“Okay. Uh, good.”
“I learned that from Ace.He'sa good man. He proved that to me. So, yes, I know not all men are dogs, but you three definitely are. You've proven yourselves to me too. Just not in a good way.”
“We may be dogs, Salina, but we're not bad.”
“Well, you know what they say. All good dogs go to Hades. So go on then.” I grabbed my drink and cookies, then walked out of the gym.
Chuckling, Lex followed me. “I don't think that's the line, but if you're trying to tell me to go to hell, I applaud your creativity.”
“Why are you so unshakable today?” I stopped and faced him.
Lex shrugged. “You're here now. Safe. That's all that matters to me. I can wait for the rest. Despite what you think and the mistakes we've made with you, we're good men too, Salina. I know you'll see that eventually.”
“And until then, you'll just hold me captive.” I smacked his chest as I would a buddy. “Good plan, good man.” I walked away.
Lex sighed, then came up beside me. “Could you give us a little slack?”
“Could you drive me back to my place?”
“Salina, Silas is out there. I know you saw us fighting off his soldiers. They aren't normal humans. He's enhanced them.”
“Yeah, I saw you guys. You took out those 'enhanced' humans pretty quickly. And they didn't seem interested in me. I think they followed you, and I just happened to be who you were following.”
“I don't agree. Silas has targeted Cerberus mates in the past. It's kind of his MO. You're not just here because we want to seduce you to the dog-side. We brought you here to keep yousafe. A ward protects our property. This is the only place in New Orleans that Silas and his soldiers can't enter.”
I thought about Wren. We never had a chance to catch up when I saw her in the Underworld, but she had told me her man was down there because he'd been in Cerberus form with his packmates and had been killed. Cerberus form as in their merged form—a giant three-headed dog. With the three of them unified in that body, death would have pulled the other two down with him if Wren hadn't gone to the Blessed Isles and brought him back. I assumed she was successful since Hades suggested I could help her by finding Silas. Except I didn't know much about my enemy. It was time to change that.
“Tell me about Silas.”
“Let's go into the office. We have visual aids there.” Lex headed for the grand staircase.
“Visual aids?” I followed him.
We went up to the landing, and then down a corridor. The office was at the front of the house, with a view of the tree-lined driveway—a driveway that extended several hundred feet to an iron gate. That front yard alone was like gold in New Orleans. But I wasn't there to admire the view.
I followed Lex to a massive desk—the sort made for both sides to be used. I think they call it a partner desk, but this was for someone with multiple partners. It extended the length of two normal executive desks, with four chairs pulled up to four leg holes (I don't know what you call those spaces under desks). A double line of monitors ran down the center of the desk with the monitors back to back. The regular accouterments gatheredaround them—blotters, canisters of pens, and pads of paper. But there were also devices that I didn't recognize.
“Have a seat.” Lex rolled one chair close to another, then sat down in the one behind a keyboard.
I sat down and set my snack on the desk. Sipping my Coke, I watched Lex bring up several camera feeds on two of the monitors.
“We've been watching for the Host, so we discovered them shortly after they started to gather here,” Lex said.
“The Host?”
He looked at me. “What did Hades tell you about Silas?”
“He said he didn't know much. Just that Silas was out to get you guys and was amassing an army to help him.”
“Silas actually wasn't the one to start all this. It was a soul who called himself Michael. He could jump bodies.”
“Not possible.”
“That's what we thought. Until he did it.”
“Lucky guy,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?”
