Chapter 43 #2
“Y’know what?” Gray asked, rumpling one hellhoundlet’s ears while scratching another’s belly as the third butted her hard little head into his leg for attention. “I’ll bet if we went back the last couple of days and dug up CCTV footage, we’d see a fox in the vicinity of everyone who disappeared.”
“No doubt. Once I found out about the foxes, I started to notice other things. Like when you claimed La Croix asked you to sit with Death. Except La Croix told me a different story: You were the one who offered to relieve him. Which gave you the chance to slip Death more poison. It wasn’t even that hard, was it?
Manipulating us into repeatedly leaving you alone with Death?
We trusted you. Why not? All this time, we’ve been such good friends. ”
Skye had gone so pale, her freckles stood out in blotchy relief. “And you’ve convinced yourself I would indulge in such treacherous behavior because . . .”
“I already told you; you just can’t be bothered to listen.
But I listened to you. I heard your complaints about the loss of territory.
Not just when we spar, but every time you see me.
I’ve seen your envy of the compound, heard you repeatedly, in the guise of friendly sarcasm, tell my parents they didn’t deserve such a wide swathe of territory.
Heard your resentment that your influence over the centuries had been reduced to the six hundred miles of the Isle of Skye.
“So when I pulled all that together, it was obvious. And I can’t even take much credit for figuring it out, because you didn’t work too hard to cover your tracks.
Even now, you’re not really trying. You should be projecting calm reason and logical-but-hurt outrage, but you’re shrieking like someone set your hair on fire while not actually denying anything I’ve said. ”
“Demeanor doesn’t equal evidence,” Gray added, “but still.”
“I—you—I—”
“You know, in all the years we’ve been ‘friends,’ I’ve never heard you raise your voice. But look at you. You’re a seething shitpile right now.”
And Amara saw it. Saw the second Skye decide to stop dancing and go all in. “Yes, well. I didn’t think it would take much effort, since you have a documented history of being a spoiled, oblivious idiot.”
“Only two of those are true,” Amara sniffed. “And I’ll take ‘spoiled idiot’ over cowardly poisoner.”
“Watch your mouth, girl.”
She ignored the warning. “Not just my father, either. You’ve been poisoning me for years. Every chance you got, you dripped vitriol in my ear. Like with my migraines. Outwardly sympathetic, while telling me they were just another reason I wasn’t suited to Death’s mantle.
“And for what?” Amara spread her hands. “None of this was necessary. There’s plenty of room here. None of us have to reside in our physical territories to do our work. I can be Death in Minot or Missouri or Moscow. And you know my parents would have let you stay as long as you—”
“I am not a guest and I do not accept charity! This territory and all souls in it should be mine by right.”
“Should? No,” Amara said quietly. “That’s only what you told yourself.
The blunt fact is, it’s mine by right, and you know it well.
It’s why you can’t stand it. You never could.
So when you saw me at my lowest—the painful fogs of migraine, my despair at family obligations, my refusal to return home—you stopped fucking around and set your cowardly coup in motion.
“And you probably told yourself it wasn’t wrong, that you weren’t betraying me. ‘Saving me.’ I’m betting that’s how you rationalized it. Well, I have woeful news for you, Skye: I don’t need saving.”
“Utter bullshit! You need saving almost as much as your father does.”
“My father. Mmmm.” Amara studied Scáthach like she was a bug under a microscope the likes of which had never been seen.
“It was your idea, wasn’t it? Presented out of concern for my mother and me.
‘Let yourself be poisoned; when Amara fails at least she won’t die and poor Brunhilde won’t suffer the loss of another daughter.
’ And Death listened. Of course he did. And for love of my mother and me, agreed.
And so here we are. A stupid, reckless plan, like something out of a nineties sitcom. And now this mess.”
“It’s mine,” Skye said defiantly. “The territory and everything in it. Your mother. You. The grounds, the buildings, the hundreds of thousands of souls.”
“You’re off: seventy million. You want to rule over a territory of people you don’t understand?
You couldn’t even be bothered to Google the population.
I’m beginning to see why you’re down to six hundred miles and a population of ten thousand.
You just . . . half-ass everything. I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. ”
“It all belongs to me. You could never have held it.”
“You’re a broken record. And how very Darwinian of you. The polite thing to do would be to wait until I failed before launching Project Treacherous Bitch.”
“No, I—”
“But you couldn’t wait, and once you started, you couldn’t go back.
You’d made your decision, you talked Death into making himself vulnerable to ichor.
Once you crossed that line, it was either go back or go on.
And it’s not in you to go back, so: more poison.
