They went, disappearing into shadow, crouched low.
A metal ladder was attached to the side of the garage. Marty had had it installed not long after I’d come to live with him. One of the guys—Jordy, dead by cancer less than a year later—had almost fallen off the old rickety wooden ladder they’d normally used, and Marty swore up and down that he sure as shit wasn’t going to see his premiums go up because of a goddamn worker’s compensation claim. He shelled out a couple hundred bucks to have the ladder installed on the side of the building.
It was this ladder I went to now. I reached to grab a rung and—
“Shit,” I muttered as my stump knocked against the metal, sending a sharp burst of pain through my arm. I gritted my teeth and grabbed the ladder with my left hand, hooking my arm into the rung above, and pulled myself up. The metal was cold and slick. My hand went numb almost immediately. Above me, the sound of gunfire continued.
I was sweating profusely by the time I neared the roof. The sweat dripped into my eye, causing it to burn. I lifted my head until I could see out onto the roof.
The hunter stood on the opposite edge, firing his rifle again and again and again. It wasn’t scoped, and I hoped that meant he was missing more than he was hitting. I pushed myself up as quietly as I could. The snow that had accumulated on the roof had turned to slush from so many people walking on it.
I breathed shallowly as I stood.
The hunter hadn’t heard me.
He fired again.
Between us was a row of skylights, long windows that led down into the garage and were used for ventilation in the hot summers. The snow had been cleared from the glass.
Below me, I heard the grunt of men surprised, but it was the only sound they made before their throats were torn out.
The hunter fired once more, and then came a dry click.
He cursed and stepped back to reload. He reached into his coat pocket and—
I was moving even before he could pull his hand back out of his pocket. He heard me in those last few feet. He started to turn, rifle swinging toward me, but I was on him before he could face me completely.
I knocked the barrel of the rifle down, not wanting to take a chance that it had misfired and could still cause damage.
He opened his mouth like he was ready to shout in warning, but it came out as a gurgle after I punched him in the throat. Something gave way with an audible crunch, and his eyes bulged as he struggled to breathe. I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, forcing his head down as I raised my knee up into his face. Bones broke, and blood dripped into the slush.
He raised his head again, and Jesus Christ, he was just a kid, just a kid like those two in the woods. I didn’t know where Elijah had gotten them, how she had recruited them, but she’d gone young. They couldn’t be Kings. Most of them were dead.
But they were here to hurt my family.
I backhanded him across the face, and he fell onto his back, sliding near the edge of the roof. He blinked blearily up at me as I stood above him.
I said, “You shouldn’t have come here.”
He raised his leg to kick out at me, but I deflected it easily. The roses burst to life, and I swore right then and there I felt my hand again, like it was made of flowery petals and thick vines. I trusted it, my magic, and I followed it. I knelt and pressed my stump against the roof.
The slushy snow around us began to crawl over him like it was sentient. He opened his mouth again to scream, but the dirty snow went into his mouth, pouring down his throat, causing him to gurgle.
I twisted my stump against the roof, grinding my teeth.
A surge of frigid air surrounded us.
I stood back up slowly.
The man’s face was frozen solid, his mouth open, ice jutting out between his lips and teeth.
His eyes were wide and unblinking.
The raven was flapping its wings, struggling to calm. It hadn’t been like that since I was a kid, the ink still fresh on my arm.
I’d have to deal with it later before it became a problem.
I went to the rear of the building, peering down over the ledge in time to see Elizabeth and Mark dragging the bodies of two men away from the garage and into the dark, leaving behind twin streaks of blood in the snow.