A chill runs through me. “Awry hunters,” I whisper, only in partial disbelief. The other part of me already understands the truth of it all.
“Operating unchecked in the United European Nation in the twenty-first century?” Elias scoffs. “Ridiculous.”
“These rotten roots run deep and dark,” Coda says ominously. “Just because this is the first mistake they’ve made in this century doesn’t mean they’re not embedded deep into the fabric of every society.”
The first mistake. “They don’t know,” I murmur.
“Don’t know what?” Sully asks.
“That the kids are under my protection.”
Bolan looks back at me over his shoulder, eyes blazing bright. “Our protection.”
Coda cackles through the speaker of my phone. “Well, this is going to be fun.”
“Children are involved,” Elias snaps.
“Oh, Earl,” Coda croons nastily. “Children are always involved. Ask your beloved princess. How many times has someone or some group tried to snatch her?”
A car idles at the mouth of the alley. Bolan opens the back passenger door. Sully climbs in first, then reaches a hand back for me.
No one responds to Coda. Because the tech awry is correct, after all.
9
I’m not certain I’ve ever been in the part of London that Coda directs us toward, but I recognize the three-storey building. It helps that the tech awry likes to gloat, and they pull the very first selfie the kids sent me from my phone and flash it on my screen just as we arrive. I don’t yet have any idea what connection Tommy and Kitty have to this building, or why they would have been outside it that late at night, but their apartment is only a few streets away.
The vehicle Coda delivered to us came with keys but no driver, so Elias is at the wheel when Coda asks him to circle the block slowly. Bolan is in the passenger seat, with Sully in the back seat with me. The streets are quiet, traffic sparse, the streetlights set fairly far apart. A few businesses, including a pub or perhaps a restaurant, occupy the ground floor. No cars are parked out front of the main building, but two men in dark suits are posted at a side door. Halfway down a narrow alley.
“See the mark or stamp or whatever on the corner of the building there?” Coda says tersely. “That’s not a builder’s mark.”
We’re not close enough for me to see the stamp Coda is referencing, but I can see it at the edge of the frame on the selfie the kids sent.
On our second pass down the street that fronts the building, a car ahead of us turns into the narrow alley, pulling up to the side door. The driver steps out, crossing through the side door and barely even acknowledging the two men posted there. Not turning his head in our direction. One of the men — the guards? — gets into the car.
“Valet?” Sully murmurs. “That doesn’t suit the neighborhood at all.”
“Did anyone else recognize the driver?” Elias asks tensely.
There’s no response except for the quiet tapping emanating over the phone speakers.
“Maybe I was mistaken,” he murmurs.
“Follow the car,” Coda says quietly. “At a distance.”
It isn’t a long trip. The valet backs out of the alley, rounds the block, then pulls into an underground car park. The site is unmarked but gated.
“Do we know for certain the kids are in that building?” Bolan asks.
“Nothing is for certain until you get eyes on them,” Coda says. “But I haven’t picked up any other movement to suggest they’ve left this area.”
“There are underground tunnels all through this section of London,” Elias says tightly. “There could be multiple egresses.”
“I have a map,” Coda says coolly.
“With cameras on all the tunnels? And every exit?”
The tech doesn’t answer. Which I’ve already learned is answer enough.
