“No.” Robert said. “You’re going home. Your job is done. Now it’s time for us to do ours.”

He was right. Time to get it done and get out of here.

7

WE FOUND DESANDRA sitting in a tree above Cuddles. Her clothes were splattered with blood. She grinned at us.

“Lovely perfume,” Robert noted.

“Glad you like it.” She hopped off the branch. “I call it Dead Vampire.”

“How did you get away?” Ascanio asked.

“Please.” She gave him a look. “I’m a werewolf raised in the Carpathian Mountains and they can’t smell or track for shit. I can outrun them in my sleep.”

I mounted and we headed east. Twenty minutes later we turned south and made our way into the dense tangle of streets that was the Warren.

I rode Cuddles. Derek pulled ahead to scout; Ascanio ran on my left, Desandra and Robert on my right. The Warren peered at us with the black eyes of broken windows: mean, suspicious, and predatory, like a thug who’d gotten his face bashed in and was looking to get even. Jonesboro, the most direct route, was out of the question—too obvious and too well patrolled—so we wove our way through the twisted back streets. Long scars gouged the walls of the run-down houses, as if a tornado of steel blades had brushed by them. On Harpy’s Drive we passed a row of trees, each one with its trunk unnaturally bloated and covered with black fuzz. I had no idea what the fuzz did, but we steered clear of it. The law of navigating post-Shift Atlanta was simple: if you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it.

The moon was rolling down. It had to be around three in the morning. The winter night had caught the city between its teeth and bit down hard. Here and there an ancient vehicle hunkered down. The tips of my fingers had turned to painful icicles. Any colder, and I’d have to dismount and walk next to Cuddles just to warm up.

I wanted Curran back here with me. It was a completely selfish need, as urgent as breathing. I wanted to know that he was fine. I missed him. If I concentrated enough, I could conjure his voice in my head. Funny, yesterday I couldn’t wait to escape the Keep with him and run away to Black Bear Lodge. Now I would happily sit through a hundred Council meetings back to back for a ten-second phone call from him letting me know he was okay.

In the distance something screeched. It was the triumphant violent shriek of a predator that’d connected with its prey. The Warren was in its usual form tonight. Come to think of it, that was the first sound I’d heard in a while. It was too deserted and too quiet. The cold or the People must’ve driven the Warren’s scavengers indoors.