Blackbird Broken (The Witch King's Crown #2) - Keri Arthur Page 0,25
those being fucked, tortured, and hacked …
I blinked, suddenly realizing I wasn’t imagining it—there were people screaming.
As I instinctively stepped back, a pulse of power flickered around the arch and the door began to open.
I got the hell out of there.
I’d barely made it to the nearest tree when a figure exited the pipe and scrambled up the drain’s grassy bank. It wasn’t Winter—not unless he could utterly alter both his shape and height, and that was unlikely. Most shape shifts involved magic, and halflings weren’t capable of it. Besides, there was no such thing as a witch who could alter their human shape, and surely if the ability ever existed, it would have been nurtured and used. Assassins might be rare these days, but hundreds of years ago it had been a profitable and much sought-after profession.
This man was long and thin, with spindly arms and legs and a way of walking that was almost spiderlike.
An Aranea. Whether it was the same one or not, I couldn’t say, but I guessed it was possible—it just depended on how efficient the transport links were between the gates in Darkside.
He reached the top of the embankment and quickly looked around. Thankfully, he didn’t scan the trees, because the foliage in this one wasn’t particularly thick, and I had no doubt my white plumage would be visible.
He strode across the road and climbed into Winter’s car. Which meant either the car was a universal one, used by all the halflings from this gateway, or he’d been sent on an errand by Winter.
As the taillights flashed on, I dropped to the ground and rang Mo.
She answered with a quick, “Where are you?”
“On some country lane outside Ainslyn’s city limits. Winter went through a Darkside gateway, and I think it’s either a new one or one that’s never been registered.”
She swore softly. “That’s not the sort of news we need right now.”
There was something in her voice that had trepidation stirring anew. “Why? What’s happened?”
“We didn’t find an Aranea nest under the house. We found another unregistered gateway.”
A chill went through me. One unknown gateway might be brushed aside as an oversight, but two of them? In or around Ainslyn? That was highly unlikely.
“Why would Winter leave one gateway and drive all the way to another?”
“They don’t all enter the same area in Darkside, Gwen. It could also be that it’s easier to travel distances here rather than there.”
Given how little anyone really knew about Darkside, that was more than possible. “It does sound like they’ve learned how to make new gateways.”
“Or whatever caused the initial development of them has become active again. Either way, it is not a good sign.” I could almost see her scrubbing a hand across her eyes in frustration. “Has Winter come back out?”
“No. But another Aranea has, and he’s just jumped into Winter’s car. Do you want me to follow him, or stay and watch the dark gate?”
“It’s pointless staying—aside from the fact you can’t in any way close it, you’re weaponless. Follow the other halfling, but stay vigilant and keep me updated.”
“I will.”
I shoved my phone away and then flew after the Mercedes. He didn’t, as I half expected, head back into Ainslyn, but instead drove around it and continued on to Leeds. Thankfully, he didn’t appear to be in a hurry, so I was able to keep him in sight quite easily. He turned off before he reached the city, however, driving past a shopping center and down several residential streets before pulling into a lane lined with small, red-brick terraces.
He stopped in the driveway of the last house in the row but didn’t immediately get out. The lace curtains covering the one ground floor window twitched, and a pale face briefly appeared. It was a child—a little girl—not an adult.
That sense of trepidation grew. Why the hell would a halfling be sent to a house with a kid inside? Was the little girl also a halfling? Or was something stranger going on?
I flew on to the park at the end of the lane and, after a quick circle around to ensure no one was near, shifted shape and took up a position behind a tree so I could watch the house without being too obvious.
The spiderlike halfling still hadn’t gotten out of his car, but he was looking down at something in his lap. If he was sending a text, then it gave me a chance to call Mo.