“Then you know that if I had wanted to kill you, all these long years, I could have ended you in an instant.Wiped you off this earth.You and spirit-out-of-spirit, Brogan.”
“Atë wouldn’t allow it,” Lu said.
Headwaters made a considering noise.“Not all gods are powerful,” he said.“Nor do all gods remain in control of the power they think they have.You have the book.”
“Meet me and I’ll tell you.”
It wasn’t a laugh.But it was a sound that conveyed humor—and derision.
“And kill me, I presume.”
“Meet.Me.”
“Do you think you have power?Over me?You are nothing.You cannot kill me.No weapon can.Gods themselves have built me, and only gods can tear me down.”
“Name the place,” she said, “and we’ll find out.”
“Bring me the spell book of the gods.Or I will no longer find you useful alive.”
That, the overwhelming statement of bravado was what finally snapped me out of it.
I broke a hard sweat, but adrenalin still pumped through me.Headwaters was like every other god and creature we’d run across.
He wanted the spell book of the gods.
And he couldn’t use it without us.
“Where?”Lu asked.“When?”
“Tomorrow, dawn.The Continental Divide.”
Lu’s gaze flicked up to me.She wasn’t asking for my opinion.She was warning me she wasn’t going to say no.
“Dawn.”She thumbed off the phone.
“Call was from out of state,” Pamela said.“I’m going to say it’s a burner phone.That was his—” she looked over at Lu, “—his?voice.”
“Does he know where we are?”Card asked.“Can he have pinpointed this place through the call?”
“No.You would not even believe the magical redirects we have.He might know you’re in New Mexico.Probably why he suggested the Continental Divide.”
“We don’t have much time,” Lu said.“We have to try that spell.”
“You’re not seriously thinking of meeting that monster at dawn?”Card asked.
“I am dead serious we are going to kill that monster at dawn.”Her eyes were narrow, and I caught a flash of her sharp canines.
Fury that burned for nearly a hundred years did not fade.No, for Lula, for me, it became a concentrated, explosive inferno.
But using the book to kill Headwaters when we could barely hold it, could barely read it, was madness.
“We need to talk,” I said.“Lula, you and I need to talk.”
“No,” she said.“We need to work.I know you don’t want to use the book.You’ve told me that over and over.But I am not going to let your fear get in the way of me killing that monster.You have to just deal with it right now, Brogan.There is no more time for you to be afraid.There’s no turning back.We kill Headwaters tomorrowwith the book.”
She wasn’t yelling, but her voice was loud.Hard.
“Of course I’m afraid,” I said.“I’d be a fool not to be.Use your head, Lula.We aren’t ready.”
