Chapter Twenty-Five
Manicured lawns. The smell of fresh-cut grass. Uniform siding. And…
I had no idea where I was.
“This isn’t Nia’s house.” I grumbled the words the moment my equilibrium settled.
We’d hit the side yard of a beige suburban home on an unfamiliar street.
I’d clutched Fauna too tightly as we’d hopped from one place to the next, letting go as soon as we touched grass.
I’d been too quick to untangle myself, knees hitting the lawn.
I felt her absence the moment I released her.
The loss reenergized my anger with her, because we were never meant to be this way.
I should have been able to hold her hand.
I should have been able to go to her when I was scared. But she’d ruined everything.
“No,” Fauna said, voice clipped, “it’s not. Her house has been well warded. This is the closest I could get us. We’ll move forward on foot.”
“And you’ll be—”
“Corporeal,” she finished for me. Fauna didn’t stop to help me up.
Her arms were crossed as she stomped down the stretch of grass.
She headed for the sidewalk and set off toward the Fosters’ home.
The grass had already begun to turn, and the sharp, brown blades bit into my palms as I pushed myself to my feet.
I wiped my hands on my pants and jogged after her.
It was unseasonably cold for the end of September.
It should have been getting lighter as the morning ticked on, but a bank of dark, gray clouds smothered the sun and the day faded into a perpetual gloom.
A northern breeze sent a tuft of Fauna’s hair whipping around her shoulders, moving her loose pants and long-sleeved cropped shirt around her hourglass shape ahead of me.
I wished I’d grabbed a jacket, but I had expected to jump directly into Nia’s home.
I chafed my arms for warmth as I hurried to keep up.
I was the one who’d decided that I was done with Fauna, but as she pressed onward without turning to look at me, I experienced a second wave of loss.
It seemed she wasn’t trying to make amends anymore, either.
There was a slip and a catch, as if my heart had been suctioned through my ribs and plopped to the ground behind me.
I couldn’t stop to pick it up. I couldn’t hold the wound.
I could only follow Fauna as we headed toward Nia’s.
For all I knew, Inkhouse had already dropped me.
I hadn’t responded to EG’s messages in gods knew how long.
I’d kicked my mother in the nose and broken her connection to the veil, severing any lingering hope for our familial relationship.
I couldn’t even talk about Fire and Swords with my favorite concierge anymore, after her life had been cut brutally short by evil embodied, solely because someone had arrived to murder me.
Between my angel and demons, I’d been abandoned.
When it came to burning bridges, time after time, I was the one who’d held the match.
Perhaps I could piss off Nia and Kirby as well and render myself utterly alone.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked.
Fauna flicked a hand dismissively. She seemed self-assured, which was more than I could say.
I knew how to get to Nia’s house in my car.
If I’d ever veered onto a side street, I would have needed GPS to find my way back.
Every house was a similar shade of neutral.
Every yard was carefully manicured with HOA-approved trees and shrubs.
The sidewalk was clean and unencumbered by hopscotch chalk or dandelions in the cracks. It was boring as fuck.
We rounded the corner, and I recognized my surroundings at long last. We were only half a block from Nia’s.
“How far out is warded?”
She looked over her shoulder briefly before saying, “It’s like a dome. I assume your Prince did it. If Estrid is there, then there must be specific cracks in the ward for pre-approved entities. It would appear that I did not make the list.”
There was an acidity to her final sentence.
“But you can walk to her house?”
The skin around her eyes tightened, but she remained front-facing. “Obviously,” came her curt answer. “She will have to invite me in.”
I stopped myself from making a comment about vampire rules.
A moment later, the house blocked the wind as we mounted the step onto her front landing. My knuckles were already pink with chill as I rapped on Nia’s door. It wasn’t until the door opened that I realized I hadn’t considered what day of the week it was.
Darius, it appeared, was not at work.
“Marlow!” he sputtered, and I knew as his eyes darted between us that the shock was not for me.
“Hi, Darius.” I offered a weak smile. “You remember Fauna.”
He opened the door fully, cracking the screen door as well in invitation. “Yes, of course. Come in, come in you two.”
Fauna flashed her most charming smile. “You’re a doll, Darius. Thank you. How have you been?”
“Oh, you know,” he said, still on unsteady footing. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is Nia expecting you? She’s been…out of sorts.”
I looked up at the man who’d become the only human male in my life. He was six feet of kindness, a collection of comic book action figures decorating his shelves, a Pro Roe T-shirt, and a face lined with worry. His easy charm had evaporated as concern took root.
And I could only imagine why.
As far as he knew, Nia had been talking to the walls, growing stranger and stranger as his social, assertive wife insisted on working from home.
Of course, her change in behavior came from a valkyrie loitering over her, but that was privileged information.
I imagined things had been unsettling for him for some time.
“That’s why we’re here,” Fauna said, resting her hand briefly on his forearm. She’d probably intended for the gesture to be comforting, but I knew him well enough to spot the uneasy motion as her touch had the reverse effect. “Nia needs some girl time.”
The lines on his forehead deepened as he looked at me for confirmation. I realized I’d never stood in the Fosters’ mudroom for this long before. It was almost as if he stood between his wife and further mayhem, guarding her from anything that might drive her more deeply into madness.
“Maybe,” he began, “it’s the world, you know?
It’s gone to hell. The news has been crazy.
They’re saying gods are real? And…well…since you were there, Mar…
Since you were at that concert… I thought maybe that’s what she needed to talk about, right?
