Riders (Riders, #1)(74)

In Venice, we transferred immediately to another train. We went on, taking whichever northbound trains left the soonest, went the fastest, and made the fewest stops. In Switzerland, we got a sleeper car with four beds and a small sitting area. Since there were five of us, the couch became my bed. In the privacy of our own car, we were able to talk about the Kindred. Somewhere around Frankfurt, I started making a list of their strengths and weaknesses. I worried about the tiny Ronwaes I’d seen crawling all over her body. Jode did, too.

“Like hordes,” he’d said. And pointed out something I hadn’t considered. Bay had had lumps under her thick grizzled pelt. I’d thought they were just part of her build. She’d been stacked with muscles. But Jode thought there was something more to them and came up with the theory that Bay also had tiny she-wolves, only they were hanging out inside of her. As I thought back, I agreed it was definitely possible. The female demons might actually be multitudes. From this we concluded that we were in even bigger trouble than we’d previously thought.

With Jode on the team, we would add a bow to our arsenal—Conquest’s weapon. Not that he’d seen it yet. But even with that addition, I wasn’t sure how we’d do against hordes. It just didn’t feel like we had enough.

We learned a few things about each other during those couple of days on the trains, too. Made a little small talk. We were still basically strangers, but we all tried. Except Marcus, who didn’t try at all.

Jode was nineteen, like Sebastian. He’d grown up in London and was in his first year at Oxford. The Ellises had owned land for generations but had recently—as in this century—expanded into banking. From what I gathered, his family was in the business of making truckloads of money.

Jode knew about everything. We learned that we could throw out any random name or place, and he could Jodepedia it for us. The flip side was he came off a little superior sometimes. A lot of the time. Until his power came up. The ability to raise will leaned a lot toward raising emotion, and that just did not fly with the ole’ British stiff upper lip. On the upside, he was able to figure out how to control it without Bas’s help.

Jode told us that when his life had been turned upside down after an accident, he’d gone to the Vatican, hoping to find answers in the Vatican Library. He and I didn’t talk about how he’d stood by while I’d coughed up a lung, or how I’d punched him for it. We were able to put our past behind us. Unlike Marcus and me.

Bastian was the fifth of seven kids. He was born in Nicaragua but his family had moved to Miami when he was little. He’d mostly grown up around there, then relocated to Los Angeles a year ago to pursue acting. He didn’t say so but I could tell he came from pretty humble roots—the opposite of Jode—and I had a pretty strong feeling Marcus was in the same camp.

Bas was the entertainer of the group. He had stories about everything, all extremely random and great. He’d say these things like, “Hey, G. Did I ever tell you my truffle story?” And you’d wonder how a truffle story could possibly be any good. Next thing you knew you were howling. You were picturing Bas coughing up truffles like owl pellets into a prop sink in front of fifty people. We got along pretty good, Bas and me.

Bas also mentioned that his life went sideways after an accident and, just by coincidence, we figured out that we’d all had those cuff-delivering “accidents” on the same exact day. August second. We knew we’d actually died on that day, or should’ve died, but we didn’t talk about the details. Too personal. On a couple of levels, for me. My dad had died on that same day, only a year earlier.

Marcus slept through most of Central Europe. On purpose, I thought. But Daryn and I came to a sort of unspoken truce. We started treating each other like business associates or something, which was weird. It was weird for all of us. Everyone knew it was weird. But it was the best I could do, and same for her, probably.

She didn’t share much about herself, unsurprisingly. Mostly, she wrote in her journal and listened to us, or talked about mission-relevant topics, except for once when she told us she’d grown up in Connecticut. A swanky sounding place called Darien.

“Daryn from Darien,” she’d said. “Go ahead and laugh.”

Coincidentally, Jode knew Darien, Connecticut. He’d yachted there or something, so they talked for a little while about that, which was adorable. Rich people comparing notes on their country clubs and summer homes always warmed my heart. Bastian and I sort of just listened like paupers.

I did some sharing of my own. A little about Anna. A little less about the Army. Not much, though. I felt claustrophobic and edgy. Not like myself. I knew it was still the aftereffect of Ra’om and Samrael in my head. We’d left them behind, I was pretty sure, but the nightmares stayed with me. My only defense was staying awake, which I did until I couldn’t. When I did sleep my mind ran a loop of my dad falling off that roof. Samrael’s arm around Daryn. My mom grieving. Anna losing her mind.

Brutal. A brutal, brutal loop that never lost its power. It gutted me every time.

If this was a taste of what the Kindred wanted to do to people, a whole realm built for this kind of abuse and torture …

I had to stop them.

We needed to get that key back where it belonged.





CHAPTER 45

The door opens and Beretta appears, flooded by the light from the hallway, a new bulb in his hand.