Fallon got to his feet again and walked over to the windows. He tucked his hands in his pockets and gazed out over the city as if looking into the past. “Grim was a biased hammer, waiting to fall. He was the only god to never take a vampire in a blood bond, before you, that is. He viewed bonds as a liability, so when the other gods came and confirmed his prejudice, he did not hesitate to clean up house. And as wielder of souls, he was the most powerful.”
Bianca rounded from behind the velvet chair to sit in it, her shoulders slumped forward in defeat.
Miranda paused her nervous gait. “Now you are the wielder of souls, so doesn’t that make you the most powerful?” Miranda asked.
What would I do without her? Miranda asked the smartest damned questions.
Fallon sighed and put his back to the dancing lights. “Yes, but Grim also had thousands of years to learn how to wield it. While I have inherited his power, it is a bit like handing someone a sword and expecting they know how to use it. It takes time to achieve mastery.”
“We don’t have time,” Timothy said, returning from the kitchen with his tablet to stand next to Bianca. His eyes didn’t lift from the screen.
“Not to mention, none of us know how Grim defeated Sekhmet in the first place,” Bianca added quietly. “By continually creating sekhors, she became the head of the problem. And now that she’s loose again, the damage will be monumental.”
Miranda kept pressing for answers. “So where is Osiris? I heard he was big, bad, and scary and going to come down and spank anyone who was behind this conspiracy?”
Timothy looked up at that, fingers hovering over the pad. “It appears Osiris has decided not to interfere.”
“It’s just like him,” Fallon said with a dark look and a shrug. “The mysterious absentee father whenever it suits him. No explanation given.”
“Perhaps he fears facing those who oppose him,” Bianca suggested.
“Don’t be naïve, Bi,” Fallon retorted in a biting tone, removing his hands from his pockets.
Bianca crossed her arms over her chest in a protective shield, but he continued to chastise her. “He’s more powerful than all of us. Who knows what the fuck he is doing? Spending time on other planets, or wrapped up in a tiny atom, he has detached from our worldly problems except on occasion. Earth is a vacation property he doesn’t bother visiting but wants to know it’s being cared for in case he makes his return.”
As everyone brainstormed, the creaky gears in my brain slowly revved up. The little men gathered for a meeting.
What’s she doing, sir?
Jenkins, I think she is trying to get back into the game.
Sir, the damage inside the body is too extensive. The workers are scrambling around the broken shards of her heart, but there’s not much to be done. If she thinks too hard, her entire brain might fall out. Or worse!
Dammit, Jenkins, this is where we earn our keep. Oil the gears, push that button. If we don’t get her up and running, she may shut down for good.
“There’s something I still don’t understand,” I said. “How can death die?” I ran my fingers through my hair before leaning down to pet Cupcake’s soft head. “Grim told me there were only two ways a god could die. If a vampire drank too much blood from a god, or by the Blade of Bane. Why didn’t he warn me this could happen? He told me that Qwynn served him flesh of the dead before, but he never said she’d tried to poison him.” Suddenly I was angry. How could he keep this from me? He knew how worried I’d been about the Blade of Bane. I’d been like a vampire possessed trying to secure that thing, and it didn’t even matter in the end.
The irony smacked me in the face. If I hadn’t been so obsessed about getting the Blade of Bane to keep Grim safe, I would have been there on time. I instantly knew something was wrong with the food with my vampiric senses. Grim couldn’t have noticed the way it was prepared. I probably would have said something about it to stop him from eating it, and he’d still be alive. Fury and disbelief clamped around my throat.
Everyone stopped talking, but no one supplied an answer. The cogs in my brain churned faster.
“I’m serious,” I said, standing up. “I’ve been trying to catch up on my mythology and I’ve read plenty about the gods who died before. Seth killed Osiris, but Grim brought him back. There have been other instances of a god dying and coming back to life. Why can’t Grim? Where did he go? He didn’t get eaten by Amit, he didn’t go to the Afterlife. Did he cease to exist like I would?” That couldn’t be right.
“No,” Timothy answered in a quiet tone. “It’s true. Grim’s essence has not been destroyed. Indeed, the Blade of Bane annihilated Seth, and the same would happen if a vampire drained him. What happened to Grim is…” He shot a look at Bianca and Fallon as if to ask permission or warn them of what he was about to say. “She hit him with his secretum mortis.”
“Is he secreting what?” I asked, straightening. Miranda and I exchanged a disgusted expression.
“Not secreting,” Bianca corrected, with a wrinkle of her nose. “Secretum mortis. It’s what we call our secret weakness. Each god has a weakness, usually but not always relevant to his or her power base. You’ve likely heard of this in reference to Achilles’ heel. And I don’t believe when Qwynn offered Grim she had intended to poison him. She simply wanted him to turn his back on what he deemed sacred in deference to her, and we all know how that turned out.”
Galina had said that about Qwynn, but I still needed more information.
“But Timothy said his essence hasn’t been destroyed.” Hope sprung inside my chest with an almost violent jerk. “So Grim’s alive in a way? Can we resurrect him like Osiris?”
No one answered. The air became thick with tension. The gods were on edge.
“She’s right,” Miranda said. “If we resurrect Mr. Scarapelli, he can take control of the situation before it gets out of hand.”
“We can’t do that,” Bianca said, her voice small. Her eyes pleaded with me.
