The Shadow Prince

by Bree Despain

“Watch your back, Boon,” Garrick says. “Because nobody else is going to do it for you.”

  “I’m not a Boon,” I say through gritted teeth.

  A very round woman appears at our table with a loaded tray. “Well, howdy, folks,” she says. “I’ve got chicken noodle soup, sodas, a salad, cheese fries, and cheeseburger! Whose poison is whose?” She looks down at us, and her grin fades. “Oh no, oh, dears, you’re not all headed to a funeral, are you?”

  After the waitress leaves, Garrick grabs his bowl of soup and Pepsi and moves to the next table over like he can’t stand sitting close to Haden anymore. But instead of eating, he lays his head on the table and moans, as if his exchange with Haden has zapped up all of his strength. I keep a close eye on him in case he decides to make a run for it anyway.

  “You know,” I say tentatively, “if you stopped treating Garrick like a Lesser and more like your brother, he might start to forgive you.”

  He nods as if he might actually consider the idea.

  Haden and I sit across from each other in awkward silence for a few moments, but the smell wafting up from my cheese fries and bacon cheeseburger reminds me of how insanely hungry I am. I pick up a fry, and a long string of gooey, melty cheese trails behind it. I catch the slight curl of Haden’s lip while he watches it.

  He pulls his own plate closer to him and starts picking the croutons out of his salad.

  “You seriously got a salad?” I ask him, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Yes?” he says, and then pushes the glorious pile of grated cheddar cheese off the lump of iceberg lettuce on his plate. “Is that a problem?”

  “We’re at a greasy spoon. You should at least have the decency to get something greasy. That’s their specialty. This,” I say, pulling his plate away, “doesn’t even fall into the proper definition of salad. This is just lettuce.”

  “I like lettuce,” he says, but the grimace on his face betrays how he really feels.

  “How do you maintain all that muscle if you eat like a rabbit?”

  “We eat different things in the Underrealm.”

  “He doesn’t like anything,” Garrick says from the adjacent table. “He’s the pickiest eater this side of Tartarus.”

  “You mean you don’t like bacon cheeseburgers?”

  “I’ve never tried a bacon cheeseburger.”

  “You’ve never …?” I place my hand over my heart like this news wounds my soul. “We are changing that right now.”

  I take a knife and cut my burger in half. I shove a rebellious piece of bacon back under the sesame bun and present it to him like it’s precious cargo. Which it is. I don’t take sharing my bacon cheeseburgers lightly.

  “I can’t,” Haden says, trying to nudge my hands away.

  “I will be morally offended if you don’t at least take a bite.”

  “Just eat it so she’ll shut up!” Garrick says. “I’ve got a headache.”

  Haden takes the half burger from my hands and holds it gingerly. “If I’m going to eat this thing, you have to do something for me first.”

  “What?” I ask reluctantly.

  “Tell me how you did what you did to that Keres. How did you know how to make it go solid enough for me to kill it?”

  Garrick nearly knocks his Pepsi off his table. “You killed a Keres?” he says. “That’s impossible!”

  “Not with Daphne’s help, apparently.”

  “What did you do?” Garrick asks. He almost sounds angry.

  “I … screamed at it,” I say with a shrug.

  “What?”

  “But how did you know to scream at it like that?” Haden says. “Plenty of people have probably screamed at a Keres before, but I’ve never heard of one becoming solid as a result.”

  “I don’t really know,” I say. “I was just scared and tried the first thing I could think of; I didn’t really know what would happen.” I take a sip of root beer. “It was like how I calmed your cat that one time. You know how I told you that I hear the songs that living things put off? People or animals or even plants? Well, when I was a kid, I figured out that if I imitate the tone an animal puts off, they’re more likely to listen to me. I use it all the time on the strays my mom brings home. Some of them can be pretty wild until I give them a good talking to.”

  “So you were trying to charm the Keres?” Haden asks. The grease from the burger is starting to run down his fingers but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I mostly thought I’d imitate the screeching noise it was making and see what happened. It actually seemed to make it angrier. I’m just glad you were able to kill it before it attacked me.” I point at the burger. “Now, are you going to take a bite of that before it gets cold?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “I answered your question, so yes.”

