30. Wren

CHAPTER 30

Wren

“ T hat’s her, isn’t it?” I pointed at the woman who’d tried to kill me. “That’s Nevaeh?”

Blane nodded once. “Yes.”

“I don’t get it,” Delphine said. Lola. I should call her Lola. She clearly wasn’t that murderous witch anymore.

“That’s because you’re a four-year-old in a thirty-something body,” Aurelia explained. “It’ll take time to adjust.”

Vee tried to comfort her. “I had to adjust to a new body as well, kind of. It gets easier.”

“These shoes hurt, but everything else is good.” Lola grinned, which was totally inappropriate given the circumstances. “We’re together again. Me and Blane, me and Wren. Can we wake up Mom and make more churros?”

“At least she’s not traumatised,” Vee murmured, returning to my side.

No, but I was. I’d slept with the Lord of the freaking Underworld. No wonder he’d been superhuman in bed. The first man to treat me well in my whole life, and it turned out he was the devil in disguise. If the charred remains of this apartment weren’t a metaphor for my life, I didn’t know what was.

“Is Pablo okay?” I asked Vee.

“Still asleep. A miracle.”

“I need to get out of here.”

“That’s not happening,” Joseph sang from across the room.

“The hell it’s not. Are you gonna stop me?”

“Wren…” Blane reached for my hand, and I snatched it away. “There are people out there trying to kill you.”

“You know what? I think I’ll take my chances.”

But I’d probably fail. I’d failed at everything so far. Saving Caria, finding a boyfriend who wasn’t a psycho, making tamales.

“At least wait until we’ve solved the Laurent problem.”

“Oh, please. Are you going to ask Zion to help again?” I asked snarkily. I should have been terrified, I knew I should, but I was just too damn angry. Fury had suppressed the “flight” part of my “fight or flight” response, and I had to squeeze my hands together to stop myself from punching Blane’s perfectly straight nose. Fairy tales always cast the devil as an ugly monster. Such lies. He was hot as Hades. Wait, was he Hades?

“I can’t ask Zion anything anymore.”

Deep breaths, Wren. “What did you do, suck out his soul?”

“Disembowelling him would have taken too long. He put a tracking device on my car; can you believe that?”

“Yes, I absolutely can believe that. And it’s ridiculous that you didn’t preempt him doing it.”

“Preeeee-empt.” Lola rolled the word around in her mouth. “What’s that mean?”

“It means he should have known Zion was a double- crossing asshole,” Vee told her. “And he should have taken measures to stop him.”

Lola gasped. “You said a bad word.”

“I’ll fix this,” Blane promised. “All I need to do is fetch Decima, get her to repair Lola’s body, and then find Caria. Zion said she might be on a boat.”

“And you think he told you the truth?” I snapped.

Silence.

“You have to stop trusting jackasses.” Even as the words left my mouth, I realised I was being a hypocrite. “If Zion said Caria was on a boat, she’s anywhere but on a boat.”

“In my brother’s defence, he’s used to people doing as he orders,” Aurelia said. “All this human deceit takes some getting used to. The first time I visited Vegas, a fine-looking man told me Fremont Street was the best part of the city, and when we went there, he grabbed my purse and ran off.”

“Did you get it back?” Vee asked.

“Of course. I just followed him to a nice dark spot and paused him. Then I left with my purse, plus his pants, underwear, and shoes.”

A giggle escaped before I could stop it. Aurelia left the man’s wiener swinging in the breeze? Good going, girlfriend. Under different circumstances—meaning circumstances where she wasn’t Satan’s little sister—I would have liked her.

Blane’s phone rang. And after a quick glance at the screen, he answered it. Didn’t he understand we were in the middle of a crisis here?

“Pandora, my darling. Is everything okay downstairs?” A pause. “Fire? No, there’s no fire here. Maybe the TV was reflecting off the windows? … Of course I’m sure. Vee? Yes, Vee’s helping me out with something in the kitchen. If Kristy can cover, I’ll pay her time and a half.”

“Where did Zion tell you Caria wasn’t?” Vee asked him when he hung up .

“He said he’d checked all the other properties, starting in Vegas, and the boat was the only one left.”

“Then she’s in Vegas.”

“Wouldn’t that be too obvious?”

“Not really. Laurent thinks you’re a dumbass.”

“Which is true,” I muttered. “You can’t fix this. Did you miss the part where Lola Mark One got shot through the heart?”

“It’s true I can’t fix that part, but Decima can. Her gift is healing. All I have to do is sweet-talk her into helping out.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s the hard part.”

Aurelia raised a hand. “Uh, Decima isn’t available right now.”

“What do you mean, she isn’t available?”

“She’s at the Correction and Control symposium in Realm Fifty-Four, remember? She won’t be back until the day after tomorrow.”

“That symposium is just an excuse to have fun with whips and chains.”

