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“Guesses as to what my father’s thinking? I can’t even begin. If I could read my father’s mind, I would have successfully killed him off years ago.”
That was the truth. Yichen had no doubt about that. Rei’s hatred for his father rivaled his own hatred for their maker, Jiang Chong, but they’d escaped the bastard long ago.
“That’s weird,” Moon muttered under his breath.
“What’s wrong?” Xiang leaned forward, gripping the back of Moon’s seat as he shifted.
“The streetlights are all out up ahead. I can understand one or two, but I can’t even see where they kick on again. I wonder what knocked them out,” Moon answered.
Rei sat up straight, coming alive with a suddenness that had the hair standing up on the nape of Yichen’s neck.
“We came this way a few nights ago on that run for food. The lights weren’t out,” Chen added.
“Shit!” Rei snarled as he twisted in his seat to dig around in the open trunk behind them. From there, he devolved into a series of curses as he sifted through whatever they’d piled in the vehicle’s rear.
Xiang leaned forward to stare at Yichen. “What’s he saying?”
It was only then that he realized Rei had switched to elvish for the very first time since they’d settled with his clan. Rei had stuck with English upon meeting his family and never deviated. Until now.
“He’s cursing his father and our luck,” Yichen replied.
“Aren’t there any weapons in this car?” Rei shouted.
“Long black case closest to the door,” Xiang said without an ounce of hesitation.
“What’s going on?” Chen’s sharp voice cut through all the noise Rei was making.
Long, loud baying echoed through the quiet of the night, followed by deep barking. The sound was getting closer, too. Something was coming after them. Something big.
“Are those dandy dogs?” Moon shrieked. The words cracked into jagged shards. “King Zalramon and the underworld promised to stay out of this fight with the fae.”
Rei turned toward the front with a small quiver of arrows and a short bow his fingers were attempting to string. “Not dandy dogs. Those are Black Dogs. They make the dandy dogs look like harmless puppies.”
“Rei—” Yichen began, needing more of a description than that, but Chen’s frantic demands cut through his question.
“What’s going on with the lights? The lights on the car are becoming dimmer. I can barely see the road.”
Rei lunged forward. “A dark mist accompanies the Black Dogs, running ahead of the pack. They lead travelers astray. Once off the road, the dogs slaughter the humans, tearing their bodies apart. You cannot stop. No matter what, keep moving and stay on the road.”
Yichen looked out the window on his left, and the night seemed even thicker and bleaker than it had. The passing lights of homes and buildings had vanished. The front headlamps of the SUV no longer even caught the tiny white and yellow reflectors in the road or on the guardrails. Emptiness had swallowed them whole.
The barking of the Black Dogs grew louder and more frantic as they closed in on their quarry.
Yichen jumped when Rei hit his shoulder.
“Open your window. I’m going out,” Rei instructed.
“What?” Yichen squawked like a disgruntled chicken.
“I’m going out on the roof to shoot them. You got a better idea?”
Yichen’s mouth bobbed open and shut several times while the wheels in his head spun. Nothing was coming to him. Moon couldn’t use magic, and Chen’s entire focus was on driving so he couldn’t shoot ice at the dogs.
“I’m not going on the roof!” Xiang announced. “He’s already done it, and he’s great at it!”
Before he could argue, the window lowered without him pressing the button.
“Someone needs to do something. Our only other option is stopping and facing them head on,” Chen snapped.
