The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(81)

“Yeah, I think they liked you.”

She smiled, relief in her eyes. “I’m not used to caring about that. I mean, if I’m dealing with a human and I need them to want me, I can make them want me. I can make them feel whatever I need them to feel.”

“But it’s not the real thing.”

“No. It’s not.”

I started the engine and backed out of the parking space.

“I want to be there with you tonight,” Caitlin said. “I hate that I can’t, but that damned ring—”

“I know. Don’t worry, I’ll get it away from her. Even if I have to take her finger off with it.”

“Meanwhile, I’ll be playing politics. Ever since my prince advised his inner council on the Box situation, word’s spread like wildfire. There’s a gallery of potential usurpers sharpening their knives as we speak.”

I squinted as we pulled out of the garage, the golden afternoon light splashing across my dusty windshield. “Why’d he do it, then? He had to have known people would talk.”

“Exactly. What better time than a crisis to find out how your confidants really feel? The disloyal make themselves obvious, drooling over the thought of an empty throne. Once tonight is over and done, I suspect there will be some vigorous housecleaning in my prince’s court.”

“You sound like you’re enjoying this.”

“That part? I am. Some traitorous would-be conquerors are going to be very surprised when they wake up in chains tomorrow. There will be punishment. Severe. Merciless. Punishment. Pain is so much more enjoyable when it’s inflicted on the truly deserving.” She paused, quirking an eyebrow. “Does that bother you?”

I thought about it for a second and shrugged.

“You’re a career woman. I respect that.”

We drove to her place. Sitting in the car, the radio turned off, we listened to the engine idle and stared at the bloody sky.

“So what now?” she said softly.

I took the fringed pouch from my pocket and stared at it, feeling the weight of Stacy’s half-soul in my fingertips.

“Now I go to the storm tunnels and have a chat with a dead girl. Then I’m gonna go save the world. After that, my evening’s pretty much free. Want to get together for drinks?”

Caitlin turned in her seat. She stroked my neck with the tips of her fingernails, sending shivers down my spine.

“You come back to me,” she said.

“That’s a promise,” I told her, pulling her close. We kissed, and she rested her head on my shoulder.

? ? ?

Even by the afternoon light, the culvert leading down to the storm tunnels was a treacherous abyss. With my flashlight fixed to my shirt pocket, I slowly climbed down the cutout rungs. My beam flashed across broken glass and concrete. Over in a patch of weeds, a rat’s beady scarlet eyes glowed in the reflected light. It turned and ran, scampering past the wall of tribal graffiti and disappearing into the tunnel. I followed it down.

Past the first bend, snoring echoed off the tunnel walls. Eric slept like a log with the battery-powered lamp glowing behind the ramshackle walls of his lean-to. He’d apparently taken my advice about staying clear of Tunnel C. I crept past as quietly as I could, trying not to wake him.

The trail of enchanted dust was just as I had left it, stretched from end to end across the tunnel mouth. I stood at the edge of the line and squinted into the inky gloom.

“Stacy,” I whispered. “Stacy.”

Stacy Pankow’s mangled wraith loomed out of the darkness, a broken vision in gossamer white. One useless foot trailed behind her as she glided toward me. Her jaw gaped wide in a soundless scream. She stretched out her remaining arm, clawing at the air, but couldn’t cross the dust.

I held up the pouch so she could see it. Her frosted eyes widened. Some part of her, buried under the confusion and pain, recognized what was missing.

“Stacy,” I said, “we need to talk.”

? ? ?

When I emerged from the tunnel, storm clouds choked the darkening sky. The forecast had called for clear and dry.

Dammit, I thought, running for the culvert ladder, they’re already starting. I jumped into my car and gunned the engine. In the distance, a finger of white lightning licked the sky, crackling between the clouds, mirroring the neon streets below.

Jennifer waited for me down the back alley leading to the Silverlode, rummaging in the trunk of her little blue hatchback. The casino stood cold and silent, but to our magic-attuned eyes it flared like a beacon of black gold. Wards and death-hexes bristled at every window and door. Purple ribbons of energy coiled like serpents around the bricks, wreathing the tower in their rippling runic coils. I pulled up behind Jennifer and got out of the car, cupping a hand over my eyes as I stared at the monstrosity.

“They really don’t want to be disturbed,” I said.

I got the flower box out of my back seat. Jennifer tossed me a Bluetooth earpiece.

“I’d say we’ve seen worse,” she said, “but I hate lyin’.”

She pulled on a shoulder holster. While I linked up the earpiece with my phone and tried to get Bentley on the line, Jennifer handloaded a chrome revolver with a barrel big enough to intimidate a rhinoceros.

“What?” she said, catching my look. “Girl’s gotta protect herself.”