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“Yeah, you’ve mentioned it a time or two.”
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and found that he had followed my gaze to the upper balcony and was watching Prescott with thinly veiled interest. Above us, death’s right-hand man waved pleasantly. He looked for all the world like a happy-go-lucky young man enjoying the energy of the crowd.
“That man is here to make sure she gets you.”
He snorted. “That guy looks like he’d cry during a fistfight.”
“Maybe, but then he’d touch you once and you’d die.” I placed my palm on his chest for emphasis, drawing his focus back to me. “One touch. Boom.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I had to grin. “In the short time you’ve known me, do you find I tend to exhibit much of a sense of humor?”
“Does attitude count?”
“Probably not.”
Leo narrowed his eyes and breathed deeply. I was trying to get him to believe how much trouble we were in, but it was hard to pay attention to him when I was worrying about the undead henchmen moving closer. It didn’t matter whose orders they were obeying—Manea’s or Prescott’s—they wouldn’t stop until they’d done their job.
If that was capturing us, we were screwed.
If it was to kill me and take Leo, we were screwed.
No matter how I looked at this situation, things didn’t have a happy ending. Without Cade here to help me I didn’t particularly like my chances against eight of Manea’s men, with nary a cloud in sight to draw power from. I might be powerful, and I could make rain from the flimsiest of puffy white clouds, but I couldn’t will a storm into being. Even when I’d bested Prescott by making it rain indoors, I had cheated. There’d been an open window in the room, and I’d drawn the clouds in from outside. I also couldn’t draw electrical energy from anything other than a thunderstorm, or Seth himself. So I couldn’t exactly touch the nearest light pole and zap them.
Power is all well and fine until you run head-on into its limitations.
“Run.” I gave him a firm push.
“What?”
“I can’t fight
them. And I can’t risk losing you to them. Run.” I pushed him again, and he staggered back a few feet, obviously taken aback by the force of my shove.
For the first time since we’d left his apartment, he looked frightened in an appropriate way. How stupid had I been to go out in public? I’d believed with Hecate’s questionable help I had beaten Manea’s people here. I thought I had more time than this, time to plan and time to figure things out.
Now I was back to thinking on my feet, and my feet were telling me to haul ass. Who was I to argue with that kind of flawless logic?
Leo took me at my word for once.
He grabbed me by the wrist so hard it made me wince, but he was running, and I was following him whether I liked it or not. We were flying down Canal with me desperately trying to keep pace with him. His legs were at least a foot longer than mine, so his gait was impossible to match, but I found if I really put the effort in, I could stay behind him without having to let go of his hand.
Which was good because his grip was so fierce, if I hadn’t been able to keep up, he probably would have started dragging me along.
Pedestrians shouted at us as we bumped and jostled our way down the sidewalk. Hopefully those same people would provide a good enough buffer to put some distance between us and Prescott.
I was praying to Seth for all it was worth that they hadn’t figured out where Leo lived, otherwise we were running at top speed towards the people who wanted to get their hands on us.
“I don’t suppose you’re borrowing that apartment of yours from someone?” My words blew back in my face, trailing behind us and disappearing into the din. “I mean, is your name on the lease?”
“No.” It was only one word, but it gave me all I needed to put the extra pep in my step.
There was a chance we might be able to lay low, if they didn’t know where to look. We hadn’t been able to find Leo in any online searches, and the reason was apparent now. He had taken himself off the grid. At the time it had seemed needlessly frustrating, but now I was grateful for his paranoia.
I would consider feeling bad about whoever he was stealing the apartment from later. Whether it was a little old lady who had died and he was using it until the landlords figured it out, or it was a rich person’s once-a-year New Orleans crash pad, it didn’t matter. No one knew he was there, and that was the one thing that might keep us alive long enough to get him to safety.
When I’d called Sido after hanging up with Cade, she’d suggested I get Leo to a local outlet temple. They’d send someone to collect him from there. I hadn’t liked the idea at the time, but now it seemed like our best shot.
