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The Book clapped again, and did not stop, theurgency of the two sides impacting and falling back, impacting and falling back, like a military drummer’s beat to march with.
She thought of the portrait of the King, consumed by that dark tide.
Then the two males she did not recognize. And Lassiter.
The King.
Like three tarot cards sequentially laid upon a table, the answer to a question she had not asked.
“Their destinies are connected, aren’t they.” As she spoke, Rahvyn told herself not to get to her feet. And stood up anyway. “But where do I find—”
The collection of letters reappeared and composed another representation. Except what was shown to her… made no sense at all.
“The golden arches?” she said with confusion.
CHAPTER TWO
RUMBLE IN THEjungle.
In the end, Lassiter decided to leave his hideout because his empty stomach was turning his south-of-the-equator into a seat of unrest. Still, as he dematerialized and traveled through the cool spring night in a scatter of molecules, he had no real thought of where he was going to get some food.
Well, he knew one place he wasnotgoing. Even though Fritz, the Brotherhood’s butler, rode herd on an amazing bunch ofdoggenchefs, and he missed the crepes suzette like they were a family member, he couldn’t bear the idea of going to the mansion.
He just needed something simple and uncomplicated, caloric, but not fancy.
It wasn’t until he re-formed that he realized hehadn’t been out in the sun for days now. That more than transient “hungry” was the issue. As an immortal energy source, he needed to absorb sunlight to be at his strongest—
Lassiter tilted his head and looked up. Not to the sky, though.
The golden arches before him were glowing like a false sun, and for a split second, he wondered if maybe he could go up to them and try to grab some of that yellow light. It seemed more appetizing than the Big Mac that was more likely to be in his future—
Beeeeeeeeeeeep.
“Get the fuck outta here, whaddya doin’?”
He jumped back. The F-150 that had almost mowed him down had been murdered, everything blacked out from the windows to the rims to the body paint—and the guy behind the wheel was as manicured as his truck, his black hair and goatee paired with black clothes, his dark, nasty attitude like a cultivation so that everything about him was badass-uniform.
With an engine roar, the truck sped off to crush the drive-thru lane, and Lassiter watched it go with a feeling of nostalgia.
He missed Vishous. Even though the brother never had a nice word to say—because he was a grumpy little Tigger of a trained killer.
With a sense of nostalgia, he reflected that makingsure that fighter was simmering at a constant parboil of irritation had been a professional calling. And who didn’t like to be successful at their endeavors, even if there was a low barrier to achievement when it came to poking that particular bear.
Easier to tee up than a golf ball.
When another car went by, this time a geriatric sedan with an exhausted woman behind the wheel who seemed to be either going in late to work or coming home from a long shift of work, he focused on the restaurant’s windows. Inside the well-lit interior, there were all kinds of humans milling around, the place kind of busy given the late hour.
Walking forward, he marveled that his subconscious had sent him back to this particular McDonald’s. As he pulled open the door, he still couldn’t remember what exactly he’d ordered for Tohr here all those years ago, and he was content to let his mind churn over that. It was better than so many other subjects—
Okay, wow. Things had changed. A bank of self-serve soda machines took up the wall next to the opposite exit, and gone was the lineup of open-air cash registers. Now there was a clutch of vertical order stations with people touch-screening their meals in, and the preparers working with the food were fewer and farther between.
It all seemed so impersonal, although if he werelooking for companionship when ordering a Happy Meal, that was pretty pathetic, wasn’t it.
Stepping up to one of the screens, he hated the digitalization of the experience, and it was only after he’d made his choices and turned toward the pickup monitor mounted up near the ceiling—
A blond man the size of a house was pivoting around from receiving his meal, and holy calorie load. The amount of hamburgers and fries and sundaes on that tray suggested he was feeding a family of four—except he went off alone to the drink fill station, his pro wrestler’s body clearly used to sorting a load like that.
Next in line was a powerfully built woman in workout clothes who had short hair and an air like she could castrate a guy just by looking at him.
