by Sierra Dean
No, if this hurt anyone, it was the temples and not the gods they served.
Looking back at my computer, I wondered if Deedee might have had a reason to believe this was Prescott’s doing. Did he have a personal vendetta or score to settle that would make him do something this heinous?
As far as I knew his only beef was with me, and even that wasn’t enough hatred to make him kill a bunch of innocent kids. Still, he’d had someone following me, and I couldn’t just overlook that, especially not now.
I closed my laptop and set it next to the bowl of Doritos on the table. The hunger pangs that had plagued me so recently were forgotten. My stomach was a roiling sea of nausea.
I had to talk to Prescott.
If this was some misguided campaign to get his revenge on me, someone had to put a stop to it. Killing the human hand of death wouldn’t be an easy task, but in my experience, not many people walk away when you hit them with a lightning bolt.
I didn’t want to believe it was him, but the evidence wasn’t looking great. There was really only one way to know what he was up to, and that would be going right to the man himself.
Grumbling, I got up off the couch and made my way to the front door, my focus entirely on getting out and unraveling this mystery as quickly as possible, before anyone else wound up dead.
I jerked open the penthouse’s front door and almost walked directly into the firm, broad chest of a familiar, handsome man.
Leo Marquette gave me a once-over and said, “You know you’re not wearing any pants, right?”
Chapter Five
I put my pants on right away, obviously.
I might be pretty comfortable with Leo—we had escaped the underworld together after all—but that didn’t mean I wanted him seeing me in my panties, thanks.
Once I had on a pair of dry jeans and a sweater, I returned to the living room to find Leo had made himself comfortable and was brewing a fresh pot of coffee.
This wasn’t his first time visiting my home since he’d moved to Seattle from Louisiana two months earlier, but we also weren’t exactly besties. It felt a bit strange to see him moving around in my kitchen like he belonged there.
Maybe it was just seeing a man in my home that set me on edge, even if Leo wasn’t my idea of boyfriend material.
“You know, I’ve known con-artist bachelors who have more stuff in their fridge than you do.” He was pushing aside the half-empty jars on my fridge door like he hoped a pound of bacon or a loaf of bread might appear.
“I haven’t had a chance to go shopping.” Honestly, I’d probably live off takeout, chips, and more takeout until I had to hit the road again. The idea of going to Trader Joe’s and filling my cupboards with delicious, healthy food sounded great in theory, but it would only go to waste. Every time I got back after a week on the road and had to throw out an untouched head of lettuce or moldy cheese, I felt like I’d failed the groceries somehow.
Pizza never lasted long enough to go bad.
Chinese food never made me feel guilty.
I pushed the sleeves of my light-green sweater up to my elbows and took a seat at the high barstool on the opposite side of my kitchen counter so I could face him while he worked.
He closed the fridge, shaking his head sadly, then rinsed out my coffee mug from earlier and set it next to the one I presumed he planned to use for himself. Without cream for the coffee it was either black or with sugar.
When you traveled as much as I did, it was a lot easier to learn to like things as simple as you could get them. Black coffee might not be good in every backwater town, but it was a lot easier to come by than a triple espresso half-sweet caramel latte. I’d take it with cream and sugar where I could, but I didn’t mind it plain.
It also made you less memorable, and I strove to be as forgettable as possible when meeting new people.
Leo poured us each a mug and set mine in front of me. The smell was amazing. Much better than the almost-cold cup I’d fixed for myself earlier.
“Thanks.”
“You know, Sido told me you were a bit of a hot mess, but this is pretty impressive.”
He was attempting to get a rise out of me, but I didn’t take the bait. “Sido has never used the phrase hot mess in her life, but nice try.”
Actually it was nice to hear him call her by her nickname. Sidonie, the High Priestess of the Temple of Seth, was also my mentor, and happened to be Leo’s half-sister. They both had the bad luck to be the demigod offspring of Seth, and I hadn’t been sure Leo would warm to Sido or his role as Seth’s son. He’d been in Seattle since we left Louisiana in August, and it looked like he was starting to settle in. If he was using Sido’s nickname, maybe that meant the siblings had finally started to bond. Good.
Leo had spent a lot of his life floundering, from what he’d told me. Moving between a variety of mostly illegal jobs, feeling like he didn’t fit in anywhere in particular. I understood that.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Not that I don’t appreciate the coffee and the reminder that I was half naked. That could have been chilly.”
“Personally, I’m a little sad I didn’t let you make it to the lobby at least.”
“Bernard would have stopped me.” My seventy-year-old doorman was always watching out for me. He’d never have let me get as far as the street. “Plus I’m sure I’d have figured it out when I got to the elevator.” Maybe. I’d been pretty focused.
“Sure.” He took a sip of his coffee and looked through the windows, taking in the skyline view that was incredible in spite of the mist hanging in the air. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
“What?”
“The mountains.”
I followed his gaze, trying to see Mt. Rainier through his eyes. The sad truth was I had gotten used to it, but it didn’t take a lot of effort to appreciate it like he might have been. It was a pretty darned majestic sight.