“Exactly, so there’s no way she’ll leave early.”

“Who’s looking after Plane Three?”

“Grimalda.”

Blane snorted. “Great planes, they’ll be having a riot.”

The words were English, but the language was foreign. While Blane rattled on about expedited permits and celestial leaping, I stooped to pick up the gun one of the men had dropped. Nobody even noticed. One time, a friend of Kayden’s, a gun nut who my brother said had more weapons than brain cells, had driven us out to the desert with a cooler of beer and enough ammo to fight a war against a small country. We’d spent the afternoon plinking at the empty cans before I drove the truck back to Vegas because Kayden’s buddy was blind drunk. That was the first—and last—time I’d tried hanging out with my brother’s friends.

Anyhow, I remembered how to remove the magazine, and when I checked, there were eight bullets left.

Would that be enough for Laurent? I had to hope so.

I had to hope that I could get him before he got me.

Time to stop being a coward, Wren. Time to stop waiting for others to do your dirty work.

The spare key for Blane’s car was in the little silver dish on the sideboard, blessedly unscorched, and I quickly pocketed it as I passed. I had a driver’s licence; I just couldn’t afford a car. Lending me a vehicle was the least Blane could do after…after this . And I had my phone. Although I didn’t have Laurent’s address, everyone knew he lived north of Iron Mountain. Okay, maybe not everyone. I glanced back at Blane. How could he be the literal devil and know so little about the sinners in Las Vegas?

In happier times, Caria had giggled as she told me the compound was far enough into the desert that nobody could hear Laurent’s sex noises—he was a grunter, apparently—plus it used to belong to a rock star, and he’d themed the place around music. If I couldn’t pick out the fancy guitar-shaped swimming pool on Google Maps, all I had to do was drive around the neighbourhood until I saw the big wrought-iron gates modelled on the sheet music of the former owner’s first Billboard number one.

I inched toward the elevator as the others carried on talking. Never again would I trust a man. Blane had basically told me to sit down and eat fancy food while Caria suffered, and worse, he’d wormed his way into my heart under false pretences. Okay, so he hadn’t explicitly said he wasn’t human, but who even asked that? What dating site had a drop-down that went male, female, non-binary, supernatural being ?

Nobody looked in my direction as I slipped through the door that led to the stairs. They were too busy arguing about Blane’s sister. His other sister, the one who wasn’t holding a mother and child in suspended animation in the room I’d just left.

She’d stopped time .

Until now, I’d assumed the plot masterminded by Zion and Laurent was the number-one horror story in Vegas, but then Blane said “hold my Dom Perignon” and flung me into a new nightmare. I was going to die; I knew that. I’d seen things I should never have seen, heard things I should never have heard. There was no way Blane could leave me alive.

Now my only goal was to depart this earth—plane, whatever the heck it was called—on my own terms.

And take Laurent with me.

He was the one who’d set me off on this dark path. Who’d put me on a collision course with the devil and his minions. If Laurent hadn’t decided to murder a woman, I’d still have been dealing blackjack in blissful ignorance.

For a heart-stopping moment, I thought the guard stationed at the rear door would prevent me from leaving, but when he stood, I held up the key and kept walking.

“I’m just going to meet a friend. Blane said I could borrow his car.”

“He didn’t tell me?—”

I forced a giggle. “He was a little distracted.”

That stopped any more questions, but I noticed Myrtle sitting on a lawn chair next to the guard, watching us, her posture regal and her tail flicking. She must have followed me down the stairs. I imagined she’d been terrified by all the noise and flames, but her expression was judgey rather than fearful. Yes, yes, I knew she was a cat and she didn’t have human emotions, but she still managed to peer down her nose .

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, then caught myself.

The guard chuckled. “She looks at everyone like that.”

Blane’s tiny car was parked in its assigned space beside the door, and I quickly slid behind the wheel. The last car I’d driven was Caria’s. She’d been so generous—she’d have given you her last nickel if you needed it—and whenever I’d needed to pick up groceries or whatever, she used to lend me her car. And…and…I was thinking about her in the past tense. A sob welled up in my throat when I realised.

The car started almost silently, and I pulled away on my final journey. I had so many regrets in life, but really, only two of them mattered—that I hadn’t saved Caria, and that I wouldn’t get to say goodbye to my brother. Briefly, I considered calling him, but that was a bad idea. Kayden would panic and alert the cops. If I got unlucky, one of Laurent’s moles would tip him off, and his henchmen would be waiting at the gates for me to arrive. Or would Laurent do his own dirty work? Maybe it would be better if he did—I only had eight chances to kill him, and if I had to go through his minions first…

Eight chances to kill him.

Two weeks ago, my biggest problem had been making enough tips to cover the rent each month.

Now?

Now I’d lost everything, including my humanity.

I put my foot on the gas.