couldn’t follow.
“He might need me to test the area,” Snap said, and wavered away an instant later.
As Ruse drove by the alley I thought Meriden had taken, I peered down it, but he’d disappeared as effectively as the shadowkind had. The incubus eased to a stop at the end of the block and idled there.
The minivan was long gone. As far as I could tell, there was no one around to make note of us. But I’d thought that before and been wrong.
I twisted to scan the street. “Do we just wait for Thorn and Snap? Should we be searching for Meriden too?”
Ruse appeared to make a quick deliberation. “Let’s keep driving—it’ll look less suspicious if anyone is monitoring the area, and maybe we’ll spot our target somewhere around the block.”
He circled around, and I leaned closer to the window, studying every doorway, window, and alley. The gloomy structures showed no sign of life at all, like giant, rotting carcasses of beasts slain long ago. An engine thrummed in the distance, but whatever vehicle the sound came from, we never saw it.
Ruse continued on a block farther, to where a rusty crane creaked in the wind over the river. He looped back around with a rough sigh. “Hopefully the Hulk had better luck.”
We were just coming up on the street where we’d left Thorn and Snap when both of them slipped out of the shadows into their seats with a shudder through the air. Ruse eased over to the curb and cut the engine.
Thorn didn’t wait to be asked. His voice came out taut with frustration. “We lost him. No trail to pick up. Snap couldn’t tell where he passed by.”
“If he didn’t touch anything closely enough with his body, it wouldn’t have left an impression I could connect to him,” Snap said in a mournful tone. “Many shoes walked over that ground; I couldn’t taste any that were definitely his.”
“Quite the system this group has worked out,” Ruse said. “I’d be impressed if it wasn’t so irritating of them.”
Thorn’s shoulders tensed. “It’s more than irritating. It’s unacceptable. At every turn, they get the better of us, foil every measure we’ve taken. We fumble along while Omen faces who knows what torment—” He stiffened even more at the sound of footsteps outside.
An older man came into view, heading into our street from down by the river behind us. Not Meriden—his hair a mix of mouse-brown and silver, his shorter frame slightly slumped. But without a word, Thorn whipped open the door, sprang out of the car, and charged past my window.
A sound of protest burst from my throat. I jerked around to see the massive shadowkind barreling toward the man as if he meant to knock him right off his feet. For the love of little baby elephants, what was he thinking?
I hesitated for just a second, and then I leapt out after him.
The man had halted in mid-step at the sight of the colossus closing in on him, but Thorn didn’t so much as slow down. He slammed his hand into the man’s chest and yanked the front of his polo shirt up to his chin. The man swayed backward, scrambling on tippy-toe to keep his feet on the ground.
“What do you know about the man who got out here?” Thorn demanded.
“What?” his victim said in a reedy voice. “What man? When? I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“You must know something.”
“I swear, I was only walking by—there’s a shop down the street where they sell the only coffee my wife will drink.” He jerked his hand, and the plastic bag dangling from it rustled. “Please. I’d help you if I could.”
“Thorn!” I stopped on the sidewalk next to him, my throat constricting. “He’s just some random guy walking by. He wasn’t even near the drop-off spot.”
“That’s what they’d want us to think.” Thorn shook the man. “Whatever you’ve seen, whatever you know, you’ll tell me, now.” His voice had gone hard and cold as a winter freeze.
The guy was trembling, his toes barely scraping the ground. He couldn’t make anything more than a choked squeak now. I didn’t think Thorn was trying to kill him—but he might with that incredible strength, if he was too distracted by his need for answers to notice the full effect he was having on that mortal body.
I wasn’t completely sure the warrior wouldn’t turn that strength on me if I crossed him in this moment, despite debts owed. The breath left my lungs,