Dusk Avenger (Flirting with Monsters #3) - Eva Chase Page 0,64

was afraid she’d vanish rather than tolerate his tone. But she wanted to dish her gossip more. “He lived in the sewer of all places. Near the spot where the busy road crosses the river.” She shuddered. “The one time I talked to him, he said no mortals would ever oust him there, but I could never tolerate it.”

“Thank you,” I said, and then, since the hellhound shifter had at least tried to support me in his overbearing way, added, “I don’t suppose you know about anyone named Ruby? Shadowkind might have come around asking about that name a while back too.”

“Ruby… Ruby… That does sound familiar. I thought if it’d been an actual ruby, I’d have cared more.” She tittered. “They were so insistent about it, but I don’t keep track of every being in this place.”

Nothing more than the gnome had told us about that one, then. Even less, really. “Thank you,” I said again anyway.

She bobbed her head and blinked away, shooting a hint of a glare at Omen just before she vanished. He simply rolled his eyes.

“I wonder why anyone was so interested in this Ruby shadowkind,” Snap said as we headed to the Everymobile. “It doesn’t sound as if the local beings even knew about them before the Highest sent their underlings around to ask.”

I knit my brow. “That’s a good point. If—she?—did something so offensive that the Highest shadowkind wanted to bring her in, wouldn’t someone have heard about what she actually did?”

“I think you’re missing the obvious,” Omen said in a dark tone.

“What do you mean?”

He looked over at me, his expression grim but not cold. “The search for this Ruby happened somewhere around the same time as your birth. We haven’t determined yet how you got your powers, which no mortal should have. Maybe Ruby was in the habit of imbuing shadowkind skills on beings that weren’t meant to have them.”

A chill pooled in my gut. “You’re saying—”

“I’m saying our two mysteries might almost be the same one. It’s starting to seem like an awfully big coincidence otherwise. Whoever this Ruby is, maybe it’s because of her that you are as you are.”

18

Sorsha

We figured the “busy road” the fae woman had mentioned was probably the highway that cut through the city—at least, it’d better be, because otherwise we’d be down in the channels of excrement for days. As Ruse drove along it toward the river, I peered out the window for promising-looking manholes. A mix of nervousness and excitement gripped me as tight as a toddler clutching her blankie.

We were going to talk to a shadowkind who might have been Luna’s closest friend, as shadowkind went. If anyone would know more about her history here and what had gone on with my parents, it’d be him.

Which also meant that if he didn’t know, the trail might run totally cold.

I drummed my fingers against the top of the sofa-bench and sang to settle my nerves. “Drive it by, we’ll watch for you, don’t plead or even move.”

Ruse let out a chuckle from the driver’s seat. “Are we going to ask this elf some questions or hold him up?”

“If we let Omen do the talking, it might end up being a combination of both.”

Antic smothered a giggle where she was perched on the edge of the table.

Omen bared his teeth at me, but only a little. Progress! “You’re assuming I’m coming with you into that dank place.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’d actually let me off the leash to handle things on my own?” I teased. “Not afraid of all the catastrophes I might cause down there?”

“You have occasionally managed to handle yourself acceptably.”

“I think you mispronounced ‘amazingly.’ Anyway, you’ll miss an excellent opportunity to show off your authority and all.”

“Perhaps I’d rather use that authority to avoid treading through sewage.” A glint lit in his eyes that was uncharacteristically playful. “I’d almost think you’re afraid to go down there by yourself, with all these attempts to badger me into coming along.”

Oh, he thought he could turn the tables on me that way, did he? I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue at him. I could be slightly more mature than that, this once.

“I won’t be alone. I’ll be accompanied by the shadowkind who think getting answers that could help us take down the Company is more important than steering clear of shit.” I patted Snap’s thigh where he was sitting next to me and Thorn’s elbow where he was standing beside the