More faux understanding. What you didn’t count on was my competence. ”
Skye pressed her lips together but said nothing. Amara was more than a little surprised no one in the room took the easy shot, either. The only sounds were the snuffling of houndlets, the crackling fire, and La Croix’s chattering teeth.
“I not only came when called, I brought a loved one along for the ride and we took up the scrolls. So now you had two problems: You had to make Death sicker and you had to make the Reaps harder. Drive me away so you could heroically step in. So you manipulated the list, giving me the worst first.”
“But I thought that was impossible,” Gray said.
“Forbidden,” Hilly said, glaring at Skye. “Only a handful of people on the globe would even be able to make the attempt. And it would be difficult—not impossible—even for them.”
“Manipulating the list contradicts the point of death gods: No one can avoid their fate and it’s not okay to try. But what’s a little blasphemy when you’re going for a land grab, right, Skye?”
“You’re talking to me about blasphemy?” Skye muttered. “That’s rich. And I didn’t manipulate the list. I switched out the faxes.”
Amara held herself still so she wouldn’t slap her own forehead. So simple it never occurred to me. I assumed she was utilizing death-god shenanigans to fuck with the list, but all she had to do was get to the fax machine first. Bad enough that anyone could have done it. Worse that we made it easy.
She might have half-assed everything, but my family hasn’t exactly been behaving like rocket scientists, either.
“You also hid the ‘easy’ Reaps,” Amara continued. “That’s when La Croix noticed; his followers knew some of the missing, and came to him for help.”
Before she could elaborate, La Croix jumped in.
Fair: Skye had fucked with his people. “It did not take overlong to see what you’d done, lending credence to Amara’s point about your .
. . inefficiency.” He seemed to get taller and darker with every word, and if Skye had any sense, she’d be mildly terrified right about now.
“And however events shake out now, you have made an enemy, Scáthach, warrior maid of shadows. And there will be a reckoning.”
Amara cleared her throat. “Anyway. You didn’t anticipate La Croix noticing your little practice runs.
To be fair, what were the odds? I was supposed to have fled back to Minnesota by now.
Your improvisations shouldn’t have been necessary.
But you decided to make lemon meringue from lemons; La Croix’s running around town just added to my stress, and the missing people gave me yet another thing to worry about.
“They’re fine, by the way. If you care. The ones you hid.
Well, not fine; they’re dead because it was their time.
La Croix tracked the last one down a couple of hours ago.
You hid them on the base, where it would be almost impossible for civilians to look for them.
But in a common area, where their discovery, while delayed, was always inevitable. Because you half-assed it.
“And that’s it.” Amara looked around the silent room. “Uh, that’s the mend of my story. End. End of the gory. Story!” Argh! Stupid aphasia.
“See?” Skye jabbed a finger at the others, who were staring at her with expressions ranging from surprise to horror. “She’s getting a migraine right now! Just talking about all this—this bullshit nonsense is making her sick. It’s why she’s wearing those stupid sunglasses.”
“They’re not stupid,” Gray said. “They’re Celine’s. Never diss Death Lite or Celine’s sunglasses line.”
Skye wouldn’t be moved. “This sickly child? Taking Death’s mantle?”
“I’m pushing thirty, Skye.”
Skye ignored reality (again). “It’s an absurd joke. And you all know it. You’re just too fond of Hilly—or too frightened—to do anything.”
“You know quite well why we aren’t able to ‘do anything,’” Arawn said, studying his red, red hands. When he looked up, his visage was as grim as Amara had ever seen. “I’m beginning to see Death’s point.”
“Don’t you call her that!”
“You really aren’t paying attention, and you have perverted your role in life’s eternal cycle.”
“They aren’t migraines,” Amara said. “The symptoms were real, as was the pain, but it was a misdiagnosis. Not that it’s relevant. And I’ll tell you what, Skye. You did help me in your way. I had bad days you made a bit better. In service to yourself, mostly, but I don’t forget it.”
“So, what?” Skye said scornfully. “Bygones will be bygones?”
“Yes. I’ll let it all go—I’ve already let you go—if you leave now. Get lost, stay lost. Know that you’re never to return to my lands. Understand that you are banished forever. And this can be over.”
“Everything here is mine,” Skye said, because she was a delusional, deceitful twat.
“The only thing that’s yours is your life. I’d prefer not to take it, but that’s up to you. Everything you’ve done has been up to you. All your wounds are self-inflicted.”
“Such nonsense.”
“It isn’t nonsense,” her father said from the bed. “It’s just tedious. And why’s it so goddamned hot in here?”