  Haden bites off a small corner and starts to chew.

  “So?”

  “It’s … actually, it’s …” His eyes widen and he drops the burger on top of his salad and stands up. His gaze goes out the window and then darts to the trucker at the bar. He scans the whole restaurant quickly, as if looking for someone.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “That green car out there,” he says, pointing to a BMW at the far end of the parking lot. There are only two other vehicles in the lot. A big rig and Haden’s Tesla. “It was behind us most of the way here.”

  “So? They probably just made a pit stop, too.”

  “Then where are they? There’s nobody else in here.”

  “Maybe they went across the street to that … abandoned gas station?” I start to see Haden’s point. “You think they’re following us?”

  “There’s one way to find out.” He tosses a wad of cash on the table. “Grab your food to go. Come on, Garrick.”

  “Harpies,” Garrick mumbles.

  I take two big bites of my burger and a swig of root beer and then follow Haden as he leads Garrick by the elbow out to the Tesla. We’re all trying to look as nonchalant as possible as we buckle in. Haden pulls out of the parking lot and around to the road behind the diner, then pulls over to the side.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just give it a minute.”

  About forty-five seconds later, the green BMW pulls out of the parking lot and starts in the direction we went. This still seems like a coincidence to me, but it’s enough to set Haden off. He slams his foot down on the accelerator and whips his car around so we’re blocking the BMW. The other car comes to a screeching halt. Haden bursts out of the driver’s-side door.

  “What are you doing?” I call after him.

  Wisps of blue light crackle between the fingers of the hand he holds behind his back. Someone gets out of the green car, but I can’t see who it is until Haden has him by the throat. His camel brown fedora falls to the dusty ground.

  “Tobin?” I jump out of the car.

  “Why are you following us?” Haden shouts. A sphere of blue light swirls in his hand above Tobin’s nose. “Who sent you?”

  “No … no … nobody,” Tobin stammers.

  “Let him go!” I shout. “It’s just Tobin. And … Lexie?” I see her now, cringing in the passenger seat of the BMW.

  Haden lets go of Tobin, but he still holds the bolt of lightning in his hand. “Why are you here?”

  “You kidnapped one of my best friends,” Tobin says. “Why wouldn’t I be here? And what the hell is that?” He points at the crackling blue light in Haden’s hand.

  Haden extinguishes the bolt of lightning and shoves his hands behind his back like it was nothing.

  “Kidnapped?” I ask Tobin. “Why did you think I was kidnapped?”

  “You disregarded my texts about the list so quickly, I thought something must be wrong. I thought I’d walk past Haden’s place to see what he was up to … and I saw you leaving with him.”

  “And of course your brain immediately went to kidnapping.”

  “Only because I saw him shove a body into the car first and then tak
e your cell phone away. I was too far away to do anything, and then when you guys went flying out of the garage, I kind of freaked.”

  “And how does Lexie come into all this?” Haden asks.

  “She happened to be driving down the street. I didn’t have a car, so I kind of commandeered hers.”

  “You mean you kidnapped her so you could stop me from kidnapping Daphne?” Haden asks. “Talk about irony.”

  “Hey, I offered to pay for gas,” Tobin says.

  “If you thought I’d been kidnapped, why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Because the call would have been rerouted to Olympus Hills security, … and you know how reliable they aren’t, and …” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I thought if I followed him to wherever he was taking you, I might be able to find Abbie.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly any humor I’d found in the situation is gone. Tobin was still desperately searching for his sister, who could never be found.

  “But you’re telling me you aren’t kidnapped. You’re heading heaven knows where with this guy on purpose?” he asks.

  “Vegas,” I say. “We’re headed to Las Vegas.”

  Tobin’s jaw drops ever so slightly. “Why?” he asks like he doesn’t quite want to know the answer.

  I look from Tobin to Haden. Haden shakes his head once. I ignore him. “We’re headed to Las Vegas to find an Oracle,” I say.

  It’s time to start telling the truth.

