Misery Happens (5 page)

Tom put down the pen he’d been using to mark up the map. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” Far from getting weaker with distractions, the longer I stood here, the stronger the sensation was becoming. I was getting better at grasping it.

Ingrid pulled out her phone. “It will be difficult to put together a large enough team to lead a raid into Shadowtown. I don’t like taking people off search duty when we have no guarantee this fury has the Vessel.”

“Then don’t,” Dezzi said. “Shadowtown is already highly agitated. What with the rash of attacks on our people by human vigilantes, the HELP Act likely passing in Congress tomorrow, and us here, working with you—it is too much. If you lead an army of Gryphons into our neighborhood, the people who care nothing for Raj and know nothing of what’s going on will pour into the streets anyway.”

I swallowed. I didn’t know what in the world the HELP Act was, but everything else Dezzi pointed out was true. I couldn’t sense the anxiety in Shadowtown, but it was evident in the way the preds were acting. “Dezzi’s right. We don’t need to spawn more fighting. I’ll track down Raj on my own.”

That went over about as well as a sprite at a pool party. Everyone yelled at me at once.

I raised my hands in frustration. “Then what do you want? I understand not wanting to take people from search duty, but I’m your best lead.”

Dezzi stood, and she did that weird thing where she could radiate her power and authority. “Lucen will take you to Shadowtown. At The Lair, you’ll meet a team of my people who will accompany you both in your search.”

Ingrid shook her head. “A single Gryphon at—”

“Cannot be spared,” Dezzi said. “As you pointed out. Shadowtown is our territory. We handle our own problems, and Raj is a shared one. Humans will only be vulnerable.”

Tom opened his mouth, probably to protest that I was human, but none of these people were idiots. We couldn’t risk the leak discovering our plan, and in case Raj didn’t have the Vessel, the Gryphons were better off following their current course.

And I was better off with a satyr army than a Gryphon one. The satyrs wouldn’t disapprove of me killing Raj to avenge Olef. That was just pred justice.

A delicate shiver ran down my back. Sometimes, with every new misery I faced, I wondered if my humanity was finally slipping away.

Chapter Five

Lucen drove, and the closer we got to Shadowtown, the closer I could sense Raj was. By the time Lucen parked behind his building and let us into his darkened bar, I knew I had a problem. My gut was registering all Raj, all the time. I had no sense of his direction.

Lucen flipped on the lights, and I took down one of the stacked chairs.

“Everything okay?” He unlocked the main door to let in the posse Dezzi had called.

Sitting down, I closed my eyes. “The sensation is too strong here. I need to recalibrate or something.”

Because my eyes were shut, I didn’t see who Dezzi had sent as the satyrs filed in. But I heard a voice that sounded like Gi’s comment that it had been too long since The Lair was open normal hours. Sad, but true. Damn, I missed normal.

Perhaps sensing that my mind was wandering, Lucen shushed everyone. “Jess needs to concentrate.”

The noise of clunking feet and squeaking chairs dimmed, and voices fell to a whisper. Fortunately, reorienting myself was easier than what I’d needed to do at headquarters, and I accomplished it in what seemed like only a few minutes. With the sensation clearly in my mind, I opened my eyes and circled the chair, paying attention for changes in strength. It was like being stuck in a twisted game of Marco Polo, the one minus the friends, the swimming pool and the fun.

“I think I’ve got it. He’s that way.” I gestured behind the bar area, which coincidentally was also deeper into the neighborhood and away from the T station.

At some point during my find-Raj meditation, Lucen must have run up to his apartment because he’d changed out of the dressier clothes he’d worn to the airport. He stood in the bar’s kitchen doorway, pulling a T-shirt on. “That was too fast, little siren. You didn’t give us time for a round of beers.”

I agreed with the idea of changing, so I took apart my sloppy ponytail and redid my hair into a tight, no-nonsense braid. But the rest? “You want a beer before a fight?”

“I’m powered by alcohol. You asked once how I could drink so much while staying in shape? Now you know.”

Gi winked. “We get all the good vices.”

I snorted, not wanting to admit that I wasn’t entirely sure if they were joking. These days, nothing would surprise me. “Yeah, well, I’m powered by the desire to cut the smirk off Raj’s face and to close the Pit. So less drinking and more fighting.”

Lucen slipped his leather jacket on over his shoulder holster. “You heard the woman. This apocalypse sucks the fun out of everything. Let’s get moving.”

After a moment I realized they were all waiting for me to lead the way, so I headed out the door. Halfway up the stairs to the street, I glanced behind while Lucen relocked the bar. Dezzi had sent five satyrs to accompany us. Besides Gi, I recognized them all, though I didn’t know everyone’s names. Over the last couple months, every one of these brawny men had been enlisted to protect me from one threat or another.

And they
were
all brawny men, Lucen included. I’d thought perhaps Dezzi would send Melissa, another satyr who’d acted as my bodyguard before, but clearly not. It made sense, I supposed. Furies were huge themselves and nearly all male, and it stood to reason that Raj would probably have his own posse with him for protection.

