“Reign is not. But that’s a problem for after we’ve stopped your brother and Darkside. Go.”
I picked up the keys, dragged on a coat, and then headed out. The wind whipped around me and the rain hit hard, blowing me back a step or two before I caught my balance and trudged on.
There were double yellow lines down most of the street, so unless you had off-street parking—we did, thanks to the old blacksmith building Mo had bought quite a few years ago—there was no legitimate place to stop. Not that those in league with Darksiders would be all that worried about rules. I headed in the same direction the man-mountain had been running. There might be no parking this side of the old bridge but the other side did have several out-of-hours sections. I couldn’t imagine the Blackbird would have risked allowing man-mountain to walk too far, dead of night or not. His size and shape made him not only easy to spot but also signaled to anyone who knew anything about demons and Darkside exactly what he was.
I ran over the bridge and spotted a Ford Transit van sitting in front of the small café just down from the corner intersection. I clicked the remote, and the lights flashed in response. My hand drifted to Nex’s hilt, but her steel remained silent. No demons waited within the van’s dark confines. Whether anything else did was a question that could only be answered the hard way.
I moved around to the back of the van, gripped the handles, then opened the doors and jumped back.
Nothing attacked. The inside of the van was as empty as the front. I closed the doors, then walked around to the driver side and climbed in. The cab reeked of demon, and I half gagged, trying to breathe through my nose but nevertheless feeling the creature’s foul scent coat the back of my throat.
After a cursory look around the cabin, finding nothing of note, I flipped open the center console. Inside was a shitload of rubbish. Whoever owned this van really liked his or her jelly babies, because there were multiple packets of them, most empty. I dumped them all onto the passenger seat and found, at the very bottom, a pink diamanté-decorated phone case. I unlatched it; there were four pockets inside, one containing cash and the other three cards. The first was a credit card, the second her license. Our Blackbird’s name was Noelle Durant, she was twenty-five years old, and she lived in Taunton, which if I remembered correctly was somewhere in Somerset. The third … My stomach dropped. The third was an ID. Our Blackbird worked for the Preternatural Division.
And that, no doubt, explained how the damn demons had so easily uncovered the hospital where the preternatural team had been keeping my cousin Gareth, and why they’d unleashed such a strong force against the team’s defenses there. They’d been well informed of exactly what to expect by our traitorous witch.
I shoved the ID back into its pocket and then hit the power button on the phone. It was one of the newer models with facial recognition, and immediately asked for a pin when mine was naturally rejected. As the keypad flashed up, my gaze was drawn to the shaded image behind it. It was of a smiling family—four men and five women—and they all shared the same facial structure, jade green eyes, and black hair. In the photo the Blackbird currently unconscious on our shop’s floor had her arm around the waist of a man I knew very, very well.
If this photo was anything to go by, Noelle Durant was Luc’s sister.
Chapter Two
I swore and scrubbed a hand across my eyes. While I’d never actually met any of Luc’s siblings, I knew from the few bits and pieces he’d said about them that they were a close-knit family. This was going to hit him hard.
I stared down at the picture for several more seconds, wondering why on earth Luc’s sister would betray her family like this when she obviously—if this lock-screen picture was anything to go by—cared about them.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. I couldn’t call the preternatural boys. Not without warning Luc first.
I got out my phone and rang him. The call almost immediately flipped over to voicemail and asked me to leave a message.
“Luc, it’s Gwen. I need you to ring me as soon as you get this. It’s—”
“I’m here,” he said, his deep, velvety voice sounding somewhat harassed. “Sorry, I was in a late-night meeting. Everything okay?”
No, it isn’t. I briefly closed my eyes, gathering courage. “I need you to come to our store right away.”
“That’s impossible, because I’m in London and it’ll take me hours to get to Ainslyn. What’s happened?”
I hesitated, still reluctant to hurt him with the news his sister was working for the other side. And yet, was it not better he hear it from me first rather than anyone else? “Our store was broken into again—”
“Why the hell are you there, rather than the safe house?”
“Because I didn’t have the energy to fly all the way back—”
“There’s a multitude of other accommodation possibilities between King Island and Southport that would have been—”
“Will you just shut up and let me finish?”
“Seeing you asked so nicely, please do proceed.” There was an edge of amusement in his tone—one that would sadly disappear all too soon.
“A couple demons and another of those giant half-bloods wielding an energy whip broke in, but this time they were accompanied by a sword-bearing Durant.”
He sucked in a breath. “It can’t be one of the twelve. They’re all here.”
“It wasn’t. It’s a woman.”
“The sword wasn’t soul-gifted, then?”
“Unfortunately, it was, though it was a demon rather than a witch.”
“But that’s—”
“Don’t say impossible, because there’s been a ton of recent events that have proven there’s no such thing as impossible when it comes to this sort of shit.”
He half laughed. “True enough. Is the woman still alive?”
“Yes, and the sword is now inactive. Nex and Vita burned the demon from the blade.”
“I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Neither did I until it happened.”
“Have you called Jason yet?”
Jason was the man in charge of the preternatural team working the case, and a good friend of Luc’s. “Not yet. I thought I’d better give you the heads-up first.”
“Thanks, but there’re plenty of Durants out there, and not all of them play on the right side of the tracks. There’s nothing I can do that Jason can’t.”
“That’s not why I called you first.”
“Then why?” He paused. “You have her name?”
“I do.” I hesitated again. “It’s Noelle Durant.”
“My sister? No, it can’t be. She wouldn’t—”
“Luc,” I cut in softly, “there’s a picture of you and a group I presume to be your family on her phone.”
The silence seemed to stretch on forever. I climbed out of the van, shoved Noelle’s phone into my pocket, and walked back toward the shop. The rain ran like tears down my face.
“Is the phone in a case that’s pink and decorated with diamantés?” he asked eventually.