“Relax, Eden.” He toed the sand. “I was just looking for the map. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
I ignored his not-an-apology. “You look pretty good for someone who just took six to the chest.”
“Still hurts.” Cross gave a sad laugh. I don’t think he was referring to the bullets. Then he narrowed his golden-flecked eyes, like he suspected I was up to something. “You were quite the little dealmaker on the drive back to town.”
Right. He’d heard my entire conversation with Aldric in the convertible—or snippets through his drunken sleep. That was why he’d been rooting around the mansion—he was concerned I was about to pawn the map off to the highest bidder, just like I’d done with the drive.
And he was right.
“You’re a little late if you wanted in on that action.”
“So, I asked myself, what other chips does my sexy friend Eden have to play?”
“You must’ve overthought things,” I said, giving him a very unsexy frown.
He blew it off with a confident grin, tossing the glowing blade from one hand to another. “And I settled on one: the treasure map.”
“And what would I do with Drake’s map?” I kept my expression stone-faced.
“You tell me.” Cross winked. “I’m here to make amends. Help you out.”
He held up his blood-stained hands, like they proved his benevolent intentions.
“I’m good.” I headed up the beach, and he followed like a lost puppy.
“I can see the map,” Cross called.
“Stop staring at my ass.”
“That’d be a greater sin than giving away that map.”
“Survival’s a real bitch,” I said.
“Who wants it? The vampire?”
“I’m sure he does,” I said, watching the sun begin to set over the perfect ocean. “What’s with the little toy?”
“The Sword of Damocles.”
That got me to stop. I turned slowly. “What’d you say?”
“Not the real thing.” He flipped the blade high in the air, then ducked out of the way when it became apparent he couldn’t catch it. Still a little buzzed, if I had to guess. “A replica.”
“Replica based on what?”
“Legends.” Cross shrugged. “Figured it might come in handy.”
It had, though probably not in the way he’d originally thought. I recognized it as the same knife—not glowing, then—that he’d kicked to the corner of the exam room back at Happy Paws.
“And what might you use something like that for?”
“Tricking someone who desperately wants it. Like a goddess, maybe.” His gaze skimmed over mine, then he smiled. “Knew it. You’re giving the map to Lucille.”
“Good job, Sherlock. Is that all?”
“Nope.” Cross let the word linger until I let out an audible sigh. His smile had since grown to about a mile wide. “Wanna run a little con?”
An hour later, we were rolling toward the Department of Supernatural Affairs’ secret base of operations, following Lucille’s coordinates.
No sign of the storm existed out here. Just the dusky sky snaking through the jungle canopy.
My phone beeped, indicating I was nearing the destination. I was still at least ten miles from the Boundless Jungle, and maybe five from the phoenix’s steppes. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed a little hotter.
Hopefully that didn’t mean the immolation plans were going forward.
A fork in the road greeted me ahead—to the right, a faded sign directed me toward the Boundless Jungle. The mapping app pointed left, which was unmarked. A hundred feet into the path, there was a ninety degree turn.
I slammed on the brakes almost as soon as I made the turn. The jungle simply stopped, the first glimmers of moonlight blasting down from the open sky. A gaping black pit stretched out, my bike’s wheel perched at its edge. Then, the cloaking wards dissipated in a rippling blur, revealing what really lay beyond.
Cross said, “Damn, that’s a pretty slick trick.”
I said, “This is your stop, buddy,” and bumped him off the bike with my ass.
Cross stared across the expanse and said, “Just get her to the parking lot. I can take her there.”
“If you fuck up, we’re both dead.”
“I’ll be waiting.” He winked and then disappeared into the jungle, holding the flaming sword.
A wide swath of jungle had indeed been cleared. The pit, however, had been merely an illusion, not unlike my hidden wall safe—albeit on a much grander scale.