I would have to assume, too, that the satyrs were well-armed besides looking capable of throwing one hell of a punch. Lucen had his gun, and several carried visible blades, but we might need curse grenades and who only knew what else.

On that thought, I held out my hand. “Anything you guys want to share with me?”

One of the satyrs dropped two tiny, spherical grenades into my hand, and Gi handed me a much larger one. Feeling better, I added the curses to my pockets and continued to street level.

Then I followed the pull of the bond. At each intersection, I had to pause and reassess the situation, making guesses about which way to turn in order to stay on course.

Shadowtown was a weirdly shaped, crooked neighborhood, far longer than it was wide. I’d explored most of it, but I hadn’t wandered down many of the streets for a while. My trips tended to take me in the same directions, most of which were on the main drags. I passed the bakery where I liked to buy croissants, passed the goblin-owned bookstore that led towards Gunthra’s house, and finally I ended up at a five-way intersection.

The streets came together at odd angles. Down one on my left was the drycleaner’s shop where sylphs had attacked me and several Gryphons a few weeks ago. Parts of the area had been heavily damaged in the fighting that followed, but there were few traces of it here. I couldn’t tell if the fighting hadn’t extended so far in this intersection or if the normally fastidious preds had already cleaned up the damage.

All the ornate but slightly sinisterly styled buildings were commercial on the ground floor and apartments above. Except for one on the opposite side of the intersection. That building came to a sharp angle at the corner, and it held a bank on the bottom and law offices on the higher levels. It was where the connection was tugging me, as strong as it had been when I faced Raj at the airport.

“There.” I motioned toward the building. “I’d bet Raj is there. Do you think he’d stuff the Vessel in a bank vault or something?”

Lucen frowned. “The bank’s been closed for repairs since the fighting the other week. I doubt it.”

So did I, but I had no better ideas. “That’s where I sense him.”

“Then that’s where we go.”

We took off across the intersection way too easily. The inhabitants of Shadowtown were as on edge as everyone else, and traffic—vehicle and foot—were both light. The bar on one corner was open, but the restaurant next to it was closed. Same with the charm shop at the other end of the five-way.

Gi tried opening the bank’s door, and to my surprise, it wasn’t locked. The reason, however, was obvious. The other side was a rubble pile, extending upward beyond the opening. Chunks of stone and concrete were all I could see, and yet the heavy glass door in front of it appeared pristine.

I blinked at it. “I guess we’re not going in that way.”

Lucen drew a finger down the carved stone on the side of the doorway. “I wondered why this place hadn’t reopened when it appeared to have been fixed up so quickly. It’s a disguise charm.”

“You can disguise a whole building?”

“With sufficient work, you can disguise anything. Didn’t you used to put a disguise charm on your bike to keep people away?”

I took a step back down the sidewalk, searching for another entrance. “I used a distraction charm. But thanks for reminding me that Raj is responsible for destroying my bike too.”

“Sorry, little siren. It’s the same principle though.”

I jumped as part of the building blew up. Swearing, I hunched over, sweaty hands on my thighs as one of the satyrs waved away the smoke. He’d blown the lock off the door that gave access to the upper stories. “A little warning next time before you set off explosives?”

“So much for the chance to go in quietly,” Lucen muttered.

I shrugged. There was no quiet, a fact we’d discussed on the way here. Based on what had happened at headquarters, I had a strong suspicion that Raj could use our connection the same way I did. Which meant he knew we were here and we could be walking into a trap. As I often did, I fervently wished I could sense pred emotions. Needing to rely solely on my human senses could be damn inconvenient.

“Looks like we can get in this way.” A satyr stood in the newly opened doorway and switched on a flashlight.

I had no flashlight myself, but I did have a reloaded gun. I pulled that out and immediately stuck it back in the holster when my phone began to play “Highway to Hell”. A couple of the satyrs laughed.

Lucen had been messing with my ringtone on a daily basis, starting with the obligatory R.E.M. offering. It wasn’t as though we had time for this joking around, but I knew why he was doing it—to keep my spirits up. Admittedly, this was no easy task he’d set himself. Also admittedly, the sexiest thing about Lucen wasn’t his abs but his sense of humor. It didn’t always work on me lately, but I appreciated it more than ever.

Alas, I did not expect good news on the other end of the line. It was Tom. “We think we’ve found the Vessel.”

“You do? You have it?” The laughter around me died away as the satyrs listened in.

“Not in hand, but one of the teams has reported finding an unusually strong magical signal. They’re tracking it down. Hold on.”

I gritted my teeth, waiting for Tom to return. “They think they’ve found the damn thing,” I whispered to Lucen.

Lucen produced a detection charm from his pocket. “Are they sure? There’s some very strong magic in this building too.”

“Still there?” Tom’s voice was back in my ear.

