taking over town. But now something – everything in fact – had changed. When he looked at this girl, mainly at her butt it had to be said at this second in time, as she stormed up the stairs ahead of him, he knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect her.
And their unborn kid.
OK, that was weird. He appreciated that was weird, even if only spoken in his head. And he hadn’t even fully started to analyse the weirdness of knowing his child was going to be the White Light. Would that be what they wrote on the birth certificate? He shook off the thought – it was a trip, the kind he didn’t want to take right now. The main thing troubling him was why he’d bring a child into the world knowing that that kid would have to face the kind of crap he was having to face. If there was ever an argument for using protection and not getting caught up in the moment …
He watched as Evie slammed through the fire escape on the landing, her expression set, her cheeks flushed. Hell, he could see how accidents happened.
Man, how was he supposed to handle this one? He couldn’t tell her, that much he knew for sure. She couldn’t ever find out. Or at least, not now. Not yet. Nor about the fact the way through was still open.
He needed to focus. His mum had thrown him for a ten-mile loop. But he needed to concentrate on later and the recce they were doing around Beverly Hills with Victor. They needed to figure out how to decimate these things, properly this time, without leaving any alive like they had done a thousand years ago. Good move, Elders.
If his mum was right and the way through was still open then they were in big trouble. Goddamn it to hell. That was the last time he tried to be a hero. It all made sense. Why he had been found wandering completely out of it in Beverly Hills – of all the places for a portal to other realms to open up. It also explained the spate of killings in the same area. The Originals were staying close, guarding it. He wondered if Victor had discovered it yet. He hoped not. Not given what had happened last time. Evie wouldn’t be safe if he had.
Cyrus stopped abruptly in his tracks, something that had been niggling at him, slotting into place and making a ripple of laughter rise up his throat. The prophecy had been right so far, hadn’t it? So that meant the rest of it was also likely to be right. Which meant that no matter what went on in the next week, or even the next nine months plus a bit (though who knew how much of a bit), both he and Evie were going to live long enough to make a baby.
He was grinning as he pushed open the door.
Chapter 31
Evie pulled the hood of her sweater up, sinking into the darkness that shielded her face, wishing that like Lucas or Flic she could fade and become completely invisible. She didn’t much feel like talking. Flic kept shooting her nervous glances out of the corner of her eye as they travelled along in the back seat of the taxi.
Cyrus’s words kept spinning around her head and she wanted to erase them. Thinking about it made her feel all sorts of complicated things she didn’t want to feel. It was taking her focus away from what she needed to focus on. Now when she closed her eyes, she wasn’t seeing Lucas, she was seeing Cyrus.
‘What did Cyrus have to say? What was the big secret?’ Flic asked.
Evie felt her cheeks flush. ‘Nothing,’ she said, a little too quickly. ‘No secret. He was just letting me know the plan for today.’
Flic’s eyes – dark mahogany brown today with the natural yellow forming a narrow halo around the edge – narrowed suspiciously.
‘So Victor is going to be there?’
‘Yes,’ Evie said.
Flic turned her head and looked out of the side window.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Evie whispered, so that the driver couldn’t hear, ‘but you can’t. Not tonight.’
‘Fine,’ Flic muttered, but Evie noticed the way her hand was caressing the handle of her blade.
She took her own in her palm and gently slid it out of its sheath. Tonight was just a recce, but better safe than sorry.
The taxi driver deposited them on the corner of North Crescent