Page 26 of Ride or Die (The Body Shop #5)
No sooner had I backed out of the crypt than the elevator chimed, and Matty and Josie stepped into the garage.
“How’s Birdfriend?” Josie crossed to me and took my hand. “Dumb question, right?”
“Not dumb.” I squeezed her fingers. “And he’s…as good as he’s going to get.”
“Badb?” Matty rubbed my shoulder. “I haven’t seen her in a minute.”
“Did Jean-Claude tell you she got drunk? I’ve sobered her up, and she’s in the crypt with Kierce.”
“Badb…got drunk?” Matty scratched his jaw. “I am weirdly proud of her.”
“Of course you are.” No surprise there.
The pair exchanged a weighted glance before training their gazes on me.
“Go on.” I rolled my hand, giving them permission. “Ask.”
I was shocked they had kept their questions about Lucia to themselves for this long.
“How weird is it to find out your mother is basically Lara Croft?” Josie’s eyes danced with amusement. “I knew there was a reason you were such a gifted thief back in the day. Light fingers run in the family.”
Movie references did too, if both of us had taken one look at Lucia and gotten Tomb Raider vibes.
“Except I sucked at being a thief. The guilt ate me alive. Lucia doesn’t have that problem.”
“You had the skills, though.” Matty played larcenous cheerleader for me. “Pretty neat it’s hereditary.”
“At least you have one cool parent. Too bad your dad is a giant bag of dicks.”
“I don’t have parents,” I countered. “I have donors. Because I’m a science experiment.”
“Maybe so,” Matty joked, “but you’re our science experiment.”
“Thaaanks.” I grumbled about it but let them hug me. “Before we go up, I need to tell you a few things.”
With the thumbtack clearing my head, I confided every single thing down to the last detail.
What I learned in Abaddon. What Ithas had told me. What I knew about wielding Dinorah.
That way, if I forgot again, they could remember for me. They could hold the knowledge safe so no gods, or god bloods, could leverage the information against us. Unfair to burden them with it, but I didn’t see an alternative.
The tack would run out of magic, and there was no guarantee Lucia would continue sharing her supply.
Add to that, I wasn’t sure I would ever see her again after she got her revenge.
This might be the last time the bits and pieces formed a completed puzzle, and it would be foolish of me not to share the big picture with someone.
A rumble erupted beneath our feet, and we stared at one another.
“Not that way.” I grabbed them before they could get the door open onto Chartres. “This way.”
I hustled them into the elevator, and we rode up in silence. The second the doors rolled open onto the living room, we sprinted through to the gallery overlooking Chartres for a birds-eye view of the street.
Hands curling around the wrought iron railing, I stared down at Ankou, who was flanked by two men.
The scene kicked off a sense of déjà vu, and my gaze strayed beyond them.
Fear that Kierce had been pried from the crypt sent my pulse galloping, but there was no sign of him.
He was still safe. Still inside. How long that remained the case once the gods came out to play, I couldn’t say, but I would do my damnedest to protect him.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” Ankou shouted when he saw me. “Let down your hair.”
“Fuck off,” Josie yelled back, her eyes blazing green as vines peeled off the walls beside us to snake down the building toward him. “Or did you change your mind about exploring the whole hentai thing?”
A thick vine struck the pavement inches from Ankou’s foot, and he hopped back with a curse.
“Temper, temper.” A dark blur flew overhead. The omen. She was here. “Your father would like a word, my duck. Best you don’t keep him waiting. Pack a bag, kiss your loved ones, and come home like a dear.”
“Ithas can rot in Hell.” I tracked her arc through the sky. “Biblically speaking.”
Abaddon might not be a fiery pit of despair, but my quasi-Catholic upbringing had painted a vivid picture of their Hell.
Another tool the sisters had used to keep the young and afraid in line.
That was the place I wished I could banish Dis Pater to, so he could play rotisserie chicken for demons, rotating on a spit over an open flame for all eternity.
“Well, that’s not very nice, is it?”
“I’m not helping Ithas fulfill his grand vision. Dinorah deserves her peace, and I intend to lay her to rest.”
“And Berchem?” She laughed mockingly. “Will you let him go so easily?”
“Kierce deserves his peace too.”
Hard to read shock on a bird’s face, but her beak went slack as she scrambled for what to say. That bird had taunted me about Berchem for as long as I had known her. I just hadn’t remembered what a hateful little shit she was until now.
“Who told you…?” She missed a wingbeat, tipping sideways, and almost clipped her head on the roofline. “How do you remember…?”
“It’s enough you know that I do. Pass it along to the gods, will you? Let them know I’m aware of who and what I am now.”
