Page 173 of Envious Of Fire
Now it’s Raya who is struck by a name. “Oh … Brock.”
Kyle feels something bitter stir to life inside her, a writhing pain threaded with betrayal. He can’t in any way explain how, but he knows at once that Tristan is involved. But why did the emotion make itself known at the mention of Brock’s name?
“Brock …?”
“Another time,” she decides, which further confuses Kyle. She gestures at him. “Let us proceed your way, then. Through the Scarlet Sands … all of us, a parade of escapees …”
“Do you know something about Brock?”
“Make haste,” she insists, taking the lead again as she heads down the other hall. “It does us no good slowing down when there areFeralslikely sniffing us out.”
The term throws Kyle as he catches up to her. “Ferals? Youmean the full-blooded vampires?”
“Ferals, vampires … a thorn by any other name would prick as cruelly.”
“Shakespeare just leapt in his grave,” mutters Mei.
Nico comes up to Kyle’s side. “Now wait a sec here. What are these full-blooded vampires you guys are talking about?” He eyes Raya. “Aren’t you one of them?”
“What I am,” says Raya with grandeur, lifting her chin, “is nearly unrecognizable to whatTheyare.Theyare evil incarnate, all ofThem, with twice our strength and none of our humanity. And as long as I can still smell smoke and blood, we’renotsafe.” She nods at the others behind her. “Watch your six, mortals. They are mighty, mighty fast … and terribly cunning.”
“Fuck me,” mumbles Nico under his breath.
It’s mere minutes later that the maze of hallways ends at a set of push-bar double doors. Kyle wastes no time shoving them right open. The transition from the House of Vegasyn to the Scarlet Sands is so subtle, Kyle can’t even distinguish which hallways belong to which as they beeline through them. Were the two so seamlessly attached this whole time?
“Who are you?” asks a uniformed employee rounding the corner and stopping short, his eyes wide. “Who are all of you?”
“Honored guests of Madame Rose,” answers Raya briskly, “and we are on our way out.”
“You can’t be back here. None of you—What’s that door?” he asks suddenly, cutting himself off, worked up. “I am down here a dozen times a day, I’ve never once seen that door.”
Raya sweeps by him, leans into his ear. “And if you even so much as step a foot through it, Madame Rose herself is gonna drink you like a milkshake and piss you out a window.”
With the employee left standing in the hall, stunned, the party of twenty-give-or-take head off, their shoes scuffing along the floor, all of them loud and heavy.
Kyle glances at her. “That was quite the imagery.”
“I guess Mance rubbed off on me,” she says bitterly.
“Whowasthat Mance guy? Some enemy of Markadian’s? What the hell did Tristan do to him back in that banquet hall?”
“He isn’t worth our breath.” Her eyes go dark. “Not anymore.”
The group turn a corner, then empty through another set of unremarkable double doors into the back of a casino, the atmosphere changing abruptly, now full of digital chimes and music, the haze of smoky lighting like a veil over their eyes.
As they hurry along, Kyle feels a sudden surge of emotion at his back, then realizes how deeply the humans are affected by the environment. Not one of them believed they would finally break free from that place, and now they’re walking through a real-life casino, filled with real people—other human beings. Kyle picks up amazement. Tears. Overwhelming relief. Giddiness and explosive glee. Kyle’s heart swells, relishing in their joy secondhand.
The casino soon opens to the enormous, echoing lobby. Kyle’s eyes fall upon Elias standing at the reception desk. Elias notices him right away, too, and at once, they’re running toward each other. “Kyle!” he cries. “Are you okay? We’ve got to go. Now. Cade and Layna are—Wait, who’re …?” His eyes quickly take in the crowd around Kyle. “Who’re these people?” Then his eyes fall to the one in Kyle’s arms. “Who’s this?”
The question hits Kyle with so much more weight than he imagined it would. Elias doesn’t know a thing yet. “Survivors,” is all he can manage to say for an answer. “What’s going on?” Suddenly he picks up dread in Elias’s heart. “What happened to Cade and Layna? Did the vampires do something? Are they—”
“No, no, none of that. All the vampires left as soon as you did. It was eerie as fuck. Even Lazarus left after a … somewhat bitter scene with his brother. I’ll get to that later, that’s not ourissue at all. Babe …” Elias grips him by the arms. “Cade and Layna, they finally figured it out. That book, they’ve made it work. The whole town, Kyle … they’re creating some kind of seal around it, a big fucking seal. They’re calling it a shrouding spell, I think. It’s like a barrier to keep anyone from finding us.”
Kyle doesn’t see the problem. “That’s a good thing, right?”
“That includes keepingusfrom finding it,” he finishes, “if we don’t get back there right the fuck now.”
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