Chapter Forty-Five

Torra hugged herself tightly in the back shadows of Red Velvet when Kierse approached, as promised. "I don't have a lot of time. Did you find a way out?"

Kierse shook her head, hating that she was bringing bad news. "Not yet. Did you hear anything?"

"I don't want to raise suspicions, but we had a meeting about an upcoming party and I tried to ask around." Torra frowned. "They're all still pretty upset about Orik. I didn't want them to think I was plotting an escape. People don't escape this place."

"You will," she assured her.

She hadn't thought that Torra would be able to find a way out. If she had, then she'd already have left this place a year ago. No, Kierse knew she had to find it.

"What about this upcoming party?" Kierse asked.

"It's King Louis's winter solstice party. He throws it every year. Last year was... a bloodbath," Torra said with a shudder.

Kierse shivered. Torra was going to be at the same party where Kierse and Graves were planning to steal the spear. She needed to get her out before the party.

"What?" Torra asked.

"Nothing."

"I know you better than that. Why do I have a feeling you'll be at that party?"

"I'm running a job there," she admitted.

"Don't," Torra said. "How would you even get in? You're human. They'll kill you."

"I have an invitation."

Torra grasped her arm, fear crossing her face. "They will kill you."

"I'm going, Torra, and I'm going to find a way so that you don't have to go."

"We should use the party as cover," Torra said instead. "You find your exit. I can get you safely into that party and give them a reason not to immediately kill you. We can get out together from there."

She shook her head. "I'm not putting you in danger."

"I'm already in danger," she hissed. "I'm trying to think of how we both get out alive."

"I need the exit first."

"Then get to work," Torra admonished fondly. "But think on the party. I don't know how you got an invitation, but I promise you, I know King Louis. And you do not want to use it to get inside."

Torra stumbled back toward Red Velvet, leaving Kierse wondering exactly how Graves had gotten the invitation. Torra had been down here long enough to know how these things work. Maybe she was right. Maybe she and Graves needed to go back over the plan.

But first... a fucking exit.

She circumvented the brothel and headed back to Blood. Since crisscrossing through the Third Floor entrances didn't seem to bear any fruit, she'd decided to do the more boring side of recon work: wait, watch, and listen.

Thankfully, it was a different bartender today, and the goblin seemed to care even less that she wasn't drinking, though she kept a glass in front of her the whole time. She was here to listen for pertinent information. Except that no one mentioned anything relevant in the hour she sat and listened in on conversations. Nothing on ways in or out. Nothing on King Louis. Nothing at all.

Today was a bust. Kierse put some cash on the bar and stood from her chair. Sure, there were plenty of monsters. An incubus leaning against his succubus pair as they stared lasciviously at a goblin enjoying a beer across the bar. A mermaid on two legs with hair the color of seaweed speaking to a sketchy shifter. They all made sense. All allies of the vampires during the Monster War. But the pack of nymphs surprised her. They were closest to humans, along with wolves. More monsters had gone underground than Kierse had even realized.

She'd just pushed through the double doors, ready to do some more traditional reconnaissance, since her wait and watch hadn't helped anything, when something caught her eye.

A flash of thick, black-rimmed glasses, a distressed superhero T-shirt, and a pair of dirty black Converse. He looked out of place amidst the mayhem of the market, which made him stand out. She knew him instantly from the photograph in Graves's library.

Walter Rodriguez.

She hastened around the corner of the pub. Her eyes scanned the crowd, and she nearly walked directly into a wraith.

She skittered backward, edging away from the soul-sucker. "Sorry," she said, pitching her voice low.

Then she saw him. Just a wisp of his curly, dark-brown hair.

There and gone. He'd disappeared down a side alley.

Kierse raced after him. She rounded the corner and found him standing at the back entrance of a restaurant. Sliding into the shadows, she concealed herself in the darkness of the cavern to listen in on the conversation.

"Ah, you're here again already?" a mer asked Walter with anger scrunching his face.

"Yeah. It's that time, Ulster," Walter said.

Ulster huffed. "We have a few in the back. He likes them young, yes?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Yep. Young."

"Fine. I'll send the lot over."

"Good. By tonight," Walter added.

"You know," Ulster growled.

He reached out his hand as if he were going to yank Walter up by the collar of his superhero shirt. But once he got within inches of Walter's body, he bounced harmlessly off. As if he'd hit an invisible wall.

A force field.

Kierse blinked. Well, that was pretty clear. She had just seen how Walter's force field worked. It was an invisible barrier around his own person, several inches in front of his body.

Walter tsked, suddenly losing his uncomfortable, dopey demeanor and straightening his long limbs out. "King Louis won't like that one bit. You might want to send the girls over right away, or else I might have to tell him."

Ulster cowered backward a step. Even here, magic terrified people. What a trussed-up little shit. He was King Louis's lackey. He put up wards, maintained the checkpoints, and even collected humans for his feeding.

