Blood Promise (A SkinWalker Novel #4) (A DarkWorld SkinWalker Novel) (30 page)

"I sent you an email."

"Kai." He grabbed my arm as I tried to walk off.

 
I sighed and turned back. "Fine. You get the Cliff-notes version. Agent Blake attacked me before I met you at O'Hagan's. I ripped his face open and he ran off."

"That's it?" he asked looking confused.

"Yeah, I might have left out the part where they were stalking me at my apartment. They were after
me,
so I don't think they'll be back."

"Kai," Anjelo admonished. "And you're only telling me this now?"

"My little tête-à-tête with the killer was over before I even spoke to you. Lily's the most important thing. Besides, I won't be in this world, so the killer won't be able to find me. Win-win."

Leaving Anjelo shaking his head I headed to the end of the boardwalk. I stood on the edge and tossed the key over the water. It hovered there, over the lake, and as it did a pillar of light began to glow.

"Kai!" Anjelo yelled.
 

I grinned, and jumped into the light.

The last thing I heard him say was, "Typical."

I
APPEARED
ON
THE
OUTSKIRTS
of the Graylands, where every dimension had its very own reverse version. As disconcerting the back-to-front city of Chicago was, I'd been here twice before and more or less knew my way around.

I ran with panther speed in the direction of the center of the city, past my apartment building and toward the abandoned train station.
 

As I entered the subway, I forgot the changes in the city and headed left instead of right. So much for experience in this backward world. I spun around and hurried toward the tracks where Anjelo had said the bodies had been found.

When I got to the scene I stopped.
 

No one.

I sank into a crouch and blew out a sigh. Had I come this far for nothing?

I lowered myself to the floor, scraping my boots on small stones and concrete, and sat there for a while, waiting, watching. Hoping.

More than half an hour later, I was still waiting. But no longer in silence. A thunderous headache had started drumming against my temples and I was starving. I realized suddenly that I hadn't eaten all day.
 

Chloe was right. I needed to take care of myself. I hadn't done that in the rush to find Lily.

Rubbing my temples, I sighed and got to my feet. I could wait a little longer, but how much longer did I have.? Sooner or later the demon lord wannabes would find me, and -

"Are you okay?"
 

I swung around, so tired that even the soft voice managed to startle me.
 

Two teens stood there--the speaker, an Hispanic girl around twelve, and a boy about the same age, his Nordic look a stark contrast to her darkness. If you could call anything about them dark. The pair looked gray and hazy, ghostly in their transparency, even to the point that jeans, sweaters and sneakers were colorless.

"Please don't be scared," the girl said. "I'm Emma. This is my friend, Simon." She gestured to the boy beside her.

"Are you from City Deep?" I asked.

They both nodded solemnly.

"How long have you been here?"

"Not too long." They exchanged glances. "A few hours maybe."

I stifled a whoop of joy. "Then you might be able to help me."

Simon snorted. "How can we help you if we're dead?"

"You know you're dead?" I asked. Some people didn't.

Simon's expression turned sullen. "Do we look stupid?"

Emma elbowed him in the ribs. "Shut up, Simon. She's just trying to be considerate."

"No point is there?" he said. "We're dead."

I decided to let them fight it out.

"There's nothing she can do to change that fact, now is there?" There was a bite to Emma's tone and I figured she was dealing with her own passing on a more internal level than Simon.

I cleared my throat. "I came to see if I could help you."

"You just said you needed
our
help," snapped Simon.

I shrugged. "A little bit of mutual cooperation then."
 

He just watched me, eyes wide, unimpressed.
 

"We're trying to find the people who killed you." There was no skirting around the word
killed
, so I just said it. "And the reason I need your help is that
you
may have seen what happened to my friend."

Emma's brow creased. "What friend?"
 

I mentally crossed my fingers. "About this high," I indicated Lily's height where she reached my ears, "Blond. Pretty. She's a walker."

"We don't want to get involved," said Simon.

"Say's
you
," Emma snapped at him. "I'm helping. It's not like it's going to get me killed." Her tone was sharp, annoyed, as if she'd been dealing with him for too long and had had enough.

Maybe he got the message because he had the grace to remain silent.

Emma turned back to me. "We did see her. It's Lily you're looking for, isn't it? She's one of the kids we live with. Storm takes care of us all."
 

She paused for a moment then looked at the floor where her body had lain in the last few moments of her life. "They took her when they came for our bodies."
 

"Did you get a good look at them?"

Emma nodded. "There were two men. One was a blond guy about this tall." She held her hand above her head. "I had a feeling I knew him but I just can't remember his name."
 

