‘Where is he?’ Flic demanded, taking Evie by the shoulders and shaking her so hard her head banged against the wall. ‘Tell me!’
‘You can’t kill him,’ Evie said. ‘They won’t let you.’
‘Who won’t let me? You think I need permission? What the hell’s stopped you?’
Cowardice, Evie thought. Because maybe I actually don’t have it in me, just like Victor said.
But instead of admitting this to Flic, all she said was: ‘There are more unhumans out there. Some Originals that got here before the way through closed. They’re up to something. And the Thirsters are multiplying. There are too many of them for us to handle. The others think we need Victor if we’re going to have any chance of fighting them and winning.’ She couldn’t hold Flic’s gaze. ‘They’re working with him. To destroy them.’
Flic’s hands fell from her shoulders. ‘You’re working with him?’ she asked in a flat voice.
Evie swallowed. She lifted her gaze briefly to meet Flic’s. ‘I’m not. The others are. Vero and Ash. And they won’t let me kill him until after this is done.’
Flic stared at her in disgust. Evie drank it up. She deserved it. She wished Flic would just start laying into her with the punches.
‘Well, I didn’t make any such deal,’ Flic said, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘So where is he?’ she demanded again.
‘Flic, you can’t go marching in there. He’s in a house with half a dozen Hunters. You’ll only get killed.’
Flic rounded on her, her dark hair flying like a cape, forcing Evie to shrink back against the wall. ‘You’re forgetting what I am,’ she said, her lip curling.
‘I’m not forgetting, Flic,’ Evie answered quietly, ‘but this guy killed Lucas. And he killed my parents and your parents.’
‘Exactly!’ Flic spat. ‘And you’re working with him.’
‘I’m not working with him,’ Evie protested. ‘I’m letting him live so that he can lead us to their lair. And then I’m going to kill him.’ Was she? Yes. This was why she’d come here – to see Flic. To have someone twist the knife back in her gut. But just as it seemed she was about to, Flic suddenly flopped back against the wall, her fists dangling useless at her sides and her shoulders slumping.
‘How are you going to fight them?’ she asked. ‘These Originals? What’s the plan?’
Evie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. They’re strong. And we don’t have many weapons. Not that weapons are any use. Only shadow blades work against them.’
‘I’ve got a shadow blade,’ Flic said.
‘Can we have it?’ Evie asked jokingly, knowing there was no way Flic would ever agree.
Flic ignored the question. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked instead.
‘You mean, doing what I was born to do?’ Evie asked wryly. She realised that Flic would never understand. She was part unhuman. They were natural-born enemies. ‘Flic,’ she sighed, ‘I have no fight with you. I have no fight with Jamieson or any Shifter. But these ones, they’re coming after us. Tracking Hunters and trying to kill us. Ash thinks the Originals are trying to rid themselves of any threat so that they can make this realm their own. It makes sense.’ She paused for a second trying to gather the right words and make a coherent sentence out of them. ‘I tried so hard to run away from it, but I’m a Hunter. That’s who I am, and you can’t run away from who you are any more than you can run away from fate. That’s what I learnt. You have to stand and fight eventually.’
Flic didn’t say anything for a while but then she spoke. ‘I’ve been hearing stories. Rumours. There are more unhumans around than there were before the gateway shut. Or so it seems. It’s crazy.’
‘Talking of crazy, there’s something you should know,’ Evie said.
‘What?’ Flic asked, suspicion instantly clouding her face.
‘Cyrus is back.’
‘From the dead?’
‘Yeah.’
It took a while for Flic to absorb the news. She blinked a few times. ‘Explain,’ she eventually said.
‘I can’t. He can’t. He doesn’t know where he was. He was found wandering naked around Bel Air or some place.’
Flic’s eyebrows shot up. ‘When?’
‘I’m not sure. They locked him up in a mental hospital. He escaped.’
‘The drama never ends with you, does it?’ Flic said, shaking her head.
Evie didn’t answer. They stood for another ten seconds in silence, Evie’s back still pressed against the wall of the narrow corridor. Suddenly Flic, who was still leaning against the opposite wall, slid down it into