Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yep. Young.”
“Fine. I’ll send the lot over.”
“Good. By tonight,” Walter added.
“You know,” Ulster growled.
He reached out his hand as if he were going to yank Walter up by the collar of his superhero shirt. But once he got within inches of Walter’s body, he bounced harmlessly off. As if he’d hit an invisible wall.
A force field.
Kierse blinked. Well, that was pretty clear. She had just seen how Walter’s force field worked. It was an invisible barrier around his own person, several inches in front of his body.
Walter tsked, suddenly losing his uncomfortable, dopey demeanor and straightening his long limbs out. “King Louis won’t like that one bit. You might want to send the girls over right away, or else I might have to tell him.”
Ulster cowered backward a step. Even here, magic terrified people. What a trussed-up little shit. He was King Louis’s lackey. He put up wards, maintained the checkpoints, and even collected humans for his feeding.
She shuddered at that thought. He liked them young. Gross.
Walter took off, and Kierse decided to tail him to see exactly what he was up to. He stopped once to pick up his own dinner, which were mouthwatering empanadas that made her stomach grumble. A second stop to check a faulty ward at the door to some sort of weapons facility. She must have passed right through one at Red Velvet and not even noticed. No wonder no one seemed concerned by her appearance.
Another machine was hooked up in front of the door, and the tall, black-clad shifter owner gesticulated wildly about him taking too long to fix the broken ward. Walter ignored the monster and got to work, fixing it in a matter of minutes.
Then, finally, he ended up at another brothel. This one seemed more like what she expected from above as well. Not vamp specific but likely still trafficked humans. Fucking atrocious.
Reconnaissance could be so boring sometimes. So much more waiting that felt pointless. She yawned and covered the gesture with her hand, slinking back into the shadows as a vamp passed too close to where she was standing. She doubted Walter would last that long inside with the prostitutes, but maybe they’d try to draw it out. Get their money’s worth and all that. She knew all the tricks of the trade even if she’d never been a part of it.
However, Walter appeared only a few minutes later. He frowned at the establishment. As if he too found the whole thing distasteful. That was a surprise.
Kierse trailed him past the brothel and along the outskirts of the market. The farther from the center, the seedier the locations got, but he seemed unperturbed. Of course someone with a natural barrier against danger would feel that way. She’d love to come upon him with a knife at his throat just to see his shock. His force field wouldn’t work against her. Which made her feel like a lioness stalking her prey.
Then, in the blink of an eye, he disappeared.
She frowned. Where the hell had he gone? He’d been right in front of her, and she doubted he had some sort of magic invisibility, too. Graves insisted that two strong powers were rare.
After a minute of indecision, she walked over to the wall he had been standing in front of, running her hand across the surface to look for an explanation. It looked the same as the rest of the wall, except it wasn’t. It was like the darkened entrance she and Graves had walked through in the subway tunnel. Not invisible at all.
With a deep breath, she stepped through it into another narrow tunnel. She ran her hand along the wall and felt his warding in place. Bingo.
She was quiet as a mouse as she stalked forward. A secret entrance into the market. She almost beamed with excitement. Because if there was a secret entrance . . . that meant there was a secret exit.
And she liked exits.
Not just that—she desperately needed this one.
Walter’s footsteps were heavy ahead. With the din of the market gone, she realized he tromped like an arrogant fool. He had no need to step quietly, to learn stealth. Not with his ability. Graves had said magic had consequences. And Walter had learned to not fear pain or retribution, because who could touch him with his force fields up? He’d gotten careless. She could exploit that.
She walked behind him until they came to a fork. To her shock, this fork was labeled. She listened for Walter going on ahead to the left. But the right read RESIDENCE.
Walter’s home? Or King Louis’s? Was this the back entrance into Track 61?
The tunnel she was on said MARKET. But the one Walter walked down wasn’t labeled, which meant she needed to find out where exactly he was going.