Blood Heir (Aurelia Ryder, #1)(33)

I bet. “It’s essential that nobody interrogates her about the murder, including Ascanio Ferara.”

Sophia cracked her knuckles. “Oh, that won’t be a problem.”

Conlan clearly had something against Ascanio, and apparently Sophia wasn’t a fan either. He sure had a way with children.

“Does the Pack have an interest in this case?” Barabas asked.

“I don’t know yet. However, Mr. Ferara definitely does. Does that complicate things?”

“Not at all,” Barabas said. “We do not fall under the Pack’s authority.”

Like everyone who left the Pack with Curran and Kate, Barabas enjoyed a special status, and I counted on it.

“Great. Here’s her clothes and toiletries.” I passed the bag to Barabas. “The fee should cover her food, but please make sure she eats something besides cookies.”

Barabas nodded. “Of course.”

“Do you like honey muffins?” Sophia asked Marten.

I loved honey muffins. Curran’s adoptive mother made them. I would kill for one of Martha’s honey muffins right now. I would eat it and cry right here in the office.

Marten’s eyes lit up. “Are they yummy?”

“Very yummy.”

“Then I like them.”

“I have some in my office.” Sophia held out her hand.

Marten jumped off her chair, winked at me, and took Sophia’s hand. They walked out of the office.

That wink spelled trouble.

“She is very good at escaping,” I said.

“Sophia is very good at preventing escapes. I promise you, Ms. Ryder, she will be treated well; she will be bathed, fed, and tucked into bed at night, and most of all, she will be under constant supervision.”

I had a nagging feeling he would eat those words, but there was nothing else I could do. I had given all the warnings I could give. I hired them to do a job and I had to let them do it.





8





The phone line was nowhere near Martha Street.

I figured on about a fifty/fifty chance of Stella sending me on a wild goose chase. Clearly, she either didn’t trust me or decided to get payback for me ditching her. Fair enough, a point for her. I respected both her being cautious and trying to get even. In her place, I’d do the same thing.

The Honeycomb sat deep inside a gorge, a crack in the ground about three miles long and a quarter of a mile deep called the Honeycomb Gap. The Gap pulled iron into itself, gathering it from junkyards and the abandoned Ford Motor plant. The area around it lay in ruins, and climbing back and forth over the rubble with an injured leg and a bruised shoulder was all kinds of fun.

If the magic had been up, I could have just called Turgan and had him scout the Gap. The eagle would have spotted the cable in seconds. But with magic down, looking through Turgan’s eyes wasn’t an option. Turgan was an intelligent bird, but he was just a bird. Telling him to find the cable on his own was like asking Lassie if Timmy was stuck in a well. Words like “cable” had no meaning to an eagle.

Instead I picked my way through the debris and abandoned buildings for over an hour before I finally found it, a single phone line diving into the Gap from a pole that rose at the top of a ruined three-story building. The structure’s roof was gone, leaving the inside exposed, and the tall wooden pole had been anchored to the remains of the top floor with a mound of concrete. Climbing said pole with my hurt thigh proved to be about as fun as cuddling a feral cat, but after sliding down a couple of times and cursing in half a dozen languages, I finally cut the line, climbed down, and sat on the edge of the crumbling top floor, dangling my feet over the chasm.

The Gap stretched in front of me, plunging deep below, narrow in this spot, only a couple hundred feet across. A forest of curved metal spikes grew on its bottom, climbing up the sides. Piles of refuse, scrap metal mixed with trash, rose here and there between the skeletal husks of abandoned cars slowly melting into the Gap. Fog slivered between the spikes and heaps of junk, curling in long tendrils, trying to reach up to the edge and the abandoned buildings rising on the other side. Far to the left, a bird glided above the Gap. From here it looked like a stork. Looks were deceiving. Honeycomb spawned Stymphalian birds with iron feathers that cut like razorblades.

My leg hurt. Other parts of me hurt too, but the leg would need attention once I got home. Nick’s pills had shaved a slight edge off the pain, but not enough to dull it. Sitting still felt like a sinful luxury.

I had been sloppy. I should’ve anticipated Jasper’s pounce from above. I hadn’t because I’d been focused on saving the boy. Now I was paying for it.

Douglas’ face flashed before me. Worth it.

When I was a teenager, I would’ve just shot Jasper. Back then using a shotgun or a rifle wasn’t a problem. I used to be a good shot. Not Andrea Medrano good, but decent enough. I could hit a target with a bow on horseback at full gallop. Now guns were no longer an option for me.

All living beings generated magic. Some stored it, like shapeshifters, which enabled them to still transform during tech. Others, like me, emanated it. Over the years, I’d learned to transform these emanations into a cloak, hiding my power during magic, but without it I was a miniature magic generator, and these emanations short-circuited tech in my immediate vicinity. Guns didn’t work for me. Gasoline cars were a gamble. Sometimes I could drive one, sometimes it wouldn’t start.