  “You people are insane!” Lexie says from the backseat of the Tesla. “Insane! Oracles? Monsters? Underworld princes or whatever? You’ve all flown over the cuckoo’s nest and you’re trying to drag me with you!”

  Overall, I’d say they’ve taken the truth—or partial truth—rather well. Especially Tobin. He sits stoically in the middle row of the Model X, his hands clasped in his lap.

  Haden was the one who insisted that both he and Lexie come with us now. Tobin had come willingly, saying that he wasn’t going to let me go off to Vegas with Haden alone. Lexie had been another story. I thought we should let her drive herself back home, but Haden had made the valid point that we couldn’t trust her to not tell somebody where we went. Which means between her and Garrick, we have two captives in the car.

  “This Oracle,” Tobin asks. “Do you think she can tell me how to get my sister back?”

  “Possibly,” Haden says as he changes lanes. We’re about twenty minutes outside of Vegas and the traffic has gotten heavy.

  Both he and I have evaded most of Tobin’s questions about Abbie. I plan on telling him the whole truth, but not here. Not now. That is a private conversation that doesn’t need Lexie shouting about our sanity in the background.

  “There’s no such thing as Oracles!” she says.

  “Can somebody make her shut up?” Garrick responds, holding his head.

  Maybe I should have let Haden knock Lexie out in order to get her in the car. Instead, I’d held her Hermès purse hostage until she agreed to get in.

  Haden changes lanes again. He glances in the rearview mirror. “Harpies,” he mumbles.

  “What is it?”

  “I think we’ve got another tail. Don’t look back. Use your mirror. But I think that motorcycle is following us. He’s been in my rearview mirror for the last hour. He changes lanes every time I do.”

  I pull down the sun visor and angle the vanity mirror until I can see who he’s talking about. There’s a rider dressed in all black leather on a black bullet bike behind us. He’s wearing a full-screened helmet that makes it impossible to see his face.

  “Who do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know, but I certainly don’t think it’s another one of your friends. Simon said he’d send someone after me if I ever left town again. He also said it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.” A strange tone comes off his body and he white-knuckle grips the steering wheel. It makes me wonder if he’s thinking about what happened to Dax and Abbie when they tried to run away. “I think I’ve seen this same guy around Olympus Hills a couple of times. He’s probably been following us since we left, but I was too distracted by Tobin to notice.”

  “Do you think we can lose him?” Tobin asks.

  “Maybe.” Haden glances at me and then points at the touch screen in the center console of the car. “This thing has a Web browser. Use it to get on to YouTube. I want you to do a search for evasive driving techniques in heavy traffic.”

  “Seriously?” Tobin asks.

  “I am being completely earnest.”

  “Awesome,” Tobin practically squeals.

  “Or maybe ‘how to lose a tail in a car chase’ or something like that.”

  I type in a few options until Haden tells me to stop. I click on the video and we watch as we idle in traffic. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that YouTube has an instructional video on evasive driving techniques, but still, I’m not sure how this is going to help. I can barely understand anything the drivers in the video are saying, let alone remember any of it.

  “Okay, that’s good,” Haden says. “Everyone buckled in?”

  When traffic breaks up a bit, he changes lanes, then changes again until we’re speeding down the HOV lane.

  “This is so not legal!” Lexie shouts from the backseat.

  Haden swerves the car back into the left lane and then the middle lane. I can’t handle it. I grip the oh-crap bar above my door and close my eyes as hard as I can. I get a little carsick from the jerking motions of the car as Haden weaves through traffic. At one point, we’re sailing forward at another, we’re flying in reverse!

  Lexie screams.

  Tobin cheers like he’s on a roller coaster.

  And Garrick groans like he’s about to throw up.

  I suddenly question whether I ever want to get my license if there are drivers like Haden on the road.

  The car stops reversing and whips to the right. I can tell we’re getting off the freeway. Three more sharp turns follow, but I don’t open my eyes until we come to a stop. We’re sitting in an alley somewhere in Las Vegas proper.

  “I think we lost him,” Haden says, breathing hard.

  Garrick opens the door, stumbles out into the alley, and pukes. I cringe at the sound.

