Evie turned instantly on her heel, heading straight for the door, fists raised, ready to fight her way out, but Lucas was blocking her way and she banged straight up against his chest. He caught her by the tops of her arms and the pressure of his hands instantly calmed her. She looked up into his eyes, saw the reassurance in them, and tried to steady her breathing. If Lucas had brought her here, she told herself again, then it was fine. There was absolutely nothing to panic about.
Just then the door slammed and Evie jumped. Lucas's grip on her tightened. The girl rammed home a bolt and then spun around to face them, her whole body resonating with anger. Maybe it wasn't so fine after all, Evie thought. She felt like a rat trapped in a tunnel and cursed herself silently for letting Lucas bring her here – for not listening to her instincts when she still had a chance. This girl was unhuman – she had to be.
Evie studied her in the gloom of the hallway. She looked human enough. There was nothing obvious to say that she wasn't – she didn't have a pale-green tinge to her skin like Shula, and Evie couldn't see a tail. That ruled out Mixen and Scorpio demons. And she doubted Lucas would be friends with any Thirsters. But it didn't look like he was friends with this girl either, from the way they were glaring at each other.
‘You brought her to my house?' the girl yelled at Lucas. ‘You brought her here?' She stepped towards them, her face blazing, and Evie felt herself shrink further against Lucas's side. ‘What were you thinking?' the girl demanded. She held up both hands. ‘No, don't tell me. Clearly you weren't thinking. Because if you had been, you wouldn't be showing up here at four in the morning with a Hunter in tow.'
A hard lump of panic rose in Evie's throat. She heard Lucas take a sharp breath. How did this girl know about her being a Hunter?
‘Flic, we had nowhere else to go,' Lucas said, before adding more quietly, ‘There's no one else I trust.'
Lucas trusted this girl? Evie twisted her head to look at him. The girl snorted under her breath as if she couldn't believe it either.
‘I can explain, Flic,' Lucas said, sighing.
‘I'm not interested in an explanation, Lucas,' Flic spat. ‘I'm interested in how you lost your freaking mind. She's a Hunter. There is no possible explanation for this. I thought you'd joined the Brotherhood to get revenge. Aren't you supposed to be killing Hunters? Isn't that kind of the job description? But no, instead you turn up at my house with Cinderfreakingella here, covered in blood and begging for my help.'
Evie cast a glance downwards at what she was wearing. At the time she'd thought the red Valentino cocktail dress was the perfect outfit to wear for facing down and killing Lucas. Or for dying in, because that had seemed like more of a possibility at the time. It turned out that, despite choosing it for its colour, it didn't hide bloodstains so well. And now she felt ridiculous, standing barefoot, bloodied and bedraggled, being scrutinised by this girl. She ran a hand self-consciously through her knotted hair and then down her dress trying to straighten herself out. Cinderfreakingella? She ground her teeth.
‘Flic,' Lucas said, his voice a knife wrapped in silk.
Flic ignored him. ‘Where are the Brotherhood?' she yelled. ‘They won't just kill her, Lucas – they'll kill you. They'll kill you for this – for running off with a Hunter. Do you realise that?' She paused, her eyes widening, ‘Did they follow you here?'
There was a moment of silence, which reminded Evie of floating underwater tangled up in weeds, a silence so deep she thought she was going to drown in it. Then Lucas spoke up. ‘There is no Brotherhood,' he said. ‘We got in a fight with them. They're all dead.'
Flic's mouth moved but no sound came out. Instead, she closed her eyes and tilted back her head to stare at the ceiling. She sighed loudly. ‘Great. This is great. No, really, that's an awesome career move. Killing the Brotherhood. Nice work.' She levelled her gaze at Lucas, her voice shaking with anger. ‘There are easier ways to commit suicide, Lucas.'
Evie looked down at her bare feet, staring at the dirt and blood caked all over them. She didn't want to look up. She didn't want to see Lucas's reaction. Here was someone saying out loud what she was too scared to and what had hung between them in the stifling silence of the car. By protecting her, by betraying the Brotherhood, by fighting against them and killing one of his kind, Lucas had signed his own death warrant. She felt guilt beat an acid path through her veins.
‘Flic.'
Evie's head flew up. Someone was standing in the shadows at the end of the hallway. He advanced towards Flic, glancing warily at Evie as he passed her, before laying a hand gently on Flic's arm. This one was definitely unhuman. Evie's heart had begun to pound as if someone was playing drum and bass in her head.
