It was Lu.
She hadn’t slept when she had returned to her room. She’d stretched out on one side of the bed, leaving the other open for me. I’d curled there, the bed almost too short for my height, my elbow bent and head propped on my fist, watching her.
She faced me and rubbed her palm slowly back and forth across the sheets that were expensive and therefore very soft.
All the while, her eyes searched for me.
I finally pressed my palm over the back of her hand. “Rest, Lu. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
Her hand stalled, and she turned it over, palm up. “The truck’s going to be ready tomorrow.”
“I know,” I said, even though she couldn’t hear me.
“I’ll get the journal. I’ll call Headwaters.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a good custom shop in Oklahoma,” she said.
“Ruck’s Trucks,” I agreed. “’Course there’s a good custom shop in every state.”
“I think I should head to the coast. Talk to Marty.”
“Marty tried to shoot you last time you showed up, Lu,” I said, wishing I could feel the heat of her hand. “He doesn’t like monsters like you and me.”
“He’s coming around, I think.”
I snorted. “Not likely.”
“He has information. I know he does.”
“Here we go again.”
“He knows where the gods vacation. Some place in Oregon, I think.”
“No. This is a road we promised we’d never walk. Tangling up with gods only gets you deeper into the mess of god egos and god trickery.”
“One of them might help us,” she said. “It’s been years since…since that other one.”
That other one was Mithra, a god of contracts who almost got us killed—permanently, violently, and painfully. I’d learned right then and there that gods were something to be avoided, even the minor ones like Mithra.
“We’re not going to ask gods for help, Lu. We tried that.”
“If we had leverage…something the god wanted…we could make it work.”
“No.”
“There might be something we’ve tucked away in the storage unit.”
“Oh, hell, no. We worked hard for that, Lu. For all of it. We’re not going to trade away a single book or scroll for the favors of a damn god.”
“Language, Brogan.” She grinned, and I laughed.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I said.
“I’m going to win this. Find the god’s vacation town. Find one who has answers for us,” she informed me.
“Well, you’re going to need your rest, because I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you fail. No gods. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”