She shuddered at that thought. He liked them young. Gross.

Walter took off, and Kierse decided to tail him to see exactly what he was up to. He stopped once to pick up his own dinner, which were mouthwatering empanadas that made her stomach grumble. A second stop to check a faulty ward at the door to some sort of weapons facility. She must have passed right through one at Red Velvet and not even noticed. No wonder no one seemed concerned by her appearance.

Another machine was hooked up in front of the door, and the tall, black-clad shifter owner gesticulated wildly about him taking too long to fix the broken ward. Walter ignored the monster and got to work, fixing it in a matter of minutes.

Then, finally, he ended up at another brothel. This one seemed more like what she expected from above as well. Not vamp specific but likely still trafficked humans. Fucking atrocious.

Reconnaissance could be so boring sometimes. So much more waiting that felt pointless. She yawned and covered the gesture with her hand, slinking back into the shadows as a vamp passed too close to where she was standing. She doubted Walter would last that long inside with the prostitutes, but maybe they'd try to draw it out. Get their money's worth and all that. She knew all the tricks of the trade even if she'd never been a part of it.

However, Walter appeared only a few minutes later. He frowned at the establishment. As if he too found the whole thing distasteful. That was a surprise.

Kierse trailed him past the brothel and along the outskirts of the market. The farther from the center, the seedier the locations got, but he seemed unperturbed. Of course someone with a natural barrier against danger would feel that way. She'd love to come upon him with a knife at his throat just to see his shock. His force field wouldn't work against her. Which made her feel like a lioness stalking her prey.

Then, in the blink of an eye, he disappeared.

She frowned. Where the hell had he gone? He'd been right in front of her, and she doubted he had some sort of magic invisibility, too. Graves insisted that two strong powers were rare.

After a minute of indecision, she walked over to the wall he had been standing in front of, running her hand across the surface to look for an explanation. It looked the same as the rest of the wall, except it wasn't. It was like the darkened entrance she and Graves had walked through in the subway tunnel. Not invisible at all.

With a deep breath, she stepped through it into another narrow tunnel. She ran her hand along the wall and felt his warding in place. Bingo.

She was quiet as a mouse as she stalked forward. A secret entrance into the market. She almost beamed with excitement. Because if there was a secret entrance... that meant there was a secret exit.

And she liked exits.

Not just that—she desperately needed this one.

Walter's footsteps were heavy ahead. With the din of the market gone, she realized he tromped like an arrogant fool. He had no need to step quietly, to learn stealth. Not with his ability. Graves had said magic had consequences. And Walter had learned to not fear pain or retribution, because who could touch him with his force fields up? He'd gotten careless. She could exploit that.

She walked behind him until they came to a fork. To her shock, this fork was labeled. She listened for Walter going on ahead to the left. But the right read RESIDENCE.

Walter's home? Or King Louis's? Was this the back entrance into Track 61?

The tunnel she was on said MARKET. But the one Walter walked down wasn't labeled, which meant she needed to find out where exactly he was going.

She followed Walter's clomping feet. She made a point to memorize the twists and turns through the darkness, but she was losing the trail. If not for the sound of Walter before her, she might have gotten hopelessly lost.

They continued for roughly a half hour. She guessed they'd gone about a mile at this pace before she saw light flare in the tunnel ahead. Walter's figure was briefly illuminated before he climbed up a ladder into the light.

Walking into the light was not ideal, but she needed to see what lay ahead. Kierse waited five full minutes and then eased forward, coming to the top of the ladder and finding herself at another subway tunnel. A light lit the trapdoor, but unless she was looking directly at it, it was essentially invisible. She recognized the wards etched into the opening. Which meant even if someone else found it, no one could get inside. Except her, of course.

And if she could learn to absorb the wards in time, Graves and Torra, too.

She hauled herself up through the door and trekked to the nearest subway platform. Luckily, no one was around when she towed herself up onto the southbound platform of 23rd Street station. Signs showed service to R and W trains. She racked her brain. 23rd and 5th Avenue. That was the Flatiron District. She'd come out right in front of the famous Flatiron Building.

Kierse pulled out her phone, and Graves answered on the first ring.

"Are you okay?"

"I found my exit," she told him.

"You did?" he asked, surprise layered in his voice.

"I followed Walter through a secret tunnel out of the market. Do you have a way to track me so that we can get a route through the tunnel?"

He paused a moment. "Yes."

"Do it. I'm going to backtrack to the market."

"Done," he said. "Be careful."

"As always," she joked. "I'm going to go back in the tunnels now."

"Hey," he said into the phone before she could step back off the platform.

"Yeah?"

"Good job."

She grinned and then hung up.

Just that one little compliment made her giddy. She probably should have hated how she preened under his praise, but it was all the sweeter when she'd earned it.