by Sierra Dean
“Tell me about it.” I fought the urge to close my eyes and lie down. I could sleep for ten years and it wouldn’t be enough. Needless to say if I got through this, I was going to tell Sido I needed a vacation.
I snorted out loud at the thought.
“What’s so funny?” He’d set my left foot down and was putting my right boot on, but paused when I laughed.
“This is all kinds of hilarious, if you ignore the mortal danger and almost dying.”
“Yeah, absolute laugh riot without that stuff.” With both my boots now on, he got up from the chair and collected our jackets. I took the opportunity to stare at his arms as he moved, now that he wouldn’t catch me looking. The bright splashes of color that traced their way up into his sleeves. I wanted to know what they all meant, wanted to learn the dark history of every single mark.
For the first time in my life I hoped someone else would share their pain with me. I yearned to know him, all the unpleasant, secret parts of him that made him who he was. This man had followed me to the brink of death and hadn’t flinched. That was the kind of person you kept around, rules be damned.
He caught me watching him and paused, draping our jackets over his arm and obscuring my view of his tattoos. “What?”
“I kind of like you, Cade Melpomene.”
The faintest hint of a smile tugged his lips up before he schooled his features back into their usual stern countenance. “Well good. If you stay alive long enough, maybe I’ll ask you to dinner.”
“You paying?”
“No. I’ve seen how much you eat.”
My stomach growled in response. “First let’s cheat death. Then I’ll take you for dinner.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hospitals were neutral territory.
Each one was technically a temple for Asclepius, so the work of other gods was forbidden on site. These rules were inflexible, and no one would dare to break them, which was the only reason I hadn’t freaked out at Cade for leaving Leo on his own.
There was one loophole in the system that Manea had certainly thought of and was biding her time for the right moment to use. Sometimes the work of other gods had to bring them into a hospital, and special allowances were made in those instances.
That was how Cade managed to make his way in to bring bad luck to families, or how Prescott was able to come in and take lives. Manea was allowed inside, she only needed to wait until someone’s natural expiration date had come.
It was only a matter of time, and then we’d be stuck in here, outside the protection of any other forces, and she could do what she wanted.
If death was going to come for me, I’d like to be outside where I could do something about it. I also didn’t want any innocent lives coming into the crossfire. No, if I had any say in the matter, when shit hit the fan, we’d deal with it away from the realm of human collateral damage.
Unless you counted me and Cade, which I doubted anyone did.
Just like Cade had said, we found Leo at the nurses’ station on the third floor, talking to a pretty redhead. He was toying with a thin bracelet on her wrist, and her attention was rapt on him, like she’d never seen a man before.
Truth was she’d never seen a man quite like him before, and I couldn’t blame her for her deer-in-headlights fixation. Leo was beautiful, arresting in a way no fully human man could be. Even under the unflattering fluorescent lights his skin looked smooth and flawless, and he radiated a kind of inhuman glow that drew people in like moths.
The bracelet was gone when she picked up a chart and told him she had to do her rounds. He waved goodbye with one hand, while the other let the slim silver chain drop down his sleeve.
I waited until the nurse was gone then cuffed him upside the head.
He grimaced. “Ow. Nice to see you too, psycho.”
Giving him a stern look that brooked no opposition, I said, “You’re going to leave that at the desk so she thinks it just fell off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Leo. These people saved my life.”
“I saved your life.”
Cade, who was standing next to me, one arm looped around my waist to keep me from falling over, cleared his throat. “You’re better off doing what she says.”
“This is ridiculous.” Leo pulled the chain out of his sleeve, along with a nice-looking watch. He left the bracelet on the desk as requested but pocketed the watch. I didn’t argue. One small victory was better than none.
Reflexively, I checked to see if my bracelet—the one from Badb—was still on. The doctors evidently didn’t have any reason to remove it, because it was encircling my wrist exactly where I’d left it. Cade touched the metal gently, and I realized then he might have played a part in it still being on.
It occurred to me I hadn’t yet asked how he’d found us at the hospital. “Did you tell him I was here?” I asked Leo.
“He called my phone. I guess when he got to my place, he saw what a godsdamned shitshow it was and panicked.”
“I didn’t panic.” Cade looked at me in earnest. “I didn’t.”
“Okay.”
“But if I was the sort of person to panic, walking into an apartment where there were red hoofprints on the floor, a puddle of blood, and the lingering smell of sulfur in the air…well, I think I was justified in being a bit unsettled.”
I’m pretty sure that was his way of saying he’d been worried about me. How sweet.
“We need to get you to the temple.” I was already pulling Cade towards the elevators, but my words were all for Leo. My human crutch went willingly, having apparently given up on any attempts to be in charge of this operation.
“The temple is in Seattle,” Leo reminded me.
Guess he’d been doing some research while I was getting sewn up. If that meant he had come to accept that Seth was his father, then at least I had cleared one hurdle.
“We’ll go to the regional outlet.” Just saying it left a bad taste in my mouth. I tried to avoid setting foot in the regional prayer outlets whenever possible. They were so corporate it felt less holy than going into a McDonalds.
