Loren hurried after him, Dallas at her side, their sneakers splashing in puddles. Darien was throwing the scooter into the trunk as Loren swung open the backdoor—
She froze as she beheld Maximus and Jack in the backseat and Lace in the front. All of them were gaping at her and Dallas with expressions ranging from shock to fury.
The sleeve of Darien’s jacket brushed against Loren’s back as he came up to the open driver’s door. “Switch with Max,” he barked to Lace. The platinum-blonde didn’t argue as she unbuckled her seatbelt and did as she was told.
As Loren squished into the back, Dallas right on her heels, she realized why Darien had made Lace switch seats with Max: they wouldn’t have fit otherwise, for even with Lace now sandwiched between Loren and Jack, with Dallas on the other side of Loren, everyone was practically sitting in each other’s laps.
No one said anything as Darien rolled up his window, shoved the gearshift into drive, and sped past the roadblock, past the officers that waved them on…and into Stone’s End.
—
Loren’s breathing grew shallow as they drove deeper into Stone’s End. The ride was entirely silent, save for the barking of dogs on front lawns and the chopping of helicopter rotors as the law enforcement flew over the neglected district. The roads here were dirty and riddled with potholes, and skeletons of cars that had long since been burned to a crisp sat in parking lots.
Darien pulled to a stop in front of a shabby house with a tattered green couch on the front lawn. A doghouse was bolted to a cement slab in the centre of that lawn, but the thing that was chained to the kennel was not a dog at all. It was a storm-drain breed of demon, a hairless thing with curved horns, mottled skin, and a long, rat-like tail that was pointed like an arrowhead. It yapped and howled at the vehicle as Darien cut the engine.
Darien swivelled in his seat to face Loren, who was crushing Dallas’s thigh beneath her own and squeezing her hand with a death grip. “You’ve had a bad habit of being deaf to my advice lately,” he began, looking between her and the witch with as much patience as he could muster. “But if you two want to live to see another day, you will stay in this car. Are you going to listen to me this time?”
Loren’s throat squeaked when she swallowed. She gave a faint nod, Dallas doing the same beside her.
Max snapped open the glovebox and passed a pistol to Darien, who promptly slid it into the holster at the front of his black cargo pants. Darien appraised Loren and Dallas again as the others prepared to exit the vehicle.
“Do not unlock these doors,” he said. “Mortifer has control over the car tonight; he will make sure no one will be able to see or hear you, even if they come right up to the windows, but that doesn’t mean you should move too much or talk too loudly. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Loren whispered.
When he looked at Dallas for a reply, she bit out in a hoarse voice, “I get it.”
“Good.” Darien cracked open the door, and then turned to give the others a sharp nod. They dipped their heads in return, and they all exited the vehicle and approached Cain’s turf, leaving Loren and Dallas alone in the now-silent car, the demon in Cain’s yard their only company.
—
It came as no surprise to Darien that Cain was already aware of their arrival. If the roaring of the car engine ripping through the night hadn’t startled every sensitive immortal ear in this shitty neighborhood, then the yapping pest chained to a cement slab on the front lawn had certainly got the job done.
Cain was waiting on the rotting porch, his cruel, scarred face aglow in the yellow porchlight, as Darien and the others walked the decrepit stone path.
The half-warlock, half-human wasn’t alone; six of his men stood on either side of the open front door, magic staves and automatic weapons at the ready. Despite that Cain’s men all stood nearly seven feet in height, it was the one waiting in the open doorway—leaning heavily on a cane, the entire left side of his body perforated with burn wounds, according to the Daystar article Darien had read several weeks ago—who was the real obstacle tonight.
The house fire Cain had been in had certainly done a number on his appearance. His left eye was hooded and scarred, and the side of his thin mouth was set in a permanent scowl. The details of that fire hadn’t been revealed to the public, for obvious reasons, but Darien knew it was an explosion caused by cooking up illegal Blood Potions with cheap equipment that couldn’t handle the spells needed to fuse the ingredients. Law enforcement had been looking to eliminate the threat of Blood Potions for years; they were dangerous and addictive, and they had the tendency to make a person violent, and their magic unchained. Blood Potions allowed a person to perform dark spells that operated on Blood Magic, a type of power that had been banned a very long time ago. Cain’s men had likely managed to cover up just enough of the evidence to avoid being locked behind bars, much to the disappointment of the MPU.
Cain waited until the Devils came to a stop at the base of the rotting stairs before he spoke.
“Cassel,” Cain said, his voice gravelly and deep, and just loud enough to be heard over the sharp drumming of the rain on the tin roof. “What brings you here on such a fine evening?”
“We have a few questions only a man of your intelligence can answer for us.” Darien’s eyes flicked skyward as a helicopter flew over the house, rotors creating a wind that shifted strands of his hair out of place. Officers likely heading to the wreckage of the Starlight Mall to see about rescuing anyone who’d survived the blast. Darien zeroed his gaze in on Cain. “This a bad time?”
Cain gave a greasy smile. “It’s as good a time as any, as long as no whirlybirds bother you.”
Darien’s answering grin was cold. “Not at all.”
“Then come on in.” He turned and lumbered into the house, every step he took a little easier than what a person might expect from someone who was leaning on a cane, even someone with warlock blood that allowed for the swift healing of most injuries.
So…thiswas the game they’d be playing tonight. It was obvious that Cain had recently suffered injuries at the hands of fire, but he clearly preferred that any unsolicited visitors who came knocking at his door were kept under the impression that those injuries were worse than they really were. Likely so that any visitors who were up to no good might pity him too much to try anything…unsavory.
Too badpitywas seldom a part of Darien’s vocabulary.
The Devils followed Cain into the house. It didn’t escape Darien that not one of Cain’s men asked the Devils to leave their weapons outside; Cain was smart enough to know that Darkslayers were weapons all on their own.
The inside of the house was cold, damp, and musty. The mismatched furniture was stained and moth-eaten, the kitchen counters littered with Blood Potions and the paraphernalia necessary for making them. The cheap floors were peeling at the corners and were covered in a tacky substance that stuck to the Devils’ boots.
