Page 117 of Fallen Court

“Be useful for once and get him out of here.” I jerked my chin in Channing’s direction.

“I’m fine exactly where I am.” Channing looked worriedly at Cate. “Are you all right?”

She managed a stiff nod, her face pale but composed. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Except it was. The other murders had been strangers. So had the patients she had encountered at the hospital. This was different. She’d met the vampire leader.

Behind her, Dante had gone stock-still, his gaze fixed on Étienne’s body. Without a word, he turned and vanished into the darkness. A leaden certainty settled over me: It was going to be a long night.

Humans clustered around us, excited whispers and murmurs rising from the gathering crowd as people pointed and stared at the decoration. Several raised their phones to snap pictures. Cate shifted beside me, her disgust palpable. “We have to do something.”

I gripped Shaw’s arm. “Find Roark. Now.”

To his credit, he obeyed without argument for once, slipping away into the mass of bodies.

A few of my people, still in costumes that told me they’d either been celebrating or undercover, milled nearby. I lifted a hand, summoning them with a single gesture. The soldiers approached, the wary energy pouring from them messing with their glamours. “Get these people out of here.” I scanned the closest one. His ears sloped upward before rounding out again. “And if you can’t keep your glamour, lose it.”

“Sir?” he said with surprise.

“Halloween.” We could get away with it tonight.

He nodded once. “Clear the humans?”

“Everyone,” I commanded.

The guard next to him shifted nervously. “That might be difficult.”

Dozens of creatures had flocked to the scene. My gaze landed on the witch Channing had picked a fight with at La Porte. “Do what you can. Focus on the humans first.”

If this turned into a bloodbath, they would die first—and stay dead.

They nodded, moving to obey, and began gently but firmly directing people away from the grisly scene.

Cate remained quiet, staring at the body, her expression hollow. We both knew it was already far too late. Too many eyes, vampires and otherwise, had recognized Étienne’s desecrated corpse. The fallout from this night would be swift and brutal. The covens had clashed before, but this could spell disaster.

“What now?” Cate finally whispered, her gaze still glued ahead.

“Try to prevent war.”

“But we did that last week,” she said, her flat voice devoid of any real amusement. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

Yes. I refused to say it out loud, refused to surrender to the feeling.

Channing moved closer, his phone held aloft. “There’s something carved into the back of his neck.”

“Get away from him,” I snarled before he repeated it loudly enough for someone else to hear. I didn’t need to look at the back of Étienne’s neck to know it was a memento mori.

“Don’t you want to—”

“Time for you to go home.” I snapped my fingers, sending Channing back to Shaw’s quarters at the Avalon. Cate raised her brows. “I need to clear out the humans, remember?”

But she didn’t argue with me. There was no way she wanted her brother anywhere near this. She was probably already considering how to reject my spontaneous proposal. Who could blame her for not wanting to live this life?

It was too much. The witch’s death, the innocent human, and now Étienne…

Shadows moved at the edge of my vision, and I spun to see Ciara and Roark materialize out of the darkness, Shaw on their heels. Ciara took one look at Étienne’s mutilated body, spun around, and vomited in the street.

“Seriously?” Shaw jumped back as she narrowly missed his shoes. He hitched his thumb at her. “And you think she’s the one who should take over?”