Still, a Seth outlet was likely to be the only place in New Orleans where Leo would be truly safe long enough for me to get Sido here to collect him. If Seth would show up and lay claim himself, this would be a lot simpler.
But simple wasn’t a word that applied to my job on most days.
I hadn’t been in Louisiana in years, and the outlets tended to move around based on who currently maintained them. I hadn’t bothered to visit one the last time I’d been through.
Cade hit the elevator button, then reading my mind he took out his phone and opened his prayer app. He pulled up my listing and easily navigated the map with GPS. “Ursulines and Miro,” he said. “It’s a residential.”
I grumbled. “Can’t they rent office space like normal people?” Residential outlets were the worst. They were usually run by real sycophants, worshippers who wanted to live and breathe their chosen god. They were absolutely unbearable to be around if you were the chosen representative of that god.
Imagine being a rock star. Then imagine if your fans thought you could actually manifest blessings for them. Exhausting didn’t begin to describe it.
“Did you bring my car?” I leaned against Cade as we loaded onto the elevator, each new motion delivering a fun and exciting discovery of pain.
“I sold it for a case of beer. They took the fennec for free.” Cade spoke into the side of my head so I couldn’t see if he was smiling or not, but I had a feeling he was profoundly amused with himself.
“Where is Fen?” I had a sudden image of the fennec locked in the car through a hot Louisiana day and felt sick to my stomach.
“Who’s Fen?” Leo asked.
Cade ignored him. “I rented a room near Leo’s place when I got into town. He’s safe. He’s fed. He’s also not very fond of me.”
I eased up, knowing my familiar w
as okay. Cade, it seemed, really had thought of everything. “He’s not fond of anyone. That’s sort of his thing.”
The elevator opened on the main floor, and Cade left me with Leo, waiting inside the main lobby doors when he went to get the Mustang.
“I need to say something and I need you to listen. I know it’s hard to take me seriously when I can’t even stand on my own, but this is important.” I was leaning against his side and had to crane my neck back to look at him. My head felt floppy, and I got dizzy just glancing up. I knew how ridiculous I appeared, dwarfed by the huge man next to me.
“Go ahead.” He adjusted his stance, bumping against my wound. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, and he froze. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I gritted out.
Leo waited a beat to make sure I wasn’t going to keel over, the nervous worry on his face telling me he was concerned, then he asked, “So what do you need to tell me?”
I braced my arms against his ribs and pivoted so I was facing him. Since he was built like a brick wall this wasn’t all that different from balancing in my hospital room. Except touching him was much warmer.
“As soon as we step out that door, you’re a target.”
“So…wouldn’t it make more sense to stay?” Leo glanced back over his shoulder at the hospital lobby, and I could almost read his mind. Pretty nurses and open purses everywhere. The man was in his glory here.
“Usually I would say yes.”
“Not to mention you could get back into a bed, because honestly, girl, you look like shit.”
Since I also felt like shit I didn’t take offense to the comment. “Be that as it may, we won’t be safe here for long. It’s time to go.”
“And you think some off-brand Seth temple is going to provide better protection for us than this place?”
“I don’t think we’re going to be safe anywhere until you’re at the main temple in Seattle. But first we need to get you there. And the best way to do that is to find a place where you can’t be touched. Rules are rules, and once we’re inside a temple, even an off-brand one, you’ll be okay.”
The car pulled up out front, and I steeled myself.
We just needed to get from the hospital to the outlet. At most it was going to be a fifteen-minute drive.
So why did I have the feeling we weren’t going to make it?
Chapter Twenty-Six
You might as well call me psychic and give me my own 1-900 number.
If Murphy’s Law were the only law, I abided it by the letter. Having Cade with us couldn’t have helped things, but I had a feeling shit would have gone south even without him around.
Want to know how many cemeteries there are between the New Orleans General Hospital and Ursulines Street?
Seven.
Do you want to know how long it takes a death goddess to raise the corpses from seven cemeteries?
Minute one, we pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
Minute five, we passed a cemetery, and I saw the first sign something was terribly wrong. Though the small lot was fortified with high walls, several iron gates showed us glimpses inside. The aboveground crypts were all broken open, and bodies in a variety of decomposing states were crawling across the grass.
“Guys?” I braced my hand on Cade’s arm, leaning across him from the backseat. Leo had been too large to fit in the back, meaning I had to take the bitch seat. Now I was glad for it because it meant I’d been able to see the world whizzing by us. “Guys.” I pointed out the window, practically punching Cade in the face trying to make them follow my gaze.
Cade stopped, shifting the car into park. He rolled the driver’s window down, and we watched in rapt silence as the bodies crawled and clamored, mostly too disassembled and old to move very far.
The three of us stared through the dying light of day. Straggling pedestrians passed by without so much as a second glance.
“Keep going,” I urged.
