I squinted and hissed.
Then the light blinked out.
The temperature in the truck plunged, sudden arctic cold.I shivered, and tremors rattled through Lu and Abbi.
The book was still silent.Had Atë given up that quickly?Or had something else scared her away?
Sweat stung my eyes.I swallowed, the rot and bitterness of Atë’s power coating my mouth.
Then the darkness moved, drifting as if a wind stretched and thinned it, becoming lighter and lighter until it was gray mist.
Abbi whispered, “A god.”
At first, I thought she meant Atë.But then the mist cleared, until we were surrounded by clean yellow light.
There was no road.There was no land, horizon, or sky.
But there was a god.
He wore a long-sleeved linen tunic, loose trousers, and sandals made of strips of gold and turquoise.Layers of precious stones circled his neck, fanning out from shoulder to shoulder, the gold reflecting the light of the sun against his bronze skin and midnight hair.
Lu sneered.
We knew this god.
We’d been hounded by him before, nearly killed by him.
It had happened years ago, but not so long we would ever forget, or ever trust him again.
“Mithra,” I growled.
“Broken souls.”He flowed toward the truck, moving with impossible grace.“I’ve been looking for you.”
CHAPTERTHREE
“Drive,” I said.
Lu put the truck in gear and gunned it.
The god grew large, larger but did not step aside.
The truck hit fifty, sixty, eighty miles an hour, but Mithra just smiled and opened his arms wide.
We were going to hit him.There was no avoiding a collision.
I shifted my hold on Abbi, pulling her against me and bracing my other arm on the ceiling of the cab.
Lu gripped the wheel and locked her elbows, bracing for impact.
Eighty, eighty-five miles an hour.
He was there, right there.
Lu yelled.
But there was no impact.We blew right through him.
All the light in the world went off, then snapped back on again.
