Blackbird Broken (The Witch King's Crown #2) - Keri Arthur Page 0,68

obviously wrapped in darkness. My gaze went to the manhole, but no one had come out as yet. I took a deep breath and flexed my free hand. It didn’t do a whole lot to ease the inner tension.

A few seconds later, a man in plastic-looking coveralls and knee-high wellies appeared. He climbed out of the manhole and casually looked around. I ducked behind the Land Rover, my heart pounding so fiercely it felt like a drum—and a loud one at that. When I looked back, the man in coveralls was studying the shadows haunting a doorway several buildings further down the street. Was that where Luc and Ricker stood? Did he suspect they were near? I had no idea and could only hope that he didn’t.

After another few seconds, he leaned down and said something, then pulled a phone out of a breast pocket and made a call. I flexed my fingers again. This was it.

I walked to the front of the Land Rover. It was out of the stranger’s direct line of sight, which meant there was less chance of him spotting me.

A black van appeared further down the street, and my pulse rate leapt. It was the same sort of van that had been involved in Reign’s attempted kidnapping.

Lightning flickered down Nex’s side, and her energy pulsed through me. Or maybe it was the other way around; it was hard to be certain, given the strengthening connection between me and these daggers.

The van crawled closer, its progress hampered by the evening traffic. I glanced back across the road; three men were now out of the manhole, but they were obviously waiting for others. None of them was our witch. Someone strong enough to bring down a building with such ease should radiate power. These three felt human, and that meant they were probably just guards.

I returned my gaze to the van. It wasn’t yet close enough to do anything about, and even if it was, I couldn’t react—not until everyone was out of the sewer.

It crawled closer. Four people were now standing inside the yellow triangle, and the witch behind the destruction still hadn’t appeared. Maybe he wouldn’t; maybe they’d decided it’d be unwise to bring him out too close to the scene of so much destruction …

But even as that thought crossed my mind, a small, youngish figure appeared. A halo of power surrounded him, but its force was muted. Spent. His skin had a gray tinge, and lines of dirt, or maybe even blood, trailed from the corners of his eyes. His face was gaunt and his shoulders so thin they looked pointed. Even his arms and chest … I stopped. Breasts. He was a she.

Why that sent such a deep wave of anger through me, I couldn’t really say. It wasn’t as if she was the first witchling we’d come across, and she certainly wasn’t the first halfling. Maybe it was just the knowledge that the dark elves would no doubt use her for breeding purposes once she’d hit puberty—if they weren’t already doing so.

I wished we could save her; I really did. But it was already far too late—and it wasn’t just the lack of both expression and animation in her demeanor telling me that. It was her tell—it ran deep with darkness. She hadn’t been as lucky as Jules—she’d been born and raised in Darkside. Its stain ran through all that she was.

I silently sent the gods a prayer for her soul to be granted a happier life next time around. Then I shifted my weight and drew Vita. Fire ran along her edge and then flicked across to Nex. The two were connecting without me crossing their blades.

The black van stopped in front of the barrier, much to the displeasure of the driver in the car behind him. As the horn blasted long and loud, the van’s window slipped down, and the driver made an obscene gesture at the car.

Which did not go down well at all. The car’s driver got out and stalked toward the van, shaking his fists and screaming abuse. I quickly sent a thin streak of lightning at the van’s rear tire. It burst with a loud pop, making the car driver jump and swing around. The van driver climbed out and lumbered forward. He was a thickset giant of a man with fists the size of shovels.

The car driver immediately held up his hands and backed away. The giant stalked to the tire, bent to study