AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No fun, Nancy.”The ghost pouted.“Fine. Jeremiah and Faith Oldham.”
The room went absolutely silent.
“Fuckinghell yes!”
That was me.
Because finally, fuckingfinallymy instincts had been vindicated.
Doc looked both alarmed and amused, and Ward was grinning at me.
I leaned forward, looking Sylvia directly in her creepy, translucent eyes. “Tell me everything.”
18
I’d barely fucking sleptthe night before, although Taavi had given in to my freaking out and had spent the night at my apartment so that at least I knew he wasn’t being murdered. I still hadn’t slept, waking up what felt like every few minutes to watch him breathe.
At about four in the morning, I’d been doing precisely that when he’d murmured—without opening his eyes—“I’m not going anywhere, Val.”
I’d rested my head on his chest, listening to the heartbeat that proved he was still alive, and finally managed to catch a few hours before Taavi’s phone alarm went off so that he could get to work on time.
I really hadn’t wanted him to go, but all our research suggested that the murder had already happened. Assuming we were right, I didn’t feel good about the fact thatsomeonehad died, even if I was deeply, selfishly relieved that it hadn’t been Taavi.
Somewhere, somebody was dead, and we were getting up and having breakfast and drinking coffee and going to work just like it was every other goddamn day. We were both painfully aware of that fact, although it seemed like Taavi was coping with it a fuckton better than me.
There wasn’t enough coffee in the goddamn world to make up for how fucking exhausted I was—between the complete lack of sleep, the stress, the knowledge thatsomeonewas dead, even if I didn’t know who, and the fact that the Culhuaandthe Ordo were both still out there killing people… My brain and body had been pushed to their limit.
I pretty much could have guaranteed that I wasn’t going to sleep tonight, either, although I was placing bets that my lack of sleep was going to be the result of nightmares instead of—or, if I were extra lucky, in addition to—insomnia.
In order to keep myself occupied, I’d finally done the background work on Izar Pelayo to figure out who the hell her brother and mother-in-law were. And now I was staring at my computer screen and cursing myself. Because I was looking at a photograph from some high-society fundraising event in which a pre-Arcana Izar was posing with her husband and brother—Julian fucking Vidal.
The same fucking Julian Vidal who owned Deepwater Quarry, now Deepwater-Hephaestus. Who was running for mayor of Richmond.
Fucking fuck me.
“You okay, Hart?”
I looked up to find Beck in my doorway, her expression concerned.
“No,” I replied. “Because my goddamn lost-necklace-that-eats-souls-faun is Julian Vidal’s motherfucking sister.”
Her face told me that I wasn’t overreacting. “Oh,shit,” she breathed.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Oh-fucking-shit.”
“Shit what?” Ward wanted to know, rolling his way into the doorway as Beck moved to let him through.
I explained again.
“Well, fuck,” was his response.
On the one hand, it was nice to be validated. On the other… I hate being validated about this kind of thing. It would have been nice for everyone to tell me I was overreacting, to try to calm me down, to tell me it was okay and I was just being melodramatic.
Nope.
Everybody else was just as horrified as me. Hooray.
“The fuck do I do with this?” I asked.