I leaned back as the bike’s engine growled, taking in the scene. About a hundred feet past a large, glistening parking lot sat a two-story Southern-style mansion gilded in diamonds. I assumed that detail was due to gold, silver, and other precious metals being disagreeable to the most of their employees’ constitutions.
I parked between a couple black SUVs. As different as Lucille’s little organization was from the FBI, it was amusing to note their shared bureaucratic trappings. Whether you answered to Uncle Sam or the gods themselves, someone else imposed law and order on your ass.
Lucille burst out of the mansion’s front doors, in all her plain glory. When I’d first met her on the beach four years ago, she’d been naked. At work, she wore actual clothes. She was dressed in identical fashion to Sierra—who trailed behind her, looking nervous—except the goddess wore a pair of plain flats instead of heeled sandals. Her waist-length, straw-colored braid swished back and forth like a panther’s tail. A small silver stud sparkled in her nose—her lone personal flourish.
Lucille looked ready to kill me as I approached, so I greeted her with a snarky, “Oh, hey there.”
“You tread upon the hottest of coals, Reaper.” Her words were slurred. Clearly hitting the sauce—and hard. Good to see her holding it together in a time of crisis.
“Is that what you call those idiots you sent to kill me? I’d call them more lukewarm, personally.”
Lucille glanced back at Sierra. “Be a dear, and get us some sweet tea, would you?”
Good old fashioned Southern hospitality. On an island a hundred miles south of Hawaii, no less.
Sierra looked liable to refuse, but that wasn’t something you really did when you worked for a goddess. My sister had always been more diplomatic than me—better at reading a room, too. Me, I’d had to learn all that from books.
Sierra slipped through the doorway, leaving me and Lucille alone on the blindingly white porch. The plain goddess gestured toward two rocking chairs separated by a small wicker table.
“Quaint,” I said as I sat facing the door. The map crinkled, digging into my backside. “Didn’t take you for a Southern belle.”
Her whiskey-soaked soul wormed its way through my nose and across my tongue, ruining any chance of enjoying the sweet tea.
If we even got that far.
This whole setup was cute, I guess, but she was full of shit.
“I visited Georgia once.” Lucille stared wistfully out at the parking lot. “Beautiful. Like no place else I’ve ever been.”
“Lovely as that sounds, I’m not here to talk vacation destinations,” I said. “You make the call to your bosses back in the Elysian Fields?”
“I have decided to decline.”
“Let me remind you of one thing,” I shot back, “if Aldric unearths that sword, you’re one dead goddess.”
Lucille’s face twisted into a contempt-filled grimace. The scar along her right cheek—from where I’d hit her with the magical coin imbued with god-killing magic—bunched into a knot of pink flesh.
“I showed you mercy, Reaper, when you broke both trials. You ended a life. You wielded weapons. And you even attacked me. Still, I raised not a finger.”
“Debatable,” I said, recalling her attempted wrath. “But we hashed that crap out two months ago. You got your very own in-house Reaper out of the deal. A truce with Aldric, in what would have been a very long war of attrition. And, oh yeah, your little pet’s spike back.
”
She bristled at the mention of Fenris’s injury. Aldric had torn one of the fleshy bits of cartilage right off the mythical wolf’s back during the heat of battle.
“That does not give you free reign to stick your nose in business of no concern to you.” She sneered, her eyes fiery. “How pretty would you be if you lost it, I wonder?”
“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” I batted my eyelashes. Her response, instead of vaporizing me with a lightning bolt—well within her impressive oeuvre of godly powers, I’m sure—was to fish out a flask of cheap whiskey and take a long drink.
“It was a mistake, answering your prayer four years ago.” Lucille wiped a dribble of whiskey from her plain chin. “You and your sister have been nothing but trouble.”
“No good deed, right?” I smirked. “If the deal’s off, then I’ll be leaving.”
Lucille held up a hand, reconsidering her position. “Show me the map, Reaper.”
“It’s out by my bike,” I said, following the plan Cross and I had hatched.
“I do not believe you.”
