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I shot Arete a filthy look that she chose to ignore. “Discussed” was a polite way of her saying she kidnapped me into the realm of the gods and lectured me for who knows how long because Iaccidentallybled all over her temple and gave her a temporary power-up.
I could forgive Wild for losing control and giving into his bloodlust—Bullet’s departure from this world was hard on all of us, but on him and Grace especially. I could not forgive him for making me bleed enough to wake up the psycho agathos who’d decided I had something to prove. He better let me get in a free hit for the indignation of this experience alone.
“I just want to get back to Grace, that’s all I care about,” I muttered, stalking along the front of the building, waiting for a ghost to pop out and shout boo in my face. “Don’t forget your side of the bargain.”
“I can’t believe I’m being lectured on integrity by a daimon,” Arete grumbled, before disappearing into the aether without so much as a goodbye. She’d warned me she would, that the Fates wouldn’t reveal themselves if she was around, but it was still unnerving as hell to see her leave. What if she couldn’t come back? The agathos spirits had already pooled all their remaining resources once to send Hygeia to Dare’s aid, it had cost them so greatly that Sophia had barely been able to speak since. Not without a blood offering, and only at the Ephesus ruins where they resided.
Arete hadn’t mentioned where Poveglia was, but knowing my luck, it was hundreds of miles away from Ephesus. If she didn’t have enough juice to come back, there was a good chance I was stuck here.
This whole thing was a fool’s errand. Arete had told me herself thatno onehad ever trapped the Fates. If they didn’t want to talk to you, they wouldn’t, and they didn’t want to talk to anyone.
So why the fuck would they talk tome? Grace would have been interesting enough to get them to show their faces, but she wasn’t here and I’d sacrifice both testicles to keep her away from this hellhole. Bullet would have known what to do, but he was gone, and even if he wasn’t…
I didn’t thinkIhad whatever it took, whatever X-factor was needed, to pull this off, but I wouldn’t have asked Bullet to go in my place either. He’d been through enough. With Nyx popping into his head whenever he fell asleep, and a direct line to the Fates through his cards, Bullet had experienced enough exposure to immortals to last a lifetime.
I pushed open the ancient wooden door slowly, half expecting it to fall off its rusted hinges and wincing at the loud creak.It probably doesn’t matter. If this place is inhabited by literal ghosts and immortals, they probably don’t need the creaking door to know you’re here.
This was fucking awful. Not because it was derelict—the fact that nature had pervaded the building, growing through cracks in the walls like it was reclaiming the land was pretty awesome. Or it would have been if all the plants hadn’t died in the great freeze. I could imagine the vines and branches that were now dead and decaying lush with green leaves, disguising the mold-covered walls and old graffiti.
No, it was the remnants of the human stuff that was depressing. The stacks of rusted single beds, the chilling institutional feel of the place. There was a restlessness in the air that gave me the distinct impression I wasn’t alone, but the energy wasn’t hostile.
Not yet, at least.
As I picked through the debris, the remnants of lives that definitely hadn’t been well-lived, the weirdest sensation came over me. Not from the hidden paranormal activity, but fromwithinme.
I was crying,I realized suddenly.
I was not a crier, and I definitely didn’t cry for random people who’d died well before I was even born. Grace might have—she had empathy, which was not something that daimons were programmed with. It was just this place…
It was really awful.
“Fuck!” I gasped, stumbling back and landing on my ass on the cracked tile floor as some kind of apparition materialized in front of me. Shelookedlike a young, totally alive human woman, and for a moment I thought she was, in spite of the way she’d meandered out of thin air. Aside from the fact that her clothes were odd and old-fashioned—a frilly-looking shift that fell just below her knees, no shoes, and a grandma-bun in her hair—there was an odd dullness to her skin that no regular human had. A gray lifelessness, like the light inside them had been extinguished. I was frozen in place as she walked toward me, crouching down at my side with the thin white fabric floating around her.
This was how I died. Or how I got possessed.
She reached out, making the gesture of wiping my tear-stained cheek with her thumb, but there was no sensation accompanying it. Her smile was sad, resigned as she pulled her hand back, folding them in her lap and watching me.
“Can you talk?” I asked, my voice wavering.
She gave me an apologetic look, which I took to mean ‘no’, but there was a confusion on her face that made me wonder if she’d actually understood my question.
“Do you speak English?”
She shook her head, standing and gesturing for me to follow. For lack of a better idea, I did, finding myself standing in front of a sign I could barely make out in the dim moonlight.
“Reparto Psichiatria. Italian?” I hedged.
My new ghost friend nodded. My human mom had been a little Italian, several generations removed from the homeland, but she’d taught me a few words. Ironically, considering she’d been impregnated by a daimon and birthed a daimon spawn, she was also a Catholic. Not a very diligent one, but a believer nonetheless. The Lord’s Prayer was one of the first things she’d taught me.
Then again, was it that ironic? She hadn’t known what we were, we had no way of telling her.
“Cielo,” I said, the word sounding strange and foreign on my tongue.Heaven. That one I remembered clearly, being fascinated by the concept.
“You.” I pointed at her. “Go.Cielo.” I did a wavy motion like a spirit floating up to the sky. The underworld was under the world, but I definitely didn’t have the vocabulary to explain that and she’d probably assume I was speaking of Hell if I tried.
She gestured around us before locking her fingers together like a gate. As if to demonstrate, she headed for the edge of the island, attempting to step over the ledge into the water but stopping as though she’d hit an invisible wall.
Arete was so full of shit, I could totally swim out of here if I wanted to.
