The Cities of Dead (Book 3)

Chapter 3: Lost Boy

April 18th

"Faster, Isaac . . ." Julie's wispy words melted into my ear as her ethereal form coiled around my waist and up my chest like an icy scarf. She knew I was distracted. And distracted was never good in a chase. She glided ahead to scope out the dark street, rustling the canopy of trees above.

Amid the lulls of the cicadas, the only other sounds disturbing the night were my sneakers' rubber soles hitting the pavement and the ghostly echoes of Stormy's toes clicking alongside me. The chill of Julie's touch lingered, reminding me that I was alive despite feeling like a hollow spectral form of myself, no different from her or Stormy. Adele's words hadn't left my mind for a single second over the last two days.

You killed my mother.

Not "my mother is dead," not "my mother tried to kill me," not "my mother was a vampire."

You killed my mother.

The words were scorched into every cell of my being, floating like ash in my head, clouding my other thoughts.

I took a sharp turn at the street corner and paused, gripped a wrought iron fence, and bent over my knees, struggling for breath. Stormy yelped, her back stiff and head alert, confused as to why we'd stopped at the decrepit antebellum house.

In a whoosh, Julie was back at my side. "What's wrong, mon cher?"

Stormy circled us then carefully took a few steps out in either direction before turning back to me like a practiced guard dog, as if she knew the vamps were back on the streets.

"Nothing, I'm fine." I straightened up and tried to even out my erratic breathing. I'm not sure why I bothered; her heightened senses picked up on the slightest emotional cues.

"What frightened you?" Her French accent thickened when she was worried. "Was it Emilio?"

The irony of a ghost asking me if I was frightened was not lost on me. "I'm fine. I just needed a second." What scared me had nothing to do with the predators still in town, even if Emilio Medici did want to revenge-kill me.

"It's not safe for you to linger on the street at night, mon cher. You need to keep moving."

I wiped sweat off my forehead with my arm, which was already damp from the thick air, and took off again, ramping up from a slow jog.

Staying on the main drag was safer, but the moon beaming through the rustling leaves created a nonstop fluttering of shadows, testing my nerves. Maybe I shouldn't have broken ahead from Dee and Codi.

We were on the fringe of the Lower Garden District, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods I'd ever seen, but this strip of Oretha Castle Haley was just one abandoned house and one looted shop after another. The curfew had been extended to midnight a few weeks ago, but the crime rate was still so high, people tended to stay inside after dark, which was good considering the five vampires lurking in town. Not too many Storm refugees had returned to Central City, judging by the shape of the neighborhood. The dark streets and lack of witnesses made it the perfect hunting ground for the Medici. Only Nicco and Emilio could come after me this far out of the Quarter, thanks to our ancestors' curse, but that didn't exactly bring comfort, considering they were the two who hated me the most. But what was I supposed to do, stay inside for the rest of my life? Now more than ever, the streets needed patrolling.

Ahead of us, a single functioning street lamp glowed dimly through the humid air. The homes were tall and old and the street was wide, like it had once been an important thoroughfare. Graffiti covered the bus stops, and every shop window looked like it'd had a date with a baseball bat. Vines crawled up the houses in tight chokeholds, and overgrown bushes crept out into the broken sidewalks. Nothing looked unlooted.