The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(55)

He watched Orla’s orange bikini disappear hopefully into the BMW. His mind was far away, though: still absorbed with the mystery of the ancient Camaro wheel.

In a low voice, Blue asked meaningfully, “Seen enough?”

“Of — oh, Orla?”

“Yeah.”

The question annoyed him. It judged him, and in this case, he didn’t feel he’d done anything to deserve it. He was not Blue’s business, not in that way.

“What care is it of yours,” he asked, “what I think of Orla?”

This felt dangerous, for some reason. He possibly shouldn’t have asked it. In retrospect, it wasn’t the question itself at fault. It was the way that he’d asked it. His thoughts had been far away, and he hadn’t been minding how he looked on the outside, and now, too late, he heard the dip of his own words. How the inflection seemed to contain a dare.

Come on, Gansey, he thought. Don’t ruin things.

Blue held his gaze, unflinching. Crisp, she replied, “None at all.”

And it was a lie.

It should not have been, but it was, and Gansey, who prized honesty above nearly every other thing, knew it when he heard it. Blue Sargent cared whether or not he was interested in Orla. She cared a lot. As she whirled toward the truck with a dismissive shake of her head, he felt a dirty sort of thrill.

Summer dug its way into his veins. He got into the truck.

“Let’s go,” he told the others, and he slid on his sunglasses.





Of course, the Gray Man had to get rid of the two bodies. It was a nuisance, but nothing more. The sort who would break into a house for supernatural artifacts also tended to be the sort who didn’t get reported missing.

The Gray Man wouldn’t be reported missing, for example.

Still, he needed to wipe the bodies for fingerprints and then drive them someplace more convenient for them to die. In the trunk of the Champagne Abomination, the Gray Man had fuel cans and two Peruvian pots that were too hot to sell yet wrapped in Dora the Explorer blankets, so he put the bodies in the backseat, buckling them so they wouldn’t flop around too much. He was sadly on his way to creating an incriminating stain in yet another rental car. His father was right: past performance really did seem to be the best indicator of future performance.

While he drove, he called the Veranda Inn and Restaurant and canceled his dinner reservation.

“Would you like to change it to a later time?” the hostess asked. The Gray Man liked how she said later. It was something like lyter, but with a lot more vowels.

“Tonight just won’t work, I think. Can I reschedule for … Thursday?” He took the exit for the Blue Ridge Parkway. The force of the turn knocked one of the thug’s heads against the window. The thug was beyond caring.

“Table for one, was it?”

He thought about Maura Sargent and her slender, bare ankles. “Make it two.”

He hung up the phone, put on the Kinks, and drove out along the parkway. He took turn after turn until the rental car’s GPS was hopelessly confused. With the rental car, he made his own path into the woods past a copse of no trespassing signs (the Gray Man had never regretted paying for the additional damage insurance on a rental). He parked in a small, idyllic clearing, rolled down the window, and cranked up the stereo. Pulling out Missile and Polo Shirt, he untied their shoes.

He had just put Polo Shirt’s shoes on his own feet when his phone rang.

The Gray Man picked it up. “Do you know who those men were?” he asked in place of a greeting.

Greenmantle’s voice was frenzied. “I told you. I told you there were others there.”

“You did,” the Gray Man agreed. He stomped the treads of Polo Shirt’s shoes full of good Virginia clay. “Are there more?”

“Of course,” Greenmantle said tragically.

The Gray Man switched to Missile’s shoes. The clearing was covered with their tracks. “Where are they coming from?”

“The readings! The machines! Anyone can follow the readings,” Greenmantle said. “We’re not the only ones with geophones lying about.”

In the background, the Kinks sang about demon alcohol. “How is it that you knew this thing existed, again?”

“Same way we know anything. Rumors. Old books. Greedy old people. What is that sound?”

“The Kinks.”

“I didn’t know you were a fan. In fact, it’s strange to think of you listening to music at all. Wait. I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry, that sounded terrible.”

The Gray Man was not offended. It meant that Greenmantle thought of him as a thing instead of as a person, and he was all right with that. For a moment, they both listened to the Kinks sing about port, Pernod, and tequila. Every time the Gray Man put on the Kinks for any length of time, he considered getting back into academia. Two of the Kinks were brothers. Fraternity in the Rock Music of the ’60s and ’70s would be a fine title, he thought. The Kinks intrigued him because, although they fought continuously — one member famously spitting on another before kicking over the drums and storming offstage — they remained together for decades. That, he thought, was brotherhood.

“Will you be able to work around those two?” Greenmantle asked. “Will they be a problem?”

It took the Gray Man a moment to realize that he was referring to Missile and Polo Shirt.