and chains everywhere. She mentioned a bottomless pit of fire. And yet when I walked through it twelve hours later it was a nice, ordinary suburban house. Quite boring, actually. We demolished it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Cadaverous. “My home is where I make it, and I am king of my domain.”
“What an unusual power.”
“Like I said, you wouldn’t last a minute.”
“So, if you invite me in, I’m to politely decline?”
“You wouldn’t get an invitation.”
“Even so, I’d just decline.”
“You can’t decline an offer you haven’t received.”
“I can pre-empt it, though.”
“You can’t pre-empt an offer you’re never going to get.”
“Not if I decline it before—”
“Stop it,” Cadaverous said sharply. “Just stop it. Seriously. I’ll drive us off a cliff if you continue this … this … whatever it is. We’re not talking nonsense, do you understand me?”
“Sure,” Pleasant said. “Of course. My apologies. I just get overly chatty when I feel like I’m not in control of the situation.”
“You’re not driving my car.”
“Just a little bit.”
“Stop asking me.”
“Fine,” said Pleasant, and sat back. “I’ll try to enjoy the journey, then, shall I? Apparently it’s not the destination that matters – especially when you travel with friends.”
Never teleported them to the roof of the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center and immediately they ducked down. It wasn’t a tall building, and a single glimpse would be all it took for the dozens of tourists to look up and point, and then for the cops to come investigating.
This was Omen’s first time in America. Crouching down, with Valkyrie and Temper on one side and Never on the other, he focused on not being sick from the journey while he looked out at the suspension bridge that spanned the water. He was struck by how big it all was. The bridge. The skyline behind him. The sky.
“The bridge is one point seven miles long,” said Never. He was wearing scuffed jeans, a hoody and a jacket. Omen should have worn his hoody under his jacket. It was cold up here. “It opened in 1937. That colour? It’s called international orange.”
“Why do you know so much about it?” Omen asked.
Never shrugged. “It’s a bridge. I know stuff about bridges.”
They teleported on to the grass behind some trees, and Omen threw up. He apologised profusely, and when he was done they walked to the roadside. Valkyrie hailed a cab and they climbed in, Valkyrie in front. The driver chatted and Temper chatted back, but Valkyrie stayed quiet and Never looked out of the window. Omen knew he was committing as much of their surroundings to memory as he could. That was one of Fletcher Renn’s rules.
Omen had once wanted to be a Teleporter. The power to leave whenever he wanted appealed to him when he was growing up, watching all the attention being focused on his brother. Not in an entirely good way, of course. He knew, from the not quite disguised looks that would flash occasionally across Auger’s face, that such attention was more burden than gift. All that training, all that testing, all those expectations … On someone weaker – Omen, for example – it would have proven too much. But Auger handled it the same way Auger handled everything, with charm and good humour.
But alas, teleportation was not to be for the younger Darkly twin. For a start, every competent Teleporter who’d ever lived had been born with the aptitude. To someone like Never, teleportation was instinct, albeit instinct he needed help channelling. Never’s discipline – for there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Never would choose teleportation – was a part of who she was. Omen’s was still a mystery. There was nothing yet that he could truly claim to excel at – even his Elemental skills were lagging behind those of his classmates. He liked the various languages of magic, he supposed, but that was mostly because he liked to read.
The drive to Haight Street only took a few minutes. Omen stepped out in front of a brightly coloured store brimming with psychedelic positivity, and Never nudged him, directing his attention to the multitude of exotic pipes in the window. Far out, man.
Valkyrie wasn’t here to enjoy the scenery, and Temper was too busy adulting to show interest, so they walked ahead, going uphill, closing in on the address while Omen and Never followed along behind. An old guy with dreadlocks rocked by, moving to some internal rhythm only he could hear, and a small pack of street kids, lounging on someone’s front steps, ignored them with such professional detachment that even Never had to raise an eyebrow in admiration. A dog sat beside a white and red fire hydrant, like it was considering whether or not to mark its territory. It watched them walk on.
They crossed the street and arrived at a fenced-off piece of flattened ground. Valkyrie looked at the map on her phone, checked all around, then stared at the empty space before them.
“Well, crap,” she said.
“You’re sure this is it?” Temper asked.
“I’m sure. Even if I wasn’t sure, I’d know this is the place we’re looking for simply because it’s not here any more, and of course it wouldn’t be here any more, because that’s how life works. Just when you think it couldn’t possibly suck any more than it already sucks, it burns down the goddamn house.”
“Oh, that house didn’t burn down,” said an old woman, passing. “It was demolished years ago.”
Temper gave the old woman a smile. “You live near here?”
“I live right here,” the woman said, pointing a pale, knobbly finger at the house next door. “Do you know them, then?”
“Who, Richard and Savant?” Temper asked. “We do. In fact, we’re trying to find them. You wouldn’t happen to know where they moved on to, do you?”
“Maryland or Maine, somewhere like that, I think. After they were gone, squatters moved in and let the house fall into disrepair, and then the bulldozers came and flattened the whole thing. How are they doing, do you know? They were such lovely neighbours.”
“They’re fine,” Temper assured her. “We just lost touch. We were hoping to find some clue as to where they might be living now, maybe track down some of their friends – but obviously that’s not going to happen.”
“I guess not,” said the old woman. “But you could always check their things.”
Valkyrie frowned. “What things?”
“Their possessions,” the old woman said. “I went in there and packed up as much of their stuff as I could fit into their suitcases. The squatters were nice enough, I
