A moment of light interrupts my brood. Kara’s deep-brown velvets are so soothing in her acknowledgment of my torment. But most of all, and especially now, so complete in her comprehension of the support I need to feel. The sincerity I need to see.
The plan I need to hear.
“I know where we have to start.” She turns, layering a hand atop mine in the junction where Mom is still tucked against my side. “Let’s get out of here.”
This isn’t the way I envisioned entering the Valari mansion for the first time. It seems entirely too empty and quiet, but I’m glad. Concentrating on jostling Kell as little as possible, especially up the wide stairs to the second and then third floor, is a solid excuse not to focus on all the stuff Kara’s given up for me, over and above the obvious. An atrium with a retractable sun shade? A bathroom with a glowing waterfall next to a lagoon tub? I don’t even glance into the numerous walk-in closets as Kara guides me into a bedroom that clearly eclipses the square footage of the apartments of my early childhood.
Kara switches on a nightstand lamp as Kell, who’s been softly mewling in my arms since I got her out of the car, gains semiconsciousness. Gently, I lower her to the sheets and pillows.
“Kara! K-demon, baby! Karaaa!”
“I’m right here,” Kara murmurs while sitting on the mattress beside her. She runs an equally careful hand over Kell’s hair. “How are you feeling?”
“Mmm. Is it martini hour yet? Shaken not stirred, please.”
As if on cue, the mansion sways from a new jolt to the earth three stories below. “Oh, never mind. Don’t shake!”
“It’s okay.” Kara folds Kell’s hands between her own. “Try to get some rest.”
Kell sighs and beams a dreamy grin. “I love you guys.”
Once Mom returns from the bathroom with a cup of water, we share a chuckle about Kell’s tipsiness, but Kara’s brow crunches. If I’m reading her correctly, it’s not all from concern. No doubt she’s still whipping herself inside, feeling responsible for the “accident” that would’ve killed her sister in a more mortal scenario.
“We need answers,” she mutters angrily, surging back to her feet with a stiff jolt.
As the charge stamps the air, Mom’s already stepping over. “You’re on it,” she states. “And I’m on her. Don’t stress about a thing.”
I swear to every god and demigod, including myself, that even if Kara and I were on our way back into hell, getting to see her and my mom hug with such affection is like transforming my chest into a sun deck.
As soon as Kara turns and heads for the door, she mutters from tight lips, “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Not more than a minute later, I learn that this means knocking on the door of her grandfather’s casita. Here we go again with trying to figure out Hades’s crazy schemes, starting on Gio Valari’s doorstep. Most unsettling of all, here I am, having to accept that if Gio can’t help, I could lose Kara completely.
And this time, there won’t be rescue do-overs.
Thankfully I’m distracted with a burst of gratitude at seeing Gio’s face. He’s still scraped-up from our scuffle with Cerberus, but in all other regards, he’s the same affable grandfather I introduced myself to, in this very same spot, only a couple of days ago.
At once, Gio seems overtaken by the same rush of relief. He shuts his eyes tightly while grabbing his granddaughter into an adamant hug.
“Kara. Thank every power, you’re okay.”
“Yeah.” A few tears encroach on her voice, but she’s mostly firm and strong while surely squeezing the man to the crushing point. “I am, mostly. Are you?”
“Of course.” He rocks back and gives her a friendly chuck on the chin. “Your gramps isn’t that old and ossified yet.”
She grimaces. “Stop saying things like that. If you weren’t here…”
“You’d be just fine,” he soothes, before jogging his twinkling regard up to me. “Especially with this fancy dog fighter around.”
I laugh. “You ever going to let that go, old man?”
“Probably not, young buck.”
Our banter aside, Kara’s already homing in, like she needs to and should be, on the reason we’re standing at his doorstep with our proverbial hats in hand.
“Gramps.” She locks her intent stare with his, wrapping her hands around his elbows. “You have to know why we’ve come.”
Gio turns his hands over to cup the bottom curves of her elbows. “I’ve got a few working theories, yes. As soon as I got home and found this place ransacked and then learned from Dalton that Arden Prieto had been through every inch of it…”
He drops his hands back down to his sides, where they spread and blaze like electric talons. The veins leading to them, along his wrists and knuckles, look like glowing red snakes.
“I’m so sorry, Gramps,” Kara murmurs. “But I think I know what he was looking for.”
“Of course. He wants that damn grimoire. Well, his boss does anyway. Tell me you still have it?”
Kara nods. “I do. It’s—”
“Don’t tell me,” Gio says. “No point. You should have it. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it. Protect it, Kara. Anything Hades wants that much has to be powerful beyond anything we can imagine.”
He takes a second to gather his breath, and Kara uses the time to seemingly round up her own wits. But every second that clicks by is feeling too valuable to me. Too important to waste.
“We’ve talked to Zeus.”
I go ahead and say it. No sense in holding him back from the shock, which he displays by instantly jacking up his head. The red streaks fade from his wrists and hands, leaving him looking a little older. A lot more drained.
“I thought he was keeping his distance from all this,” he mutters.
“That was before Hades started breaking everything in LA.”
“Hmphhh,” he grunts. “Makes sense.”
As his grimace harshens, so do the rapid in-and-outs of Kara’s chest. “Please, Gramps,” she echoes with double the desperation. “Can you help us? Do you know at all what will stop Hades this time? We have to find a way to—”
The rest of her words are sucked out by a massive rush of air across the backyard.
Across the whole block.
Across the whole city.
And there’s no more finding anything, as the wind howls through the nearby canyons, blasts across downtown, and screams up into the hills—before amalgamating into a tower of furious energy in the middle of the swimming pool.
The swimming pool?
The wonderment practically washes me in consolation, until I remember exactly how Gio backdoored me into hell in the first place. And all the ways that fate delivered its glimpses of Kara to me.
This spectacle isn’t a glimpse of anything.
The atmospheric dervish is a violent centrifuge for everything not directly rooted, glued, or nailed down. Every leaf off the hedges. Every petal of every flower. Even the martini glasses and drink coasters from the poolside bar—
Until, as if it’s all been kindling for a massive bonfire, there’s a fiery flume atop the aqua water. The tower, spiking at a good twenty feet high, compresses as swiftly as it flares. The column of my throat tightens in equal measure. Through the thick flames, I start glimpsing things. A shiny, dark-red suit. A head topped with slick black hair. A stance full of arrogance and command.