“It’s more for me than him,” I said, licking the sugar and caffeine from my lips—though I sort of agreed with Jenks. Pike had to have been there while Constance gutted Nash. He had been there and done nothing to stop it. My fingers drummed in angry anticipation.
Twin Lakes Bridge was before me, the small footbridge once a picturesque proposal hot spot from when Cincinnati was the fourth-largest city in America. Now, straddling recirculating copper-blue water and surrounded by grass and the noise of the encroaching city, it was still a good place to pop the question, but it was used more often as a place to feed the ducks without getting mobbed by them.
The quiet spot of green had been one of my favorite places in Cincy long before I knew the nearby ley line had been scraped into existence by Al. My dad had brought me up here to look down upon the Hollows when the weight of his secrets lay heavy on him. He had known. Somehow he’d known that by saving my life he was unleashing a rebirth of demons upon the world. And when I say dad, I don’t mean Takata. I mean Dad, the man who raised me.
“You want to check in with David?” I said, and Jenks nodded, his wings humming as he took a red bandana from his back pocket and darted out the cracked window. His dust glinted, and then he was gone.
I gave him a few seconds before shrugging my bag over my shoulder and getting out. The low sun was warm, and I felt a flash of vulnerability as I leaned back in to get the two coffees. The caramel smoked-salt latte was for Pike. Most vamps liked smoked salt.
I shut the door with my backside, keys and phone in my pocket in case I had to ditch my bag. Coffees in hand, I headed for the bridge, my bootheels soft on the grass, then thumping on the old cement walk. The breeze was nice, shifting my hair and making me wish I came up here more than to smack heads.
The scent of lily seemed to cling to me and I stifled a grimace. Using the church’s shower was too uncomfortable an option, but I had changed into a short white skirt, black leggings, black tank top, and a lightweight jacket. All the black seemed fitting seeing as I’d just put someone in the ground, or the ether, or whatever. The unusual ribbon of black lace around my throat was to torment Pike, and I felt mean as I strode to the bridge.
Al had redrawn his ley line out of the pond, meaning I could reach it now without actually being in the water. Even when I was standing on the bridge, the two man-made ponds were no longer enough to cut off my access. I was hoping that little nugget hadn’t gotten around and Constance thought I’d be vulnerable. I tapped the line now, feeling a staticky lift in my hair, but as I walked to the center of the bridge, an uncomfortable tickle tripped down my spine. Other than David talking to a woman with a dog, the park was eerily empty for such a nice early evening. Thanks, David.
My breath came in slow, and I set the coffees on the elbow-high cement railing and did a slow spin to show I wasn’t packing, even if I was. I had a couple of new pain amulets, my splat pistol, and that spoken immobilization curse that I’d used on Landon last November.
I hoped I wouldn’t need any of it, but after seeing Constance with Joni and the terror she filled her own people with, I was guessing that her decisions wouldn’t be made on dead-vamp logic, which made a perverted sense once you picked it apart. Rather, she’d move on tiny shreds of memory triggered by God knew what, making her erratic and unpredictable. All I wanted right now was Zack.
A wing rasp from the branches high overhead turned out to be Jenks, and my shoulders eased. “Hey, Jenks,” I said as his dust sifted over me with little pinpricks of sensation. “Why do I feel as if I’m being watched?”
“Because you are.” He dropped down, his red bandana making an unusual splash of color. “David’s got your back while I see what’s got the local pixies in a snit. I need a few minutes and some of that whip on Pike’s coffee. You good?”
I glanced into the harsh-blue water and nodded. It was inches deep on one side of the bridge, a few feet on the other, the drop-off somewhere under the bridge. “Yeah. I’m going to check if Sharps is around. I doubt the I.S. has had time this week to evict bridge trolls.”
“Gotcha.” Jenks hovered over Pike’s coffee, using the chopsticks from his back pocket to gather some foamy whip before darting off.
The breeze coming up from the Ohio River suddenly felt chill. Sipping my coffee, I rested my elbows on the railing and did a scan, my eyes narrowing at the four vamps coming in over the grass.
I hadn’t seen them arrive. They were just suddenly there, strolling in from all corners with a sultry casualness. David was watching them, too. Even from this distance I could tell they were not the three vampires from the Volvo. Constance upped her game, I thought, noting the steadfast, dark confidence that her other thugs had lacked.
I felt the outlines of my splat gun through my bag, pulse quickening as, one by one, they settled themselves at a near distance, blending into nothing as they leaned against a tree, slipped behind a utility building, or sat on a bench and pretended to sleep.
Interesting, I mused. If I was their target, there was nothing stopping them. Perhaps Constance wanted to hear what I had to say before unleashing her professionals.
Concerned, I leaned over the thick railing, my hair swinging as I peered into the filthy water. The memory of Trent and my first meeting here rose to make me smile. A lot had changed since then, but a lot hadn’t. “Hey-de-hey, Sharps,” I called softly. “You here?”
The water bubbled and boiled, and a long, water-melting face pushed up from the blue. “Hey-de-ho,” the wispy-thin troll burbled, his words sounding like water over rocks. “Rachel. I should have known. No one bitch-steps over the bridge like you. You in trouble?”
I smiled, remembering my early I.S. runs sent to drive him out from under the bridge, and the lies I’d told claiming that I had. The I.S. hated bridge trolls, but I didn’t see the harm. You patched up the mortar they ate and dealt with it. “What makes you say that?” I said, surreptitiously checking to make sure the four vamps hadn’t moved. If anything, they’d blended deeper into the park to become almost invisible.
“You’re not here to feed the ducks,” he said as he reached a thin, alga-covered arm up to pluck off a tiny chunk of the bridge and eat it.
My smile was short-lived as my eyes again rose, barely picking out the vamps. Damn, they must have a spell working. If I hadn’t seen them settle in, I never would have spotted them now. “No,” I said. “I’m trying to convince Cincy’s newest master vampire to play nice.”
David was still talking with that lady with the dog, but she finally left and David settled himself on her park bench, his duster brushing his ankles and his wide-brimmed hat pulled low. It was a position I liked, relaxed and far enough away that I was basically on my own.
“If you need me, whistle,” Sharps said.
“It’s pretty cut-and-dried, but thanks.” I pushed off the railing and eyed the park, brow furrowed. Where are you, Pike? “If anyone goes in the water, could you keep them there without drowning them?”