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Sean was next on the hug list. I was impressed with his warning to Abaddon. My sibling’s joy for life was undeniable. His penchant for pot, poetry, yoga and playing the stock market made him one of a kind.
We hugged, and he kissed the top of my head. “Do the fuck out of it, sis.”
“Will do,” I promised as my eyes got watery.
Lilith cupped my face with her slim hands and kissed my nose. “You’re everything I dreamed of and more. It was from afar, but I have loved you with every fiber of my being since the day you were born. Listen to Dagon and Abaddon. They will never lead you astray. Nor will I.” She wrapped her arms around me held me close.
The feeling was unexplainably perfect—far better than all of my childhood dreams. I no longer blamed her for abandoning me. She had no choice, and I would have done the same in her position. Lilith loved me enough to leave me. She loved me enough to die for me. My dreams had shifted from anger to acceptance and love. My fervent desire now was for her and my dad to live the rest of their lives in peace and joy.
That was non-negotiable.
My old motto was,let’s get this party started. My new motto wasdo the fuck out of it. I planned to do exactly that.
CHAPTERSIX
“Repeatthe bullshit you just told me on the phone,” Candy Vargo demanded. The woman was glowing, and her eyes were narrowed to slits. She was wearing ratty sweatpants, an inside-out sweater vest, and mismatched shoes. It was terrifying… all of it.
“Pandora killed Lilith. Lilith is human,” I quickly replied. “I’m the new Goddess of the Darkness.” I took Abaddon’s hand to steel my courage. While I was pretty sure she wasn’t irate with me, Candy was fond of property destruction first, talking after. I loved my house. If she blew it up, I’d be pissed.
Candy Vargo’s mouth was wide open. Her toothpick had fallen out. She didn’t even pick it up and put it back in her mouth. That was saying something for her.
“Get the fuck out of town.” The foul-mouthed Keeper of Fate dropped down on my couch right on top of Uncle Joe. My dead uncle simply floated right through her then seated himself across the room. “You can’t be serious. You don’t know shit about being a Goddess of Darkness.”
Her lack of confidence in me wasn’t what I needed right now. I was doing a fine job of not believing in myself all on my own.
Ten minutes ago, I’d called her for an update on the whereabouts of Pandora. She asked me to explain what the actual fucking fuck was going on—her words not mine. I did… kind of. She kept interrupting. I kept trying. The Keeper of Fate shouted a litany of swear words then hung up on me. She showed up in my living room exactly three seconds later. Scared the heck out of me. I wasn’t used to people just poofing in surrounded by shimmering dust.
“Didn’t Shiva get you up to date?” I asked warily.
Steam was coming out of Candy’s ears. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. Even Abaddon appeared concerned. His eyes turned a bright red and his jaw worked furiously. If the Keeper of Fate and the Destroyer got into it, my house was a goner. Hell, all of California would probably be a goner.
Putting my hand up, to let Abaddon know I could handle it, I waited for an answer from Candy.
“That demonic idiot, Shiva, talked a mile a minute. Said Lilith was dead, then said she wasn’t. Confused the fuck out of me,” Candy grunted. “Kept babbling her fool head off, so I electrocuted her to calm her ass down, but I was a little too enthusiastic.”
“Oh my God,” I gasped out. “Did you kill Shiva?”
“Nah,” she assured me. “She just needs to grow back a few body parts and the bottom half of her face. Not to worry, Gideon is healing her. She’ll be fine.”
I puked in my mouth a little.
“Candy Vargo,” Cher shouted, waggling her finger in the glowing woman’s face. “You need to relax your damned crack and quit incinerating people who are not the bad guys.”
“Up yours, Cher,” Candy said, flipping off her long-time friend. “And just for your information, I’m taking fucking anger management classes.”
Cher raised an expertly plucked brow while rolling her eyes. “And how’s that going?”
“Obviously not well,” Candy snapped.
I shook my head and sighed. “Okay, how about we stay on track here? I need to know if there are any leads on finding Pandora?”
Candy took a deep breath and calmed down. “The short answer is no. However, I need to know exactly what happened with Lilith.”
I obliged. It took forty-five minutes. By the time I’d finished getting her up to speed on what happened with the battle and the aftermath to my mom, she’d chewed through two boxes of toothpicks. The coffee table and the floor were littered with tiny pieces of wood. I was impressed she didn’t choke to death.
There was a good five minutes of silence while Candy digested what I’d said.
“What Pandora did is punishable by death—death as an Immortal and death as a human,” Candy ground out.
