Page 3 of Ride or Die (The Body Shop #5)

K nees slamming into black rock with an impact that rattled my bones, I fell forward onto my palms and spilled the contents of my stomach with a groan I felt down to my soul.

“There, there.” Ankou’s voice warped around me, everywhere and nowhere at once. “Let it all out.”

Panting through the heaving, I swallowed convulsively. “What the ever-loving fuck did you do?”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Bijou.” His blurry outline solidified before me. “It happens to the best of us.”

“Where am I?” I tipped onto my side, thankfully not in the vomit, and found gray skies above me and more of that onyx stone spreading for miles in every direction. “Is this…Abaddon? You brought me to Abaddon ? Without the others? Without supplies? Without weapons? What were you thinking?”

“That it was worth it for the look on Harrow’s face. Did you see that vein pop in his forehead? Hilarious.”

“Are you that stupid or that desperate for a chaos hit?”

Not that I expected a miracle, but I checked my phone, unsurprised to find it died in the crossing. Not that it could have done more for me than act as a glorified watch. No cell towers in Abaddon. No way to contact my family and let them know I was okay or where to find me.

“Rude.” He folded his arms over his chest. “You and your friends had transportation figured out, right?”

“Yes,” I ground out between my clenched teeth. “Papa Legba agreed to lend us a hand.”

And whatever the cost, Vi had refused to let me pay it, taking on the debt herself instead.

“Then the way I see it, I gave you guys the kick in the pants you needed to get this quest underway.”

“How did you reach that conclusion?”

“You couldn’t decide who should stay and who should go, so I made an executive decision.”

That was what we got for arguing in the kitchen with the window open. The shameless eavesdropper had helped himself to our turmoil. “And, hypothetically, if we hadn’t had transportation figured out?”

A vicious roar jolted me upright in time to watch Anunit, who had ditched the raccoon in favor of her natural form, tackle Ankou, bouncing his skull off the stone with a dull thud that gave me a sympathetic headache.

As evidenced by her massive paws planted on his chest, crushing him beneath her, the goddess held more weight in this land of the dead than in the world of the living.

“Thank God,” I exhaled as she sank her teeth into the dense meat of his shoulder, ripped a chunk free, and gulped it down while he screamed obscenities at her. “Boy am I glad to see you.”

Though this was one time I wouldn’t have been too upset if she had shown up wearing Harrow. I could use all the backup I could get. Being alone with Ankou struck me as hazardous to my health.

“Get this thing off me.” Ankou shoved a hand in his pocket, fumbling out a bone fragment that stretched and warped, growing as blunt as a club.

He swung it at her windpipe, the length twisting to form a collar, contracting on contact until Anunit’s breaths rasped through her fangs. “Bijou, a little help here?”

“Release her first.”

After a brief hesitation, he rotated his wrist, unlatching the construct and allowing her to fill her lungs. Odd since she was already dead and didn’t need oxygen. Must be another side effect of Abaddon. Too bad more real might translate to more vulnerable here.

I would have asked my guide for confirmation, but he was a liar.

And a kidnapper.

“Anunit, it’s your turn.” I staggered over and stroked a calming hand down her spine, marveling at the rich softness of her fur and the powerful flex of her taut muscles. “He would only give you indigestion.”

With a feline yowl, she released him, spat his blood in his face, then lowered her nose an inch from his.

“You thought you could take her from me?” Anunit bared her crimson teeth. “She is mine , godmade.”

Had any doubts lingered that the rules as they applied to Anunit were different here, she proved it when she spoke to him in words he understood, if his scowl was any indication.

He had seen her, briefly, during the fight that cost me Kierce.

But she had been a shadow of her former self.

This version was much more substantial. And, judging by her feathered tail lashing as I nudged her off him, much more pissed off too.

“You’re one of many with a claim on her.” Ankou sat up with a wince as his shoulder mended before our eyes, reminding me why he had passed as a shifter with such ease. “As the humans say—take a number and get in line.”

That was news to me. Not the Anunit part. But the rest. “How many claims are we talking about here?”

“You do have a divine parent.” He raised his eyebrows. “And I’m sure if you asked Kierce, he would say he had a vested interest in you. Or he would have, before he tried to kill you. Now he’ll be all dramatic about it. He’ll whine about being undeserving of your love and blah, blah, blah.”

Love.

Nope. I couldn’t go there. Not yet.

To look ahead to a future with him in it was to invite pain until we got past this.