She glanced at Simon. "What do you remember?"

Simon shrugged. "Like you said. Tall. Blond. Muscular. I think. Maybe . . . blue eyes?" He squinted up at the curved roof of the tunnel as he thought. "But I can't remember a name either. Weird."

"Why weird?" I asked.

"'Cos I'm usually very good with names," he snapped. Then he studied my face. "I feel I've seen you before. Who are you?"
 

"Kailin. I'm Anjelo's and Lily's friend."

"Yeah." He bobbed a finger in my direction. "I remember now. Anjelo tells everyone that you're his alpha. You know that?"

I smiled. "He's a good kid. Though for the record Corin Odel is his alpha."

"But he respects you." Simon sounded as if he couldn't understand why.
 

I wasn't sure what response he expected. "So one of the guys who took Lily was blond. What about the other one?"

He thought back, eyes narrowed. "Light brown spiky hair, eyes like metal. Big dude."
 

Agent Blake.

I should have known.

I waited hoping he'd give me more. He did. "Dude had some kind of power. Like he could freeze shit."

"Water mage?" I asked. "Powerful?"

"Hell, yeah." He seemed impressed despite the fact that the paranormal had left him dead. Some scary shit."
 

I nodded. So Blake was a water mage who freezes things.
 

And his blond companion bore a scary resemblance to our very own Storm.

I
DIDN
'
T
UNDERSTAND
WHY
NEITHER
Emma nor Simon could recall the name of our Storm lookalike.

Do Immortals have the power to erase memories?

A question for Jess.

"Did the blond man kill you?" I asked feeling a little uncomfortable.

Emma shook her head. "No. He came later. We'd just started our practice and the spiky-haired guy shot us."

"What kind of things do you practice?" I asked, trying not to sound interrogative or judgmental.

She shrugged. "Stuff. Our powers mostly. The tunnels are good because we get to practice our powers without being seen."

It made sense. "Were you there long?"

Emma shook her head. "Simon thinks the man followed us. We'd only just got there when he came up behind us."

"Yeah," Simon said. "He had a gun, and this thing like a torch, with a very fat head. I think it had a screen on the other side of it because the light reflected off his face."

Observant kid.

"The machine beeped," he said. "Then he smiled at us and said 'gotcha' and shot us,
bam
,
bam
." Simon mimicked the movements of the shooting with his forefinger and I could have sworn I heard gunshots reverberate around the tunnel.

If Blake was using some kind of machine to detect paranormals then the fact he'd missed the goblin kids behind the silver mirror now made sense. Silver would have hidden their presence no matter what paranormal they were

First the African village, then the kids in Cicero, then the goblin clan, and now the two City Deep kids. It had all seemed random but only because the killers had been learning, testing their weapons and machines on mages and DeathTalkers and goblins.
 

They'd been methodical, determining first if the kids were paranormal, then eliminating them instantly. They'd upgraded to direct kills now.
 

Direct, and much more efficient.

"Did we help?" asked Emma.

"Of course, you did," I said. "You were very helpful."

"But you look worried."

I shrugged. "It's just that I want to stop the killing. I want to find the killer. And more than anything I was to find Lily."

"You won't," said Simon.

"Shut up," said Emma, sharply.

"She needs to know what she's up against."
 

Emma glared at him but he paid no attention.
 

He met my eyes earnestly. "You need to know. They are very powerful. They know everything. And the man we can't remember . . . He's more powerful than all of them."

That wasn't reassuring. "How do you know? Did you see something after they took you away?"

Simon nodded. "Flashes of stuff. And your friend--Lily--was there too."

"Did they hurt her? Is she still alive?"

Emma's gentle mouth twisted. "When we finally left the human plane, she was still alive. She was furious and struggled hard. They hit her a few times and when she kept fighting they tried to drug her. But none of the drugs worked. So they tied her up and gagged her and put her in a room where we couldn't see her. We didn't hear her again after that."
 

There was a sadness in Emma's eyes that told me she thought Lily might well be dead too.

I didn't want to ask but I forced myself to. "Have you seen her here in the Graylands?"
 

Emma shook her head. "Not yet. Although if they've killed her it shouldn't be too long."

I was about to hand her Nerina's key and ask her to call if she saw Lily when her eyes went wide and scared. I started to turn to see what had frightened her when the sound of gunfire exploded in the tunnel.
 

Pain ripped into my back. The bullet's impact spun me round into the curving wall of the tunnel--and brought me face to face with the gunman.