Thunder Road (Rain Chaser Book 1)

by Sierra Dean

  I would consider feeling bad about whoever he was stealing the apartment from later. Whether it was a little old lady who had died and he was using it until the landlords figured it out, or it was a rich person’s once-a-year New Orleans crash pad, it didn’t matter. No one knew he was there, and that was the one thing that might keep us alive long enough to get him to safety.

  When I’d called Sido after hanging up with Cade, she’d suggested I get Leo to a local outlet temple. They’d send someone to collect him from there. I hadn’t liked the idea at the time, but now it seemed like our best shot.

  We’d stop long enough to get Leo’s stuff, and then I’d figure out where the closest outlet temple for Seth was in New Orleans.

  We made it down Canal and turned onto Decatur, never letting up our pace. My lungs burned like I was a pack-a-day smoker, and my legs felt equally aflame. On Decatur the crowds thinned, mostly smaller groups heading to and from restaurants or returning to their hotels after a night of shopping and revelry. We whipped past them until we reached Jackson Square, where the crowds got bigger again, grouped together to watch a jazz quartet playing.

  Running would make us stick out like a sore thumb in such an open space, so I grabbed Leo’s shirt with my free hand and pulled, planting my feet firmly to bring us to a more restrained walking pace. I scanned the people around us, looking for anyone a bit too dead for such a lively scene.

  No one stood out.

  Likewise, I couldn’t see Prescott’s cream linen blazer or purple button-down shirt anywhere among the groups clustered around us.

  “Why did we stop?” Leo asked breathlessly. “We’re almost there.”

  I could see Café du Monde’s white-and-green sign through the wrought-iron gate surrounding Jackson Park. How had we managed to wander so far away? It was like a gravitational force had pulled us—or more likely me—towards Bourbon, and Leo had just been along for the ride. Was he right? Was I actually drawn to trouble?

  “I’m trying to blend. If we run here, it’s more obvious.”

  I took his arm and wrapped it around my shoulder, snuggling in close to his side. He still smelled like he was fresh out of the shower, masculine and soapy, with a faint whiff of the body wash he used. The smell was surprisingly nice on him, a little like bergamot and pine, probably marketed with a name like MACHISMO in all caps.

  This time he didn’t ask questions about what I was up to. Apparently he didn’t object to this particular plan because he pulled me tight against his side, the warmth of his body radiating against me. I put my arm around his waist. I could actually feel the firm curve of his abs where they formed the wonderful V-shape I’d seen when he came out of the shower.

  Picking pockets must have been a great workout.

  Or maybe the hot bod was a side effect to his godly DNA. Not a lot of unfit deities running around. Except maybe the Theoi Daitioi, but as the gods of the feast, being fat was sort of part of their image.

  “Now why couldn’t you have tried this method initially? I’m much more susceptible to cuddles than I am to running for my life.” He gave my shoulder a flirty squeeze.

  Not big on taking things seriously, this one.

  Since my head was barely past his armpit, I wasn’t at a great vantage point to scan the crowds. “Play it cool, but tell me if you see anything suspicious.”

  “Such as?”

  “You know, anyone who looks like they’re already dead. They’re pretty easy to spot, seeing as they look, you know…dead.”

  Leo glanced around as we walked, and I tried to keep an eye on the crowd as well. Nothing appeared out of place. Even we were blending in as a normal part of the nightlife tapestry.

  “I think we’re clear,” he said.

  The next couple blocks passed in tense silence, and we remained interlocked and continued to watch the area around us, expecting an attack to emerge from every darkened corner. Finally we reached the building I recognized as his, and I let out a sigh of relief as he unlocked the door and held it open to usher me in.

  I climbed the stairs two at a time, feeling lighter with every step. I got to the top step first, and all my breath vanished in an instant.

  We’d locked the door behind us when we left.

  Now it was wide open.

  Chapter Twenty

  I held up a hand to stop Leo midway up the stairs.

  My heart was hammering so hard I’d have been shocked if whoever was inside couldn’t hear it. Doubtlessly they’d heard me thump my way up the wooden stairs.

  The element of surprise was shot in the foot. Now I had to decide if we should test our luck outside again, with Manea’s crew on the hunt for us, or tempt the Fates by going into the apartment. Indecision froze me in place.

  Screwed no matter what.

  There was no way it was Cade in the apartment. I wiped that hopeful thought out of my mind immediately. He had no magic road to travel, and I’d insisted he get some sleep before making the five-hour drive from Shreveport. So even if he’d ignored me—which was likely—he wouldn’t be here before morning light.

  I doubted it was one of Manea’s people either. If they knew where Leo lived all along, they wouldn’t have bothered making a scene in public to come looking for us.

  The only god I knew was aware of Leo’s location was Hecate, but what could she possibly want that would bring her here? She’d gotten my promise of a favor owed, and she didn’t seem to have any lingering interest in Leo himself.

  Curiosity started to replace my fear, and I wanted desperately to know who had gone to the trouble of breaking into the apartment.

  “Stay here,” I hissed, waving my hand at Leo without looking back at him.

  “Uh, no.”

