Jagged, sharp-edged, and spiking like a heartbeat in the throes of an attack, unmistakable.But not, as she’d first thought, the terror that accompanied the spurting of blood and the shattering of bone.This was more like the fear that puddled around a hunted creature that has stowed itself away, desperate to avoid a predator.
Someone was hiding.
Someone was hiding… from us.
And while my nose might have picked up some clues, because everyone carries a unique scent based on their age, genetics, diet, and health, it told her more.It told her everything.Male, Were, young but not too young, muscular but flabby from too easy a life…
Familiar.
I thought back to the beginning of the month, when the leaders of the Were world and their entourages had come here to be presented to the new Pythia.It was tradition, whenever there was a change in the leadership of the supernatural world, and they were all about tradition.And this one couldn’t be avoided, even by someone who was desperately afraid that the Pythia would See more than he wanted.
As I now did.
A lot of strange things suddenly made more sense: a man running from a fight when doing so would undermine his new leadership role in front of his entire clan, when he outclassed his opponent in size and strength, when he had already gotten in one good hit that had staggered her and might get more, and in a setting where no one could easily interfere on her behalf.
But he ran anyway, like a beaten dog with his tail between his legs, because he was afraid, but not of me.He’d recognized somethinginme, something that had spooked him so badly that he couldn’t think straight, throwing him into a panic.Something familiar to him, too.
No one had questioned it at the time, not even me, because the mystery had been lost in the confusion, alarm, and pain that followed.I was questioning it now.And remembering a lot of other things that had gone largely unnoticed in the chaos of my recent life.
A Black Circle mage acting like a panicked schoolgirl, and taking terrible chances when his kind never did; Chayton, telling me that the symbols in that run-down hotel mostly guarded from spiritual attacks, like the the ghost beads I’d found scattered at a crime scene; Dave saying that many native beliefs included the idea that the souls of the dead could return to this world, whether to harm or to protect; Jen identifying the chindi on Hargroves, but saying they were limited in what they could do; a corpse with a ripped-outheart—
It was crazy, but it fit: a dark mage finding that the chindis he’d been binding were insufficient to help him with his campaign to gain control of a Relic army.So he raised something else, something bigger, somethingold,and got more than he bargained for.Resulting in him losing control of said spirit because it found its own agenda—and its own host.
But where did the Reaper fit in?And me—what the hell was up with me?And why was my third remembering things from freaking prehistory?
I didn’t know for sure, but I knew one thing.The man she’d known, and who she had been searching all over Vegas for, had been here.There was just no doubt, not with that scent in my nose, that deathly worry staining the boards of the floor, thatfear—
That the Pythia would See.That she would know.What he was, what he’d done, what heplanned.
Not revenge for a father killed a month ago, but for a whole tribe done to death in the distant past.When Rand’s power had been shattered so completely that it still hadn’t recovered.When it had lost its right to rule, its lands, everything, because one woman had stood up and said no.
And still did.
Name him, the harsh demand washed across my mind, because she hadn’t been party to most of this, had she?Having the same problem I had when she was awake, being only partially aware.But I had been there, and I was smelling him now, the scent as clear as day in my mind, along with the name.
“Bleddyn.”
I spoke aloud, and my voice was so hoarse that the humans—the Pythia, Carales, half a dozen vampires—didn’t understand.
But my counterpart did.
I felt her lips draw back from her teeth, a single terrifying motion, or so I assumed.Because the vampires yelled and shoved the Pythia behind them, Jen cursed, and Sophie grabbed for my arm.Too late because we were already running, Changed again, but into my wolf form this time, to move faster while not losing that scent.
Chapter Forty-One
The lengthy run that followed was a blur with only snippets of lucidity, because I wasn’t the one in charge.I vaguely saw us darting through the gaps between buildings like a shadow, unseen even in broad daylight, although not because we were invisible.But because something buried deep in everyone’s lizard brain suddenly decided to notice other things.
My counterpart paused several times, making me think she must have lost the trail, which wasn’t surprising.I was more surprised that she’d found it to begin with.The hot, dry air and high UV levels in Vegas evaporated scents almost as soon as they were laid, making tracking a nightmare.
You could pick up occasional hints here and there, even of older smells if they’d ended up somewhere protected like a parking garage or shaded alley.But tracking was possible only if the trail was fresh, really strong, or regularly reinforced.Otherwise, whatever the sun and wind didn’t get, the low humidity would, causing scent molecules to disperse quickly, and that was in the desert.
The city was worse, with layer upon layer of competing smells, which was probably why she paused at a corner, where a garbage truck had passed hours earlier, shedding enough stench to confuse even the best of noses.And then again near several eateries with ripe Dumpsters in the back.The crowds of people also didn’t help, adding a mix of sweat, sunblock, alcohol, and body odor to the hot soup, and that didn’t even account for traffic.
Cars, trucks, and motorcycles coughed up exhaust everywhere, dripped oil, and shed smells from their interiors, which the air conditioning sent blasting out in long streamers behind them.These crossed and crisscrossed each other constantly, thousands of times an hour, leaving a woven fabric of odor so thick that it felt like the valley was lying under a blanket.Even a fresh trail was difficult to track under those circumstances, which was why Ulmer and his boys had had such trouble tracking Rand.
And nobody had blamed them, because nobody could have done better.
Except for her.Somehow, my counterpart sorted through a morass of unfamiliar smells to follow a trail more than a week old, and not one of those laid down by the retreating clans to confuse matters.But Bleddyn’s,the one he’d left when fleeing the hotel on the night of the duel.
