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Chapter1
The rain came down in thick sheets, drenching through my cotton tank top and denim shorts. I welcomed it. I welcomed anything that made me feel something.
I stood inside of the Elizabethan Gardens, next to the goddamned tree that had ruined my life more than four hundred years before I was even born. The gate to Popogusso.
The gate to hell.
And my daddy was on the other side.
I leaned back my head and shouted into the night, taunting the god who had sent him there. “Ahone! Come out and face me, you fucking asshole!”
The only answer was the rain that pelted my face and filled my open mouth.
I spat on the ground and slapped my palm on the rough bark of the ancient oak tree. The mark that had appeared on my hand almost three weeks ago had power, after all, but that power was so much stronger when my mark was pressed to the identical one on the other Curse Keeper’s right palm.
His betrayal sliced through me again. It was still impossible to believe that Collin had purposefully opened the gate.
I’d forced him to close it again. But at what cost? The Native American gods and spirits had still escaped and now they were in hiding, killing hundreds of animals as they regained the strength they’d lost over their centuries of exile. And my father had died as a sacrifice. The gate might be closed again, but it would take two Keepers to send the gods and spirits back. Which meant the assholes weren’t going anywhere since Collin believed they should be free.
Even if they were after me.
“Okeus! Where are you? You said you wanted me, well here I am!” I stepped back from the tree, throwing my arms wide. “Come and get me!” Taunting him was pointless, but I felt the need to rage at someone. A temporarily incapacitated god probably wasn’t the best choice, but it was safe enough for the moment. He had to regain strength before he could face anyone…even me.
Lightning flashed in the sky and thunder boomed.
“Ellie.”
I spun around, my long, wet hair whipping against my arm. Tom Helmsworth, an old high school classmate of mine, stood behind me, hands on his hips. I suspected he was here in his official capacity—as a police officer of Manteo. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Every time a thunderstorm appears out of nowhere directly over the botanical gardens, it’s a safe bet that you’ll be here too.”
Fucking wind gods. They loved to torment me every chance they got.
“You can’t bring him back, Ellie.”
I knew Tom meant that I couldn’t bring Daddy back from the dead, but Daddy hadn’t died under ordinary circumstances. For all I knew, Icouldbring him back.
Tom took a few cautious steps toward me, and I understood why. The first few times he’d found me here, I was crying and kneeling on the spot where Daddy died. Two nights ago, he had found me pounding on the tree. Tonight, I was shouting at the gods. Sadness had slipped into anger.
How much had he actually heard?
He stopped in front of me. “You can’t keep doing this. I haven’t arrested you because I know how hard it was for you to lose your dad. Everyone knows how close you two were.” He put his hand on my arm and gripped lightly.
His touch sent a bolt of pain through the zigzag scar on my bicep, and I tried not to wince.
Tom bent his knees and lowered his face to mine, his expression gentle. “Ellie, this is illegal. You’re trespassing.”
I looked back at the oak tree. Someone needed to tell that to the gods.
“You need to go home.”
Tom slid his arm around my back and gently guided me toward the gate. “Let me drive you.”
I shook away from his touch. “I can drive myself.”
His eyebrows rose. “Can you?”
I stopped in my tracks. “You think I’ve been drinking.”
