Page 37 of Cry of Blood and Joy
The enforcer—a tall, pale creature whose human glamour couldn’t quite hide the predatory grace beneath—maintained a firm grip on Rocco’s arm as they headed toward the limousine. From the outside, it might have looked like a friend helping another friend who’d had too much to drink.
But I could see the white-knuckled tension in the enforcer’s fingers, the way Rocco’s feet seemed to move without his conscious direction. The Unseelie must have used some form of magical compulsion—glamour, perhaps, or one of their notorious mind-binding enchantments that turned free will into a distant memory.
A dark shadow swept overhead, blocking out the sun for a heartbeat and casting the street into momentary twilight. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees as I nearly choked on the scent of sulfur and something else—something that reminded me of rotting feathers. My head snapped up, eyes searching the sky through the limousine’s sunroof until I spotted them—sleek, predatory forms circling like vultures over carrion.
“Fuck—harpies.” The curse escaped my lips before I could stop it, my composure finally cracking under Keir’s escalating game. My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms as fury and helplessness warred in my chest.
I whipped my head around to give Keir a scowl that could have melted steel, my lips pulling back in a snarl that revealed more fang than was strictly polite. “You’re definitely not playing fair.”
“It’s not what you think, enforcer,” Keir said as he broke out into a smile—that infuriating, satisfied expression of a cat who had not only caught the canary but had also convinced it to fly directly into his claws. He took another delicate sip of his wine, completely unbothered by my rage, before setting the glass down with the soft clink of crystal against crystal. “They were insurance to make sure no one interfered.”
The harpies’ shadows continued to dance across the café’s cheerful facade, a reminder that even in broad daylight, in the heart of the French Quarter, nowhere was truly safe from the reach of those who commanded the darkness.
I scowled deeper. “Interfered? What do you mean?”
He tilted his head with practiced elegance. “See for yourself. Someone’s playing a dangerous game, a game we can’t afford to lose.”
As if on cue, the enforcer opened the door and Rocco slid into the plush interior with that same unsettling, dream-like compliance, his movements mechanical and wrong. The enforcer followed, settling into the seat across from us with the satisfied air of a job well done. The door closed with a soft, final click that sounded like a prison cell slamming shut.
Now we were all trapped together in this mobile tomb—Keir with his calm demeanor, the new enforcer radiating cold menace, Lorcan with smugness, and Rocco sitting like a beautiful puppet with his strings cut, staring at nothing with those frighteningly vacant eyes. The luxurious interior suddenly felt suffocating, the leather seats and polished wood trim transformed into the trappings of an elegant cage.
I narrowed my eyes at the Unseelie enforcer. “What did you do to him?”
Keir sighed heavily, his composure slipping just enough to show genuine concern. “He didn’t do anything to him.” He motioned toward Rocco with a gesture that seemed almost protective. “Nyx, since I last talked with you, did he tell you anything?”
Nyx shook his head grimly. “Sadly, no. However, he wasn’t able to run away. He’s been like this ever since he emerged from the police department.”
I observed Nyx, studying his pale, angular features, trying to maintain my composure. “How do you know this?”
Keir interrupted. “He’s my plant in the police department.”
I whipped my head in his direction.
He shrugged. “Nyx contacted me when he saw Rocco walking as if drugged, and that’s when I instructed him to take the prince to the Po’boy & Pour Over Café.”
Fuck. Someone was guessing my every move, but I didn’t think it was Keir. No, it was someone else.
“Rocco,” I said quietly.
He looked at me with those glazed, distant eyes, his lips parting as if to speak. But then his jaw clenched, his whole body going rigid with some internal struggle. “I won’t tell you,” he said finally, the words seeming to tear from his throat against his will.
I glared at Nyx. “Who did this to him?”
“I don’t know. But I heard he was asking questions about Maximo Barone’s death. I tried to retrace his steps and discovered that Barone wore cement shoes and was thrown in the Mississippi over a year ago.”
The ground shifted beneath me and I felt like I was teetering on a chasm. A year ago? But that made no sense—Keir had said the body was freshly discovered. Was I missing something?
That meant Barone had been dead even before Angelo bought Serenity. Someone had been orchestrating this for a very long time.
I met Keir’s gaze, pieces of the puzzle clicking into place with chilling clarity. “First someone impersonates the dead Barone and uses that identity to eliminate threats, then they impersonate Lorcan and steal the Anchoring Obsidian Stone. I can only think of one person who has the ability to shift into anyone he chooses—the Dark Demon Ari.”
“Agreed,” Keir said. “I suspect his shapeshifting powers have grown exponentially stronger. Strong enough that he canperfectly mimic anyone to the point where we won’t be able to distinguish the real person from his impersonation.”
“And we have another problem,” Nyx said. “Someone in the police department must be working with him. Or there’s another supernatural in play.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling a pulsing headache building behind my eyes like a jackhammer. “Balthazar? Could he and Ari be working together?”
“Possible,” Keir said, his fingers drumming against the crystal wine glass in a nervous rhythm. The soft tap-tap-tap filled the silence like a death knell. “With the Anchoring Obsidian Stone missing, I’m thinking Ari doesn’t want to open the Elder Dimension and send me and my family back.” His sparkling eyes darkened. “He plans to release Balthazar from his cage.”
