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Vines swelled like inflating balloons, going from the size of a finger to the size of tree trunks in an instant. The flower bunches dotting them here and there detonated all in a line, like living firecrackers. We were suddenly showered with what looked like confetti, covering half the yard in fluttering, flying petals. The part that wasn’t already covered in smoldering wood or burning tents.
I stared at Claire, who stared back at me, and then we both looked at the visitors, who were standing in a swirling snowstorm, looking around in wonder. And didn’t say anything. It was left to Jacob to sum up the evening.
“Whoa,” he said, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You folks really know how to party.”
Chapter Eighteen
Darkness, angry clouds boiling between buildings, and no electric lights that hadn’t been shot out long ago. Not a good part of town. Not a part where people liked light being shed on their activities.
Didn’t matter. Nature thumbed its nose at human preferences, sending the lightning that flashed overhead, strobing the dark street and the small alley that branched off from it with searing white. And causing the graffiti on the walls to practically leap off the old bricks.
The aftereffects lingered, crowding the small space with strange symbols in brilliant neon. They hung in the air for a moment, like bright banners, beautiful, ethereal, almost tangible. And then slowly faded.
I didn’t mind.
I didn’t need them.
The alley wasn’t dark to me. Mold grew over the old bricks, etching them with patches of teal luminescence that were slowly consuming the paint, blurring the letters with a more subtle message. A trail of muddy water ran down the middle, like a ribbon of emerald light. The edges of garbage cans, stacked outside a restaurant, glowed in a rainbow of colors, with layers of decomposing food stretching back for days. The cat huddled under some steps was a vibrant blob of crimson. The streaks some human in a hurry had dribbled on one wall were a smoking purple, like the rooftops of the buildings on either side, slowly releasing the last heat of the day.
All was visible, all was light.
But nothing was as bright as the small, glowing footsteps, like puddles of gold, that I was following.
They wove across the muddy width of the alley, so clear, I thought I could have reached out and touched one. Could have picked it up out of the muck and held it in my hand. Could have—
A door opened up ahead, sending a bright, artificial beam into the night, a river of smelly ozone that drowned all the other, fainter lights. Like a wash of acid across a floor. It made me want to flinch, to hiss like the cat under some stairs was doing, before it turned its bushy tail and leapt into the night.
But I didn’t. I didn’t move at all. I was hugging a wall, already in shadow, and the light served only to increase it. The wedge of deep blue-gray around me deepened to inky black, the open door providing additional contrast.
Not that it mattered. The human standing silhouetted in the rectangle of light was as night-blind as they all were, and cocky. So much so that a cigarette dangled from his lips, its deep red tip bright even against the electric field behind him. He may as well have had a target on his chest.
But I didn’t take advantage of it. He wasn’t the one I wanted. But he smelled like him.
A memory stirred.
A hand gripped my chin, cold, hard, alien. I hissed and tried to bite, and it was snatched away. Someone scowled; I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it in his voice. “What is this? Are you mad?”
“I thought you might find it…exotic.”
“Exotic?” The voice was incredulous now. “What are you trying to pull?”
“Nothing, my lord, nothing. But you always say you want the unusual, to keep an eye out—”
“For fighters, warriors. Someone to tease the crowds away from that damned Geminus. Not children!”
“But I thought—”
“Leave the thinking to me. Sell it to the pimp and be done with it, and show me something I can use!”
The cage door had clanged down, and they had gone. But the scent had remained. The same scent that was clinging to the guard’s skin now.
Fodder, then. Sent out to make sure the master’s many enemies weren’t lying in wait. Or if they were, to act like one of the canaries the humans used to put down their mine shafts. Nothing more than a walking early-warning signal, someone whose spilt blood would serve as an alarm no vampire could ignore.
Minutes passed. A car pulled up at the end of the alley, headlights off, and glided to a stop. The human raised a hand in greeting and went down the few short steps to the alley floor.
The car door opened; the driver got out and leaned against the side of the vehicle, legs crossed, body relaxed. “Got a spare?”
He was human, too. The voice harsh, discordant. Not the real driver, then. Just someone who brought the car around and was now waiting to hand it over.
