“Terrific,” I said.“He’s on the run too.”
“That’s okay,” Abbi said.“We can run really fast.”
A pot clattered in the kitchen and laughter rolled out.This wasn’t my home.Hell, I hadn’t had a home for as long as I could remember.Well, not a physical building.
Lula was my home.Had always been.So long as she was in my life, I was home.I belonged.
But it was nice to be here, in a place that offered shelter, maybe long enough we could take a breath.
I jerked my thumb toward the kitchen and the laughter.“Want to get in on that?”I asked Lula.
She stared at the door.I knew she missed baking and always spent time in Ricky’s kitchen when she got the chance.
“No.”She looked back at me, her gaze sharp.“I think that will keep them busy long enough you and I can see if the safe room is robust enough.”
“After that we sleep?”
“Eat, then sleep.Yes.”She stood.“Do you want to come, Abbi?”
Abbi looked over her shoulder, her nose wrinkled.Lorde was snoring on a pile of blankets Josie had set out for her.Hado was sneaking up to her, either to pounce attack, or snuggle in for a snooze.
Abbi nodded.“Hado can stay here.”
Hado’s little kitten ear twitched, the only indication he’d heard her.
I pushed up to my feet and stretched.I was bruised and sore, but still breathing, and that’s what counted.
“That way, right?”I took a step, and my thigh cramped.I hissed and took the weight off of it, limping toward the hall.
“How bad?”Lu was beside me, moving with the kind of silence and speed only a half-vampire could.“You’re limping.”
“Just a cramp.”
She walked alongside me, frowning.
“I’d tell you if it was worse.”
She exhaled, wanting to say something, then changed her mind.
“Years ago, after Mithra tried to kill us,” she said.“We promised each other we’d never deal with gods again.”
“I remember.”
“And now…”
“…and now we’re up to our armpits in gods,” I said.“I know.I don’t see a way out of it.The only way forward is to get the book to Ordinary and hope they don’t wipe us off the face of the Earth on the way.”
“Headwaters dies first,” she said.
“Agreed.Which means we can’t run.Not yet.”
“This one,” Abbi said, stopping outside a nondescript door.
“The minute we get the chance,” I said, “we tell every damn one of the gods to pound sand.”
She flashed me a quick smile then blew out a breath, her stance settling into the wary preparedness of impending battle.
The safe room door could only be unlocked with the key Pamela had given Lu, and only if Lu used it.Lu had hooked the key onto a chain with the winged key to the spell book.A separate chain suspended the pocket watch that could stop time.
