Omen didn’t look remotely satisfied with the answer he’d gotten either. “Do your ‘people’ tell you anything about what they do with the shadowkind they’re gathering once they have them?”
The first guy brightened. “Yes. A little. They’re looking for ways to end the beasts’ evil influence on our world. The Company of Light will eradicate all the monsters that prey on us. But they’re slippery demons—just killing some here and there isn’t good enough. They’re looking for a better way.”
I wasn’t even one of those slippery demons myself, and I automatically bristled on behalf of my companions. Snap tucked his arm around my waist in a gesture of comfort, but his divinely sweet face was drawn. I squeezed his hand in return. He’d spent little time mortal-side before now—he might never have heard a human talk about how much they detested beings like him before. This supposed “monster” was more compassionate than most human beings I knew.
A hint of otherworldly smolder flickered in Thorn’s eyes. The huge warrior took a deliberate step closer, looming almost to the roof of the compartment with an aura of menace, but Omen held up his hand. His mouth had formed a rigid smile.
He didn’t like what the guy had said, but it was exactly the attitude he’d expected.
“The Company of Light,” he repeated. “Is that what your organization calls itself?”
The man nodded. “We have to keep our cause secret, because backlash from the monsters could end us all, but with the work we’re doing, our light will burn away all the shadows.”
“But you don’t know what exactly your Company’s experiments are supposed to achieve.”
“Experiments?” The man’s brow furrowed. “That’s not my area. I just know whatever they’re doing, they’re working toward destroying every fiend that dares set foot here—and maybe all the ones back where they come from too.”
Lovely. A chill collected in my gut. He was discussing literal genocide as if it were the most glorious purpose he could imagine. Had any of these sword-star—excuse me, Company of Light—assholes ever even talked with a higher shadowkind?
I’d be the first to admit that beings like the four around me didn’t subscribe to the exact same sense of morality humans did. And sure, some of their kind did prey on mortal beings. But plenty of mortals preyed on each other too. The answer was to fight back against the ones committing the actual crimes, not to mass murder everybody. I didn’t think this Company would like it if the shadowkind turned their logic back on humankind.
“That does sound like an honorable goal,” Omen said, his voice so edged with sarcasm I half expected it to slice right into our captives’ flesh. He paced from one end of the compartment to the other as he considered his next line of inquiry. “Are these hand-offs with the collectors the only way you contribute?”
“They call on me once every few weeks for a job like this,” the first man said. “Otherwise, I keep quiet and keep out of the rest of their business.”
The shadowkind’s gaze slid to the other guy. “And you?”
“I don’t do anything else with the beasts, but I’ve done a little other driving—bringing equipment for the events and that sort of thing.”
“Ah. What sort of events would those be?”
The guy shrugged. “I’m not sure. They have some parties with a bunch of rich folks now and then. With all the equipment they must need and the cash for buying off the collectors—I guess they’ve got to raise funds somehow or other.”
Another laugh tickled my chest, this one sharper with irony. Of course the Company of Light would need to hold fundraisers just like Ellen and Huyen’s group of defenders did. While we gathered money to protect the shadowkind, they gathered money to hunt and torture them. From the scale of our enemies’ operations, they had to be a lot better at it than we were. Maybe we could pick up some pointers along the way.
Omen grilled the two more—about how they got their equipment, where they were trained in handling shadowkind, and anything else he could come up with relating to the structure of the Company of Light. Unfortunately, our enemies had been awfully sly all around. The training sessions happened at random locations that changed every time, the equipment showed up on the guys’ doorsteps along with the orders for their next assignment, and they didn’t know much else.
We stepped out of the truck to confer where they couldn’t overhear us.
“It’s not a total loss,” I said. “We freed the shadowkind they were going to buy—we put the fear in that collector and hopefully a bunch more in his network. We know what their hand-offs look like now, and maybe we can get at them through these fundraising events somehow.”
“It’s still less than I’d like.” Omen eyed the truck broodingly. “Maybe I can come up with another angle that’ll be more productive.”
A new chill tickled down my back. “What are you going to do with them when you’ve run out of questions?” I’d avoided prying into that subject until now, but that hesitance was starting to feel cowardly. The guys in there were prejudiced dicks, but they’d talked with us peacefully. I didn’t like the idea of watching my companions slaughter them in their defenseless state.
Omen looked as though he’d like it just fine, but then his mouth twisted as if he’d bitten something sour. “It would be better if their ‘Company’ doesn’t realize we held this interrogation. Ruse, you can charm them into keeping quiet about our chat, can’t you? Convince them that they have to claim they drove from the scene of the attack unhindered?”
The incubus saluted him. “Give me a little more time, and I can manage it.”
I glanced around at the darkened street. The shadowkind quartet didn’t really need me here anymore—and there was something else I’d wanted to accomplish while Omen was distracted with this business. My stomach grumbled, giving me the perfect excuse. I hadn’t eaten since that slice of pie with Vivi.
“Unlike the rest of you,” I said, “I need dinner or I’ll keel over. Meet you back where we left Betsy in a couple of hours?”
The thought of me fulfilling my mortal needs brought out Omen’s disdain. He waved me off and yanked open the truck’s back door again.
I trotted several blocks from the interrogation scene, weaving right and left at the intersections, and then called an Uber. I was planning on getting something to eat—but not anywhere Omen would have approved of.
As I settled into the car’s back seat, something jabbed my leg in the bottom of my backpack. I felt inside, and my fingers closed around the cool, smooth surface of a little box. My throat tightened.
I drew out the box, the city lights outside the window catching on its pearly sides. My fingers moved automatically to pop open the lid.
This keepsake was the only thing I had of my parents’. There hadn’t exactly been time to stop and pack when hunters had stormed into my parents’ house while Auntie Luna and I had been playing in the backyard. At my mother’s scream to her, Luna had grabbed three-year-old me and fled—but she’d had this box with the folded notepaper inside to offer me when I was old enough to read it.