“As the humans say—” I borrowed the line from him, “—my divine parent can suck it.”

A flicker of unease threatened to shutter his expression, but he forced his eyes clear.

“Maybe keep your voice down?” He stood with a grunt. “You’re in Abaddon now.”

“I’m aware.” I noted the line cutting deeper across his forehead. “What’s your point?”

“There are eyes and ears everywhere.” He dusted himself off, took another look around, then started walking. “Follow me, and we’ll go somewhere private to finalize our agreement.”

“I hate to break it to you, but Stockholm syndrome requires longer than five minutes to kick in. You kidnapped me. I’m not going anywhere with you.” I barked out a laugh. “Anunit, can you get us out of here?”

Solo teleporting wasn’t a skill I had control over, but Anunit had proven a more than capable guide when she used the psychic trail I had forged astral projecting myself to Dis Pater’s house to materialize us there in the flesh.

As well as she knew Vi’s townhouse, she wouldn’t require any guidance from me to get us there.

The next time I stepped foot in Abaddon, it would be with people I trusted at my back.

“Yes,” she hissed, her single wing twitching along her spine.

“Ankou, it’s been real.” I saluted him. “I’m out of here.”

Warmth grazed my ankle, and I yelped as a foreign object slithered over my skin.

“I can’t let you go yet.” Ankou twisted his fingers until the bone collar once choking Anunit now adorned my ankle. A honed spur longer than my finger emerged, pressing its sharp tip into my flesh. “Not until you agree to my terms.”

“Jewelry.” I curled my lip as the spur dug into me. “You shouldn’t have.”

The promise of violence revved up the back of Anunit’s throat as she took one lethal step toward him.

“That’s her anterior tibial artery.” He indicated the point of contact with a jerk of his chin. “Do you want to see how fast she’ll bleed out if I nick it? Most only last a few minutes.”

Unsure if it would kill me, since I had already died once, I wasn’t curious enough to find out.

Apparently Anunit wasn’t convinced I would survive it either because she stood down.

“Frankie. Frankie. Frankie. Talbot. Talbot. Talbot.”

“Um.” I craned my neck, searching for the source, afraid to make any sudden movements lest he decide I was attempting to run and followed through on his threat. “What is that?”

The keening chorus rose around us, the mournful cries tapering into eager chittering.

“One of the many reasons you should never venture into Abaddon alone.” He withdrew a second bone from his pocket, unsurprising for an osteokinetic, and willed it to lengthen and sharpen until he held a sword with a cruel edge. “It’s the mirashii.”

No clue what that was, but it couldn’t be good. “How do they know my name?”

“I have not seen one in centuries.” Anunit perked her ears. “They are quite delicious.”

“We need to take cover before it reaches us.” Ankou flicked a glance at my ankle. The pressure on it disappeared, but the anklet remained. “Otherwise, you’re going to be dinner. The name thing? They call out to their next victim.”

“That’s nice of them,” I mumbled, cold sweat dappling my spine at their eerie recitation.

“They speak the name of their prey,” Annuit explained, “so that the others know who to hunt.”

“And, because it’s not creepy enough that they lift your name straight out of your brain, they use that same quirk to spread it to any and all mirashii they encounter. You’re marked for life, Bijou. Congrats.”

“Thanks.” I kept my head on a swivel. “Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, running for our lives?”

“Mirashii can also cast their voices like fucking ventriloquists.”

“Without knowing their location,” I realized, gut churning, “we might walk straight into them.”

Where was Badb when I needed eyes in the sky? Oh. Right. Ankou ditched my scout in NOLA.

“We need to reach higher ground.” Anunit set out at an easy lope. “Stay close, Frankie Talbot.”

Grateful to be given direction, I launched into a brisk jog. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Footsteps pounded behind me as Ankou elected to join us rather than argue with her instincts. Or, you know, accept his blackmail gambit had failed and return us all to New Orleans before we got ourselves eaten.

“There are mountains to the north.” He kept pace with me. “We can reach them within the hour.”

“An hour ?” I shivered as the mirashii issued more eerie calls.

“Get this anklet off me so we can get out of here.” Though I could already tell it was a losing battle, I had to try appealing to his sense of self-preservation.

“We can talk once we’re back to NOLA and these mirashii things aren’t trying to eat me. ”

“It’s too late for that,” Ankou said, almost to himself, making me curious if they were deadly to him too. “We have to reach higher ground first.”