Page 64 of Of Flames and Crows

Vlad’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. His eyes flared. “It’s Cortes.” He looked up and met Mae’s questioning gaze, his own bright with excitement. “He has a lead on Raya Medeiros.”

CHAPTER27

A town carwith a private number plate pulled up outside a shabby store with graffiti-covered walls in Zizkov, in Prague’s third district. A woman in a long, black, hooded cloak stepped out of the vehicle, cast a furtive look around, and headed inside.

“That’s her,” Nikolai said in a hard voice.

Cortes’s knuckles whitened. He leaned past the driver’s seat.

“You sure this was a good idea?” Vlad murmured to Mae as they watched an expression of pure loathing darken the Colombian’s face where he sat between them in the back of the SUV.

“The guy didn’t leave us much of a choice.” Mae grimaced. “At least we managed to persuade Budimir and Ludmila to wait at the hotel.”

The Bratva general and the Vissarion matriarch had protested vehemently when Mae had decided on the group who would accompany them to trail Raya.

“Look,” Mae had finally said, frustrated. “I’m afraid you’ll do something that will jeopardize this whole mission and get yourselves hurt. You are far too emotional right now.” She’d glowered at Budimir. “Andyou, old guy, have no magic, so don’t even think about following us. The last thing Roman needs after we rescue him is to find out his grandfather died because of his own folly!”

Budimir’s eyes had shrunk to slits at that. “I can still fight.”

“Not if I destroy your weapons,” Mae had retorted.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

Mae had curled a lip. “Watch me.”

“She’s right,” Ludmila had said stiffly. “We’ll only get in the way of the young ones.” The old witch had fixed Mae with a piercing look. “But you’re taking my escort.”

“Don’t you need at least one of them to stay behind and feed you your embalming pills?” Vlad had sneered.

Mae had sighed as the incubus and his grandmother had launched into a heated verbal tirade. She’d taken one look at Cortes’s face and decided that battle wasn’t worth fighting.

Besides, I would want to be around too if someone tracked down the person who hurt Brimstone and cracked my core.

“Here she comes,” Julius muttered where he sat beside Nikolai.

Raya exited the shop with a small brown bag in her hand and got inside the town car. It pulled away from the curb seconds later.

Nikolai drove out of the spot where he’d parked and followed at a safe distance, the vehicle carrying Violet, Miles, and three Fire Magic users on their tail. A contingent of sorcerers and witches from the Council of the Moon was tracking them in a van, their GPS locked on Nikolai’s cell.

They drove some twelve miles north of Prague and soon entered a densely forested area. The town car slipped in and out of view between the trees ahead of them as it headed up a tortuous mountain road, the dying sunlight piercing the canopy to glint off its taillights.

“Shit.” Nikolai’s hands tightened on the steering wheel after they rounded a turn. “Where’d it go?”

He slowed to a crawl. The way ahead was empty.

Cortes was staring out the rear windshield. “There are tire tracks thirty feet behind us.”

Mae followed his gaze and peered into the gathering gloom. “Where?”

“Trust me, they’re there.”

Nikolai reversed just as Violet’s vehicle caught up with them.

Vlad pointed out his window. “He’s right.”

Mae stared. The vegetation was rolling back to cover a faint trail.

She gave Cortes a look of admiration. “You have eyes like a hawk. Maybe we should get you a bird familiar if I manage to fix your core.”

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