Which meant we were walking into a trap, of course.

“Where do you think Sarren will be?” Kanin asked quietly. The Master vampire gazed over the water, observing the city with dark, impassive eyes. Jackal shrugged.

“Only one place he would be.” He pointed to where a tall, narrow skyscraper stood against the skyline. A light shone near the top, bright and familiar, making my skin prickle with recognition.

Jackal’s tower. The place I’d met my blood brother for the first time. Where we’d fought, on the top floor of the building, and he’d nearly killed me.

The place where Jebbadiah Crosse had died.

“It’s the only building in the city that still has power,” Jackal continued, staring up at the tower and the flickering light at the top. “And you can see everything that’s going on below.

If I were Sarren, that’s where I would be.”

“Then that’s where we’re going.” The light shimmered across the water, taunting me, and I felt my fangs slide out.

Sarren was close. This time, I wouldn’t just cut off his arm.

This time, I was going for his head.

“I suggest we do so quietly,” Kanin interjected, his low, calm voice breaking through my sudden hate. “Sarren knows we’re coming, and the whole city will be on high alert. If we can, we should avoid alerting them to our presence. It would be wiser to deal with Sarren first, before confronting the rest of the army. If we remove their new king, they will have lost their reason to fight us.”

Jackal snorted. “Sneak into my own city and skulk around like a sewer rat,” he muttered darkly, shaking his head. “Oh, heads are going to roll for this. I’m going to set up a special lane and use their skulls for bowling balls.”

Ignoring him, I glanced at Kanin. “How are we going to sneak in?”

My sire gave a tight smile. “I expect the roads will be well guarded, but slipping into a flooded city is not hard. As large as this army is, they cannot watch the whole river.”

Great. Looked like we were going for a swim.

Chapter 6

We crossed the river easily, as silent as the shadows that clung to the waves. Thankfully, though there was a thin sheet of ice clinging to the edges of the bank, the rest of the river was clear. And navigating large bodies of water wasn’t difficult if you didn’t have to worry about things like breathing or hypothermia. We slipped below the hulk of the huge barge, vampire sight piercing the pitch-black waters, as we continued into the flooded streets of Jackal’s territory. Fish glided past us in large schools, flitting through an eerie underwater world of drowned buildings and submerged roads, rusty cars lining the pavement. A massive dark shape, almost as long as me, swished by my head, making me grit my teeth. Kanin had assured me that fish could not become rabid—and Jackal had laughed at the question—but I had no issues with drawing my katana underwater and slashing the next thing that came out of the depths toward me.

Above us, the city was silent. Bridges and walkways sat empty, platforms were deserted and still. Nothing moved overhead, and the ominous silence began to eat at me. This was a trap; I knew it, and the others had to know it, but there was nothing we could do except press forward. I’d face whatever Sarren could throw at me if it meant I would find him waiting at the end, with nothing between us but my katana.

“Careful.” Kanin grabbed my collar when we surfaced, drawing me back a pace. We’d come out beneath a bridge, a flimsy walkway of wood and metal that stretched from one roof to another. Puzzled, I frowned back at him, and he pointed to the underside of the planks.

A strange metal device had been taped to the bridge, wires poking out in every direction. I didn’t know what it could be, but the blinking red light on one corner looked fairly ominous.

“That’s why the city is deserted,” Kanin mused as Jackal looked up at the strange device and swore. “He likely has the whole place booby-trapped. Step on the wrong bridge, and it won’t be there anymore.”

“Huh,” Jackal remarked, gazing at the wired bridge with the hint of a smirk. “That must’ve taken him a while. Bastard sure went through a lot of trouble, just for us. I feel so special, don’t you?”

I paused. Something about Jackal’s comment didn’t feel right. “Why is he doing all this?” I asked as we began moving again, keeping well back from the mine. “Isn’t he trying to reach Eden? Why stop here?”

“I don’t know,” Kanin murmured, and he sounded troubled, too. “Perhaps he wants to stop us for good, so he can continue his plans undisturbed. But that does not seem like him.” His brow furrowed, and he shook his head. “Sarren is as unpredictable as he is brilliant and cruel. If he is in the city, he has a reason for it.”

“Does it matter?” asked Jackal behind us. “Who cares what he’s up to? He can be planning to fill the world with puppies, and I’m still going to rip the shriveled black heart from his chest and shove it down his throat until he chokes on it.”

A memory flickered to life then, making my stomach cold, and I whirled on Jackal. “Wait,” I said, as realization dawned.

“The lab! You had a lab set up at the top floor of your tower.

That’s why you kidnapped Jeb—you wanted him to develop a cure for Red Lung, and you had given him everything he needed to do it—”

“Well, shit.” Jackal raked a hand through his hair. “I forgot about that. Now I’m kinda embarrassed.”

“There’s a lab here?” Kanin echoed, his eyes grim. I nodded. “Then we must hurry. If Sarren uses that virus now, it will be New Covington all over again.”

“Great,” Jackal said as we struck out again, moving a bit faster now. “More bat-shit crazy bleeders. Hey, sister, here’s a riddle for you. What’s worse than infected killer psychos tearing their faces off?”

I frowned, confused for a moment, until it hit me. “Armed infected psychos tearing their faces off?”

“Bingo,” Jackal growled. “So if you do see any of my former minions, do me a favor and cut their heads off, hmm?

It’ll save me the trouble of burning this place to the ground after we kill Sarren.”

We encountered no resistance as we made our way toward the looming expanse of Jackal’s tower. Kanin did point out a few more mines and traps, stuck to bridges or placed innocuously along walkways. Sarren was definitely here, and had been expecting us for a while.

Put out all the traps you want, you psychopath, I thought as the shadow of the huge tower encompassed us, dark and threatening. Block the way, sic your army on us, do whatever you want. I’m still coming for you. And when I find you, one of us is going to die.

The last stretch to the tower was made completely underwater. Jackal took us down until we reached the cracked pavement of the flooded city, weaving through cars and rubble piles with the fish. The base of the tower rose from the riverbed, the front doors ajar at the top of the steps, but the raider king didn’t use the front entrance. Instead, we swam around back, slipping through a shattered window into what appeared to be an office. The remains of a desk sat disintegrating on the floor, silvery schools of fish darting through it.

We followed Jackal through the office door and into a long, pitch-black hallway. Chunks of wall filled the narrow corridor, and metal beams lay slantwise across the passage, forcing us to weave through or move them aside. I received a shock when I swam around a corner and nearly ran into a bloated, half-eaten corpse floating in the water. It was a good thing I didn’t have to breathe, because I snarled and quickly jerked back, filling my nose and mouth with river water as the corpse drifted by. Jackal turned, and I didn’t need to hear his voice to know he was laughing at me.