“Then don’t believe me,” I said.
“We can get an associate to bring it to us.” Wow, calling my bluff. Didn’t expect that.
I leaned forward and pulled the treasure map from my waistband. Her eyes grew wide as I set it on the wicker table.
“What is stopping me from taking this from you right now, Reaper?”
Nothing, actually.
But I didn’t say that. Instead, I let a breezy smile drift across my lips as I leaned back in the chair, ignoring my thudding heart. “Would you like to insult my intelligence some more, or would you like to make a deal?”
Her hand reached out to touch the map. I grasped her wrist.
Power radiated from her skin. She could turn me into a filet with a slightly targeted sneeze.
But you had to sell the con. Besides, I’d made a promise I intended to keep.
I said, “There’s a little girl who was brought back from the dead.”
“Then she is already gone, Reaper.”
I didn’t let go. “Bullshit. You wrote the protocol.”
“It is not what I have decided, Reaper. The words are not mine, but the wisdom of ages.”
“Then bring it out.”
Might as well actually read the damn thing, while I was here. Lucille shook loose from my grip, taking her fingers away from Drake’s treasure map with a lovelorn glance.
We sat in silence until Sierra returned with the sweet tea. Then she instructed my sister to get the protocol.
A minute later, I was holding a DSA folder with Phoenix Protocol stamped across its front.
“Well, then, Reaper,” Lucille said after a moment, “come up with any solutions?”
“Page . . .” I thumbed through hastily, skimming the headings. Finally, I settled on page seventy—of seventy-three. “Here. All revived beings are to be returned to death.” How nice a euphemism for kill ’em all. “This is to prevent psychosis and widespread chaos.”
“I am not hearing a solution.”
“Which is only curable by a goddess’s intervention. Such resources, however, are better spent toward containment and preventing further revivals, rather than curing the revived dead.” I shook my head and looked up, my eyes scanning the area for Cross. Nothing. Hopefully he’d adjust to the new plan.
“I am fresh out of favors, Reaper.”
Not what I wanted to hear.
I decisively closed the folder and leaned forward. “A favor costs nothing.”
“And what do I get in return, Reaper?”
“Same deal as before.” My smile turned vicious. “You get to remain breathing.”
Quick as a jungle cat, Lucille lunged across the table, pinning me to the porch’s pinewood boards. Her fingers tightened around my throat, whiskey-laden breath pouring into my eyes. Her soul, already blackened and hardly angelic, presented its darker side, rearing an apocalyptic maw that was like looking into the eye of a Cat 5 hurricane.
Tears trickled from my eyes as I gasped for air that refused to come. Lucille drank with one hand, keeping me pinned with little effort.
I’d pressed my advantage a little too hard.
“You forget so soon, Reaper,” the goddess said, contempt flooding her melodious voice, “who has the power and who has none.”
“I gave you back your soul,” I choked out, reminding her of what else had transpired two months prior. “You owe me.”
Cross was nowhere to be found.
This little plan was starting to look pretty risky.
“I owe a pathetic mortal nothing.” Her grip tightened. “I will take this map, and you will go on your merry way.”
Come on, Cross, where the hell are you?
A pitcher shattered as Sierra came out and shrieked, “Let her go!”
Air rushed into my lungs as I sucked in oxygen. Her glass empty, Lucille reached for her flask and said, “You do not tell me—”
“Actually, she does.” When I had enough wherewithal to look up, I saw Cross holding the glowing blade to the goddess’s throat, wearing a cocky grin.
The flask tumbled from her drunken fingers.
Lucille looked furious. The sky darkened, but she didn’t move.
I rubbed my throat and stood up unsteadily. “You.”
I pretended to be angry with him. It wasn’t much of a stretch.
“I’m afraid to say that this map is a fake, ladies.” Cross winked at me. “For I’ve already used it to track down this little beauty.”
