Page 22 of Ride or Die (The Body Shop #5)

My to-do list of pending divine murders was growing longer by the day.

“I doubt that would do the trick, but you’re welcome to try.” I twisted my fingers on my lap, aware I was championing patricide right on the heels of meeting my father. “He’s committed atrocities, and he should be stopped. I just don’t know how to do that.” I raised my eyebrows. “Do you?”

The one weapon that might have helped—Dinorah—would be worthless against him with his immunity.

“He’s a Titan, which makes him harder to kill than the average god, but I’ve collected a few relics over the years with provenance that might get the job done. If those fail, and he truly can’t be killed, I’ll have to settle for the next best thing. The Spear of Thebes.”

“I’m not familiar with it.”

“Plunge it into his heart, and he’ll be paralyzed until it’s removed.” Her smile turned deadly. “But only by the same person who skewered him in the first place. Needless to say, if I stick that giant pig, I won’t let him go no matter how loud he or his kin squeal for his release.”

“The other gods would hunt you.”

“Not if they can’t find him to verify he’s dead or who killed him.”

“You’re going to stash his body somewhere in Abaddon?”

“Hell, no. They’d find him in minutes. There’s too much power down there.

He needs to be somewhere I can keep him weak, and that means this world, where the possibilities are endless.

I could portal him to the moon. But humans are weirdly obsessed with it.

Always mucking around craters in their tinfoil suits.

All I need is for one to find him and bring him back here.

The news coverage would make it impossible to conceal the truth of what I had done. ”

“I can tell you’ve, uh, put a lot of thought into this.” I held up my hands. “No judgment.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to decide how best to enact my revenge, and I have access to powerful artifacts most of the world has forgotten. Makes for a dangerous combination.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it well in hand.”

“I won’t ask you to join me. You’ve been through enough, kid.”

“Ithas wasn’t alone in his crimes.” I didn’t want her to think I wasn’t on her side.

“Dis Pater gave him the Alcheyvāhā bone. As far as I can tell, he’s the one who commissioned me from Ithas.

Dis Pater wants me to act as his personal conduit and feed him magic from the burial grounds to supplement the power he’s lost since humanity quit worshipping him. ”

“That tracks, since Ithas is a Titan. Dis Pater, huh? I’ve never met him, but we run in the same circles.

He dabbles in mid-level artifacts, nothing too powerful, but none have piqued my interest.” She sucked her front teeth.

“Gods never change, do they? They grow old. They grow bored. They dream up big ideas to occupy their endless days. Their inspirations result in a steady escalation of heinous acts until they reach the pinnacle and either achieve their success or lose interest.”

“And if you were to look down, you would see a mountain of bones under their feet.”

Studying me, she raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure you don’t want a piece of Ithas?”

“Ithas has a god blood servant. Ankou. He dated my sister for a year. Befriended my brother and me. We loved him like family. But the whole time he was surveilling us. In our home. At our jobs. All to gather intel on me for Ithas. I see that now.” A pop rang out where I had squeezed my knuckles too hard.

“That violation is a wound that will take my sister years to heal, if it ever truly does. And Dis Pater is the one who killed me. So…yeah. I’m good with a divide-and-conquer strategy. ”

“Dis Pater killed you?”

“Yeah.” It took a bit of effort to drop the instinctive glamour I wore to conceal the changes in myself that I couldn’t quite look at in the mirror each day, not yet, revealing luminescent skin and the pearly sheen of my hair as it rustled in an unfelt wind. “He did.”

Shock wiped the expression off her face as she scanned my features, but a mottled crimson began at the base of her throat and spread up into her cheeks the longer she beheld my otherworldliness.

To know your daughter was a demigoddess was one thing, but I guess it was another to truly see it.

“That son of a bitch,” she snarled, her canines glinting sharper than before. “You haven’t killed him yet?”

Hoo boy, I came from murderous stock. I wasn’t mad about it.

“I’ve been playing nice.” I touched my arm where the brand marked my skin. “Nice isn’t working.”

“It rarely does.” She scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Can you teleport yet?”

“I managed it once, when my sister was dying, but I haven’t done it since.”

“Your sister was…?” She blinked. “You have a lot to unpack, don’t you, kid?”

“I always thought I was a defective necromancer, and I haven’t been excelling at the death demigoddess thing either.