A shudder rippled through her, or maybe it was a shiver. Either way, it spooked her enough to fly away.
Good.
One less thing.
She didn’t have to know the threat was more of a bluff.
“Bijou, come down here and talk this out with me, or I’ll be forced to go in after you.”
That he hadn’t threatened to come for Kierce, or yank the bullet from his body, left me more suspicious of his motives than ever. He must know Kierce was here, even if he couldn’t sense him. Why not use him against me? Lord knows, he had made a hobby of it up until now.
“He can’t enter,” Vi said over my shoulder. “The loa reinforced my wards.”
Relief that I had a moment to think without jeopardizing our safety left me sagging against the railing.
“Monitor the situation,” I told the Marys and marched back in the house. “I have to talk to Anunit.”
Certain I would find her in my room, I headed that way, nodding to Rollo in passing. He ignored me. So, I guess as much as things change, some stay the same.
I discovered Anunit curled around Dinorah in the center of the mattress and sat beside her. I would have pet her, but with Dinorah—literally—between us, I wasn’t sure she would welcome my touch.
“I would understand if you chose another guardian,” I ventured when she didn’t even lift her head. “I don’t want you to regret your decision now that you understand it more fully.”
“I know your heart, Frankie Talbot, and I do not regret selecting you. Dinorah would enjoy knowing part of her lives on in the one chosen to protect what remains of us.” She rested her chin on my thigh.
“I will grieve for some time, even though I thought my tears all spent, but I do not resent you or blame you for her end.” She chuffed warm air across my leg.
“Truth be told, she and I fought bitterly over Berchem. He loved her, so much, and his ideals were my ideals. I wanted to exist in peace alongside the new gods, but their greed proved too great.” Her eyes closed for a breath.
“I would have sacrificed Dinorah’s great love to save our people, and it shames me that I placed so little value on her happiness. ”
“Even if you had championed her choice of mate, you wouldn’t have stood a chance against a pantheon of gods.
The argument could be made that she could have chosen the good of the people over her heart, but it would be pointless.
For the gods to wipe out the Alcheyvāhā entirely rather than only punish Dinorah and Berchem speaks to an agenda.
They were searching for an excuse, a way to push their gleaming pantheon straight to the top, and they found one in Dinorah and Berchem’s relationship. ”
“I want to believe that is true.” She flicked her ears. “Perhaps I will believe it is so, in time.”
Aware the clock was ticking and Ankou waited outside, I got serious. “Can I ask an indelicate question?”
“You want to know why her bone kills gods and if other Alcheyvāhā bones would do the same.”
“Not that I would ever weaponize them.” I lifted my hands, palms out. “But I did wonder.”
“Dinorah was a goddess, and those are not easily slayed even by other gods.”
“I always assumed one of the new death gods used their magic on her.”
Even then, god-on-god violence rarely ended with a god ceasing to exist.
“The goddess Taura could kill with a touch, and she owed a great debt to Berchem’s family.
They named their price as Dinorah. My daughter…
” Anunit drew in a shaking breath, “…decayed within seconds, her flesh sliding off her bones. The magic kept going, poisoning her, rotting her insides, sinking into her very marrow. That is why Dinorah, the sword, can kill. Her bones are saturated in a newborn goddess’s death magic.
” Her gaze strayed to the blade. “That is why they cremated the rest of her once they discovered what they had created. To prevent anyone else from possessing such power.” Her eyes locked with mine.
“I killed Taura, with help from what few of us remained, though it cost them their lives.”
“She deserved what she got,” I said, and I meant it. “Now Dis Pater and Ithas will get theirs too.”
A rumble of agreement moved through her. “How fares your consort?”
“He’s not in great shape, but he appears to be stable. He can’t help us take out the gods in his condition, so whatever god-killing powers Ankou believes he possesses are off the table.”
“Berchem never possessed that power, but being in service to Dis Pater…”
“…he could have been wielding Dinorah.”
Bile rose up the back of my throat as I imagined him joining in killing the Alcheyvāhā he had so admired, using a weapon forged from the woman he loved.
I could picture Dis Pater giving that order clearly.
The cruelty of it would appeal to him. I wasn’t sure at what point he decided to team up with Ithas.
Likely he spent centuries fuming over his waning power before he—or another of the impotent death gods eager for any hope of tasting the strength from their glory days again—learned of the restorative magic of the burial grounds.
That discovery, more likely than not, belonged to another.
Had Dis Pater been the first, he would have hoarded it all for himself back then like he planned to now.
The best he had been able to wrangle was his guardianship that Kierce enforced by murdering anyone who stumbled across the burial grounds.
However you sliced it, Dis Pater deserved what was coming to him, and I was ready to deliver.