It sounded like a warning—or maybe even a threat. Either way, I had confidence that I would never, ever have the need to commit murder. “Just bring her back.”
There was a slight buzz in my body, and I lost my balance, dropping to one knee. The goddess did a backflip, then screamed in an unknown tongue to the heavens. Then, the little ceremony ended, and she drank what whiskey hadn’t spilled out and chucked the bottle into the suddenly silent jungle.
Wiping her lips, she looked at me with unsteady eyes. “Your sister lives.”
“How do I know for sure?”
She rolled her eyes, like my questions were pedantic and unnecessary. “Hand me your phone, Reaper.”
I tossed it to her, and she missed. Some goddess. Lucille punched in a number, then placed it on speakerphone.
A confused voice answered. “H-hello?”
“Sierra?”
“Emma? Where are you?”
“I’m on an island, I can’t wait to see you—”
Lucille punched the end button and made a buzzer noise, drowning out whatever I was going to say. She tapped a few keys and then tossed the device back. “Time’s up, Reaper. Any last requests?”
I fumbled through the phone, but the call log had been deleted. There was no trace of Sierra.
“Bring her back.”
“What trial are you willing to undertake for that?” Lucille swayed unsteadily on her feet with a sloppy, drunken grin. “Perhaps—no, I have indulged enough. We are not supposed to engage with humans in this way.” She stumbled across the sand until she was toe-to-toe with me. Her energy seemed to swallow up the immediate area. “But you, you little Reaper, you are fascinating.”
“How so?” I asked, avoiding her hot whiskey breath.
“I am sure everyone will find out soon enough.”
Then, without so much as a goodbye, the goddess sprinted into the jungle, leaving me alone on the empty beach.
24
I coughed up a mouthful of seawater and vomited on the beach as water lapped against my salt-stiffened hair. After opening my eyes granted me a straight-shot view of the sun that burned my retinas, I rolled over and pressed my face against the cool, wet sand. But I couldn’t rest on the beach for long, so I willed my battered muscles upright and surveyed the area.
The churning creek had dumped me into the ocean, where I’d washed up on shore. Out to sea, ominous storm clouds surrounded the island, like barbarian hordes threatening to storm the gates. The ocean itself remained calm, but from my trip down the swirling creek, I knew how fast that could change if Lucille got pissed. I checked my pockets, finding the soul shard and Reaper’s Switch still present. I’d dropped the parchment in the forest. All I could do was hope it wasn’t important.
But I knew that was wishful thinking. Dante had left it there for safekeeping instead of bringing it back to civilization. That was a powerful artifact, indeed, and I’d simply dropped it in the flowers for Lucille to pluck up.
Suddenly feeling the weight of reality pressing upon my shoulders, I broke into a dead sprint up the perfect tan beach. My lungs begged for me to stop, but I knew better than to give in.
Who knew how many minions Lucille had unleashed upon my tail? I’d escaped her immediate wrath, but that was small comfort. A woman as powerful as that would come find me again, sooner rather than later.
And I didn’t have a damn clue how I would survive when that hour came.
I fumbled with the burner phone as I continued to run up the beach, willing my dead legs forward into what soon became a shambling jog. The device was toast, which wasn’t much of a surprise given the extended bath in the creek it had just endured. I briefly wondered what the dropped piece of parchment said, then ceased caring as hopelessness began setting in. The midday sun baked down on my neck as seagulls cackled on the light sand. Atheas was seventy-six miles across at its widest point. I might not have been at the widest spot, but the reality still weighed on me like a ton of bricks: I was in an uninhabited corner of the island and time was running out. Aldric didn’t take late payments.
I looked at the soul shard clutched in my hand. It was twisted and ugly, like a deformed piece of scrap metal. But I could feel the incredible power surging through even this tiny portion. That Lucille had a soul meant she was not a demon. From the way she acted, however, she wasn’t far from it, though.
