Chapter 9 #2
“Because I’ll be more help here. Call me if you need anything. The house is looking for items or information that will give you guidance with the object you’re dealing with.”
“Thank you,” Lu said.
“You can do this,” Ricky said. “I know you can.”
Lu thumbed off the call. “It’s him. It’s Cardamom.”
“I’ll let Pamela know to bring him in,” Josie said. “She’ll lead him through the west door. That will dump them into a containment room. They’ll stay there for at least fifteen minutes. Overabundance of caution, but now’s not the time to skimp.”
“Oh, we agree,” Lu said.
“You have time if you want to pick out a room,” Elmer said. “They won’t be inside for at least a half hour. That is, if you’ve decided to stay with us.”
“We have,” I said.
There might be a safer place along the Route to find a magical weapon or to try using the spell book of the gods, but I didn’t know where it would be.
Besides, the Walches were family and had adopted us as such. They were not only offering every resource they had—physical and magical—to us, they were doing it at great risk to themselves.
“Down the hall,” Elmer said. “You know the way. My room’s first on the left. The girls have the first on the right. Any other is open for the taking.”
We walked into the control room where we’d dumped our duffels and bags, and then to the bedroom wing of the place.
Abbi skipped ahead of us, opening every door and making ooh and ahh noises as she looked into the rooms. The last door on the right made her stop. Then she ran to it. “I want this one!”
Each room was pretty much the same on either side. They held two twins or a double bed, wood floors with rugs beneath the beds. The walls were wood and brick and there were shelves and bedside tables or dressers.
The bedding was clean, functional, and in no way new. The pillows were plump enough I knew they were good quality feather.
“You picked the one the farthest from the kitchen?” I asked Abbi. “Are you sure?”
I looked in the room. Abbi was sprawled on the bed, arms akimbo. Hado, who apparently was done guarding the book, curled on her chest in kitten form, purring.
“Oh,” Lula said. “Look at that.”
Everything about the room was identical to the others except the ceiling.
The ceiling was painted midnight blue with a huge, accurate full moon in an arc of constellations and planets, each carefully identified in clean gold writing.
“I like this one,” Abbi sighed. “The moon is the best.”
“We’ll take the one across the hall,” Lula said.
“That puts us farthest from the kitchen, too, you know,” I said.
Lu patted my arm. “The least of our problems.”
She turned the light on and walked into our room.
I unloaded the duffle onto the dresser.
“Two twin beds,” I said. “You telling me something, Lula Gauge?”
She threw me a look, then shoved one bed over to the other. “You think I want to sleep alone after all these years?”
“I tend to snore.”
“So do I.”
“Well, I don’t mind,” I said. “Never have.”
She drew her hand back through her hair, then rubbed her forehead. “Today’s been a lot.”
“Too damn many gods,” I said. “I mean, Thor? Really?”
That got a smile out of her.
“Want some rest?” I asked.
“No.” She sat and patted the bed. “Sit with me a minute though?”
“As long as you want.” The bed springs made some noise as I lowered myself beside her, but they were stiff and strong. I put my arm behind her back, pulling her into me.
She tucked her head into my shoulder, just like she had out in the garage. The events of the last day, hell, the last months and longer…the events of our entire damned lives…seemed to pile up all at once.
It was exhausting.
“How the hell are we going to figure out how to use the book, Brogan?” she asked. “God power? You and me?”
I hummed and stroked my thumb across the back of her hand resting on my knee.
“What if we just don’t?”
“That’s not an option. We’re killing Headwaters.”
“Even Raven said there might be other weapons that can kill Headwaters.”
Her eyes, when she tipped her face up, glowed gold. “How long would it take us to find another weapon—if there even is one close to the Route? How much time do we have before the gods hunting us find us? And out there?” She waved at the wall. “They will find us in an instant.”
“We aren’t wizards, Lu. We don’t wield magic. Do you really think we can just pick up the spell book of the gods and use it? No. It’s smarter—and a hell of a lot safer—to find some other damned weapon.”
“Is there one? We don’t know. Two gods couldn’t tell us if there was another weapon that would kill Headwaters without killing us. Remember? Killing Headwaters means we die too.”
She shook her head. “We have the book. The lost god spells are our only chance of surviving this. We use the weapon at hand.”
“How?” I asked, frustrated. “Even the gods don’t know how to use it. Just because our souls were torn apart and stitched back together to make us into tools to use the book, doesn’t mean we know how. There are no instructions for the damn thing.”
“Ricky said she’d look for instructions.”
“She’s not going to find anything. Even the gods forgot that book existed.”
Lu shifted in my embrace, drawing closer, sensing my racing heartbeat, my instinctive panic over the very idea of using the book. That book had already been the reason I had been killed, and Lu turned into a thrawn.
I hated everything about it.
“We’ll take it slow,” she said. “Small steps. Small spells, if that’s possible. Trial and error. We can do it. We’ve figured out hard things before.”
“We don’t have time for that.”
“We do. We’ll take as long as we damned well want. This hideout is so far off grid, I don’t think even Ate or Mithra can find it.”
“Cardamon found it,” I said.
“Let’s ask him how. I bet Eunice or Raven told him.”
I grunted. I hadn’t thought about that obvious possibility.
“This place looks like it can survive an apocalypse,” she went on. “Elmer said they have a safe room where no magic can escape. We can work with the book there.”
“Or we could just grab the book and run to Ordinary. Forget about killing Headwaters.”
One red eyebrow rose, and she held my gaze. “We’re killing Headwaters.” Her words were soft but as inescapable and heavy as a coffin’s lid.
I looked away and tried to steady my breathing. There was no arguing or reasoning her out of this decision. This was the one thing she’d been living for all these years. She wouldn’t give it up now it was within her grasp.
“If it’s too hard to use the spells,” I said, “if it’s too dangerous…”
“Then we kill Headwaters no matter the consequences. And take Ate down. There will be no god who will tell us if we deserve to live our lives or not. Our lives, Brogan. Together. Nothing will take you away from me again.”
“Damn right,” I growled. “Fuck those gods.”
She nodded and exhaled, the circles beneath her eyes like bruises in this light.
I gently touched her cheek and was surprised at the heat of her skin. “You sure you don’t want a couple minutes of rest before we deal with the wizard?”
“Yes. I’m also sure I want you to kiss me.”
That was a request I would never refuse.