Public Enemies by Ann Aguirre Page A

I ignored the shouting drivers and screeching brakes. Somehow I made it to the other side, breathing hard, but they were gone. Only the necrotic stink lingered.
    The sun came out, nearly blinding me. I felt no trace of Wedderburn, who’d hired them to execute my mother. Did this mean Dwyer was paying them to torment me now? Crazy. Sometimes a sunny day is just a sunny day. Spinning slowly on the sidewalk, I whispered, “Which way, Cameron?”
    It was a long shot, but if he didn’t hate me— if he was an ally—then maybe he could help. I had some crazy idea of tracking down the monsters and getting back my mother’s head. I wasn’t religious but there were stories about how a butchered body could never rest in peace. If there was an afterlife, I wanted my mom to have the best one ever. Dumb as hell, probably, but this was all I could do after failing to protect her so spectacularly.
    A cool breeze drifted along my right arm. “This way?”
    No reply was forthcoming but I inhaled a hint of graveyard rot. Yeah, this was the right track. Desperate not to lose them, I pushed into a sprint despite the pain, drawing looks from other people on the sidewalk. I called an apology over my shoulder when I nearly bumped into an old woman. She shot me a glare and mumbled something incoherently cranky as I raced past. Another touch on my forearm, icy damp, and I turned that way. Two or three more jogs, more running, and soon I didn’t recognize where I was anymore, and the buildings were looking sketchy, most of them boarded up or obviously abandoned.
    â€œShit,” I said aloud. “How stupid am I?”
    I had no proof this was Cameron, and this spirit might be leading me into a trap. Whatever it was, the thing clearly knew I had no ability to be rational when it came to my mom’s death. I tried to calm my pounding heart and the roaring in my head that insisted I had to find the bag man right now and make him pay. As if my mental call summoned him, he appeared half a block down, flanked by his creepy cohorts. My feet pounded against the sidewalk as I closed the distance between us. I had no plan, just a cascade of endless rage.
    But before I reached the old man, the world stutter-skipped, just like it used to when Kian ported me. I stumbled and fell over, scraping my knees on the cobblestones. Wait, what? Dizzily I took stock of the historical feel of the area. I wasn’t here five seconds ago. Blood trickled down my wounded knee, through my tights, and my ankle was throbbing again.
    â€œWhat the hell,” I muttered.
    A single black feather floated down from above.
    I tilted my head back to find an enormous black bird perched on the electrical wires above. It watched me with beady eyes, quietly preening its feathers. I blinked and the raven was gone, replaced by a pale-faced Harbinger. Today his eyes were ringed in kohl and his mouth was red, smeared as if he had been kissing someone up until a few seconds ago. Or maybe it was blood. Both ideas were equal measures of terrifying and revolting.
    I blinked again and he was on the pavement before me now, not a bird and not man, but the wild smell licked around him like a brushfire.
    â€œYou are becoming a problem,” he said silkily. “Had I known you would be so much bother, I never would’ve made the deal.”
    I stared up at him.
    His eyes teemed with possibilities, all silver madness etched into ebony, and he looked so deep into me that I felt his stare gnawing at the back of my skull until it seemed impossible that my brain wouldn’t topple out the back and splatter on the cement. Swallowing hard, I couldn’t move; he had me pinned like a butterfly in a specimen case.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I whispered.
    â€œFirst you ruin my lovely spectacle, then you abscond with my favorite divertissement and now you’re willfully trying to get yourself killed. Have you no mind at all, Edith