“You son of a bitch.” I glanced at Sierra, who looked like she’d seen a dragon materialize from the ether. Then I glanced at the frightened goddess. “I presume you did a little research on the Sword of Damocles following our earlier chat.”
“The gods, they will never—”
“Whatever they do to me, you won’t be around to see it.” I flashed a hard smile, then raised my eyebrow at Cross, like the wheels were suddenly turning. “I was about to make a deal with the goddess, here. You can have in. Any wishes you want fulfilled?”
“I’ve already agreed to leave you alone, Dante,” Lucille said, not moving out of fear of the blade nicking her exposed throat. “That is plenty.”
“Not to me,” Cross said. From the look on his face, I actually believed him. “Because you forget that I know you. You’ll never stop. Better for you to be dead.”
My breath was coming easier, now, although anxiety knifed through my veins. If Lucille realized this was all a bluff, she would blast Cross backwards with ease. To her, a normal knife was as dangerous as one made of rubber.
But she didn’t know that.
I stepped forward, hands raised like I was a peacemaker. “What do you want, Cross?”
“Nothing besides her head—”
“Goddamnit, be reasonable.” I glared at him.
Cross pretended to think for a minute. “Return Tamara Marquez’s soul.”
We hadn’t discussed that. But kudos for robbing the golden goose blind while the eggs were ripe for the taking.
A little smirk graced Lucille’s lips. “That is impossible. You know that, Dante.”
“Then no deal.”
“Wait!” Lucille looked frantically at me, pleading for help. I shrugged, offering no lifeline. “I can help her thirst vanish.”
“She already has a sigil that does that,” I said.
“But this one will cure her,” Lucille said.
I gave Cross a look like well?
“A weak deal for your life, wouldn’t you say?” Cross brought the blade closer to her throat, careful not to touch her skin. The goddess couldn’t sense the magic within the object just by its presence, but a nick would tip her off.
I said, “Well, I was about to make her a deal. You know, so the island didn’t burn.” I took another step forward, putting my hand on his wrist. “That should be enough.”
“Like I care about what you get.”
“Then do it for Tamara
,” I said, as earnestly as I could.
His eyes flooded with actual hurt, and he choked out, “Fine.”
“Agree?” I turned my gaze to Lucille. Our faces were only inches apart.
She didn’t say anything, afraid that speaking would make the blade dig into her throat.
But I pretended she was playing hard ball. “I want her to save a child, too.”
“Any other widows and orphans you’d like to throw in?” Cross said, his sneer convincing.
I said, “I think she’ll agree if you toss in the blade.”
I glanced at her. Lucille’s drunken eyes flashed like she’d hit the jackpot.
“Blink twice if you agree,” I said.
Lucille dutifully blinked twice. To be so old and still be such a coward—I almost felt sorry for her.
I nodded toward Sierra. “Draw up the paperwork. Fast.” I looked at the goddess. “Just refer to it as the sword. And I get the fake map back. Sentimental value.”
In her position, Lucille wasn’t in any position to argue with that logic.
My sister hurried into the mansion, and I called after her, “The kid’s name is Myra.” Then the three of us waited in awkward silence, the goddess barely breathing. Three minutes later, Sierra returned with a handwritten document.
“Soul-binding?” I asked.
She nodded and handed it to me. All the terms were scrawled in a hasty hand, including that Lucille would help Myra.
There was also a clause stating she would not harm either Cross or myself henceforth.
“Pen?”
My sister handed me the pen. I signed and sliced, then I transferred the pen to Cross’s free hand. I held up the contract, and he signed it. Then I flicked out the scalpel edge and cut his thumb.
That left only the big fish.
“Now you,” I said, holding the signed contract out to Lucille.
She didn’t look like she wanted to move. But after a second, she did so, careful to avoid contact with the fake Sword of Damocles. From her expression, it looked like she’d felt a little magical charge.
Even a goddess wasn’t exempt from the power of suggestion.
I nodded at Cross after checking the signatures. Everything was in order.
Soul Fire Page 22
