Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Lula stood so quickly, she was a blur. She drew her lips back in a snarl, her hands in fists. She was wrath, she was hellfire.
“How long?” she demanded. “How long have you known it was Headwaters?”
“Not long,” Cupid said. “Only after my battle with Ate.”
“Weeks?” she growled. “You waited weeks to tell me?”
“Lu,” I warned.
She couldn’t hear me, deafened by the rage, the helplessness, the hunger for revenge. We’d spent a hundred years longing to kill the creature who had done nothing but cause us pain.
To find out the same creature had been toying with us all these years was infuriating.
“I waited,” Cupid said, “because if you kill Headwaters—which I know you want to do—it will kill you. You and Brogan, both.”
“That—what?” I spun toward Cupid. “How?”
Lula took a step back from the table, clumsy, blinded by hatred, the back of her legs knocking over the chair.
“Don’t,” she hissed at him. “Don’t you dare take this from me.”
“Lu.” I reached for her. “Love.”
But she couldn’t see me. Not through the outrage. Not through the memories. Not through the pain.
She shook her head and stormed out of the room, every inch of her brittle with anger.
I took a step, but Hado mewed, jumped off Abbi’s lap, and trotted after her.
“Give her time,” Eunice said, scooping the whipped cream into a smaller bowl. “She’s safe here. She won’t leave you behind.”
I wasn’t so sure. She had made decisions to leave me behind before. I started toward the door, but Abbi slipped her hand into mine.
“Hado will tell me if anything happens.” Her eyes were huge and pleading, holding all of the galaxy’s stars like rivers of light. “We need answers, right?”
I scrubbed my other hand over my face.
I hated this. All of it. I didn’t know what our future might be—if we would even have a future beyond killing Headwaters and getting rid of the book—but if I had any say, our future would be far, far away from monsters and gods.
“All right,” I said. “Talk. Where’s Headwaters?” I didn’t sound as furious as Lula, but it was close.
Cupid sighed. “If I tell you, you’re going to leave right now to kill him, aren’t you?”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
“You can’t kill him yet. Brogan…” He looked away and rubbed the top of his bald head. “Anger will warm you, but only cold logic will save you. You and Lula.”
“Cold logic and a weapon you don’t know how to wield,” Raven said.
Cupid threw Raven a look, and Raven held up his hands. “I’m not wrong.”
“He’s not wrong.” Eunice’s voice was melody and harmony, a chorus of her power centering upon this moment, stitching us into this reality, this now.
I paced to the windows at the back of the kitchen that overlooked Eunice’s property.
Lula was walking through the field, the summer grass yellowed and gone to seed. She wasn’t alone. A little black cat hopped along beside her, and overhead, three crows swooped and circled.
She hadn’t left. She hadn’t left me yet.
“What weapon?” I asked, gathering what calm I could. “Tell me what weapon kills Headwaters.”
“There’s probably more than one,” Cupid said. “But to kill it…completely…you will need to use the spell book of the gods.”
Everything went silent. I almost expected a flash of lightning or a blast of storm wind to roll through the house.
But there was just the soft ticking of a clock in the other room and the call and reply of the crows—Raven’s crows, undoubtedly—outside against the faded blue sky.
“First you want us to find the book, then hand it over, then hide it, and now you want us to use it? How many more roles are we going to play in this game, Cupid?”
“I don’t want you to use the book. I don’t want anyone to use it. But I can’t make that choice, because, as we’ve just illustrated, you and Lula have free will, Brogan Gauge.”
Raven grunted. “We really should have given mortals something else in exchange for their worship.”
“Don’t start with that,” Cupid said. “You wanted them to have free will.”
“Well, it is fun, isn’t it? More interesting too.”
“How,” I asked, “can we use the book to kill him?”
“There should be spells in the book…” Cupid raised an eyebrow, and Raven nodded. “There are spells in the book made by powerful beings who have left this reality, and essentially no longer exist.”
“Lost gods,” Eunice said, surprised.
“We don’t speak of them, much,” Raven mused. “But then, we didn’t speak of the book for so many centuries everyone forgot about it.”
“Not everyone,” Eunice said.
Raven pointed at her in agreement.
“Do the lost gods know about me and Lula?”
“I fucking hope not,” Cupid said. “Those gods are no longer connected to Earth, to this plain of existence, but the spells they left in the book? It’s possible the spells they left behind can be used without the dire consequences of the other spells.”
“Magic without a price?” I asked.
“No, there could still be a price,” Cupid said. “Will likely be one. But not your death. Not Lula’s death.”
“The spells will protect them?” Eunice asked.
“Not protect,” Raven said. “They just won’t carry the backlash and repercussions—death, destruction, shackled worship—of tapping into the spell of a living god.” He lifted his mug up to Cupid. “That’s a very sneaky loophole. I didn’t think you had it in you, Bo. I approve.”
Cupid’s smile spread slowly, giving him a wolfish look. “You agree?”
“That a wayward god’s spell might kill Headwaters without Lula or Brogan paying for it with their lives? Yes. In theory. We won’t really know until they try, which is its own problem. And as soon as they tap the book, it’s gonna draw attention.”
“I know of a place that could keep them hidden. With people who will look out for them,” Eunice said. “I think…” She hummed and tapped a beat I could not hear against her thigh. “So many possibilities.”
I did not want to use that damned book. Just because a spell might not kill us, didn’t mean the price wouldn’t be higher than we wanted to pay.
There were worse things than death.
“Let me guess,” I said. “This place where we can use the book without Ate or other gods finding us is Ordinary.”
