Qhuinn looked at the heart rate, the peaks and valleys going irregular before spacing out farther and farther apart…
… until they stopped altogether.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The hell she was going home like a good little girl.
Lyric gave the males a good minute or so to ghost down to Dev’s building. Then she closed her eyes and dematerialized as well. When she re-formed, it was on the snowpacked roof of a walk-up kitty-corner behind his address, and she kept herself hidden by staying behind an exhaust chimney for the heating system.
From her vantage point, she could see a back parking lot, and all kinds of windows with drapes pulled or blinds down. Counting up from the bottom, she focused on the fourth floor, and tried to orientate herself. Dev had a corner flat—but at which end? Or did his studio face front? She’d never looked, because his blackouts cut the view.
Crap, she was all turned around. Meanwhile, her heartbeat was loud in her ears, and as the wind whistled past her head, she braced herself for…
Nothing happened.
Impatiently brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, she stared down at the shallow area with the cars squeezed in between piles of dirty, packed snow. The security lights that shined from the roof were so bright, there weren’t a lot of shadows or places she couldn’t visualize.
“Oh, God, Dev…”
What if things had gone haywire after she’d left and he’d been attacked on the way back to his apartment?
She waited a little longer, then stepped out from behind the industrial-sized duct. Going over to the edge of the roof, she counted the snow-streaked cars to give her mind something to do. Then she went back to all the windows on the fourth level.
And kind of expected to see flashes of gunfire and hear the screams of humans escaping a melee.
Still nothing.
But come on, what did she expect? For those three fighters to chase a couple of the undead out into that parking area, stab the bastards back to their maker, and then flash her the thumbs-up so they could all forget about this?
Well, put like that, the answer was… yes. Yes, she did.
Instead, this was the real world.
On that note, she closed her eyes and did the best she could to calm herself so she could change positions. When she was finally able to dematerialize, it was just across the lot to the roof of Dev’s building. The wind was even stronger, as things were considerably taller than the walk-up, and as her body got bumped back and forth in the gusts, she thought about all the things that could get swept away and go airborne.
There was so much more ductwork and venting here, as well as a kiosk-like build-out in the center of everything—which she guessed was the top of the access stairwell. No security lights and no cameras, at least not that she could see. There was plenty of ambient light, though, probably even for humans—and they clearly came up here in the better weather, going by the grouping of lawn chairs weighted down with snow.
Oh, wait. There were some paths of footprints. Maybe because workmen had had to come up recently?
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd now what.
Heading for the ledge, she wanted to brace her hands on the lip asshe leaned over, but she didn’t have her mittens and it was all ice and snow.
The yawning drop to the sidewalk made her stomach flip-flop, but at least she got herself orientated. She was looking over the front of the building now, the cleared steps of the entry and its twin lampposts directly beneath her.
Crossing the whole of the expanse, she checked the back exit. How had her brother and the fighters gotten in? Then again, as this was a human building, they could have just willed the locks to turn. Or if they’d wanted to be sneaky, they could have traveled through the glass of any window or the seams in a loose door—probably not the ductwork. Even though there would be no steel mesh to keep vampires out, it was way too dangerous to—
Someone came out of the back door.
Lyric’s heart stopped in her chest and she inhaled deeply through her nose. Which was stupid and maybe proved her brother’s point that she had no business being here: There was no chance of catching a scent at this height.
Oh… shit. Whoever it was had very white hair—was it an old person? Or a slayer?
She leaned farther out—
Her boot slipped, her balance tipped, and she careened toward the void.
Just as she started to go into free-fall, a blare of light spilled out from the roof access door. The fact that she turned to look at the illumination was what brought her body back to rights, the treads of her waterproof trail shoes catching hold in the snow just before she toppled over the ledge.
