She steps into my arms. “I’m sorry, Striker,” she says. “I’m sorry for what Father did to you.”
I hug her closer. I can’t tell her it’s okay, because it wasn’t. But I can tell her that we can move beyond it. “It’s a new day, Zara.”
“Second chances,” she whispers.
It’s a long moment before she steps back and wipes the tears from her cheeks. “What are you going to do?”
I’ve already decided. I just needed a little more information before I followed my instincts. “I’m going to ask for a meeting between the serpent shifter and me. I’m going to forge a new peace.”
I have no doubt that both the serpent shifter and the dark entity are on the assassins’ radar. If those beings haven’t been taken down by assassins yet, then it will be for good reasons. My alliance with the assassins means I can trust them to take action when they’re ready. In the meantime, I will act to keep my loved ones safe.
Zara’s eyes have become wide. “A meeting… But the serpent could kill you.”
I give her such a broad smile that I feel my eyes crinkle at the corners. “Could he, though?”
She doesn’t buy my bravado, the worry in her voice hitting me hard. “Striker… I can’t lose you… I can’t let you walk into a death trap?—”
“I won’t choose war,” I say firmly. “If I choose war, then we’ll never stop fighting, and I’ll lose everything anyway.”
Taking hold of her shoulders, I continue, “Tell me what you can about our father’s contacts within the dark entity’s organization. I’ll approach one of them and broker a deal myself.”
I won’t endanger Zara with this task.
The path to peace is mine to walk.
But even as I’m resolved, I quietly recognize that my purpose is beyond that of forging peace for myself and my company.
If my life is filled with bloodshed, then I can never offer Peyton a future. I can never give her what she deserves.
I have to build a life, not break it.
If facing death is what it takes, then that’s what I’ll do.
15. PEYTON PRICE
For the next two weeks after my encounter with the woman in the park, I barely sleep.
I fight the constant fear that one or more of the bones will surface, that its power will be exposed for the shortest heartbeat of time like my sisters described about the White Wand, but that I’ll miss it.
Even as I tell myself that won’t be possible, that the enormous power of the bones would surely wrench me even from sleep, my fear remains.
At the same time, my search for Vanguard continues. Logically, if he is also looking for the bones, then finding him can only help me.
While I scope out the Tavern that the woman in the park pointed me towards, my sisters spend their nights quietly hunting in all of the dark entity’s past and present known locations, systematically searching for the bones or anyone who knows anything about them.
Each night, I conceal myself in the shadows of the service alley at the side of the Tavern, which makes it easy for me to wait and watch for Vanguard to make an appearance.
Curiously, so far, the only people to enter and leave the Tavern have been humans. While I sense supernaturals going about their business in the surrounding streets and nearby dark alleys, the Tavern itself appears human-dominated.
I recognize some of them as associates of human mobsters and gangsters, and, even more curiously, many of them are enemies. Yet, no fights break out between them. When I ask my sisters about it, they confirm that all human mobsters, even if they are enemies, ultimately bow to the dark entity.
When I asked my sisters why they would do that, my sisters gave me cold smiles and said,Because the entity protects them from human authorities. With his power behind them, they continue to thrive. They may fight with each other, even try to destroy each other, but they will never betray him.
Now, I creep to the corner of the alley to keep a closer eye on the front of the Tavern. The air here smells sweet and cloying; scents from the flowering vines creep across the alley wall. The top of the front wall of the Tavern itself is also decorated with vines and flowers, but those are painted, not organic.
From what I’ve seen from the outside, inside the Tavern is a regular restaurant. But I also have a strong sense of magic around the structure, beginning with the painting on the front wall, and then intensifying toward the back of the building.
Frustratingly, I can’t sense what might be behind, or even beneath, the Tavern. There are forces of magic within this place that are just as obscured as the woman in the park’s thoughts and intentions.
