“And that fate would be?”
Araña couldn’t help but smile at the arrogant, masculine confidence in Tir’s voice.
“The harbor is filled with ruins. Even in daylight it’s nearly impossible to avoid hitting metal sharp enough to rip open a ship. If you manage it, you’d most likely be killed by the vice lord who controls it. He lets very few boats in that aren’t his own or haven’t paid well for the privilege.”
“But he lets some in?” Araña asked, hearing Levi’s qualifier and experiencing a small flare of optimism. She couldn’t offer the vice lord money, but she had the skills of a thief to barter.
Levi shrugged. “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t count on making a deal with him, not if rumors are true. They say he’s consumed with finding a cure for his daughter. She’s said to have the wasting disease.”
Pain lanced through Araña, a sharp, unexpected thrust as she thought of Erik. They’d come to Oakland seeking a cure for him. Seeking a miracle. If the vice lord’s daughter truly had the disease—
Her heart skipped and stuttered its beat with the memory of Tir saving her from certain death after her fight with the dragon lizard. His hand tightened on her arm, warning her to remain silent as he asked, “What’s the vice lord’s name?”
“Rimmon.”
Araña missed a step as the melted-wax face of the man in the occult shop immediately came to mind. Erik and Matthew had never been believers in coincidence.
“Where can I find him?” Tir asked, his voice holding no hint as to whether or not he remembered the name and the man, though Araña suspected he did.
“He’s usually at his club. Temptation. It’s a Victorian on the same street as all the others like it.”
There was a subtle hesitation in Levi when they reached the sigil-marked boundary of the area set aside for the gifted. His jaw muscles tensed and his posture stiffened, though he didn’t flinch as he passed through the wards.
They traveled in silence, staying close to the border for a while, then cutting through a neighborhood where the majority of the houses had collapsed around trees taking root in what had once been living rooms.
Wild grass and flowers sprouted on fallen roofs. Dark green vines with poisonous, bright red berries slowly crushed rusted cars and old fences under their weight.
Rebekka’s house stood alone, isolated. They approached cautiously, though there was no evidence of it having been visited by guardsmen or those in the employ of the maze owner.
Levi pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door before giving the key to Araña. “There’s another one in the kitchen drawer.”
He pushed inside and they followed. The house had a dusty, closed smell, verifying what Levi had told them about the healer seldom visiting.
Araña expected Levi to leave immediately. Instead he prowled the tiny house like a large, restless predator. She went to the kitchen and took Erik’s wallet from her pocket, blocking the grief that came from handling it, fortifying herself with Matthew’s words as he’d told her to run.
She removed Erik’s boat keys and placed them on the counter before pocketing the wallet. She opened the drawer and found Rebekka’s second house key, along with paper, pencil, and extra candles.
Impulsively she pulled out the paper and pencil. Tir set the food down on the counter and took the keys. Anxiety tightened her chest.
“I should be offended you have so little confidence in me,” he said. “But I find your worry for me oddly arousing.”
“I want to go with you, Tir.”
“No.” His mouth found her neck and sent a pulse of pure need to her cunt. “You’ll stay here until I return.”
When she didn’t acknowledge the command, his lips were replaced by his teeth. They closed on her skin in sharp demand and remained there until she said, “I’ll stay as long as it’s safe.”
Tir rubbed his tongue over the place where he’d bitten. A caress and not an apology.
“You’ll speak with the vice lord before you go for the boat?” she asked.
“Yes.” Neither of them mentioned how he’d done the impossible and saved her from dying after her fight with the dragon lizard.
Heat rose in Araña’s cheeks when she realized Levi stood across the counter from them, his arms folded across his chest. Embarrassment at having been so lost in Tir that the Were was able to get within striking distance without her noticing made Araña pick up the pencil and begin drawing. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but with sure strokes, Jurgen’s face appeared on the paper.
Levi’s arms dropped to his sides. “Jurgen,” he said, and the same hatred Araña felt was in his voice. “There’s always a need for a healer when he visits the brothel. He went after Rebekka.”
On a separate piece of paper she deftly drew Cabot, the man whose cock had shriveled at the sight of the spider on her bare mound. “And him?”
“Dead.”
Araña allowed herself a moment of satisfaction before pulling another sheet of paper from the drawer. The image of the man she’d seen in her vision was as real to her as the others.
Beside her, Tir tensed so subtly that if their bodies hadn’t been touching, she wouldn’t have known it. On the other side of the counter Levi shook his head, the brown-blond tones and length of his hair making him momentarily resemble the lion Rebekka said he could no longer become. “He wasn’t there.”
“He’s not the third guardsman or the man you call Gulzar?” Too late, Araña realized she should have hidden her surprise and puzzlement.
Tawny-colored eyes narrowed. “Why did you think he would be?” Levi asked.
Guilt lashed at Araña. Suspicion appeared in Levi’s eyes, telling her he smelled the emotion on her. She saw no point in lying. “I had a vision this morning, before we left your lair in the forest.” She touched her finger to the stranger’s image. “He was in it.”
“And Rebekka?”
Araña’s guilt intensified. “I saw the three of you on the bus. The man emerged from the guardsman headquarters and bought a pastry from a vendor. He was eating it when the bus passed with Rebekka and the child in the window.”
“That’s all?”
“I didn’t see anything of what happened after that.”
The truth, and yet so much less than it. But even Matthew and Erik, who she’d loved and trusted, didn’t know all of what carrying the demon mark meant.
Levi leaned forward, the gold of his eyes molten with turbulent emotion. “Use your gift to find her.”
Araña’s heart skipped a beat. “I can’t.”
The Were snarled. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t.”
“You can try. If it hadn’t been for her, you would have escaped the maze only to become food. Humans don’t survive a night outside, even if they get out of the red zone and into the forest.” His gaze darted to the spider now on the back of her hand. “Against fur and fang and supernaturals, you’d die just as easily as any other.”
Araña knew he could hear the thunder of her heart and smell her fear. “I have no control of my gift.”
Levi snarled again. “Then get it. Go to the Wainwright witch. It was Annalise who told Rebekka you’d be running in the maze.”
The pencil snapped in Araña’s hand as the image of the old witch who’d sent Erik and Matthew to their deaths flashed into her mind and brought a killing rage with it. “What does she look like?”
Levi’s eyes narrowed. “I only caught a glimpse of her. She’s got black hair with a skunk streak of silver down the middle of it.”