Even after being almost crushed to death by a mountain god in Colorado, I still found the peaks beautiful.
“Are you intentionally avoiding my question?” I set my cup down and turned my focus back to him. After a few seconds he met my gaze.
“Sido sent me.”
She’d sent him, which meant this wasn’t a social call. So this was official temple business, then. But she also hadn’t wanted to deliver it herself, so that set me on edge right away. Chances were I wasn’t going to like this, and she was hoping that by sending Leo instead of coming herself I might not flip out.
I hated that she knew me so well.
She was right, of course. I liked Leo, and he was still so new to this world I wasn’t sure I wanted my spitfire temper to be the thing that sent him running back to his life in New Orleans.
Though it might be safer for him in Louisiana.
I let out a sigh and steeled myself for whatever he was about to say. “Okay, but can we make this quick? I have a date with death.”
Leo winced. Guess he wasn’t quite over that whole thing where Manea had wanted to kill him. My bad.
“Sido has suggested that I should prepare myself to take on a bigger role at the temple, if that’s something I might be interested in. But in order for me to do that she wants me to follow you around so I get a better sense of what it is that Seth has you do.”
I stared at him. It was all I could do to not let my mouth hang open in abject horror at this idea.
“No.”
“But—”
I was already shaking my head. “No. I don’t need a sidekick. I don’t need an assistant. I work alone.”
“First, I’d like to think of it as a partnership, not babysitting. And second, I don’t particularly love the idea of spending all day every day with your grouchy ass either, for what it’s worth.”
We glared at each other briefly across the counter.
“Let me guess. Third is that this isn’t a suggestion, she’s forcing me to do it.”
“Force is an awfully strong word, Tallulah.”
Yup. I had no say in this at all.
“Is she expecting me to take you to the convention next week?” The annual Convention of the Gods was taking place in Las Vegas, where all the North American clerics would come together to air grievances between their gods, come to terms over territories and hash out how best to help answer prayers over the coming year.
The conference was how we’d been able to establish things like the iTithe app for digital prayer and automatic tithing machines that could sell the most basic of charms.
While initiates were sometimes welcome, it was typically a cleric-and-priest-only event. I wasn’t sure how a demigod with no actual temple affiliation would be welcomed at the convention.
“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly why she sent me now.” He gave me a knowing look that took me a second to decipher.
“Wait. Wait. She’s sending you as my fucking chaperone?”
He shrugged, which was all the confirmation I needed.
Sido must have been hearing the same rumors as Deedee about the time I’d spent with Cade on the road in August. Sido knew I wasn’t temple pure, but she had to help me keep up the appearance, and no one was going to believe I was chaste if I was making out with a bad-luck priest.
Suddenly my coffee didn’t taste good anymore. Instead it was as bitter as I felt.
“Nothing happened,” I told him rather pointlessly.
“Look, I know you guys didn’t have a heck of a lot of opportunity, but I’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb as hell to not know there’s something there. And if we’re going to be in Vegas, you’re going to see him.”
Yeah. I knew all too well. In fact I’d been counting on it.
When we’d parted ways in Louisiana two months earlier, I had somehow believed that things between Cade and me were different. I knew our lives weren’t conducive to a typical romance, but I had literally climbed out of a grave to fight my way back to him. I had believed then, and foolishly still did, that we might have a shot at being something.
Yet here we were, him in Nevada, me in Washington, and with the exception of a few tame text messages and one very not-tame phone conversation, I had no idea where things stood between me and the bad-luck priest.
Things could have been different if he was just a normal man and not bound to the same stupid temple rules as me. Dating was never going to be an option, but still…we had had something, didn’t we?
I tried not to think of the moment we’d shared in a motel bathroom, when we’d almost torn each other apart in our desperation for more physical connection. I had known in that instant that he was going to be bad luck for me in more ways than one, and I simply hadn’t cared.
Guess now I was paying the price for it.
Leo was watching me work through all this, his blue eyes the same soothing color as the paint on my walls. He was too kind to be Seth’s offspring.
I growled and pulled my coffee cup back towards me, taking a long swallow that burned my tongue.
“Just so you know, I’m not going to take it easy on you because you’re the boss’s kid.”
Leo snorted. “Have you taken it easy on anyone a single day in your life?”
Chapter Six
I parked my Charger across the street from Conor Byrne, a small pub on Ballard Ave, and cut the engine. Through sheets of hard-falling rain the place looked dismal, but I knew once we were inside, the warm interior would brighten my spirits.
“A bit early for a drink, don’t you think?” Leo smirked, letting me know he didn’t care one way or the other if I drank before noon.
“The way my day has been going I’m amazed I’m not already sloshed,” I countered.
“I’m sure that’ll solve everything.”
“There are no solutions for the problems I have, Leo, only temporary distractions.” That was a bit more honest than I should have been with him this early into our partnership, so I got out of the car and jogged across the street, hoping there wouldn’t be any follow-up questions.
Conor Byrne was the kind of quaint, charming Irish pub that existed in every city across America, with its Irish flag out front and plentiful whisky options within.