  “We need to find a place to hide. We’ve got to get off the streets before we’re spotted again. Find someplace to stay overnight if we have to.”

  “We’re in Vegas,” Lexie says. “Pick a hotel, duh.”

  I raise my eyebrows, surprised to get a suggestion from the “captive” portion of our audience. A hotel is the obvious answer.

  “I can’t use my credit card,” Haden says. “Simon tracks all of my spending; he’d find us in minutes. I’ve only got about sixty dollars in cash after the diner.”

  “I don’t have much cash, either.” Between getting a new outfit for the festival and buying Christmas presents to bring back to Ellis, I am pretty much tapped out in the cash department.

  “I could charge it on my mom’s card,” Tobin suggests.

  “No,” I say, dismissing the idea without explanation. I don’t want Tobin’s mom getting wind of our location, either. “I guess we could try to get a cheap motel room off the strip.”

  “Um, no,” Lexie says. “No way! If I’m going to be held hostage in Vegas, it is not going to happen in some bedbug-ridden, pay-by-the hour motel. We’re going to the Crossroads Casino and Hotel. My dad is one of the owners. I can get us a room.”

  The Crossroads? I have never stayed in a hotel, let alone in Vegas, but the name strikes a familiar chord. “And how do we know you’re not going to just rat us out and try to make a break for it?” I ask her.

  “Because we’re in Vegas. And you know what they say: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. You guys can go search for this ‘Oracle’ all you want. I’ll go run up a spa bill on my daddy’s tab and hitch a ride home with you guys when you all come back to your senses.”

  “Won’t your parents mind?”

  “They’ve gone to Belize for the holi
days—without me. They’ve been gone for three weeks already, so they won’t even know.” She crosses her arms around her orange purse. “Frankly, this little ride on the crazy-town express is the most fun I’ve had in months. So, no, I’m not going to rat you out and make a break for it. I’m going to get a chemical peel, a mani-pedi, and run up a room service bill like you’ve never seen.”

  Considering I’ve never seen a room service bill, I don’t doubt it. I also don’t doubt that she’s telling the truth. It seems very Lexie to turn a kidnapping into a luxury weekend getaway.

  “Now head up this street and turn left,” she orders.

  “You heard the woman,” I say to Haden.

  chapter forty-nine

  HADEN

  We decide to ditch the Tesla in a parking garage several blocks from the hotel and head out onto what Lexie calls the strip. At first, I am worried that we will be easily spotted out in the open, but this street is so cram packed with people, it’s a struggle just to stay together as a group. A cluster of people, dressed in red pointy hats with white balls on the ends, sing as they walk in front of us, but they don’t sound nearly as good as Daphne. The hotels are lit up like beacons, and large evergreen trees strung with lights are everywhere. I don’t know how much of this is normal Vegas fare and how much of it is for of the humans’ upcoming Christmas celebration. People bump into me as we walk, making me feel off balance, and a strange smoke chokes my lungs. I see that it’s coming from a group of men who line the road, smoking what I recall are cigarettes. One of the men sees me looking at him and he shoves a flyer into my hand. “Good times, good times,” he mumbles as I pass.

  I look down at the paper and see a mostly naked woman, wearing only two thin strips of red material lined with white fur, standing in a very … provocative position.

  “You planning on making a visit to ‘Sexy Mrs. Claus’?” Daphne asks.

  Heat rushes into my face and hands. I drop the paper, feeling strangely ashamed that she saw me looking at it.

  “Don’t take anything from anyone,” Tobin advises me. “And avoid making eye contact.”

  I nod and pick up my pace, hoping not to get lost in the chaos of the strip. I am glad when we enter the hotel, but I can still feel the grime from the street clinging to me. The lobby is so bright, it hurts my eyes. A sea of potted red flowers fills most of the space, encircling another tall evergreen tree strung with shimmering lights, stretching up to the vaulted ceiling. Garish, glittering globes of green and red hang from almost everything. Loud, grating, overly cheerful music fills the lobby from an unknown source, and an additional barrage of noise and flashing lights come from an area called the casino. It’s all so overwhelming, I almost want to retreat back outside.