Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(72)

Mark sank back into the grass. Julian was bending over him, Emma already running. Jules had his stele out. “Mark,” he said as Emma reached them. “Mark, please—”

“No,” Mark said thickly. He batted away his brother’s hands. “No runes.” He dragged himself to his knees, then his feet, and stood swaying. “No runes, Julian.” He glanced toward Emma. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Emma said, sheathing Cortana. The coldness of battle had faded away, leaving her feeling light-headed. In the moonlight Julian’s eyes were a coldly burning blue. He was in gear, his dark hair a mess from the wind, his right hand clasping the stock of his crossbow.

He put his other hand up to her face. Her gaze felt dragged up to his. She could see the night sky in his pupils. “Fine?” he echoed, and his voice was rough. “You’re bleeding.”

He lowered his arm. His fingers were red. Her free hand sprang to her cheek; she felt the ragged cut, the blood. The sting. “I didn’t realize,” she said, and then, the words spilling out: “How did you find us? Jules, how did you know where to go?”

Before Julian could answer, the Toyota backed up with a roar, spun around, and drove back toward them. Cristina leaned out the driver’s side window, her medallion gleaming at her throat. “Let’s go,” she said. “It’s dangerous here.”

“The demons have not gone,” Mark agreed. “They have only retreated.”

He wasn’t wrong. The night around them was alive with moving shadows. They clambered hastily into the car: Emma beside Cristina, Julian and Mark in the backseat. As the car sped away from the cave, Emma reached into her cardigan pocket, feeling for the hard square of leather.

The wallet. It was still there. She felt a burst of relief. She was here, in the car, with Julian beside her, and evidence in her hand. Everything was all right.

“You need an iratze,” said Julian. “Mark—”

“Stay away from me with that thing,” said his brother in a low, intent voice, glaring at Julian and the stele in his hand. “Or I will leap from the window of this moving vehicle.”

“Oh, no you won’t,” said Cristina in her calm, sweet voice, reaching to depress the button that locked all the car doors with a firm click.

“You’re bleeding,” Julian said. “All over the car.”

Emma craned around in her seat to look back at them. Mark’s shirt was bloody, but he didn’t seem to be in much pain. His eyes flickered with annoyance. “I am still protected by the magic of the Wild Hunt,” he said. “My wounds heal quickly. You need not trouble yourself.” He picked up the edge of his shirt and mopped at the blood on his chest; Emma caught a quick glimpse of pale skin stretched tightly over a hard stomach, and the edges of old scars.

“It’s a good thing you showed up when you did,” Emma said, turning to look at Cristina and then Julian. “I don’t know how you figured out what was going on, but—”

“We didn’t,” Julian said shortly. “After you hung up on Cristina, we checked your phone’s GPS and realized you were out here. It seemed weird enough to follow up.”

“But you didn’t know we were in trouble,” Emma realized. “Just that we were at the convergence.”

Cristina gave her an expressive look. Julian didn’t say anything.

Emma unzipped her cardigan and shrugged out of it, transferring Wells’s wallet to the pocket of her jeans. Battle brought on a sort of numbness, a lack of awareness of injury that let her go forward. The aches and pains were coming now, and she winced as she peeled her sleeve away from her forearm. A long burn reached from her elbow to her wrist, red-black at the edges.

She glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw Jules registering the injury. He leaned forward. “Can you pull over here, Cristina?”

Unfailingly polite Jules. Emma tried to smile at him in the mirror, but he wasn’t looking at her. Cristina pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the seafood shack Emma and Mark had flown over earlier. A massive neon sign reading POSEIDON’S TRIDENT hung over the ramshackle building.

The four of them piled out of the car. The shack was nearly deserted except for a few tables of long-distance truckers and campers from the sites down the road, huddling over coffee and plates of fried oysters.

Cristina insisted on going inside to order them some food and drinks; after a moment’s argument, they let her. Julian threw his jacket on a table, claiming it. “There’s an outdoor shower around the back,” he said. “And some privacy. Come on.”

“How do you know that?” Emma asked, joining him as he stalked around the building. He didn’t answer. She could feel his anger, not just in the way he looked at her, but in a tight knot under her rib cage.

The dirt path that circled the shack opened out into an area ringed by Dumpsters. There was a massive steel double sink, and—as Jules had promised—a large open shower with surfing equipment stacked next to it.

Mark crossed the sand to the shower and flipped the spigot.

“Wait,” Julian began. “You’ll get—”

Water poured down, soaking Mark instantly. He lifted his face up to it as calmly as if he were bathing in tropical rainfall and not unheated shower water on a chilly night.