I sighed in exasperation. “Yes, I’m here. I’ve found Raj. Are you sure the Vessel isn’t with him? We’re detecting strong magic here too.”

“I’m not sure of anything anymore.” He sounded exhausted. “Another team just called in because they’ve also picked up signs of hefty power, but on the opposite side of the city.”

“Peachy. So this is Raj’s plan for hiding it. Lead us on wild-dragon chases.” I glanced up and down the intersection, expecting to see violent furies closing in any moment as Raj sprang his trap, but all remained calm. The quiet was enough to make the hairs on my neck stand up. “We’re going in then.”

“Be careful. Let the satyrs do the fighting.”

Of course. Tom believed I had a larger role to play in this war. I hung up, wondering why he thought I’d start being careful at this late a date.

I signaled to the satyr with the flashlight and retrieved my gun. “Let’s do this.”

Four satyrs entered the building in front of me, and two—including Lucen—went behind. The light switch in the stairwell refused to cough up any light, but I could see the damage all around in the tepid glow of several flashlights. Gouges had been cut in the plaster walls, and the heavy wainscoting bore blackened curse scars and possibly signs of fire damage. The satyr at the head of the line called, “Be careful” as we reached the second-floor landing. A step near the top had a chunk blown out.

“Where to?” Lucen asked, deftly stepping over the missing stair.

I closed my eyes, but any ability to be more precise was gone. Trapped in such a small area with the men, some of whom were forced by simple physics to be in contact with me, was interfering with my ability to focus. My body stirred with faint but noticeable lust, and I had no sense of Raj’s direction. He could have been right on top of me.

That thought gave me pause, and I looked up. The building was only three stories, but I didn’t relish the thought of climbing higher. All that rubble on the bottom floor must have fallen from somewhere, and this landing didn’t scream stable. If I bounced on my toes, the dusty wood squeaked and moved with me.

“I can’t tell anymore,” I admitted. “He’s too close.”

“We should start at the top then.” Gi pointed his light and gun up the last flight of stairs.

“It might be faster if we split up,” said the satyr who’d blown open the door.

Lucen kicked aside rubble that had settled on the next step. “We stay together. Protect Jess and keep your eyes open. There’s got to be a trap.”

I wasn’t sure if I was glad or not that I wasn’t the only one thinking it. The same way we’d climbed the first set of stairs, we took off up the second. These were in even worse condition. Once, the satyrs had to skip several steps, a tense moment when we weren’t sure if the wood would hold their weight. But it did, and I found myself being passed from Lucen to Gi since my legs wouldn’t reach across the same distance. It would have been uncomfortable and awkward enough without the bonus arousal.

I readjusted my shirt on the landing and stood back to allow Gi room to kick down the stairwell door. Two more satyrs rushed forward, weapons drawn. A dark hallway greeted them, but no furies.

“What a shithole,” one of them commented. He tossed what looked like a curse grenade down the hallway, and it lit up the area like a floodlight. The sounds of many scurrying feet followed.

Great. Whether dragons or rats, it all sucked.

“We couldn’t have tried that earlier?” I asked, blinking as my eyes adjusted.

“The light wouldn’t have worked as well on the steps,” the satyr said. “So do we start knocking down doors or what?”

“I don’t have a better plan. If something changes, I’ll let you know.”

There weren’t as many offices up here as it would have appeared from street level, though in part that was due to several walls having disintegrated. More plaster chunks, shards of glass and remnants of things that might once have been office equipment crunched underfoot. The floor was definitely of questionable utility in some places, and it wasn’t always easy to see where. Everything was coated in a thick layer of plaster dust. Spiders, dragons and other creatures had made quick work of claiming the space for themselves as was evident in the many cobwebs and the piles of dung in the corners.

“Look.” Lucen pointed toward a set of footprints in the dust. “Pretty recent.”

“I told you, he’s here.” Somewhere. The building wasn’t huge, and we were halfway down the hall. Much as I didn’t want to walk into a trap, the fact that we hadn’t yet encountered anyone was even more disturbing.

Keeping my back to a crumbling wall, I wet my lips and neared the next corner. The room around the doorway was dark, cast in shadow by most of the magical glow. I inched closer, and someone poked me in the shoulder.

Cursing, I spun around and backed myself against the opposite wall. A long, bent nail stuck out of the splintery molding. A fucking nail. I took a deep breath, my heart pounding in my throat, then I sneezed from the nasty air I’d inhaled.

“Jess, you okay?” Lucen was at my side before I could regain my wits.

“Fine. I’m fine. Hey, what’s that?” He’d been using a flashlight to peer into the darker room, and its beam had briefly illuminated a strange shadow on the floor.

The other week in Europe, I’d been pushed into a trap Raj had made. He’d used my blood to create a magical cage, a feat accomplished by drawing glyphs on the ground. The memory of it had me shuffling back another foot until I could figure out what I’d seen on the floor.