Apopof displaced air, and he was gone, leaving Harrow and Matty staring at me.
“You marked Ankou to repay him for giving you the sword?” Matty looked so impressed with me I hated to disabuse him of the notion. “That was inspired, Mary.”
Tempted as I was to lie to my brother and paint myself as some type of mastermind, I had to confess. He would figure it out eventually, so I might as well go ahead and come clean.
“I marked Ankou to draw out Dis Pater. It didn’t occur to me until afterward that it would serve two purposes and one of those would square my debt.” I rubbed my arms. “I’m surprised Ankou took the betrayal so well.”
“He’s always had a thing for you.” Matty sounded thoughtful. “Maybe he thought you were two steps ahead of him all this time too.”
“He should know me better than that.” I snorted a laugh and started walking. “Let’s go home.”
We had earned our rest, and I could use a hot shower, a hot meal, and a hot god blood in my bed right about now.
Sweet anticipation spurred me faster and faster to where Matty remembered parking the wagon, but there was no sign of Josie when we broke through the trees. No sign of Carter or her truck either. Mucky tire tracks chewed up the sparse grass, showing where Carter had spun out in a hurry.
“They must have left together.” Matty kicked a clod back in place. “That’s good news, right?”
“Does Josie still have your phone?”
A quick touch of his pocket, which he found empty, confirmed she had held on to it.
“Carter has hers,” Harrow said, joining us. “Yep.” He flashed me the screen on his cell. “She texted to say she took Josie back to her place to talk.”
Eager to check my own messages, I found Josie had texted us, but I had muted the phone at some point. The manufacturer really shouldn’t put the button for silent mode where my fingers liked to grip the side.
“We got one too,” I confirmed to Matty, exhaling slowly. “Josie is with Carter, so that’s one less thing.”
With his chin hooked on my shoulder, he scanned the message for himself. “Any word on Lucia?”
“No.” I showed him the inbox. “Not yet.”
Neither of them pointed out how long she had been gone, or that the likelihood of her returning fell the longer she stayed that way. I didn’t expect Lucia to appear on my birthday with balloons going forward, but I would have liked knowing she was still out there.
And, yeah, that made it sound like her death was a foregone conclusion.
“What’s going on in there?” Matty stared in my ear. “I don’t see your brain churning out bad ideas at the Bad Idea Factory, but there’s smoke in the air.”
“Lucia saved me.” I worked my jaw. “Leaving her to live or die on her own doesn’t sit right with me.”
Had I not been so laser focused on my own revenge, I could have invited Lucia to help with Dis Pater and then returned the favor with Ithas. Sure, she was a mercenary. And yes, she was used to working alone. For her handler to keep her on speed dial, she was very good at her job. But Ithas was a Titan. Killing him was a goal she had chased since the moment she woke up in that hospital bed.
I let those things convince me she would be fine on her own. No. That was a cop-out. I convinced myself divide and conquer was best because I didn’t want to be held back. I’d had my own priorities, and she hadn’t counted as one.
All of my life, I had conditioned myself to not care about my parents. That was what us Marys promised one another, and I had fought my childish yearning into submission to keep that vow. It had never done me wrong, until now.
To learn my father’s identity, and then my mother’s, had numbed me too much for me to crave the type of revenge against Ithas as I hungered for with Dis Pater. Ithas was too abstract. Hehad committed horrors, yes, and I could get angry about those. About what he had done to Lucia. About what he had done to the children before me. But I hadn’t gotten riled enough to put my foot down and demand Lucia take backup to face him.
For me to do that meant I would have had to break my promise to Matty and Josie. I would have had to smash through a barrier I had learned to avoid as if it were electrified and allow the little shocks I had experienced since arriving in Abaddon to jolt me into a self-awareness of my roots I couldn’t handle.
I had been a coward.
A swoop in my gut warned me seconds before a bright light nailed me between the eyes. I shoved Matty down and away from me, but I was too late to do the same for Harrow. Wind knocked him to his knees, and I could taste the magic in it. The blast staggered me, but I refused to budge.
Convinced Dis Pater had escaped, I weathered the icy sweat rolling down my spine. Contingency plans flipped through my head, each more dire than the last. Until I saw what was coming, I couldn’t plan for it. All I could do was stand there and wait for this latest threat to emerge.
The brightness punched out, leaving me blinking away spots in my vision.
A portal.
