“I know he wants us to stop!”
“And yet you are not,” he pointed out.
“If I do, I’ll lose them!”
“Lose who?”
I didn’t answer, being busy trying to figure out how to shake a tail on an open road while not also shaking that tentative link to my crazy other half, who was somehow flying overhead, although I couldn’t see her.
And then it started to rain again, and I couldn’t see anything.
Because it wasn’t a gentle pitter-patter on the windshield and my head. We drove into a torrent that had been left over from Noah’s day, thick and white and pounding down, like a million tiny strokes of a lash. Which hurt like hell and appeared to be trying to drown us. And was doing a pretty good job, because I didn’t have a top on the damned car!
What I did have was the cop car, whose red flashing lights suddenly went from annoyance to godsend, giving me a beacon in my rearview mirror, allowing me to stay centered in the road. It wasn’t easy, because it felt like we were hydroplaning about half the time, but it was all I had. And it was working!
Until he ran into a ditch.
Son of a—
I swerved to avoid doing the same, and a second later, broke through the deluge onto an open stretch of road, spluttering and blinking and very surprised.
And grateful as hell.
Until I looked to my right, and came face-to-face with a furious king of the fey.
I thought it might be because he was a soggy mess: the glorious hair was straggling around his face, the casual shirt and leggings were drenched and dripping, and the inch or so of water that the car had managed to acquire was sloshing around his feet. But all that was true of me, too, and you didn’t hear me complaining. I was just glad to be alive.
Although how much longer that would last was debatable, because a heavy hand had just descended onto my neck.
“We need to talk.”
* * *
*
I watched from the air as a large herd of deer simultaneously pricked up their ears and turned their heads. And then charged the long ribbon of road below, converging on the one spot of color fleeing through the night, the small white car my twin and the king of the fey were using. As fast as they were going, even a single impact might well prove disastrous. But the king must have done something, for they sailed over the car like a brown river, never touching it.
The creature’s trick hadn’t worked.
But it wasn’t the only one it knew. For I’d barely had the thought when a rain squall blew up, looking oddly like the herd, with every cloud in the surrounding area suddenly focused on one target. It utterly blocked my view, and I couldn’t imagine that my twin was having better luck.
She was going to crash.
So I sent my latest avatar diving through rain-battered skies, straight at the small eagle my prey had recently acquired. It was quick, just a dark smudge on the sky. But I was currently riding a peregrine falcon, favored hunter of the kings of old, which nested in abundance in this new city of glass and steel.
And was faster than anything in the skies.
I felt our talons sink deep, felt our prey struggle and fight and cry out, felt it start to fall—
And felt the rain cut out, abruptly, as the murderer’s concentration broke.
It was impressive, nonetheless. Just as whatever spell had been used on the herd had been. I could not throw spells; none of my kind could. But even had that been a possibility, I did not think I would have been able to manage it and hold an unwilling host at the same time.
But this one could, and could do it weakened.
I did not know what to think about that, like so many things today. It felt strange, to have a rush of new experiences after so long, to feel curious and off-balance. I spread my wings, feeling strangely exultant, free, reborn—
Until a shadow circled overhead.
And hunter became prey.
* * *
*
“What do you mean, your other half?” Caedmon demanded.
“Can we do this another time?” I yelled, because we were getting hit with scattered showers, as the big one broke apart, making me have to concentrate on the road. And because I didn’t know the answer to most of his questions myself.
“No! Explain yourself!”
It was like night and day: the amused would-be lover, toying with me because he was bored or because he wanted something, which had been most of my experience with Caedmon until now; and the sharp-eyed, serious, powerful king of the fey I was getting acquainted with tonight. And wasn’t it fun? I thought grimly, switching gears.
“I’m dhampir,” I said shortly. “You know that. It means you get a two-for-one deal, with one being batshit insane.”
I glanced upward, at the boiling gray skies, and wondered which of us that was. Because, seriously, either some next-level shit was going on tonight or I really did have something wrong with my head. More than usual, that is.
“And your other half is . . . up there?” Caedmon said, gesturing at the sky. Although that weird, intense, slightly creepy look he was giving me never wavered.
It was starting to freak me out.
“Look, I don’t know anything more than you do, okay? We’re not supposed to be awake at the same time! But the barrier my father put in place fell recently, or got a big hole blown in it, thanks to your fey wine—”
“Fey wine?” It was sharp.
“Yeah. Not actual wine, but that weird stuff you guys export for the druggies. The kind with the herbs—”
“I know what it is!”
“Well, I didn’t! I thought it was just helping to control my fits—that’s when Dorina used to come out, you know?”
He nodded grimly.
“Because it worked even better than Claire’s weed. But it also weakened the mental barrier Mircea had put in my head, something I didn’t know until—bam! No more barrier. Or not much of one. Parts of it are still there, but it’s pretty damned ragged and not really preventing contact anymore.”
“And now you are finding out about . . . hidden talents . . . on the other side of your brain.”
“That’s one possibility!” I yelled, because the rain had picked up again.
“And what would be another?”
“That I’ve finally gone crazy and think I’m a bird!”
And then I did go flying, all right, but not because of wings. But because the car hit something and skidded wildly, careening us off the road and up a grassy rise of ground. And then flipping us over, and damn it!
Fortunately, I was tossed into a soft hillside, and didn’t break anything else. I did go rolling and cursing down said hill afterward, however, since much of the rain-soaked ground gave way with me, in a miniature mudslide. One that left me filthy and banged up and seriously pissed off.
And sliding to a halt at the feet of a couple of grinning vampires, one of whom was holding the end of what looked like a grappling hook on a cable.
The other end of which was attached to the back seat of my ride.
“You wrecked my roommate’s car!” I said, putting it together.
“Don’t worry,” the blond from the troll fight told me. “You won’t live long enough to have to explain it.”
And then he gave the cable a gentle tug, sending the convertible flying through the air like a giant mace.
One aimed directly at me.
I rolled frantically to the side, only to find myself facing off with Purple Hair.
“I thought . . . you two . . . were competitors,” I said, trying to get my breath back, while dodging kicks, blows, and stabs, because Bitch Girl had gotten herself a spear.
She was pretty good with it, too.
“We are,” she informed me, doing the rapid-stab thing all around my contorting body. “But you’re kind of annoying. So we’re teaming up till you’re dead, then going to fight it out between us.”
“You teamed up with that?”
’Cause Blondie had just tugged on his cable, trying to reposition the car, instead of helping her.
Only to reposition it onto his head.
She scowled. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”