I smiled and nodded. “Okay, Dad.”
Chapter 23
Lucifer
Among my short list of friends and friendly acquaintances, Apollo wasn’t the highest on the list, but he always seemed to be available. I’d contacted him first to help with a small… spatial issue. He was the original designer of the house, but if I was going to fit everything I owned inside, it needed to be bigger.
“I thought there was a reason you wanted all your precious treasure troves kept separate,” he said thoughtfully, flicking a bright blonde curl from his pale eyes.
I marked out a tall rectangle with chalk on the wall. “Things change. I need these doors to be permanent, and the rooms only accessible through this house, so we’ll have to seal the other exits inside each room.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Apollo put his hand on the wall inside the chalk lines. “Where is this one?”
“In an underground bunker in a cave near Mulas Muertas.”
“Ah, Argentina. Beautiful area, if you like inhospitable deserts.” Apollo closed his eyes, looking for my unique energy signature to make the connection between the house and the room. “Got it.”
An ornate steel door formed under his hand, anchoring the first of my hidden vaults to the house in Boston. I chuckled and shook my head. “What aren’t you capable of?”
He pushed it open and shrugged, his tone bordering petulant. “I can’t control the ocean.”
He formed eleven other portals in various places all over the house, which connected to locations all over the world that less than a handful of people knew about, and sealed up the original entrances. No one else would be able to access the rooms without accessing the house, which hopefully would be Lexi alone. There were too many powerful artifacts in some of those rooms. The murderous Muramasa katana, Durendal, Dáinsleif, Shiva’s trident Trishula, The Gem of Kukulkan—just to name a few.
Loki could guide her through which ones were safe to touch, though I didn’t relish the thought of Loki knowing about any of it.
The last room, a still-buried and undiscovered temple a couple hundred miles southwest of Alexandria, held an item I’d nearly forgotten. While Apollo sealed the entrances, I blew the dust off the old grimoire. The temple was steadily sinking, and every shift of the land covered the room in the stuff.
“Hey, that looks familiar,” Apollo said, peeking over my shoulder.
“Yeah.” I opened it up, the magic humming to life in its still-crisp pages. The magic was what kept it pristine rather than crumbling with age. A random idea popped into my head. “I know someone who could put this to good use in the coming storm.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You know someone powerful enough to control her spells?”
The cover made a heavy thump as I closed the book. “I know someone that she would want to have it.”
With the last room connected and sealed, we left. I knew my collection would be in loving hands, and I wished I could see the look on her face when she opened each door, searched each room. Watched her face light up as she recognized each new artifact. I had bigger problems, though, and they were a higher priority.
“So, you’re really doing it, huh?”
I blinked, finding Apollo on my couch. Sprawled across it, in fact, his tall dancer’s build taking up the entire length.
“My sister said her hunters have been taking on several groups of demons the last few months across Europe and Asia,” he said. “One of my sons has been trying to organize teams in America to stop attacks before they happen. Maybe you’ve seen them around? I know you’ve taken out several groups yourself.”
“The only person I’ve seen is Loki, and he just likes to watch.”
Apollo snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure he does.”
I drummed my fingers on the hard leather book cover. “I appreciate your help today, Apollo, but I need to get this into capable hands.”
“Oh, right.” He jumped up and held his arm out. “Call me before you go storming the gates. I’d hate to miss it.”
I clasped his arm. Even though he was technically a god and had more abilities than even the Greeks knew of, his overall power level was less than mine. Unlike Loki, I had no doubt I could take him if it ever came to it. For now, I was glad to have an ally of my own.
As soon as he left, I popped over to Salem and knocked on the red door beneath the stick pentagram. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered where the stray thought that had brought me here came from. Was I trying to punish myself?
Miranda Sutton opened the door, and I met her unsmiling hazel eyes. She didn’t look particularly happy to see me, but then, she didn’t care much for me the first time we met. Without a word, she stepped aside and let me in. Heidi ran up and circled my legs once, then joined Miranda where she’d curled up in an armchair by the fireplace. I sat nearby on the small loveseat.
“May I ask why you’re here, Mr. Rivers? Or do you prefer Lucifer?”
