Chapter 4 #2
“There’s tea.” Eunice gestured toward the kettle and little flowered canisters with hand-written labels on them. “Brogan, I’ve got cold chicken in the fridge and a fresh loaf of sourdough if you want a sandwich.”
I hadn’t thought I was hungry, but as soon as she said it, my stomach rumbled. I was starving.
“Lu?” I cut off toward the fridge. “Food?”
“I’ll start with tea.”
We moved about the kitchen, Eunice setting out plates and Abbi cutting more reasonably sized pieces of cake for everyone.
By the time I came to the table with my sandwich, she’d already wolfed through two huge slices of cake.
I took the knife away before she could cut herself a third.
“Hado wants some!” she said.
“Hado isn’t in the kitchen, is he?”
She wrinkled her nose, her gaze searching for the meaning in my words. “Hado’s in the truck. He wants to stay in the truck. Because he’s tired.”
“Good.” Hado was still guarding the book. “He should get some rest. We’ll give him cake later. If you don’t eat it all first.”
“It has my name on it. I should eat it all.”
I dropped a half sandwich on her plate and pointed at it.
She gave me a brief scowl, then dug in, humming a song about the moon and pizza pies as she chewed.
“Well then.” Eunice joined us, a huge mug of tea in her hands. “I’m glad to see you all made it. What are we going to do about Ate and that damnable book?”
Raven and Cupid turned and stared at us expectantly.
Lula sipped tea, as if it didn’t bother her to be the subject of that much god attention. I settled into my chair, squaring off with my own sandwich.
“I’m open to suggestions,” I said.
“We need a plan.” Cupid took the chair at the head of the table opposite Abbi. “And we should execute it before she and Mithra can pull another stunt like that again.”
“Mithra,” Eunice said. “I’d wondered.” She shook her head. “All right then. What do we do about them?”
“If you want my opinion—” Raven offered.
“We don’t,” Cupid said.
Raven huffed and leaned against the counter. “Just wait, you will.”
“The gods are only part of the problem,” Cupid said. “The spell book is its own challenge.”
“We have it,” Lula said, “the book. But you knew that, didn’t you?” Her golden gaze shot up to meet Cupid’s. Fearless, that woman. Standing her ground against monsters, fate, and the gods themselves.
I couldn’t help but throw her a grin.
Cupid linked his fingers on top of the table. “The hunter gave it to you.”
“Did you see us?” Abbi asked. “Did you see me melt the vampires and save us?”
“I saw the book being moved by the hunter, and I saw you find it in Texas.”
“Boo,” Abbi said, “you missed the best part. The part where I was bright as the sun and saved us.”
“Is that why you brought us here?” I asked. “You want us to give you the book?”
Cupid didn’t move, but there was more god to him now, a darkness and power barely contained behind his guise of humanity.
“Is that our agreement, Brogan Gauge?” It was a warning, a challenge—pure god stuff.
But like Lula, I wasn’t inclined to back down. “You told us to bring it to you when we found it.”
“Which you have done. I am here. You are here. The book is in the truck.”
“No fair!” Abbi said. “You can see it?”
“Not now. Hado and the witch’s box are cloaking it. But for those few moments in Texas when it was not in the witch’s box, Ate and Mithra must have sensed it near you. I saw it.”
“So, they know.” Lula glanced out the window, as if the other gods were headed our way.
“If they’d known it was in the truck,” Raven reasoned, “they would have taken your truck and disposed of both of you.”
“They can’t touch it though,” Eunice said. “They need Lula and Brogan to access the spells. There’s no using the book without them.”
Raven tucked his hands into his front pockets, shoulders back, head tipped. He looked relaxed, but it was the kind of pose a hawk would take before striking.
“They don’t need them alive,” he said. “Brogan’s better to them as an unbodied spirit. When he’s nothing but a ghost, they can better control Lula.”
Lu tucked her hair behind her ears and narrowed her eyes at Cupid. “Are you taking the book from us?”
“No. That wasn’t our agreement. I’m asking what you want to do with it.”
Eunice made a little noise of surprise. “Excuse me a minute. I’ll be back in a nip.” She walked out of the kitchen.
A second later, Hado in black kitten form, bounded into the room and jumped up on Abbi’s lap.
He hissed at Cupid, his ears back.
“It’s okay,” Abbi said. “You did a good job. The bad gods didn’t get it, did they?”
Hado’s ears flicked back up, he mewed, and bumped his head on Abbi’s stomach. She smiled and stroked his back.
“I know what I want you to do with it.” Raven sat at the table. The air took on a weight, a feeling of fate, of momentous decisions about to be made.
I hated that feeling.
“I want the book in Ordinary. Sandy beaches, mild weather, lots of weird—I mean quaint—small town festivals. The magical library can disappear powerful books from gods, monsters, and anything else in this earthly realm.”
“You’re not the one making the choices here,” Cupid said. “They are. Brogan, Lula?”
This was it, then. Our chance to defy Cupid. To change, once again, our agreement with him—the agreement which had brought me back to life and given us his protection.
“We won’t give it to you,” I said, “or any other god.”
Lula lifted her chin, gaze steady. Her hand slipped down to the knives hidden on her.
“Free will,” Raven said. “I told you.”
“Free will.” Cupid took a long breath and sat back.
The tension in the room broke like sunlight through fog.
“Did you change your mind?” Raven asked. “Are you going to keep it?”
“Do we have to tell you what we want to do with the book?” I asked.
“Everything is an option.” Eunice strode into the room, bracelets chiming. “Free will, like these two just said.” She checked the refrigerator for cream, then pulled out a bowl, sugar, and a mixer.
“We’re taking it to Ordinary.” Lula nodded. “To the secret library there.”
I’d never seen two gods and a muse smile the same smile of relief.
“Agreed,” Cupid said. “It belongs in Ordinary.”
“Ah-ha!” Raven crowed.
“But,” Cupid continued, “there is something you need to know which might change your mind about that.”
Raven groaned. “Are we doing this now?”
“They deserve the truth,” Cupid said.
Eunice turned on the mixer, and the scent of vanilla filled the air. Whipped cream, I thought.
Raven spread his hands, giving Cupid the floor.
“I found the monster who attacked you,” Cupid said.
The world went oddly slick and distant, as if nothing about it was quite real. A ringing filled my ears.
Shock, I thought.
“There is only one still alive, but I have found him.”
This is what we’d been looking for, what Lula and I had spent all these years hunting.
The monster who had torn our souls apart, taken our lives and locked us into following Route 66, the magical pathway that had carried supernaturals and monsters across the United States for a hundred years.
“Where?” I asked.
“Who?” Lula asked.
Cupid’s fingers tapped the tabletop as he looked between us.
“You’ve been working with him for years. Lula, you collected magical items for him.”
“No,” I breathed, knocked back by the horror of it, the injustice of it.
“Headwaters?” Lula growled.
“Headwaters,” Cupid agreed.