“There you are, Miranda. I’m so glad I found you,” she said with a tight smile. The goddess was normally the picture of ease, but there was a tension around her eyes. As if she’d been up worrying all night.
“How can I help you?” I asked, putting my business voice on. Bianca owned the Parisienne hotel further down the strip. This could be a hotel matter, but the twist in my stomach told me it wasn’t.
“Miranda,” she said my name again as if preparing both of us for what she had to say. “It is urgent I speak with you about your. . .recent activities.”
“Recent activities?” My gut clenched as a guilty conscience kicked up. But no. There’s no way she could know the feelings I’d been having recently, and there was even less of a chance she would care whether or not I was experiencing some kind of sexual awakening.
Little lines gathered between her eyes as she looked at me in earnest. “Yes. The task Grim has assigned you. It isn’t safe.”
Something cold snaked through me.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” I said carefully. Grim and Timothy never told me my job with Xander was a secret, but I’d be damned if I assumed and let something important slip out.
With another tight smile, as if understanding what I was making her do. “Killing Xander,” she said, confirming my suspicion for sure. “You have to stop.”
“What?”
She shook her head mournfully. “It’s my fault you see. I told him. I told him you had the blade. I saw his death. But it was meant to be a warning. You must trust me, Miranda. Under no circumstances should you try to kill him.”
I looked away from Bianca, down to my cup of inky black caffeine. “Why not?”
Her delicate hand covered mine, pulling it off my cup, forcing me to look into her eyes. “Because it will bring about the end of the world.”
Well fuck me sideways on a rollercoaster.
“What did you see?” I asked, my voice suddenly hoarse. Bianca was an oracle and had visions about the future, but from what I gathered, they weren’t always clear or as literal as her interpretations.
Bianca’s head tilted as she closed her eyes, like she was sending her vision inward. She wrinkled her brow as if trying even harder to see something. “Chaos. Blinding light.”
I slid my hand away from hers to hold my coffee cup again. “No more detail than that.”
Bianca frowned. “Miranda, you must take this seriously.”
My hackles rose at that. Of all the people she could accuse of not taking things seriously... That was my problem. Hell, my identity. Everything was a dire event that needed me to be the strong leader who cleaned up everyone else’s mess. Without Jamal, what little humor and sense of play dried up into a raisin. To insinuate anything else, grated. Maybe I should have been taking a back seat to all the shit, maybe I should spend more time messing around or screwing off. Then I wouldn’t be so pissed off by her comment.
Even though it wasn’t Bianca’s fault she’d hit one of my hot buttons, my blood boiled. “Of course, I’m taking this seriously. But your vision doesn’t seem to tie coherently to Xander. How can my killing Xander create what you are seeing? How do you know they are connected at all.” I couldn’t control the steel edge in my words. She wanted me to take this seriously? I’d show her how critical I could be about all sides in the matter.
Bianca shifted in her seat and looked away, her cheeks flushing. “It’s more a feeling. Visions aren’t a science.”
Trying to calm my tits, I said in a slightly softer tone, “Is there a chance you are wrong?”
Bianca shook her head slightly as if in amazement. “You are so intent to kill him? I don’t understand, why?”
I licked my lips, preparing my answer. “Because he is in pain.” At her reaction, I realized she knew it too. “Do you want him to be in pain for eternity?”
“No, of course I don’t,” she said with a tired sigh. “But Miranda, the very future of immortals and humans is at stake if you kill Xander. I don’t know how. But I know they are connected.”
And I believed her. Or at least, I believed that she believed. Bianca was a caring, compassionate goddess. There were few people I trusted, and even fewer gods. But Bianca proved to be pure of heart, with the interest of mortals at the forefront. A rarity among the immortals, from what I’d learned.
However, that still didn’t make her right, did it?
Wow Miranda, you are going to go with your gut over a god who can literally see the future? Don’t you think highly of yourself?
No. Of course I recognized the Oracle was an authority to be taken seriously. Still, I didn’t feel right about this. Not about leaving Xander in his prison, out of his mind with power and pain.
And if it was such a bad thing, why would the god of the dead himself direct me to kill him? I trusted Bianca, but I trusted Grim even more. Still, the math didn’t add up.
Maybe I was the wrong person to be the caretaker of the blade? Maybe it required someone with cold calculation to sort through all this. Yet, my heart was getting in the way, telling me I couldn’t just let Xander suffer like he had.
