Riders (Riders, #1)(50)

“There’s something I need to tell you guys.” Daryn pushed her plate away. She hadn’t finished her pancakes and I wondered if they hadn’t been as good as in Cayucos. “Are you ready?”

No one said anything. I think we all thought it was a rhetorical question. And we weren’t ready for information, we were starved for it.

“LA isn’t our actual destination,” she continued. “We need to get to Italy.”

“Then we’ve been driving in the wrong direction,” I said. Ha ha. Then I saw the serious look in her eyes and dread started snaking through me. She was serious? “Negative, Martin. No on Italy.”

“That’s where Conquest is. It’s where we need to go.”

“I’m not going to Italy. I’m not taking this wild-goose chase international.”

“Then I’ll go alone.”

“No, Daryn. And the problem isn’t Italy. I don’t know what I’m protecting. I don’t know who I’m up against. I’m not hauling my ass all over the world. There are too many unknown variables. Just … no.”

Marcus sank down and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m with him,” he said.

I hated that he said that. I was right, but when he agreed with me, I felt less right.

“Okay,” Daryn said. “Then let’s eliminate one thing.”

“I vote for Marcus,” I said. That got me a nice, long stare-down across the table.

“I meant one unknown variable,” Daryn said. I’d known exactly what she meant.

She bit her bottom lip, thinking for a few seconds. “I can’t tell you what you’re protecting yet. For now, it’s better that only I know because…”

“Because why?” I already knew why, but I wanted to make sure Marcus and Sebastian did, too. “Keep it coming, Martin.”

“Because it’s an object. A powerful heavenly object that needs to stay hidden. Samrael, one of the Kindred, can get into your minds. He can see what you’ve seen. He can flip through your memories like photographs, so the less you know about what and where it is, the safer it is for all of us. What I can tell you is more about him. About them. The Kindred.”

Our server came by to clear our plates, which gave everyone a moment to absorb the fact that we were walking slide shows for Samrael.

“You might have heard about the War in Heaven,” she continued. “The fall of Satan, who was cast down to earth for being prideful. It’s what most people think of when you imagine good versus evil. Satan defied God and for that, he was cast out along with his angels. The Kindred were subjects of Satan’s. They were his servants, except the same thing happened. They were prideful and rebellious as well. They decided they didn’t want to be followers of Satan, so they left.” Daryn looked at me. “They went AWOL.”

“Which is what again?” Sebastian asked, after a moment.

He wasn’t alone in needing a second to catch up to things.

“Absent without leave,” I said. “They cut and ran.”

“That’s right,” Daryn said. “They turned their backs on Satan.”

“Which seems like a good thing?” Bastian said.

“But it’s not,” Daryn said. “They didn’t reject evil outright. Only the power structure they’d been under. These are still evil beings and they’ve become a problem. They’ve banded together and gained strength. They’ve mutated into these, I don’t know … these abominations. They hide behind human form, but they aren’t human. And they have plans now. They want power. Independence. They’ve done a lot of harm, and they’ll do a lot more if we don’t succeed. That’s what we’re trying to prevent.”

“Will,” I said. “Will prevent.”

“Yes,” Daryn said. “Will prevent.”

Sebastian grimaced. He looked like he was regretting the French toast.

I thought about my confrontations with Samrael at Anna’s college and the studio. In retrospect, they’d seemed rushed. Samrael and his team had been quick to strike and quick to leave. They definitely hadn’t wanted to linger. “They’re being run down, aren’t they?”

“It’s possible, yes. Satan doesn’t want them to rise to power any more than we do.”

“So they have the devil on their tail. And they’re chasing us down. Everybody’s chasing everybody. What’s at the end of this race? What does the object do for them?”

I needed to know what we were protecting more than ever.

Daryn’s hand made the smallest movement toward the chain at her neck before she caught herself. She tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear. “It would enable them to establish their own realm of power.”

“A realm?” Marcus said. “A kingdom or something? That’s what they want to create?”

“They can’t actually create anything. They’re trying to access what’s not theirs by unlocking a realm, a dimension, and they almost succeeded once already. They almost stole the object, but we have it now. We need to keep it safe until I can get it back to its rightful place.” She looked at each of us. “I need your help to do that, and Conquest’s when we find him.”

“Okay,” I said. “So we’re running defense against a splinter faction of demons who are trying to build a second hell?”