Getting that bullheaded look about him, he told me, “You think I’ll take no for an answer?”
“Fine.” I carefully packed the explosives and detonator, then readied my bow. “Come on, you.”
Ever-loyal Gabe emerged from the truck again. “I go as well.”
“I need you to be Kentarch’s wingman.” Literally. Making my tone light, I added, “And keep him from being a hero, huh?” I said it jokingly, but I meant, Doan fucking let him do anything heroic.
After a hesitation, Gabe nodded.
Before Joules and I set off, I caught Kentarch’s gaze. “Remember: we’re expendable. Me more than the Tower. But you’re not. If things go south, you and Gabe head to Death’s.”
“Copy.”
Joules and Gabe shared a look, then Joules rolled his eyes and said, “I’ll be back, birdbrain.”
The Angel sighed. “Very well, Patrick.” Those two—thick as thieves.
Joules and I headed down into the valley, snow compacting beneath our boots and our breaths fogging. I kept expecting Bagmen to leap from the drifts, but none attacked.
As we descended, I replayed our last encounter with Richter’s alliance, but memories of melted weapons and life-changing injuries undermined my resolve. So I reviewed what Evie had told me about the Sun Card.
Sol believed he and all the Arcana were gods. The solar rays he emitted from his skin and eyes had varying effects—everything from killing a person to growing a plant. His control over Bagmen was absolute.
He’d been a master’s student of history, a rave promoter, and part of a throuple with a guy and a girl who’d been turned into Baggers. When Evie had threatened them as leverage, he’d struck back brutally. . . .
Joules and I quieted our steps as we neared the house. Through one of the windows, I saw dinner plates atop a large table. Papers and maps spread out on the kitchen counter.
We headed to the back and found Zara’s attack copter atop a helipad, a fuel depot nearby. She’d chained down the rotors against the winds, but the craft was still intimidating as hell.
A thing of beauty, really. The nose was painted to look like a dragon’s mouth, with menacing fangs. While I marveled at the sight, Joules’s face sparked with irritation. “Me, Gabe, and Finn blew every barrel of fuel we came across. How is she still finding it?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” But her luck is about to run out, I thought as I planted enough C-4 to blow her copter to smithereens.
Joules had to stifle a cackle as I worked. “Payback for Tarch’s hand!”
I affixed another brick of explosives to the fuel depot, then turned back to the house to secure more in strategic positions. The remote detonator’s long range meant we could set off the charges from the safety of the truck.
After casing the exterior with Joules, we wound around to the front again. Still hadn’t seen the inhabitants. “I want inside to investigate those maps I saw.” Plus, we’d have a better shot at casualties if I got explosives in there. Hopefully their casualties.
“You think they locked the place up?”
“Non. They’d figure no one would be crazy enough to enter.” I eased closer to the front entry, Joules on my heels. Breath in my throat, I tried the door.
Unlocked.
As I opened it, warm air hit my face, the inside like a sauna. Richter definitely lurked in here somewhere. If the three were asleep, why leave all the lights on?
“Stay close.” I hurried to place explosives. In the gas oven. Along a doorway. As I configured the detonator for more strikes, adrenaline hit me. Could taking them out be so easy? Or would Zara’s luck ward off any attack on her?
I pocketed the detonator, then riffled through the papers on the counter. I found a map of water tables in the area, another of nearby fault lines, and a third of tectonic plates across the globe.
A fourth map showed all the military forts in the region. Each had been marked out with a red X, all but one. A historic preservation site called Fort Colman had been circled. Underneath it were two handwritten words: Sick House.
I ran my finger over it, and a chill washed over me. Had this alliance avoided the fort for a reason? Did they know the Pentacles were running it?
“Jaysus!” Joules exclaimed.
I hissed, “Fuck’s wrong with you?” I glanced around, expecting to see Richter’s beefy face. When no one came running, I turned back to Joules.
Wide-eyed, he pointed to a spot on the counter. A shining pair of weapons sat atop an old-timey-looking book. “That’s my Cally’s sai and her chronicles. How the hell did they find them?”
Didn’t know; didn’t care. “Grab ’em, quick.” This night was shaping up!
Joules darted forward to snare the book and weapons.
Past Calanthe’s things, I spied two plates of food, half-eaten, like the meal had been interrupted. I checked the temperature of a coffee cup with red lipstick on the rim. Still warm. “We gotta go. Put the stuff in my bag.”
“So you can give the book to Death?”
“Just put everything in my goddamned bag. You need your hands free.”
Still grumbling, he shoved them in my backpack—
Swwwwwhhhhhhh. Joules and I spun around toward a whispery sound behind us. An entire wall moved, slowly retracting.
I raised my bow and took aim.
Joules materialized a javelin, readying. “That’s a hidden panel like at Tarch’s penthouse.”
Behind it was an elevator. A dial indicated the car had begun to creep up from a lower level. “There must be some kind of safe room or prepper hidey-hole deep down there.”
Joules adjusted his grip on his spear. “What if it’s Richter?”
“He ain’t hot, or he’d melt the elevator car. So hurl that javelin through his fucking heart. . . .”
11
The Empress
With the hood of my dark coat drawn over my hair, I sneaked toward the stables as Aric rode his new stallion.
I was betting he didn’t carry his phone when he trained. I planned to steal it and read everything—if I avoided detection. I had a shot; he’d been even more preoccupied than usual ever since our confrontation with Lark a couple of weeks ago.
With a heavy heart, he’d finally chosen a gigantic mount named Titan, one of Thanatos’s offspring. As soon as Aric had made the decision, Titan’s soulful brown eyes had turned red, its gray color fading to white. I heard the stallion’s breaths even from here.
My own breaths were smoking as snow continued to fall and the temperature kept dropping. Just one more concern to add to the multitude of them.
As I stole down the path that Aric had shoveled, I catalogued all of my worries.
The lingering divide between me and Aric. Jack out in the Ash. My ongoing nightmares. Lark’s up-and-down behavior. Circe’s disappearance since Jubilee. Matthew’s radio silence. My upcoming labor.
Not to mention the threat of Richter and Zara.
This out-of-control feeling left me roiling, and I tensed when the red witch’s thoughts sifted into my own, a contamination.
The Empress doesn’t need allies; she needs icons.
I got the sense that she wanted to rule as an immortal over the entire earth in her own thorn-filled wasteland. Home sweet home. Was that why I’d continued to have nightmares about poisonous vines covering the world? And about that throne surrounded by thorns?