I wasn’t here for the booze, unfortunately.
There was another reason Irish pubs were so popular across the country, and it had nothing to do with a nostalgic love of the old homeland.
I came through the door and was greeted by a wall of warm air that smelled faintly of stale beer and hard liquor, but beneath that was the aroma of something heartier, like beef stew and fresh bread. My stomach gurgled.
A man with dark-auburn hair and a thick, matching beard emerged from the back room as Leo entered behind me. He took a look at the two of us and nodded in silent greeting.
I shook some rain off my hood. “I need your harbinger booth.”
This gave the man a brief pause, and he gave the two of us another serious once-over. “You in some kind of trouble, ma’am?”
“Every day of my life.” I was glad the hits I’d taken from my assailant earlier were all in places the bartender couldn’t see. Chances were he would have assumed I’d gotten them from a domestic dispute as opposed to a street fight.
Thankfully, I doubted the bartender would worry about my safety with my partner in crime. Leo and I looked more like siblings than a couple. The demigod’s skin was a rich, warm shade of brown, with his blue eyes the only thing that made him appear unusual. My complexion was the result of my pale blonde mother and my half-black father, giving me the kind of skin tone that made strangers ask wildly inappropriate questions like, “So what are you?”
My sister, Sunny, looked so much like my mother, with blonde hair and a permanent summer glow, I doubted anyone ever asked her to classify herself for them. We were twins, but the only similarity in our skin was that we both freckled easily in the sun.
More than one person had implied I was secretly Seth’s daughter and that was the real reason I’d been chosen to be a Rain Chaser.
The last person who suggested that to me lost his two front teeth as a result.
The bartender must have decided I wasn’t in serious danger or that he didn’t care if I was, because he pointed me towards the back corner of the bar where a curtain was drawn across a doorway.
“You’re going to need a sip of something to warm your insides,” he said. “Any requests?”
“You have any Redbreast?” I eyed the shelf behind the bar. If I was going to have to drink on the job, I was going to drink something good.
“I’ve got a twenty-one-year-old single pot.” A gleam of mischief shone in his eyes, and I was too afraid to ask the price.
“Make it two,” Leo added.
The bartender moved around to the back of the bar and pulled a handsome green bottle from the top shelf, pouring each of us a finger of the amber liquid into low glasses and pushing them across the bar.
“Those’ll be forty each. On your way out.”
“He’ll pay.” I jerked my thumb back towards Leo, collecting my whiskey. “His dad is a god.”
“Not the god of unlimited credit card balances,” Leo retorted, grabbing his own drink.
That was enough to make me snicker, because for all intents and purposes all of the deities were so loaded they wouldn’t have to worry about money for the next forty generations. Not that money was ever their primary concern, but temples weren’t free, and someone had to pay for my apartment.
We crossed the empty pub and into the curtained-off back booth. Once we were closed in, Leo and I sat side by side in the booth, our drinks on the scarred wood table in front of us. It looked like any of the other booths in the bar, with old red leather on the seats and fifty years’ worth of beer stains on the table.
A harbinger booth was different though.
The idea was, no matter where you were in the country, you could take a drink into the booth and ask for death to come. It used to be a way for the downtrodden to ask for their appointed hour of death to be spe
d up. These days it was usually a way for anyone with a misguided sense of adventure to ask when they were going to die, or if they were really bored and really rich, they might ask for Manea to end someone else’s life for them.
Of course, those requests didn’t go to Manea herself.
I raised my glass of whiskey to Leo, who clinked his own against it. We both took a long sip in unison—because you do not shoot twenty-one-year-old whiskey—and set our glasses down again.
“Sláinte,” I added with a grin, before rapping the table three times.
Saying good health while inviting death into your company seemed somewhat morbid to me. But it was death, after all.
Nothing happened.
Leo shifted uncomfortably next to me, but I just took another sip from my glass. The whiskey was dark, smoky, and a little peaty. It burned the whole way down my throat.
Just as I felt certain Leo was about to say something, the curtain rustled and Prescott McMahon stepped into the room, sliding into the booth across from us.
As usual, he was impeccably dressed. His dark-blond beard was trimmed low, and his hair was brushed back in a stylized pompadour. He wore a three-piece gray suit and a green paisley tie almost the same color as my sweater.
“Well, well.” He folded his hands on the table, and Leo recoiled reflexively. I didn’t move. “You might be the last person I’d expect to see here, Tallulah.”
“In a bar?” I raised my glass in a mock salute. “You shouldn’t be that surprised.”
His initial smarmy grin faded, and he rolled his eyes impatiently. “Did you just call me here to annoy me? You could have waited a week and done it in Vegas.” He slid back to the end of the booth like he was going to leave.
“Sit. Down.” My tone had gone from playful to deadly serious in the span of an instant, and he must have realized I wasn’t fucking around because he moved back to his place across from me and fixed me with an unreadable stare.
Not a lot of people told Prescott what to do. I was either special or stupid. Most folks would have put money down on the latter. They were probably right.
