A wavering distortion in the air guaranteed our interest was piqued and that we would stick close.
Without a word of caution, he led me through a barrier with the resistance of a bowl of gelatin fresh out of the fridge. A shiver blasted down my spine as I forced through the cool pressure out to the other side.
Light exploded behind my eyes, and I blinked away the glare of a midday sun as my heels sank into white, powdery sand. The familiar roar of the ocean filled my ears, and a distinct brine tang tickled my nose. For all that I knew we were still in Abaddon from the same grim otherworldliness clinging to my skin, we could have been on the beach in front of Dis Pater’s coastal Massachusetts home.
“This was a greenhouse dedicated to carnivorous plants for centuries.” Ankou filled his lungs, tipping his head back. “The sand and sea were a nice surprise, but they’re recent. Maybe a decade ago? It appeared sometime after the first Kit Gato book was published. Or maybe it was after it hit a bestseller list?”
Meaning Abaddon reflected the gods who inhabited it, going so far as to evolve along with them.
“Too bad we missed the previous incarnation.” Josie let the hot sun beat down on her face. “That would have been a sight to see.” She cracked open an eye. “Dis Pater would still be a murderous dickface, but I would have awarded him bonus points if he’d had any plants for me to pinch.”
“You would have stolen a leaf off every plant,” I countered, “and then torched the place.”
“I hadn’t thought of it until you said it, but yeah. I like how that sounds. Thanks for the idea.”
“None of this is real.” Carter studied the water as if seeing more than the rest of us. “It’s an illusion.”
As hard as fae leaned into glamour, I trusted her to see through even a god’s attempts at fabrication.
“A convincing one.” Harrow scooped up a handful of sand and let the grains slip through his fingers. “I’ve never seen—or felt—anything like it. Does this mean the gray plains are the true face of Abaddon?”
“No one knows.” Ankou spread his hands. “Too many gods have landscaped it to suit themselves. Any of the gods old enough to know are gone, and the new ones only care that their vassals obey their whims.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Gods.” He shook his head. “What can you do?”
“Not be an asshole,” Josie suggested then frowned at me. “Make that not be amurderousasshole.”
“All that power,” Carter mused, reeling in her focus, “wasted on folks who won’t use it for good.”
“Good is a lot harder to accomplish than bad.” Ankou attempted to sound wise. “You get tired of putting in the extra hours after a few millennia, and it becomes easier to just go with the flow.”
“How long did it take you to give up?” Harrow pegged him with a flat stare. “Minutes or hours?”
“After you’ve accepted a bargain from a death god to survive a mortal wound on a battlefield, then we’ll see how tight you clutch your pearls. There’s a reason evil wins so often.” He sank into hot sand up to his ankles as he turned his back on us and trudged on. “We’re all fucking tired of fighting the inevitable.”
His fit of temper pushed him ahead of us, but I decided to let him tire himself out rather than chase him.
Walking through sand was its own fun. As in, none whatsoever. I wasn’t one to run on the picturesque beach at Tybee Island because I preferred solid ground beneath my feet. Maybe that had something to do with my childhood, the uncertainties that arose from keeping our small family together. Or maybe I simply hated grit worming into my socks, sandpapering my skin with every step.
“There for a second,” I murmured to Josie after he was out of hearing range, “he sounded genuine.”
“That’s when you know he’s lying.” She stared twin holes through his spine. “Trust me.”
“I don’t like how he keeps angling for the pity vote.” Harrow fell in step on my other side. “He took you, but we’re supposed to feel sorry for him?” The hypocrisy of his statement, if I had to guess, was why his cheeks flushed given he had kidnapped Matty not long ago. “He’s mirroring.” He glanced away. “He sees you hurting for Kierce and beyond exhausted with the gods’ actions, and he wants you to believe you’re in the same boat. He wants your sympathy. Your cooperation.” He frowned. “What bothers me is why.”
“He may not realize he’s doing it.” Carter shrugged. “It may simply be part of his programming now, a survival mechanism.”
Sad as it was to admit, she had a point. “You might be right.”
Prior to his cliffside tumble, Ankou had confessed to tailoring his characters to suit the desired outcome.
“I scent your consort.” Anunit, who had been ranging ahead, loped to my side. “Through the trees.”
As if her words summoned them, a copse of palm trees appeared a few dozen yards away from us.
“The cage is just there,” Ankou confirmed. “Walk us through the plan again so there are no surprises.”
“Josie uses her vines to secure the cage door while I talk to Kierce. If he wants to stay, we go. If he wants to come with us, then you get to enact your pinball bone idea. Assuming that much goes right, we get to NOLA via Papa Legba and stick a Suarez in Kierce. Hopefully, that gives us another layer of control over him as well as a barometer for his condition.” I exhaled. “Once he’s stable, we go for Dis Pater’s throat.”
A glint sparked in Ankou’s eyes, one I generally associated with the days when Armie had a brilliant idea that was sure toblow up in our faces. I doubted this would end well, but we had come too far to back down.