Flic nodded at the guy standing next to her. ‘This is Jamieson,' she said through a clenched jaw. ‘He's my boyfriend. Thanks to you he's probably going to end up as my dead boyfriend.' She took a breath. ‘Jamieson,' she said, without taking her eyes off Lucas, ‘this is my stupid-moronic-going-to-get-us-all-killed-because-he-can't-keep-his-trousers-on brother, Lucas.'
Chapter 2
Brother? Evie tried to ram her mouth shut before anyone could register her shock. This girl was Lucas's sister? She stared at Flic in amazement. But of course she was his sister. It was so obvious. The razor-sharp cheekbones and the ridiculously long eyelashes. The thick dark hair and straight eyebrows over those almond-shaped eyes. Except Flic's eyes were a dark-brown colour while Lucas's were every shade of grey. And Flic's eyes were iridescent with rage and Lucas's were right now so guarded she couldn't tell what he was feeling and really didn't want to imagine.
‘Flic, don't be so melodramatic,' Jamieson said, putting an arm around her shoulders. He gave Lucas an apologetic shrug.
Flic threw off his arm and turned on him. ‘Melodramatic? Is that what I'm being?' she shouted. ‘Did you hear this? Did you hear what he just said? My darling brother here has killed the entire Brotherhood. As in killed. As in DEAD!'
Jamieson's face turned ashen. He turned slowly to look at Lucas. ‘You killed … ?'
Lucas dropped his gaze to the floor.
‘It wasn't really him,' Evie burst out. ‘I mean Lucas didn't actually kill anyone.' ‘Tonight,' she added under her breath, remembering Caleb. He had killed Caleb but that had been a couple of nights ago.
‘Well, who did kill them? You?' Flic asked snidely. ‘You're not even fully trained are you? Do you even have your full power?'
Evie bit her lip and took a deep breath. ‘No,' she admitted in a whisper. Lucas's sister seemed to know a hell of a lot about her. Evie threw a worried glance at Lucas to see whether he was thinking the same thing, but she was distracted by Flic suddenly taking a step towards her.
‘Because of you,' Flic said, pushing right up into Evie's face so that Evie could make out the yellowy-gold rim at the edge of her irises, ‘my brother is now being hunted down by every unhuman in a seven- realm radius.'
Evie's gut tightened.
‘How did you know about Evie?' interrupted Lucas. ‘How did you know that she's a Hunter? How did you know about … ,' he paused, glancing briefly in Evie's direction, ‘us?'
‘How do you think I knew, Lucas?' Flic snarled.
Lucas's eyes widened slightly. ‘She's here?' he asked, dropping his voice, his eyes darting over Flic's shoulder.
Evie glanced between them, trying to work out who they were talking about. Who did Lucas think was here? And then, as if on cue, she heard a girl's soft voice.
‘Hello Lucas.'
Evie spun around as Jamieson edged aside, revealing a girl with hair like sheet lightning falling over one shoulder, reaching almost to her waist. But it was her eyes that Evie was drawn to. They were huge – unhumanly huge – two pale-blue discs in the white oval of her face.
She was a Sybll. Evie knew it immediately. This girl in front of her could see the future. That's how they knew all about her, and about Lucas being on the run with a Hunter. This girl standing in front of her had seen them coming.
‘Hi Issa,' Lucas finally answered, his voice taking on an uneven tone.
The girl gazed at him for a few seconds, her face as blank as a corpse, but then her eyes flew to Evie, and Evie could have sworn she saw a shudder run through her before she quickly looked back at Lucas. Did Evie really look that bad? Or was it that she had seen something? Something coming? Was that how it worked? God, she realised she really didn't know a lot about unhumans. So much for Victor's training. She hadn't even thought to bring the book with her which contained all the information the Hunters had gathered on unhumans over the years. It was still at her house, hidden under the bed. All she knew for certain was that she was standing in a narrow hallway surrounded on all sides by demons who she was theoretically supposed to kill.
And it looked as if they'd like to do the same to her, except without the theoretical part.
‘Flic, let them stay,' Jamieson said. ‘Issa can warn us if anyone's coming. Let's find out what's going on at least,' he added when Flic made no sign of relenting.