If I could get this to Aldric, maybe it would get him off my back when it came to the pound of flesh he wanted from the rival Reaper and gold thieves.
Maybe.
He’d probably just grab it, then double my quota. How could you put your faith in someone who had killed you once before and then chained you to his boat forever? It was a bitter gamble to propose, let alone swallow, but I was out of options.
I slumped into the hot sand and dragged myself beneath a banyan tree. The massive tree provided shade from the harsh elements. In certain cultures, the banyan tree had sacred properties. I propped myself against the knotty bark and hoped, silently, that those myths were true, and someone would emerge from the jungle to save my ass.
But nothing happened. Waves continued to crash against the deserted beach.
“Please help,” I said, then cut myself off from going further. Last time I’d done that, I’d summoned Lucille. A double-edged sword, if one had ever existed. And if you’ve ever had your back against the wall and prayed for God, Yahweh, a spirit to come down and whisk away your problems, then you’ve performed a little rain dance, too. A ritual which has no bearing on the situation at hand, but makes you wrest the teensiest bit of control from a confusing and sometimes cruel world.
Not that modern people alone had some monopoly on beseeching a higher power for help. If anything, we’ve learned all we know from the past. In times of drought, ancient cultures used to perform rain dances. An appeal to the gods for rain—but, on a more basic level, a call into the darkness hoping that they weren’t alone. As with most wishes, sometimes the rain came. Other times it didn’t, but the tradition hardly died with those unfortunate souls.
The difference between those rain dances and mine were simple: I got a definitive answer.
Want to know the secret ingredient?
One part whiskey.
One part angst.
One part guilt.
Stirred, then garnished with weeks of sleepless nights and self-loathing. Served chilled, because life was a cruel, cold-hearted bitch.
But, as Dante had said, I might have made a deal with the devil to bring my sister back to life.
I closed my eyes, wanting to sleep. That was how life went: giveth and taketh away, as the saying went. Come back to life, have to work for the murderous warlord who took your life. Contact a goddess, get tied into a psycho.
I shook my head and opened my eyes. Wallowing was for people who had given up. I might’ve been screwed, but my sister’s life now hung in the balance. Lucille had brought her back on my wish—and since I hadn’t lived up to my end of the deal, the goddess would no doubt be looking to balance the ledger. Especially given the fact that I’d scalded her face and stolen a shard of her soul.
That meant I couldn’t die. Not until Sierra was safe. Wherever she was.
I mulled over the ramifications of that, and realized I was going to have to kill a goddess. Or get rid of her. Neither of which were particularly simple operations.
I dug the phone out and tried it again. Still dead. I scrambled forward on my knees, a thought forming. After wiping the device dry—or as dry as it would get—I dug out a small hole in the bone dry sand. Then I put the phone inside and covered it up. My hope was that the sand would leech out the moisture, like a bag of rice, rendering the device usable again. It was a stab in the dark, but it wasn’t like I had a bunch of options.
As I waited, I rifled through the mental files in my mind, trying to find something—anything—I’d missed in Roan’s murder. Aldric’s wrath aside, I was still on the hook for the homicide. My chances didn’t look great i
f the thing went to trial.
I ran over the pieces of evidence I had.
Roan Kelly had been coming to the villa to apologize and make amends. His new crew needed my help with their scheme—what help, exactly, remained unclear. But they’d been confident enough that I was the final piece in their scheme to rip off Aldric for thirteen million in gold bullion, then pay a cipher sorceress to break the code on one of Drake’s ancient maps. That took serious moxie. But before Roan had been able to meet up, he’d been gunned down by someone who would have known he was there.
Then we had James, Mick’s son who had “gotten a call” and planted the gun in my villa. Dante had denied that the call had come from him. I believed him, but then again, five hundred years was enough time to become a damn good liar.
Who the killer was hinged on motive. Did this revolve around killing Roan? Framing me? Or executing those responsible for the gold heist? I couldn’t forget that Magnus had been cut up by Aldric’s thugs pretty bad—even though he’d given me the brick especially to defray suspicion and appear like a loyal part of the island’s machine.
