I couldn’t imagine the others would stick around long after he was killed. Silas had made too many enemies. Once his reign of terror came to an end, it would be open season on any hunters left in the Quarter.
A familiar alertness crept over me as I navigated the back streets and alleyways. The throb of bass emanating from the bars and clubs on Crimson Row tickled my skin, and every drunken shout and scuff of footsteps made me reach for my weapons.
My hair was braided in a crown that sat low against the back of my head, and I was armed with every piece of steel I owned, as well as a few wooden stakes. The cipher was a comforting weight against my left thigh, carefully wrapped in one of Imogen’s T-shirts and secured in a leather pouch.
I stuck to the shadows where the neon signs didn’t reach until I found the block where I knew Silas’s house was hidden.
Ducking behind a rusted-out brown sedan that sat on cinder blocks, I reached into the pouch and withdrew the cipher. The brass wheels gleamed in the glow of the streetlamp, pristine despite the dust that had gathered in the velvet casing.
Setting it down in the grass, I drew the witchwood dagger and brought the tip to my finger. The moment I wet the blade with my blood and fitted the tip into the hole, the instrument came to life. Golden light flooded the street — so brilliant I worried about the attention it would bring.
Squinting through the brightness, I saw the outline of runes glistening against the dilapidated houses. Then the tiny brass crank began to turn, spinning the wheels along with it.
I became aware of that familiar magic that had first ledme to Mankara’s book. It danced over my skin as the wheels spun faster, branding the backs of my eyelids with those ancient symbols.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the hum of magic intensified, the flickering runes fading into a blur of golden light.
The power coursed over me in uneven waves, numbing my skin and causing my teeth to click together. I gripped my witchwood blade so tightly that I felt the engravings digging into my flesh, branding me with the same runes that were unspooling from the cipher.
After a few minutes, the thrum of magic ebbed away, and the light faded along with it.
When I finally peeled my eyelids open, my jaw went completely slack. An intricate golden web spanned overhead — large enough to encompass the entire city block. Beneath it, smaller nets of golden thread glowed above houses and thresholds, each with its own unique pattern of magic woven into a protective field.
I gasped.
It was as if a veil had been lifted, revealing the magic beneath. The cipher was showing me every ward in the vicinity — spells and enchantments designed to keep the homes here protected. I couldn’t believe that I had walked this street nearly every night for the last five years, unaware of the magic that blanketed the houses.
Lifting my gaze to the sprawling golden web, I concentrated on seeingbeyondthose threads of power to what lay hidden beneath.
As if the cipher could feel the need for vengeance humming in my blood, the runes shot out to join the glowing golden threads, tugging here and there as though testing for weakness.
Almost immediately, the web started to unravel — golden strands of power flowing back into the cipher like thread being wound on a spool.
Bit by bit, the careful shield began to disintegrate until only the lesser wards on the houses around me winked in the darkness. With a whir and a click, the cipher’s cover snapped closed, trapping the magic within.
I blinked a few times, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim artificial light cast over the sidewalk and snarls of grass that crept along it.
There, in the center of a lot choked by weeds and brush, stood the neglected brick house where I’d lived under Silas’s thumb for five long years.
Everything was exactly the same, down to the bent metal post where one of the other hunters had gotten drunk and backed into it. Staring across the street at the familiar house, it was difficult to believe that something so solid and real could stay hidden from view.
Gathering up the cipher, I wrapped it carefully in Imogen’s T-shirt and slid it back into my leather pouch. I tucked the pouch in the front seat of the rusted-out car and pulled an old piece of cardboard over it. It was too bulky for me to carry. It would only get in the way.
Steeling myself for what I knew I had to do, I turned toward Silas’s house. The lights were off on the first floor, but my gaze swept to the porch. I half expected to see a tiny pinprick of light piercing the dark — the cherry of Silas’s late-night cigarette — but found only a faint glow coming from one of the upstairs bedrooms.
Silas’s room.
Blood pounded in my ears as I crossed the street,angling my path along the side of the house toward the window with the broken latch.
Perching on the end of a cinderblock half buried in the dirt, I lifted the window and strained my ears for any sound beyond the tick of the downstairs clock and the ceaseless hum of the refrigerator.
Upstairs, a window air-conditioning unit gurgled and rattled in Silas’s bedroom — the only one in the house. If I reached out with my hunter senses, I could just make out the faint snores coming from the floor above.
Silas was asleep.
I fought the automatic swell of relief that blossomed in my chest. Hunters were notoriously light sleepers. One wrong move — even the tiniest noise — and Silas would be down here in an instant.
Peeling back the broken window screen, I heaved myself over the sill, still listening intently. No one stirred in the upstairs bedroom, so I hauled my legs over the ledge and slid into the kitchen.
