Dreadlocks waved the bill away with a grimace of disdain. “End of the world, man. What the fuck is that paper going to do for me? For any of us?”
“It’ll get you off the street.” Just tell me where.
“I can get me off the street. I’m here by choice. I’m here because here is real. It’s you and your fancy shirt that are shit, man. You live in the dark; you just don’t know it.”
Adam kept his voice calm, his expression controlled even though he wanted to grab the punk by the throat. “I want to see, too. Help me see so I can find her.”
“If she’s here, she’s inside. Or she should be. Tally likes to live dangerously. Doesn’t trust anybody. I offered her a place in my family, but she refused. Where she’s got to now, I don’t know.”
Adam’s chest burned, an emotion he couldn’t name breaching containment. He glanced down at the photograph in his hand. “I never said her name.”
“Well, I told you I’d seen her. You didn’t believe me?” Dreadlocks grinned, spreading his arms wide to invite a laugh at Adam’s expense from his crew. The group tittered on cue.
Adam didn’t care as long as he got information.
“Well then, maybe now you’ll believe me about the demon night,” Dreadlocks said.
Adam already believed. “Where inside?” Please.
Dreadlocks sighed. “Try Priest, man. North of Santa Maria. Mountainside.”
“Priest?” Adam controlled himself through a long inhalation, though his heart pumped to act. He kept a choke hold on his hope.
“They’re roads, man. You know what a road is?”
Only Jacob ever talked down to him, but Adam was too grateful to be irritated.
“I get that you don’t want my money.” Adam stopped and corrected himself. “Don’t choose my money. But it’s all I have to give. That and my thanks.” He pulled out his wallet, took every bill in the leather sheath, thumbed a couple of business cards—the personal ones with his direct mobile number—and held them out. When Dreadlocks didn’t lift a hand, Adam dropped the lot on the ground.
“Call me if you ever need anything. If you want to tell me more. If you are in trouble.” He lifted his gaze to the crowd of kids. “Goes for all of you. If your demons are what I call wraiths, you’re going to need my help. Now get inside.”
Adam jogged back to the car, his body humming with anticipation. He glanced over his shoulder toward the bonfire glow of the setting sun, and then faced Custo.
Custo must have read the excitement on his face. “She’s alive,” he concluded.
“Calls herself Tally.” Adam could barely speak over the buzzing in his ears.
“Where?”
“Priest and Santa Maria.”
“A church?” Custo typed rapidly into the rental car’s GPS.
“Roads, man.”
Black spots swam in Talia’s vision. If she twitched her eyes left, the spots skated left. If she twitched them right, the spots skated right. No matter how hard she tried, she could never examine one of the spots dead-on. Bothersome game. Like keep-away from childhood, but more frustrating because the pastime—and that’s all it was good for, passing time—made the intense pounding behind her eyes worse. Nauseatingly so.
She gave up for the moment and focused down the alley on the soul-sucking monster at its entrance. Talia was trapped at the other end in a belly made of concrete wall and pavement. The hulking brute blocked the exit of the garbage lane to her apartment complex to stand sentry, to watch for her as he’d done when he caught up with her in Denver, then Las Vegas.
This time she had spotted him first and turned down an unfamiliar alley rather than ducking through the gate to the complex’s square of scraggly lawn where a couple of teenage girls had set out chairs to sun themselves. Stupid to ruin their skin and cost her an escape route. But she couldn’t very well lead the monster to vibrant young lives. Not after Melanie. Therefore, the alley.
She’d been here a day and a half and smelled just as bad as the garbage. Good thing her shadowy shield obscured more than light or the monster would have discovered her that first day. The dark cloak dampened most sensory perception of her; sight, smell, and sound all concealed under its folds. With the exception of her pulse, she was a shrouded ghost.
Talia worked her thick and uncooperative tongue on the roof of her mouth to swallow. Frustrating reflex—nothing but glue to work with, and the motion made her lungs burn.
A day and a half. Sooner or later something would have to give.
Talia crept forward, palms and knees on blazing pavement, around the side of a sagging yellow mattress that inclined against the back wall of the alley. The small movement set her heart beating wildly, and the throb in her head intensified. But it was worth it. From this position, the cast of her strange shadows matched the trajectory of the sun’s waning light, affording her the chance to rest against the musty but soft mattress.
As soon as her head dropped back against the pillowed surface, the world upended, vision blanked, sound roared in her ears as unconsciousness tried to swallow her. She fought back. Blinked hard. Shook her head. Forced the world back into focus. Her gaze darted to the monster.
He had pushed away from the wall and turned to face down the length of the alley, nose in the air, sniffing. Gaze searching.
Talia grabbed at her shadows, eyes wide and dry, fixated on the monster that had scented her. She gathered the darkness tightly to her so her shield would not slip off again.
No resting. Head stays up.
The monster strode the alley’s length, pausing at the gated walkway leading to the apartment commons to sniff, then moved deeper into her corner. He pulled the mattress off the concrete wall, swaying over her position. His pant leg brushed her cheek.
She held her breath. If she were going to die, she wouldn’t need oxygen anyway. Breathe and die. Don’t breathe, maybe die. Every decision was much simpler when reduced to an exercise in logic.
The mattress toppled sideways, twitched aside as the monster strode by her, back to his position at the end of her alley.
Talia held herself upright, the black spots in her vision growing, obscuring sight. Her head full of static fuzz, she was going to throw up.
Okay, now breathe. In. Out. Again.
No way she could remain upright. Gravity, inertia, and the last dregs of the flamingo sunset all conspired to lower her to the ground. But she kept her eyes open.
Just a little longer. Breathe.
Adam and Custo pulled up to a busy intersection. Cars rushed by with bright headlights, windows down, music blaring. The desert deepened with twilight as night-blooming flowers filtered dusky-sweet fragrance over exhaust. Custo parked along the street. Adam jumped out of the car while Custo listened to his mobile phone, face drawn in concentration as he waited for a detailed crime report for the neighborhood.
Adam took in the layout of the intersection. All the day’s untapped energy, anxiety, and tension transmuted into a certainty that lit a fire in his chest. She was here somewhere.
To the north, small single-story houses butted against tall cinder block walls. The houses broke off abruptly at what appeared to be an old strip of stores. A dirty gas station occupied another corner. To the east, an office building of four or five stories. And behind him stood an apartment complex. Large lettering on the side of the building read MOUNTAINSIDE.
It’s an apartment complex, man. Dreadlocks was one cocky son of a bitch.
Adam waved Custo toward the entrance. “You find the super.”