than I already had. The more leads that dried up, the more convinced I became that something was very, very wrong. Whatever Sora was caught up in, something told me that I was better off facing it in something a little more stealth than a short dress.

“Mareena?” Kieran asked, startling me with the use of my actual name. His back was turned to me as I buttoned up my jeans and threw on a dark T-shirt. “What exactly is the plan here?”

“What do you mean? Claude said he saw Sora at House of Wrath’s compound today. So, we go there and either find her or someone who can point us in the right direction.” I walked past him, into the kitchen. The food I’d left for Menace was gone, which meant he’d been back for his dinner already and was probably already camped out for the night. I tossed a flashlight, old map, and whatever else looked like it might be useful into my bag, making a mental note to grab a knife from the diner before I left.

When I turned to head back down the stairs, Kieran’s arm reached forward, stopping me. “I don’t like this.” He shook his head. “This is dangerous and reckless and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

I shot him a look. “Good thing I have a guardian angel then, isn’t it?”

“What are the odds that she’s even there?” He turned away from me, then scrubbed his hands over his face, tugging at his hair with frustration. He winced, then dropped the ringed hand back to his side. Then he let out a deep breath before facing me again, his eyes imploring as they met mine. “Even if that Claude bloke was right and telling you the truth—which, I’m sorry, is a giant fecking leap in the first place—do you have any idea what it means if she’s actually mixed up with the Seven Sons? Or the odds that if they do have her, she’s still alive?”

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