“All right,” I said.“Talk.Where’s Headwaters?”I didn’t sound as furious as Lula, but it was close.
Cupid sighed.“If I tell you, you’re going to leave right now to kill him, aren’t you?”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
“You can’t kill him yet.Brogan…” He looked away and rubbed the top of his bald head.“Anger will warm you, but only cold logic will save you.You and Lula.”
“Cold logic and a weapon you don’t know how to wield,” Raven said.
Cupid threw Raven a look, and Raven held up his hands.“I’m not wrong.”
“He’s not wrong.”Eunice’s voice was melody and harmony, a chorus of her power centering upon this moment, stitching us into this reality, this now.
I paced to the windows at the back of the kitchen that overlooked Eunice’s property.
Lula was walking through the field, the summer grass yellowed and gone to seed.She wasn’t alone.A little black cat hopped along beside her, and overhead, three crows swooped and circled.
She hadn’t left.She hadn’t left me yet.
“What weapon?”I asked, gathering what calm I could.“Tell me what weapon kills Headwaters.”
“There’s probably more than one,” Cupid said.“But to kill it…completely…you will need to use the spell book of the gods.”
Everything went silent.I almost expected a flash of lightning or a blast of storm wind to roll through the house.
But there was just the soft ticking of a clock in the other room and the call and reply of the crows—Raven’s crows, undoubtedly—outside against the faded blue sky.
“First you want us to find the book, then hand it over, then hide it, and now you want us to use it?How many more roles are we going to play in this game, Cupid?”
“I don’t want you to use the book.I don’t want anyone to use it.But I can’t make that choice, because, as we’ve just illustrated, you and Lula have free will, Brogan Gauge.”
Raven grunted.“We really should have given mortals something else in exchange for their worship.”
“Don’t start with that,” Cupid said.“You wanted them to have free will.”
“Well, it is fun, isn’t it?More interesting too.”
“How,” I asked, “can we use the book to kill him?”
“There should be spells in the book…” Cupid raised an eyebrow, and Raven nodded.“Therearespells in the book made by powerful beings who have left this reality, and essentially no longer exist.”
“Lost gods,” Eunice said, surprised.
“We don’t speak of them, much,” Raven mused.“But then, we didn’t speak of the book for so many centuries everyone forgot about it.”
“Not everyone,” Eunice said.
Raven pointed at her in agreement.
“Do the lost gods know about me and Lula?”
“I fucking hope not,” Cupid said.“Those gods are no longer connected to Earth, to this plain of existence, but the spells they left in the book?It’s possible the spells they left behind can be used without the dire consequences of the other spells.”
“Magic without a price?”I asked.
“No, there could still be a price,” Cupid said.“Will likely be one.But not your death.Not Lula’s death.”
“The spells will protect them?”Eunice asked.