Eunice put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Ah-yah. Are you so ready to believe the worst of me, Brogan Gauge? We are here to see that you and Lula survive. We are here to see the book put to rest. Even Raven has good intentions.”
“Hey now,” Raven said. “Don’t go ruining my reputation. Trickster god, remember?”
“Oh, you’ve plenty of tricks, but not against the Gauges. You hate that book more than any of us. Why, you’re here in my kitchen, breaking a promise to the Reed sisters, to see that it is buried for good.”
“My promise to Delaney isn’t broken, it’s just…flexible. My hatred for that book, is not.” There was so much god power behind those last words, I tasted ash in my mouth.
“You know I will bend my power to keep you safe and hidden,” Cupid said.
“Safe? Like when Ate almost killed me and buried Lu? Or when Lu almost died fighting the king vampire? Were you keeping us safe when the Hush swarmed us? When Lorde was shot?”
Cupid tipped his head.
Out in the field, Lula stood very still, her shoulders angled toward me. Her supernatural hearing caught every word, even though she was several yards away from the house.
“No,” Cupid said. “I have not kept you safe or hidden. You were within my awareness, but my protection was slow. Until I fought Ate.”
“After she’d tried to kill me. After she’d kidnapped Lu.”
He inclined his head. “I didn’t expect her direct approach. I did not expect her at all.”
“Time is long, Brogan,” Raven said. “Even the most powerful gods become forgetful.”
It sounded like an omen, like a line from a very old poem.
It sounded like the truth.
“I will keep you hidden from Ate,” Cupid said. “I will keep you hidden from Headwaters. I am giving you time to learn how to use the spells of the lost gods, if that is what you choose to do.”
“What if we find another weapon to kill Headwaters?”
“If that is your choice, I will keep you hidden and protected to the extent of my powers for however long—months, years, decades—it will take to find that weapon. But you have made enemies of gods. There are ways they could make you suffer that even I cannot save you from.”
“Damned if we do,” I said.
He made a considering sound.
“Can you guarantee the price we pay for wielding lost god magic won’t be too steep?” I asked.
“Define steep,” Raven said.
“That either of us dies. That we lose our humanity, our souls, our minds. That we will come out of it so changed we are no longer capable of loving each other. Of being who we are.”
“Your souls,” Cupid drew on his god power, putting intent behind it, “are always yours. Unchangeable. Perfect. Free.”
“But,” Raven added.
Cupid glared at him.
“They need to know, Bo. If they’re going to agree to this. If they are going to use the blasted book and take it to its final resting place, they need to know it all.”
Cupid tapped his finger on the table again. He stared into a middle distance, seeing things I could never—would never—care to see.
Lula shifted, turning so she was in profile. The sun poured over her like honey, making her pale skin glow and her red hair catch fire. Some of the fury had drained from her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t angry.
She lowered her hand, and Hado bumped his head on her palm, then jumped to her. She caught him and held him at eye level, the two of them staring at each other for a long moment.
I didn’t think she could talk to the moon rabbit’s shadow, but maybe she could.
Maybe he was telling her we didn’t have to do this. Didn’t have to risk everything on a plan the gods had decided for us.
Free will, right?
Lula drew Hado closer and bent her forehead, touching her head to his.
I felt my heart clutch at the unbearably sweet moment.
She’d wanted children. I remembered that now. Back when we’d both been alive, before the attack, when the world wasn’t so much an easier place as we were much, much more naive, she had whispered to me, on a summer’s evening, that she liked children and hoped one day to have some.
She bent, and Hado jumped down into the tall grass next to her.
The moment, the memory, whisked away, leaving behind an unfamiliar longing for a tomorrow we might never have.
“What do we need to know?” I asked Raven.
Lula strolled back to the house. She couldn’t see me looking at her through the window, not with the sun’s angle on the glass. Still, her gaze was locked on mine.
I smiled, because there was nothing she didn’t know about me. Nothing about her I didn’t adore.
We were going to do this, kill Headwaters. We were going to use that damned book to do it.
I could see her decision in her stride, see it in the wild wind swirling around her.
We were going to take that monster down, no matter the price.
“You tell him or I do,” Raven said.
Cupid sighed. “It’s the spells. When you use the spells written by the lost gods, you may resurrect the lost gods from whatever reality they inhabit.”
“And,” Raven encouraged.
“And,” Cupid crossed his arms over his chest, “they may not be pleased about it.”
I raised my eyebrows, and Lula flashed a smile in return.
I didn’t like this. I didn’t want to touch the damn book, didn’t want to use any spell in the damn book, didn’t want to use god magic or lost god magic.
But however much I didn’t want to use the book, I knew Lula wanted to kill Headwaters twice as much.
“Wait,” Eunice said. “We have company.”
“Here?” Raven asked. “Who?”
Eunice was already out of the kitchen, a wave of her hand dismissing the question.
Cupid and Raven exchanged a look, then did something with their power that made my molars hurt.
They were still sitting at the table, but they looked different in a way I couldn’t put my finger on.
“Shhh…” Raven said. “We’re in disguise. Don’t want to startle the normals.”
Voices rose at Eunice’s door. A woman, no, more than one, and an older man’s voice, all of them talking over each other like they were trying to explain the same thing, but were just making it impossible to understand.
“He’s in the kitchen,” Eunice said. “Lula’s coming in from the field.”
“Thank you very much, Ma’am,” the man said. “We won’t be long or too much trouble.”
I knew that voice, but it didn’t make any sense.
“Elmer?” I asked, just as the monster hunter, his granddaughter and her partner walked into the kitchen, guns on their hips.