Light exploded into the room, filling every nook and cranny, and Ithas bellowed with rage.
Holding a hand up to shield my eyes, I expected Dis Pater had come to roast me yet again, but the figure at the center of the disturbance was too curvy to be him. Great. Just what I didn’t need. Another god in my life. Though this would be the first goddess. That silhouette was definitely female.
“Get your ass over here.” The woman pointed to me then to the spot right in front of her. “We need to go. Now. Before it’s too late.”
“Go?” A tingle of possibility shivered through my limbs. “You meanme?”
“Who else? Chop-chop, kid.” She made a walking gesture with her fingers. “This is a portal. You walk through them. They take you places. Get it?”
Ithas raged and thrashed in the light, unable to face its source, but I was running out of time to choose. I could stick with Ithas and hope I was too valuable for him to take apart, see what made me unique, then put me back together, or I could take my chances with the newcomer.
A second figure limped up behind her, one arm holding his stomach.
Kierce.
As much as I wanted to run to him, I had learned my lesson. I held my ground, trying to figure out what, exactly, was happening. I sank my fingers in Anunit’s ruff and rockedforward onto the balls of my feet. The pull to go to him was that strong.
“Frankie,” Kierce gritted out my name. “You must come with us.”
“Hear that booming?” The woman pointed up above us. “That’s the mirashii. I left a basket of your dirty laundry right inside Ithas’s front door.”
Tempted as I was to believe that meant Ithas lied about not knowing the predatory birds were in the area, I believed his denial had been genuine. Confronted with the truth, I bet he gave Dis Pater an earful.
“What?” That might be the most shocking thing she had said so far. “How did you get my laundry?”
“From your house, where else?”
“That’s not what I?—”
“They’re going to break through soon, and they’re going to realize fast that dinner isn’t hiding in that pile of fabric. Trust me, kid. You don’t want to be here when that happens.”
Warm lips brushed my ear, and Ankou whispered, “Consider this payment in full.”
Swatting him away, I cranked my head toward him, but I was half blind. “For what?”
Ice-cold dread dripped down my spine when it occurred to me how big of a risk Kierce had taken. He was only safe around me with a bone bullet pinging through his body. Ankou hadn’t ripped it out and flung it aside, allowing Kierce to go berserk, but I couldn’t trust Ankou not to turn Kierce against me if I refused his terms. God only knew what those might be, but my window of opportunity was closing fast.
Smooth warmth pressed into my palm, and I closed my fingers around the object on reflex. As soon as I took its weight, firm hands smacked me between the shoulders, knocking me stumbling forward. “This.”
“Frankie.” Kierce waved me on, urging me toward him. “You must hurry.”
The way my name rolled off his tongue was almost enough to send me hurtling toward him, but I held my ground, uncertain whether it was safe.
“You will perish for what you have done,” Anunit told Ithas. “Enjoy your last days of existence.”
Then her head butted the backs of my knees, almost sending me sprawling, as she urged me to run.
The grooves in the object in my hand revealed themselves to be the hilt of a sword under my seeking fingers.Dinorah. Ankou had given me Dinorah. That was all the prompting I required to cave in and sprint.
Anunit sprung through the narrow gap between the woman and Kierce, but I launched myself against his chest on a sob. He hiked me higher up his torso, closing his arms around me even as his legs trembled and his labored breaths grew harsher. His lips were warm at my ear as he whispered assurances.
Gravity twisted my stomach, spun the whole room, and then the bleakness at my back vanished into sunlight on my face. I wrapped my legs around his waist, eliciting a groan from the back of his throat, but his eyes smiled up at me.
“You have the survival instincts of a chicken crossing the road during rush hour in Atlanta,” the woman grumbled as she closed what must have been an interdimensional portal. Because she hadn’t simply brought us out of Ithas’s lair. No. This wasn’t Abaddon but NOLA. “You just take randos’ hands and leap across worlds with them?”
“Who are you?” I breathed in the smells of the French Quarter that couldn’t be faked. “Whatare you?”
To open a portal that crossed worlds required serious power, and speaking of serious power...
