Shadow Thief - Eva Chase Page 0,87

not just for the practical implications but for his own sake as well.

Mortals and their fickle emotions.

“What of it if he’s dead?” I said. “The trail we were following is dead. All the answers we found centered around this man. Without him, we have no more than when we started at the bridge.”

Snap stirred as if he might have argued that point, but then he grimaced. There was no arguing it. We’d been focused on his Merry Den from the start, narrowing in closer and closer on that target—and here we were. He’d already checked all over the bridge; that was the only distinctive detail we’d found to follow up on. We’d lost all direction.

It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been faster yesterday, if I’d managed to track Meriden’s path from here to begin with. I’d lost him when it’d been our last chance to use him. Just as I’d lost Omen to begin with, lost our freedom when those hunters had descended on us afterward…

I had no justification for it. I’d failed again, pure and simple. While these ruthless mortals did darkness only knew what to Omen—while he might be barely clinging to life—if he wasn’t already dead, that was. Every one of us standing around Meriden, even the lady, knew that the one we’d set out to save might have been dead before Sorsha had ever freed us from our cages.

He’d almost certainly end up dead regardless when I couldn’t serve him better than this. I’d meant for this time to be different. I’d had a mere three colleagues to defend. It should have been the easiest task.

Sorsha’s lips pursed, but the motion didn’t change the hopelessness etched on her face. The incubus sucked in a breath and glanced down the street. He attempted to conjure a little optimism with his tone. “There is the minivan to consider.”

“Do you really think they’ll keep using the same vehicle after this?” Sorsha said. “Or that they’ll have registered the plates in any way that would let us hunt them down? These are people who’ll do this to a guy just to make sure their tracks are covered.” She swept her arm toward the marred corpse.

The devourer shifted closer to her. “At least it wasn’t you.” His sharpened devotion showed in every inch of his posture, however that had developed.

He was right, though. I had achieved that one small victory: the mortal who’d rescued us from shameful captivity was still alive and reasonably well. For however much longer I could maintain that state of events.

“It’s a long shot, but—” Ruse crouched down and checked the man’s pockets, avoiding the bloody parts of the body as well as he could. Coming up empty, he sighed and straightened back up. “They thought of just about everything, like always.”

As I was about to suggest we leave before our enemies also thought of sending a new pack of soldiers after us, Sorsha’s chin came up. Her eyes gleamed with a ferocity that burned most of her despondency away.

“Just about, but not everything. They’ve never been able to predict everything we’d be able to do—the connections we’ve made, the skills we have.”

She turned to Snap. “You can taste impressions off inanimate objects. I know there’s something different about it with living beings, something you want to avoid—but he’s not alive anymore. Can you test him and see what comes up, just like Thorn could take the drunk guy who attacked me into the shadows after he was dead?”

The devourer’s eyes widened. He stared down at the corpse with a nervous flick of his tongue between his lips. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried that before.”

Ruse had brightened at the suggestion. “It certainly can’t hurt to give it a shot, can it? It’s not as if you could hurt him now. You certainly can’t kill him any more than he’s already been murdered.”

I didn’t know exactly what had soured Snap so thoroughly against his own greatest power, but his whole body had tensed despite the incubus’s words. I squared my shoulders, preparing to order him to make the attempt with the full impact of my presence, but Sorsha spoke up first.

She touched his arm, her expression softening in a way that sent a twinge I couldn’t explain through my chest. “The thought of doing it reminds you of whatever happened before, doesn’t it?”

He nodded with a jerk, his gaze still fixed on the body. “I know it isn’t the same. Ruse is right about everything he said.