Minute ten found us at a red light, perfectly positioned outside a newer cemetery, this one with lower walls but still continuing the tradition of aboveground burial units thanks to Louisiana’s dodgy water table. The situation was the same as the previous cemetery, with bodies ambling about, these ones more upwardly mobile than the last. They were slow but still retained most of their parts. Some even had flesh attached to their bony frames. One at the head of the pack trailed a long chain of intestines behind it. I worried I might throw up in my mouth, but my stomach was empty.
At minute fifteen we turned onto Ursulines and a corpse hit the hood of my car, rolling up on the window and over the roof. Cade slammed on the brakes, and we all lurched forward. Without a seat belt, I hit the back of Cade’s seat with a hard smack.
“Fuck.” I held my side and rested my head against the driver’s seat until I could breathe without wanting to pass out.
Every passing moment I was starting to think I should have stayed put at the hospital and hoped for the best. I wasn’t in any shape to be walking around, let alone taking on Manea.
She’d have no problem at all killing me in my current condition. One stern look and I’d keel over.
“Sh-should we see if he’s okay?” Leo asked, craning to glance out the back window.
“He’s dead.” I touched my ribs gingerly, then took a deep, exploratory breath. I didn’t lapse into a bout of coughing, so clearly whatever magic tar was holding my lung together was still working.
Hurray!
“But maybe he’s not?”
Leo was, it seemed, blessedly unfamiliar with the undead. How lucky for him. “No, I mean he was dead before we hit him. They’re all dead. Manea is using them to slow us down.”
Cade shifted back into gear, but the car sputtered and died. No matter what he tried, the engine wouldn’t turn over.
Guess Manea’s plan was coming together beautifully.
“How far is it?” I was scanning the area outside the windows, waiting for the inevitable second wave to arrive. There was no way she’d send only one body after us. And as soon as the others realized where we were, we’d have to deal with Prescott. Or Manea herself.
I wasn’t the type of person to regret things. I generally believed that all things good or bad were for a reason, as the Fates decreed. But boy howdy was I ever regretting my wager with Prescott that had won me the stupid death idol.
More than that I was starting to hate Prescott. He’d always been insufferable, but at some point in my life I’d actually found him charming enough to let him see me naked. I’d love to blame that on the folly of youth.
Now that it appeared exceedingly likely he would play a part in my actual death, I wished I could take back our past dalliances. It was super unfair that someone I’d had sex with would be the person to kill me.
Cade checked the app on his phone to see how much farther we needed to go to get to the outlet temple. “Half a mile. You think you can run it?”
Run it.
I’d be lucky if I could limp at a senior citizen’s pace. And luck was quite literally not on my side at the moment.
“I can manage,” I lied.
I wasn’t what mattered here. We had to get Leo to the temple where he’d be safe from Manea. And if I had to die in order for that to happen, then so be it. It was an eventuality in my line of work that one day I would meet my end serving my god. Today was as good a day as any to meet Hades.
A new adventure, right?
I swallowed hard, knowing perfectly well I had no interest in dying. But the past couple days had certainly done a lot to make me accept the possibility.
“Looks clear,” Cade observed. “I say we make a break for it before they have time to regroup.”
“Sure.”
“What?” Leo gave Cade an uncertain look, then glanced back at me. “What?”
“We’re going to run.”
“I think I liked the whole stay in the car idea. What happened to that idea?”
“That plan sort of lost its luster when
the car stopped moving,” I reminded him with as much patience as I could manage. “You know, after we ran over the dead guy.”
Leo didn’t seem to appreciate the sarcasm lacing my words. “It was your bright idea to leave the hospital.”
“Yes it was.”
“Last time I listen to one of your plans.” He rested his fingers on the doorhandle and sucked in a deep breath.
I didn’t have the heart to tell either of them this was most likely the last time anyone would listen to one of my plans.
Droplets of rain started to fall against the windshield. If I could muster up enough energy to call the lightning, we might have a fighting chance. Of course, I could barely maintain the energy to stand on my own two feet, so channeling electricity into my body would be finishing Manea’s job for her.
If it helped get Leo and Cade to safety, though, I’d do it.
I was filing that idea under last-ditch effort.
“Count of three,” I said. “You guys get out, and I’ll be right behind you.” The unfortunate problem of driving a two-seater was I needed them to be gone before I could climb through the door. And no matter how I managed it, it would be a hot mess to watch.
The guys clambered out on my count, and I squeezed through the seats, worming my way through the passenger door like a graceless human snake. As soon as I was on solid ground, the rain started falling harder, pelting my face and wetting my eyelashes. It was nearly impossible to see anything, let alone whether we were about to be attacked.
I rounded to the front of the car, and Cade grabbed my wrist, pulling me down the center of the street. All the pedestrians we’d previously seen were gone, leaving the streets empty of any life except for us.
Wonder if the news had forecast cloudy with a chance of reanimated dead.
Every step I took was a new form of punishment on my body. Cade and Leo were running, with Cade shouting out what we were looking for—a pink two-story house that would be on a corner lot—as we moved with single-minded purpose.