  “Leo.”

  “Maybe it’s the actual owners?” he suggested hopefully.

  For some reason this idea hadn’t occurred to me, and I was briefly imagined it might be true. But the timing was too perfect, too coincidental. No way we could possibly luck out to that extent.

  Not given the way this week was going.

  “Please stay here for a second, okay?”

  He didn’t answer me, but that was better than outright barging ahead into the apartment, so I’d take it. One thing at a time.

  I’d have given my left arm to have my gun.

  I’d have given much more than that for a cloudy day.

  Edging into the apartment slowly, my whole body felt tense and alert. The slightest sound would likely make me jump out of my skin. The space was still, too stark, too quiet. The air felt thick with heat, rising up from the streets and turning the apartment into a sweltering, uncomfortable box. It was practically steamy, like we’d left the shower running when we went out and the whole space was now filled with an invisible, sticky mist.

  I shrugged off my jacket in the doorway, overwhelmed by the humidity. If I needed to fight, I didn’t want a leather jacket clinging to me, hindering my movements.

  The floorboards creaked under my feet, each step seeming to emit a wooden groan to announce my presence to whoever was here.

  Though the space felt empty, that in and of itself suggested I was not alone. The way a forest goes quiet when a predator is near, it was as if the normal apartment noises had been silenced for fear of what lay within.

  Goose bumps prickled my skin.

  “Death is coming for you,” whispered a voice. The words were so soft and delicate I could have sworn I thought them rather than heard them.

  The sensation of cloth swirled behind me, and I turned on my heel, almost tripping over myself. There was nothing there.

  “Life is a bitter series of nothings.” Again, I barely believed the words were said aloud, because no voice could have spoken them so quietly. “You will die alone.”

  “She is coming.” This voice was slightly different but no less ethereal.

  I ignored the toxic chatter and continued to explore the apartment. Room after room came up empty, with no one hiding in the closets or bathroom
. The voices, three of them now, haunted me like a bad dream as I searched for their origin.

  “You will not be remembered.”

  “Death erases all footprints from the sand.”

  “The mortal shell is easily broken.”

  “Seth will not weep for you.”

  Their taunts tripped over one another, pecking away at my patience one syllable at a time.

  “We’ve seen her, she told us what she wants.”

  “She wants you.”

  “She wants him.”

  “The world will turn without you.”

  “You will be forgotten.”

  I covered my ears, squeezing my eyes shut tightly, even though there was nothing to look at. Their voices, light like air, kept sneaking in.

  “We will show her the way.”

  “It will be painful. You have wronged her.”

  “She will not be gentle with you.”

  “Death is eternal.”

  Strong arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me fully off the floor. I was so intent on blocking out the alien sound of the voices I didn’t struggle or fight, and I let myself be carried out of the room. Once I was back outside the apartment door, I cautiously dropped my hands from my ears and opened my eyes, blinking at Leo.

  His hands were still on my waist, and he was looking at me like he had no idea what to say. Really, what was there?

  “Did you hear it?”

  He gave a slow nod, and a wave of relief washed over his features. “I thought it was in my head. I thought…”

  “You thought you were going crazy,” I offered.

  Another slow nod. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to believe you now. What was that?”

  Now that I was out of the room and they weren’t messing with my mind, the answer was apparent enough. “The Keres.”

  “The what the fuck? Cherries?”

  “Keres.” I moved away from him, not wanting to let his touch linger long enough to become uncomfortable. Or perhaps too comfortable. Being touched by someone warm and alive didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world right about now. But I couldn’t turn to Leo for that comfort. Aside from barely knowing him, there was another warm body several hundred miles north I had more than enough conflicted emotion about. No need to throw more people into the mix, no matter how lovely their parts were.

  “The Keres,” I continued, “are death spirits.”

  “So they’re not real.” Leo glanced back at the open door of his apartment like he expected something to show up in the frame.

  Personally I couldn’t help glancing back over my shoulder, worried the spirits would appear like the ghost from The Ring, all dripping wet and moving like broken puppets.

  I knew better. The Keres had no form. They were born of the night, daughters of Nyx.

  If Seth and Manea were A-list deities, Nyx defied classification. She was it, a supreme being in the truest and most astonishing way. Calling Nyx a she didn’t seem right. She was female, in that she gave birth, but she was not like any other goddesses. She was the night. She was the all-encompassing darkness that surrounded us, the lack of warmth, the deepest of shadows.

  She rarely took form, and when she did, she didn’t bother pretending to be human. Her lovers were amorphous, intangible, and her children were the Keres and the Fates.

  I began to shake, trembling from head to toe with the violent appreciation for how much trouble Leo and I were in. I wanted to call Cade, to tell him not to come. To say goodbye. I thought I’d come here to save Seth’s son, but instead I was acting as the engine of his terrible demise, trailing behind me a line of horrors each one worse than the last.

  How did I come from playing with lightning to being here?

  Leo was still looking at me expectantly, though I couldn’t have been hiding my terror well because his expression was growing more worried by the second. “Tallulah, are you going to barf again?”

