My stomach growled, and hunger had the dream dissolving. I awoke, blinked, looked around. The bedroom was dark, but I knew the sun was still high. I could feel it in my bones.
I crawled into Connor. “I don’t like charades,” I murmured, and slept again.
* * *
Our first stop after sunset was for meat.
Not, unfortunately, for us. We’d settled for bagels and protein drinks on the way to NAC headquarters. The Pack was donating food to human first responders, and Connor had offered to make the delivery to the relocation center closest to the Ombuds’ office.
It was a small gesture on our end—dropping off food—but at least it was something. Things kept getting worse, despite the human exodus. During the day, demons had attacked a bus of humans headed out of the city, their only apparent motivation the sheer enjoyment of terrorizing the human passengers. They’d rolled the bus, forcing humans to pick their way into the street, and then called down dozens of crows and ravens to peck and harass them. Emergency crews made it to the scene before there’d been any fatalities, but fifteen humans were injured, some severely, and only two of the demons were caught. They didn’t burn, but they refused to talk about Dante, the upstart, or the cornerstones.
“Freedom,” one of them had said. “We are here for freedom.”
Their kind of freedom scared the hell out of me.
We had no wards to keep them out. Lulu was still unconscious in Cadogan House. My mother would put her life on the line again tonight. I hadn’t been strong enough to fight Dante competitively, much less defeat him. And I was still healing from yesterday’s battles. My hip ached from the condo, and although the punctures had healed, my arm was one huge bruise where Ambrosia’s teeth had sunk in.
“Stop this,” said a voice behind me accompanied by a motorized hum.
While Connor had continued on to the Pack’s commercialkitchens, I’d stopped in front of the brilliantly colored mural Lulu had painted inside the building.
But I didn’t think that was what Berna meant. She was Connor’s aunt, although I wasn’t sure if that was an honorary title or a genetic one. She’d been a fixture at Pack headquarters even when my mom had been Cadogan’s Sentinel, although she now roamed the halls on a mobility scooter.
She drew closer, pale face pinched, hair bleached a bright contrast to her dark brows, and wagged her finger at me.
“No wallowing,” she said in her Ukrainian accent. “Is waste of time.”
“I’m not wallowing,” I said, and sounded pouty even to my ears. “I just don’t know how to fix this.”
She snorted, and the sound was so filled with sarcasm that it made me feel a little better.
“You are young and strong and immortal, and you have nephew, who is very strong.” She flexed a biceps in illustration. “Wait until time is right to fix.” She lifted her shoulder. “Or you won’t.”
“I need to fix Lulu now,” I said.
Berna’s brows shot up. “Why?”
“Because she is my responsibility.”
Berna snorted again. “She is her own responsibility, and her parents’. Let them worry about her. You fix city.”
I wasn’t sure that assignment was better. “Does it ever stop?”
“Life is assortment candy box,” she said philosophically, and waved goodbye as she rolled down the hall.
Connor came out of the kitchen pushing a tall cart filled with foil-covered trays.
“Feeding the entire city?” I asked.
“A good part of it. We know what greases the right palms.”
“Nice,” I said at the barbecue pun.
“Did I hear Aunt Berna?”
“ ‘Life is assortment candy box,’ she says.”
He blinked. “Box of chocolates.”
