Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(72)

“Well then,” said Sloan, turning his gaze on the male engineer. “I suggest you also devise a distraction.”

He crossed the penthouse, throwing open the doors to what had once been Callum’s room, Alice on his heels. He opened the closet and knelt, searching the boxes on the floor.

“Does this change of plans have anything to do with our intruder?” asked Alice.

“It does,” said Sloan, drawing out a crate.

She sulked. “I thought we were going to kill it.”

“Why kill a thing that can be used?”

“How do you plan to use a thing you can’t even catch?”

Alice had a point.

Sloan had been wrong, he realized now, in baiting his first trap, wrong to offer fear when his prey fed on stronger fare. On violence. On chaos. On potential.

He knew just the bait he’d need.

But how to contain a shadow?

He lifted the lid from the crate. Folded inside was a sheet of gold, a curtain spun from that most precious metal. Once upon a time, Callum Harker had slept beneath the sheet as protection from monsters.

Of course, it hadn’t saved him in the end.

But still, a human’s shield was a monster’s prison.

Alice recoiled at the sight of the gold, and the taste on the air burned Sloan’s throat. He put the lid back on.

“Gather the Fangs.”

Alice cocked her head. “How many?”

“All of them.”





Kate wasn’t entirely sure how she’d gotten there.

The Compound’s command center was buzzing with activity, the air around her humming with voices and the constant crack and buzz of comms, all blurring into a kind of white noise in her good ear.

She clutched her tablet as she wove through the crowded hall, trying to stay out of the way of the men and women rushing from room to room, some in plain clothes and others in uniform. A trio of soldiers sat before a bank of consoles, sending out orders, and through a glass door, she saw a familiar halo of red curls sitting before a massive bank of screens, each with a surveillance feed.

Kate knocked once, so softly that she felt the sound more than heard it, but Ilsa turned in her chair. Not fast, as though startled, but calmly, as though she knew exactly who she’d find.

Over Ilsa’s shoulder, cameras rotated past, flicking from shot to shot, lingering only a second or two on each angle. Within moments Kate was getting dizzy, but before she looked away she saw a sequence of frames taken from inside elevators and smiled.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said, and Ilsa gave an amenable shrug.

The glow from the screens traced an outline around her, casting most of her in shadow, but the small stars across her shoulders and down her arms danced with bluish light.

One hundred and eighty-six.

The same number as August—and Kate, though she didn’t bear the same marks. All three of them joined by the actions of a single night.

Her attention drifted from the stars to the scar at Ilsa’s throat. She could almost make out the taper of a Malchai’s nails.

Sloan.

Anger flashed through her, quick and hot, met by the sudden desire to march across the Seam, to find her father’s monster and tear him apart. The urge swept over her like madness, and for a second, it was all she could think of, all she could see— Ilsa’s hand came to rest like a cool weight on Kate’s cheek. She hadn’t seen the Sunai rise, or cross the room, and she marveled that August could seem so solid, and his sister so insubstantial.

What did that make Soro? she wondered. Something else entirely.

Ilsa’s eyes were wide with worry, but Kate pulled away.

“It’s okay,” she said, relieved that she could still say those words, which meant they must be true. For now.

Ilsa cocked her head, and swept her fingers across the air, a gesture clearly meant to encompass the entire command center. The question was wordless, but clear: What are you looking for?

“Henry Flynn,” she answered. “Is he around?”

Ilsa’s head bobbed once. She pointed to the hall, and Kate was about to leave when she caught Ilsa glancing at the tablet still in Kate’s hand, her pale eyes suddenly focused, intent.

Did you see?

Kate started to answer when she heard a familiar word issue from across the hall.

“Alpha.”

August’s call sign.

Kate started toward the sound and found a door ajar, several people gathered around a speaker.

“We’ve reached Fifth and Taylor.”

Something turned over in Kate’s mind. Why did that sound so familiar?

“No signs of trouble.”

She closed her eyes, trying to draw a map in her mind.

It was in North City, but there was something else, something more.

“We’re going in the front.”

“Wait,” she said, stepping into the room. Five faces swiveled toward her, only one of them familiar. Henry Flynn leaned against the wall, as if for support. The other four had only one thing in common: scorn.

“Kate?” August’s voice sounded over the comm.

She stepped up to the table. “Don’t go in yet.”

“Miss Harker,” said Flynn wearily.

“Never let a Harker loose, Henry,” said an older woman. She had an acerbic smile and milky eyes that stared into the middle distance, unseeing.