It surprised Sophie to see them waiting by the car when Micah took her downstairs. The one called Dante handed them each a heavy chain.
Micah put Sophie’s on for her. “Don’t take this off until I say, yeah?”
Sophie nodded, looking at the thing. Made of what looked like old iron nails, complete with rust, she knew it was going to dirty the white shrug she wore. Although she’d never worn one, Sophie had read that iron was a protection against fae creatures. As they slid into the car, Sophie asked, “We are going to see a fae?”
“No, we are going to see a naiad, but she lives in a bogach. You know what that is? Nasty place, baby. And I don’t trust any of those water monsters that live. They are as bad as the onryoin the barrens.”
“Onryo?” The word was unfamiliar to Sophie, and in a language she didn’t recognize.
“The ghosts that eat people,” Dante explained from the back seat.
Micah said, “Sophie, tell them about your brother and his friends. They get around more than I do, and Dante has an ear, listens so good even my enemies forget he’s related to me. You said his friends had diamond tattoos?”
He was going to help her? Sophie looked at him, hopeful, but his eyes were on the road. “Yes. On their knuckles.”
“Hollow or solid?” Jumper asked.
“Hollow.”
“And what did the guys look like? Related at all?” Dante asked.
“No, not related.” She had to think for a minute. Her daily routine was a late morning walk to the bakery, then through the park to the brood house where the library was.
Once a part of the college her parents attended, now vampir owned, the vampir now used all of Hyde for their own purposes. Red-bloods were owned, or in service. They permitted no humans to claim property in any of the vampir held places. On several occasions during her daily trek across the park, she saw Alexi with his friends, but never up close. She tried to meet them face to face—find out what Alexi was doing with strangers—but he jogged over to meet her before she got within a reasonable speaking distance, and deliberately tried to block her view. Sitting on a bench, wearing baseball caps and dark glasses, she made out those diamond marks when one of them took a sip of a drink from a paper cup. She shared what she knew. The baseball caps, glasses, and shoes—they wore the kind with the red swoosh that was hard to find. Both wore t-shirts, showing off fit arms. “One of them, Pek, was hairy. Really hairy—head, beard, upper body.”
Dante leaned forward, as if to be sure she heard his answer. “Ranalf’s boys for sure. And the other one, Eli? He’s Unnbjorn’s son. They are always together.”
Micah said, “Risky for them to be at that park in Hyde, talking to a known vampir kid.”
“I don’t have a clue why they would leave South Bloc. But they are errand boys, trying to earn respect with Ranalf. You know how he is.”
“Risking his own people, betraying his own people, if he thinks it will get him somewhere,” Jumper said with a bitter snarl.
Sophie heard a rumble next to her, Micah, growling in displeasure. “I told Avó I would leave it. I told Alder I would leave him alone, too. But if this is Ranalf’s shit, I’m done. Add that to your list of things for after we visit Syrinx.”
The men didn’t complain, but the mood in the car turned dark. She tried to lighten it, remembering Jumper’s fear of missing out on food. “Who is Avó?”
“Oh, just the best cook in all of South Bloc with her daughter second in line.” Jumper answered with relish. Clearly, this was a subject he liked.
“The woman is a saint. She’s everyone’s grandmother,” Dante added.
“Human. But she is old for your kind… eighties, nineties? Shit if I know. Can’t tell. She always smells like steak and peppers to me,” Jumper said.
That made Micah laugh, and Sophie felt some of the tension drain.
“She is a grand old bruja,” Dante said.
Sophie glanced to the back seat at the same time Micah reached out, opening his hand over her thigh. “She is a seer,” Micah clarified.
“It’s her birthday, so there’s going to be food like you’ve never seen, chica. I don’t know where they get it from,” Jumper said.
“Don’t ask.” Dante put in.
“Dishes from all over your world, but mostly South America. And the meat. Between the BBQ and the oven, the pig and the cow, seasoned, smoked, and served. The best food.”
Sophie couldn’t imagine it. The vampir did not feast. They were haughty and proud, but not decadent. An important dinner with them meant blood wine and the raw, sliced meat of an enemy. Sophie never ate with them and had hoped to never have to.
Jumper started talking about the food, and no one stopped him. Outside the car’s windows, the area no longer looked like South Bloc. The trees were wider, denser, their arms arching and criss-crossing, a latticework against the skin. The sun now blocked, shadows grew, moved. Some of them had unnatural shapes.