That gave me a list of suspects longer than my arm.
Aldric was a possibility, although his investment would plummet to zero if I sat in a jail cell for the rest of my life. Still, he’d tried to kill me twice already—succeeding once—so framing me for murder wasn’t exactly beyond the pale.
Dante could have done it out of sheer greed, repossessing one piece of Drake’s boundless treasure stash for himself. In that scenario, I would just be a convenient fall option, and he could get away scot-free. In fact, any of the crew—Rayna, Zoe, Doris, or Magnus—could’ve been responsible. But James had singled out Dante as the one on the other end of the call.
It dawned on me, however, sitting there in the warm, pleasant heat, that I might have led James to that conclusion. To an answer I was looking for at the time. It had been I who had asked if the caller had been charming. After protests about his sexuality, he had begrudgingly agreed. That could have been away of deflecting suspicion for himself. But he had no motive, no connection to Roan or myself, for that matter—other than my attacking his father four years ago. That seemed spurious, at best, though.
Naturally, I had to add Lucille to the list. It was possible that a signal flare went up as soon as I’d violated the terms of our agreement. In that case, she would have instantly known—and could have unleashed her punishment mere minutes later. That would give her motive, and she had a history of being devious and untrustworthy, making lopsided deals to the desperate. All that made her a prime suspect, but as useless of one as Aldric. For legal purposes, they were untouchable. No jail could hold their power.
Finally, we had Mayor Stefan Cambridge, our disturbingly content local serial killer. I didn’t really see a motive there, but serial killers didn’t really need one. It didn’t fit the MO, but maybe he’d gotten bored and branched out into more theatrical murders—complete with framing me as the coup de grâce.
That left almost more suspects than I had hands—and it didn’t rule out the possibility that I had missed something entirely. After all, Rayna, Magnus and Dante had all led me by the nose into their little band, revealing layers as they needed. Maybe my skills had deteriorated over the past four years from disuse.
I shook the notion from my head and brushed the sand away from the phone. With trepidation, I pushed the power button. The screen was a mess of distorted colors and glitchy symbols, but it worked. Now, my only problem was the phonebook. I’d smashed it against the rock along with my old smartphone. But there was one number I’d called enough from payphones and restaurants and other back water hangouts to know it by heart.
My fingers lingered over the keypad, hesitating. But I had no choice.
The speaker buzzed with distortion. A female voice answered. “Aldric’s office, who’s calling, please?”
“Eden.”
“Do you have an appointment?” Clearly this woman was new, or jerking me around.
“Just put Aldric on the fucking phone now.”
“Oh, he’s pissed with you.” Well, I had my answer. Just another asshole poking me.
There was some cheery music as the call transferred, then Aldric said, “Eden.” I could sense the anger, even over the tinny connection.
“I have your souls.”
“Am I to be impressed that you are doing your job?”
“I have something else, too.” I held out the soul shard. It caught the light, but not in a pretty way. Lucille had done some dark things. Maybe I should’ve chucked it into the sea, but it was my only bargaining chip. A slice of a goddess would be too much to ignore.
“Oh?” Aldric tried very hard to sound disinterested, but he wasn’t as good of a liar as he thought. “You have what I asked for?”
“Better.”
A growl came into his tone. “This is not a restaurant where you can make substitutions to the order as you please, Eden.”
“When I say better, I mean a lot better.” I closed my hand around the twisted soul shard, feeling the powerful energy surge through up my arm like a current. “But I need a ride.”
“This is getting tiresome, Eden.”
“And if someone could check out my place, make sure no one’s hiding in the bushes to kill me, that’d be great, too.” I had to assume that Lucille knew where I lived. But I still needed to head home and grab the rest of the souls.
“Any other requests?”
“Hold your sarcasm if you want me to bring this along.”
“Eden.”
