“We’ve been compromised, your highness,” Asa said to Charlie. “The United Supernatural Union is on their way here as we speak. You need to leave immediately, by use of a portal.”
“I thought we couldn’t use them here,” Kallie yelled over the noise.
“We’ve broken down the barriers preventing portals from forming inside the club, and avoiding the alarm wards now is useless, seeing as how they’ve already been triggered,” Ares replied. “The vehicles have already been transported back to Ilamanthe.”
“We can’t leave Ivy and Chancey,” I protested, who were still in the middle of their brawl— and winning.
“Don’t worry about them,” Asa said. “We’ll get them out. Just go!”
I glanced backward reluctantly, but I knew he was right. Ivy and Chancey had definitely come here with their own agenda. It wasn’t our job to end their crusade for revenge and drag them back to Ilamanthe. That was the responsibility of the Associates.
Charlie took a mirror out of his pocket and projected it forward. A portal blossomed within the confines of the shield. I sagged in relief as I saw the beautiful, sunny pathways of the palace gardens shine through the portal’s window. We hurried through, and the moment we were back in Ilamanthe, the portal closed behind us. We came through on the other side of a mirror that was within the palace’s gardens, surrounded by wildflowers and roses.
The noise and violence abruptly halted, leaving only birdsong. I shuddered. That wasnothow we’d planned to end that operation, but clearly, Ivy and Chancey had other ideas.
“Look at how much cash I made!” Marcus cried, pulling dollars out of his shorts.
Kallie smirked. “They must’ve loved your dancing.”
“I learned from my dad,” Marcus gushed. “He really knows how to throw down.”
Didn’t know Lucas could break dance, but I guess that was cool.
Kallie snickered. “I guess you always have a career in erotic entertainment to fall back on.”
“It was pretty fun,” Marcus admitted. “Once I got over the embarrassment, and wasout there, under the lights with the crowd cheering for me, I feltalive.”
“We’re happy for you, Marcus. At least something came out of this,” Charlie grumbled.
Marcus’ smile fell. “You didn’t learn anything about the key?”
“No,” I said. “All we got from Lorenzo was a potential list of names on who he might’ve given it to.”
“Shucks.” Marcus’ shoulders dropped. “Guess this really was a bust, huh?”
“Eh, not really,” Kallie said. “I got to see you in booty shorts, so that was a plus.”
She and Marcus both laughed. He slung an arm around her shoulder. “Well, maybe Marco will make a comeback someday. Smaller venues, though, more intimate settings.”
“I’ll be there, so long as you bring the boots,” she joked. Both of them laughed.
It was nice they were getting along, but it was really depressing we hadn’t made any progress on the key. These names might not connect us to anything important.
I could tell Charlie was thinking the same thing. As we headed into the palace, I said, “These names better lead somewhere, because we paid a high price to get them. Once this gets back to the Warden what we did at the club, he’ll put two and two together and assume that Salvatore Bianchi has the vampire key.”
“Salvatore will never give the Warden anything, so the key’s safe for now,” Charlie stated.
“Yes, but that also means Salvatore will go to farther extremes to keep it hidden,” I pointed out.
It was a race against The Mission. Salvatore wouldn’t hand over the vampire key willingly, but the Warden would do everything in his power, and use everything in his arsenal, to take that key from Salvatore’s cold, dead hands.
Somehow, we had to outwit both of them. And with three powerful supernatural forces… demigods, vampiric mobsters, and the Warden himself… fighting to take ownership of the vampire key, who knew where it could end up next.
