The dream—it had to have been a dream—lingered in snatches of words, flashes of darkness, and the scent of rot and pitch.
In the dream the creatures, no, just one, Mother Hush, wanted me to find something. Something bound?
I frowned as the details slipped like snakes between my fingers.
What had she wanted? A key? No, a book. It could be any book, a different book, but my gut told me it was the same book Cupid was searching for. The book stolen from us. The book we’d vowed to find.
I blew out a shaky breath. It might have only been a dream, my mind working hard to deal with being more alive now than I’d been in years.
But I was not the kind of man lucky enough to only dream his nightmares.
I dragged my hand over my face, wiping away the dusty grit there.
Grit from a cave that should have only been a dream.
Lorde yawned and lay her head back on her paws, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. So I tightened my arm around Lu and watched the stars wheel across the sky until dawn feathered the horizon, sweeping them away.
Chapter Eight
“Iquit.” Val leaned against the nearest tree looking as tired as I felt. I sipped the coffee I’d brewed on our small camp stove and grunted.
“Val?” Lu asked. She sat next to me, braiding her hair to one side, finishing the bottom with a rubber band. Her coffee was on the tailgate next to her, steaming into the morning light.
We’d stowed our gear and decided there wasn’t anything in this world—not god, nor beast, nor monster—that needed our attention before coffee.
Lorde snuffled around in the brush beneath the trees, moving her way toward the Meramec, a twisty old waterway that flowed around bend and crook for some two hundred eighteen miles.
Lu had turned off the Route last night and taken one of the many trails that were little more than a suggestion into this out-of-the-way stretch of wild green: grasses and brush and trees and water.
“He’s here,” I said, answering Lu.
“Does he have any other ideas on the rabbit?”
I glanced up at the ghost and raised one eyebrow.
“Tell her I quit. I quit all of it.”
I slurped coffee, then swallowed down another gulp because it was going to take caffeine fortification to deal with him.
“Look,” I waved my half-empty cup toward Val, “you’ve made a deal with a god. Good fucking luck quitting that.”
Val crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at me. “What’s he going to do? Kill me? Already graveside here.”
“Death isn’t the worst thing a god can do to a man. Or a ghost,” I said.
“Is he trying to back out on his deal with Cupid?” Lu asked.
“Yep.”
“Bad idea, Val,” she said. “You might think being dead keeps you safe from god punishment, but it doesn’t.” She cradled her mug between her palms. “If you help us find the rabbit, you’re off the hook.” She took a sip and groaned.
“How do you make this so perfect?” she asked.
I sat a little straighter and gave her a wink. “Secret recipe.”
“He measures out the grounds. You probably just pour them in and hope for the best,” Val said, but Lu couldn’t hear him, and I could very much ignore him.
“Rabbit?” I asked him.