Now I get that’s because I’m a demititan and a science experiment, so I don’t work the way that anyone else does.

It’s nice, after everything, to know it’s not my fault for being a weirdo?—”

“Mon Dieu,” Jean-Claude bellowed from the kitchen. “What have you done?”

I shot to my feet and raced to the kitchen. I skidded into the room, spotted what had panicked him, and my heart dropped into my toes.

Oh, no.

Badb lay belly up on the table next to a beer bottle, her little legs pointing straight up in the air.

Hand to my heart, I pleaded with him. “Please tell me she’s not dead.”

With a sniff at her beak, he wrinkled his nose and swore in eloquent French under his breath.

“That bird is drunk.” He lifted the bottle.

“I cracked open this bottle before I started baking cookies and forgot about it.” He shook it side to side, and it clinked.

“Smart girl, that one. She used dried red beans from a bag on the counter. She must have dropped them in as needed to keep the level high enough for her to reach the beer.”

“No wonder she hasn’t pitched a fit to go to Kierce.” I scooped her into my arms. “I’ll carry her down and let her sleep it off with him. Can you entertain, um, Lucia, while I run Badb to the crypt?”

“Glad to do it.” He stroked a finger down her sleek forehead. “Poor thing.”

Grieving as hard as she had been, she must be exhausted, but chugging alcohol wasn’t the cure. “Be right back.”

“Take your time, cher .” He lifted a cookie-laden tray. “She’s not the only one who’s been heartbroken.”

A flush warmed my cheeks as I rushed out, almost sliding past Lucia before remembering my manners.

“I need to run down to the crypt. I won’t be too long, I don’t think.” I hefted Badb. “We’ve got ourselves a bit of a situation here. She got into an open beer, so I’m off to find a hangover cure for crows.”

“Let me show you to a room.” Jean-Claude stepped up to Lucia. “You can shower and rest until dinner.”

“That would be great.” She plucked at her shirt. “I was in Sudan when I got the call, and you know how sand is.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He chuckled softly. “It gets in all the cracks.”

While Jean-Claude escorted her to one of the few vacant guest rooms remaining, I stepped into the elevator.

I sucked in a fortifying breath before the doors slid open then approached the crypt, heart in my throat.

Nothing had been disturbed in the garage, convincing me the protections on the crypt remained secure.

Ears perked for signs of movement, I let myself in the crypt and found Kierce exactly how I had left him.

As much as I wanted to sit cross-legged and let him rest his head on my lap, smooth my fingers across his forehead and press my lips to his skin, I couldn’t be selfish. Not when jostling him would only make the faint twitches and grunts as the magic projectile tore up his insides that much worse.

Our next steps would have to be taken at a run if we wanted to end his torment before it broke him.

With my toes pressing against the air mattress, I still had to stretch to reach the cat bed and deposit the unconscious crow in the center.

I wobbled as I straightened and threw out a hand to catch my balance.

I must have caused enough commotion for Pedro to notice, as his pale-blue outline shimmered into view.

“He’s been resting soundly,” Pedro assured me, drifting over to inspect Badb.

“Good.” I drank in the sight of him. “Crazy how I still miss him when he’s right there.”

“Ah, mija , love shouldn’t hurt so much, but that’s what makes it sweet.”

As much as I tiptoed around the L word where Kierce was concerned, I couldn’t find it in me to argue the point when it felt like a chunk of my heart had been ripped from my chest and thrown on the floor at my feet.

Berchem.

He was Berchem.

And he wasn’t mine. Not for much longer anyway. Not once he discovered my origin.

“Our friend here helped herself to an open beer. Do you think we have anything to worry about?”

I would have Googled, but my phone was fried until I got my hands on a new one. I could have asked Jean-Claude to check for me, but I had been too eager for any excuse to get back to Kierce to think of it in the moment.

“I’ve seen stories on the news about crows getting drunk then picking fights. They’re aired as humorous segments, so I can’t imagine it hurts the birds. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, but maybe ask Matty to go online and check? Just to be on the safe side.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that. I’ll bring her some fluids and a bready snack later.”

That ought to help absorb anything left in her and flush out the rest.

“Of course.” He faded back to where he had come from. “I’ll be here.”

Unable to help myself, I knelt at Kierce’s head and pressed kisses to the backs of his eyelids.

They barely fluttered under the touch.