With everything on TV, and all the claims being made.
And then, Mar, that footage is everywhere. ”
I shrank, understanding his defensive posture. He was protecting her from me after the display at the concert. He’d seen me rush the stage that had sent the world into a tailspin. Perhaps he thought seeing me vanish into thin air on national television had been what destroyed Nia.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions about what you saw,” I said.
“Would the answers bring me any peace?” he asked.
And I could do little more than shrug, because I didn’t have the answer he needed.
“I can promise you that she’s safe. That I love her.
That I would kill for her and die for her.
She’s had my back more times than I can count.
And if she is on edge because she needs to talk through what went down at the Vexa concert, then who better to do it with than me? ”
He nodded unconvincingly but didn’t quite clear the path. “It’s just…”
“I’ve got this,” I promised. “And if I let either of you down in any way, you can kill me yourself.”
That earned the barest of chuckles. His eyes went back to Fauna, then to me. “And after everything…after those men onstage…and the couple on the news in Greece. And this friend of yours. Not to be rude, Fauna, but…”
“It’s not rude at all,” she said, and I’d never seen her look so gentle.
“You aren’t crazy. There’s a chance I’ll be spending a little bit of time with you both today, so how about the three of us have a chat over dinner?
I’ll answer everything, and I’ll answer it honestly.
You’re allowed to bring as much weed and booze as you need.
A bottle of vodka helps the medicine go down. But first, where’s that wife of yours?”
I saw the questions tick behind his eyes, calculating as he undoubtedly weighed years of friendship and love and loyalty against the weeks of insanity.
I saw the moment he reached a decision. His shoulders relaxed, if only slightly.
He pivoted and allowed us to pass. “All right. She’s in the den.
I’ll…leave you to it, I guess. Let me know if you need anything? ”
“Is…” I nearly bit down on my tongue to keep myself from asking, but I’d already gotten his attention. “Is the coffee pot on? We could use a few cups. With extra sugar.”
“You don’t take yours with sugar,” he said.
The normalcy gave him somewhere to direct his energy, which was almost definitely as much of a relief for him as it was for me.
His back was already to us as he made his way to the kitchen.
I avoided Fauna’s eyes, unwilling to see whatever reaction she’d had.
A moment later, he filled two coffee cups three-quarters full and slid the sugar bowl, flavored creamer, and honey toward the mugs.
“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. “She’s my sister, D. I promise to take care of her.”
“You’d better,” he said, “because I don’t care who you are. She comes first.”
He handed me two spoons, and with a nod, he was off.
Fauna poured half of her coffee into the sink the moment he disappeared, then mixed in the sugar first, stirring until it melted. She topped it off with the flavored creamer, sipped it, and made a face. It took two more sweetening scoops before she was satisfied.
She gave me a half-hopeful look over the beige sludge in her mug, one corner of her mouth twitching as a brow lifted in a question. Whatever she was asking, I didn’t have an answer. One coffee didn’t make things right.
I took the honey with me as we crossed the living room toward Nia’s home office.
It wasn’t uncommon for her to split her days between the downtown cubicle and her den in the suburbs, but I wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to stay put before someone intervened.
I tucked the tube of honey under my arm and knocked lightly before letting myself in.
I saw the blond, muscular figure, still in fighting leathers, the moment the door cracked.
Strapped weapons, beaded braids, a well-worn wrist brace on her remaining, battle-ready arm—she couldn’t have looked more out of place in a suburban American home if she’d tried.
Estrid looked up from where she’d been seated on the floor, back to the wall.
She huffed in audible relief the moment her eyes landed on Fauna.
Nia got up from her computer chair and ran for me. She crashed into me with such force, I nearly lost my footing.
“Thank god you’re here,” she said into my hair.
Fauna closed the door behind us. “It’s good to see you, Nia,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind a changing of the guard.”
Nia pulled out of the hug to glance between the Nordes, from the stressed-out warrior to the familiar hippie. Perhaps she hadn’t meant to look so obvious, but her relief was as plain as day. “You’ll be staying with me now?”
Fauna smiled, then gave Nia’s shoulder a quick squeeze. She left her hand on Nia’s arm as she turned to Estrid. “Word on the street is that you have somewhere to be.”
Estrid was on her feet in an instant. Before she had the chance to open her mouth, I reached for her arm. “I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“I’m going with you to see this Egyptian god,” I said. “I have the only title that might matter to him.”
The valkyrie’s eyes became slits at the pronoun. Him.
“They were supposed to meet with Sekhmet. I know you know that much, but Alessia believes the reason we haven’t been able to get a hold of them is because they were…diverted. By someone else.”
“Spit it out,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Apep is their end-times god, and for what it’s worth, I’m sorta one, too. If the people we care about are with him, then if I’m the Bride of Hell, or the antichrist, or whatever, that might be a title worth throwing around if they’re in real trouble.”
I ignored the sounds of protest from behind me.
Estrid looked over my shoulder, presumably at Fauna. I refused to turn. Instead, I tightened my fingers on her forearm. “Estrid, you’re not going without me. Fauna will stay here with Nia. But we have to get going.”
“Mar…” Nia’s voice pulled my attention away. “I’m as worried about them as you are, but is this wise? You’re human. How could you possibly help?”
It was Fauna who, without looking at me, said, “There’s nothing she can’t do.”
Her too-large eyes were the last thing I saw as I latched on to Estrid and jumped through the world.