“Uh, Alex, are you listening?” Roy said, and I realized he must have said something before that.
I dropped my hands to my sides and glanced at him.
“Yeah?”
“‘Yeah,’ we’re being fol owed or ‘yeah,’ you’re final y listening?”
Followed?
I turned. A dark limo crawled down the street, keeping pace with me. Or it was keeping pace, until I spotted it.
Then it sped up, stopping just ahead of me. The back door opened and a man stepped out onto the sidewalk. Dark shades masked his eyes, and his hand moved into the front of his jacket—exactly where a shoulder harness would be—
as he straightened and turned toward me.
“How much you want to bet the appearance of a TIDS is bad news?” Roy asked as I ground to a halt.
“TIDS?”
“Thug In Dark Suit.”
“Wel , I certainly wouldn’t bet against it,” I said, glancing back the way we’d come. There was a second TIDS, as Roy put it, behind us. Oh, this is great.
I ducked into the nearest doorway, but this close to the Bloom most of the shops were geared toward tourists and norms. Another street over and the shops and businesses would be like any other except with a magical twist, but would be like any other except with a magical twist, but here they were ful of gaudy, overpriced wares and operated only on nights and weekends.
The CLOSED sign hung prominently in the glass doorway.
I jerked the door handle anyway, just in case. It shook on the hinges, but didn’t open.
“I might be able to open it,” Roy said, stepping through the door.
Through the glass, I saw his face scrunch in concentration as he focused on the lock. But there wasn’t time, and we both knew it.
I whirled around as the first man rounded the corner of the shopfront. The second joined him a moment later. They both had severe haircuts, tailored suits, and dark wraparound sunglasses that screamed “high-class thug” or
“muscle-for-hire.”
“Miss Craft?” Thug One asked as he stepped forward.
“Who’s asking?”
The thugs shared a glance that said they’d been working together long enough to have their nonverbals down. In the short alcove I was completely cornered and they knew it. I could go for the dagger in my boot, but I had no il usion that I’d be able to draw it before the thugs closed in on me. I glanced back at Roy. He was stil working on the lock.
I shouldn’t have glanced away.
One of the thugs surged forward, his hand locking around my biceps. He jerked me forward with that viselike grip. I dug my heels into the ground, trying to pul back in the opposite direction, but the thug clearly spent way more time in the gym than I did. Thug Two snatched my other arm.
“Boss wants to talk with you,” he said, trying to steer me toward the limo stil idling on the side of the road.
“Wel , maybe I don’t want to talk to him, and I certainly don’t like the treatment,” I told him, but I stopped struggling.
It wasn’t getting me anywhere and I knew only one person who would want to talk to me and had a penchant for limos.
who would want to talk to me and had a penchant for limos.
My father.
The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could scream and kick and fight, and maybe cause enough of a ruckus that someone would cal the cops and they’d eventual y show up, or I could cooperate and get out of this quicker and without having to file a police report. I chose the second option. For one thing, it would be dusk soon and I needed this to be over quickly enough that I could stil legal y operate a vehicle and drive myself home, and for another, it was long past time for Daddy Dearest and me to have a little chat about my heritage. So when one of the thugs opened the limo door, I ducked inside without a fuss. Roy fol owed.
The man waiting inside wasn’t my father.
The stranger sat on the far side of the limo, taking up more than his fair share of the leather seat as he sprawled, knees wide apart and large meat hook–like hands balanced on his legs. He had no hair, so even behind the limo’s tinted windows, his scalp shone in the sunset. His pants and jacket were flawless white—a color I would never have worn in such quantities, as I was way too accident-prone—and his dress shirt was a bril iant sapphire. Years in my father’s house had taught me how much stock men of power put into their physical appearance, but he hardly needed to impress me—after al , his men had just abducted me off the street.
“Miss Craft, thank you for joining me. Would you care for a drink?” He lifted a wineglass already fil ed with deep red liquid.
“I think there’s been some mistake,” I said, trying to back out the door, but, of course, the thugs were there, blocking my way.
“No mistake. You are Alex Craft with Tongues for the Dead, yes?” He smiled, flashing teeth that had to have been paid for or heavily charmed to be that white and straight. “Please, sit down.”
straight. “Please, sit down.”