“One other thing,” I said. “I’m near the Boundless Jungle, on the beach. No one around for miles, I think. Where should I meet your driver?”
An exasperated sigh cut over the dodgy connection. I must say, pissing off Aldric felt good. Hey, if you couldn’t irritate the vampire who ordered your death, then what was the point of living? Actually, there were plenty of other reasons to keep living, but at the moment, this was what was keeping me awake.
Aldric said in his most measured tone, “Up the beach, to the north, there should be a small cabana. The Rum Shack or some such moronic nonsense. A car will meet you there.”
“Good talk,” I said, pushing myself to my feet with a huge groan. “And Aldric?”
“What?”
“If you send someone to kill me, you’re never going to see what I got you.” I ended the call by smashing it against the banyan tree. The tattered remnants of the phone crinkled as they rained down on the tree’s hard roots. I brushed the debris aside and got on my knees, digging a small hole where I’d been sitting.
Then I placed the soul shard in the hole.
“If you kill me, Aldric,” I said to nothing but the wind, “you’re not getting shit.”
That was a small consolation, but right then, it made me feel confident enough to get up and start walking. And sometimes, all you could do was put one foot in front of the other and hope for the best.
25
After fifteen minutes—which felt much closer to fifteen hours—I came upon a small beachside cabana where some guy in board shorts and a fedora was slinging drinks. Aldric had not been too far off—the place had been dubbed the Rum Hut in askew, drunken script. There was no one else sitting at the wicker chairs at the bar. But my spirits were lifted by the patch of road peeking out of the jungle farther up the beach.
“Well, you look like you had quite the party missy.” A voice aged by too many cigarettes and years at sea called out from behind the plastic bar. The sun hurt my eyes, even though it was obscured by a wall of gray clouds. Guess Lucille was upset about me snatching part of her soul.
A man popped up from behind the counter, organizing his fishing supplies for the day’s work. He slammed his tackle box on the bar next to a couple limes. A wad of tobacco the size of my hand was lodged in his sun-weathered cheek. Overall, he had the look of a piece of leather that had been cured for too long.
“I hope not,” I said, a bite in my ton
e. “Because of that was a party, parties have really started going downhill.”
The man looked up from the tackle box and said, “Dale.”
“Eden.” I took a seat one of the wicker stools, throwing a glance toward the road. My ride hadn’t shown up. Without prompting, he poured two drinks—tequila on ice—and shoved one my way. The lip of the glass was rimmed with salt.
He raised his, and said, “Well, Eden, to another day in paradise.”
I drank the bitter mixture, chased it with a lime, then said, “I don’t suppose paradise serves water.”
He handed me a water bottle, and I heard a hidden fridge snap shut. I rubbed my temples and licked my chapped lips after I took a long drink.
“How’s business out here?” I asked.
“I fish, I drink, get an occasional visitor.” Dale threw a longing glance at the storm forming on the horizon. “And sometimes, shit, I just read inside when the breakers get too high. Looking like one of those days.”
“Yup,” I said, and then polished off the water. He handed me another without asking. Who knew the world’s best bartender was tucked away on a remote part of an uncharted island? Actually, that made perfect cosmic sense for some reason.
“So, Eden, you out there searching for Drake’s treasure?”
I almost spilled the second bottle of water. “Not sure I follow.”
“Been hearing cars and trucks go by all day.” Dale gave me a knowing nod, then turned the dial of a rusted, paint-stripped radio. After fiddling with a few of the knobs and extending the bent antenna, a broadcast crackled over the old speaker.
“Turn that up,” I said, recognizing the voice. It was Magnus’s slightly Nordic-lilt.
“Drake’s treasure is free for all to claim in the Boundless Jungle. Beware of supernatural forces, thieves and those who would do you harm.” Then it gave the coordinates, and repeated on an endless loop.
Dale turned the volume down and gave me a look.
Rain Dance (Sunshine & Scythes Book 1) Page 20