  I shook my head, but I wasn’t so sure. “This isn’t an ideal situation.”

  “No shit. What are the Keres?”

  “They’re three sisters, spirits born of pure night. They’re real…but not real. They don’t have bodies.” And those intangible bitches must have followed me down the night road. Of course. It was the only way someone who worked with Manea would know where I was, and by extension where to find Leo.

  But it wasn’t pure dumb luck that had them stumble across me just when I happened to be there. The Keres were busy girls. Kakoi, Nosoi, and Lugra…evils, plagues, and banes. Yeah, they had their hands full. So for all three of them to be hanging around the night road during the ten minutes I was there with Hecate?

  Not fucking likely.

  Also, death spirits didn’t need to open a door to get inside.

  My terror faded, vanishing like clouds after the rain cleared. My brow furrowed, and Leo straightened his posture, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

  “Girl, you look like you got possessed or something. Do I need to knock you out?”

  “No. But I need to fuck someone up.”

  “You’re the craziest broad I’ve ever met, you know that?”

  I ignored his accurate assessment of my mental state and spun back around, charging into the apartment with such ferocity the door banged against the wall, rattling the glass on nearby picture frames.

  “She’s back.”

  “Wants some more.”

  “Tell her what Atropos has planned for her. Tell her, tell her.”

  I snarled, “Atropos can cut my string when my time is done, you invisibitches. I’m done listening to you. Yeah, I’m going to die, but it’s not going to be here.”

  Leo was standing in the doorway behind me, leaning casually against the frame as he watched me yell at his seemingly empty apartment.

  “She’s mad.”

  “Mad mad.”

  “She will die, and her rage will be meaningless.”

  “Death born of anger is a death of pain.”

  Man alive, these spirits were chatty today. “Where is he?” I snapped.

  “He who?”

  “Who he?”

  “We are alone.”

  They laughed. They. Fucking. Laughed.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a malevolent death spirit laugh, when the sound itself feels like it’s coming from inside your own head, but let me tell you—few things in life are that creepy. My skin crawled, and every intelligent part of my being was screaming at me to get out of that apartment.

  Glancing over my shoulder at Leo, I was impressed to still find him in the doorway. His expression was twisted in discomfort, but he showed no sign of leaving. Apparently now that he knew what the Keres were, he wasn’t going to let them drive him from his stolen home.

  I wouldn’t want to sleep here with them around, mind you. The nightmares would be ones for the ages. If you could fall asleep in the first place.

  “We’ll still be here when you’re both dead.” The voice was so light and singsong it was childlike and innocent. The words sounded all wrong in that sweet tone.

  If the Keres wanted to be especially unnerving, they should try to take form as little girls. That would really throw people for a loop.

  “You didn’t find me by accident.” I started prowling through the apartment again, even though I knew perfectly well it was empty. There would be a sign of him—of it—here somewhere. Leo had called me crazy, but in truth I’d never felt so grounded. Or at least as grounded as one could be when three demonic children were chanting threats inside your head.

  “We are wise.”

  “We are the Keres.”

  “Sisters of the Fates.”

  “We see your death.”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh my gods, I get it. I get it. Terrible things are coming for me. I’m destined for a violent death. Whatever. Could you idiots shut up for two seconds?”

  “Insolent.”

  “Rude.”

  This last made me laugh because it sounded like
something I would say. Sometimes I was blown away by how similar the gods could be to us mere mortals, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

  I turned a corner and walked straight into Leo, who had come in when I wasn’t paying attention. “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “The last shreds of my sanity.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  I huffed and moved back in the direction of the kitchen, managing to tune out the spirits as they continued to yammer away about my doom. What had begun as something truly terrifying was now more like white noise. Once the element of surprise was gone, they weren’t all that scary.

  Going for the knife block on the counter, I retrieved the largest butcher knife, something with a big, sharp blade.

  Spirits didn’t bleed, but meddling gods sure did.

  “Seriously, Tallulah.” Leo grabbed my arm, a bold move considering I was holding a giant knife. “What are you looking for?”

  “Mormo.”

  And like his name served as a summons, the smell of sulfur suddenly wafted into the room. In the heat of the summer evening the smell was almost unbearable. It felt heavy, like it might actually sink into my blood through my pores. My nose wrinkled instinctively out of disgust, and Leo mirrored the gesture, gagging.

  “Fuck me.” He let go of my arm so he could cover his nose. “That’s the worst fucking thing I’ve ever smelled.”

  It was like a sewer backup, if the sewer was backing up a corpse made of shit.

  “Mormo,” I growled again.

  I was glad I’d gotten all the puking out of my system earlier that night, because if I hadn’t, I’d sure want to right now.

  “Who’s Mormo?” Leo’s voice was muffled by his arm, but I had no trouble making out the question.

  “Mormo’s a backstabbing traitor who is going to meet the pointy end of Mr. Knifey here.” I waved the butcher knife and pushed past Leo, back into the hallway.

  “Where are you?” I rounded the corner and whipped open a closet door. The smell wafted out, smacking me in the face and I winced. I closed my stinging eyes, tears dripping down my cheek.