The room stilled, a heavy weight around my failures.
“I’m not strong enough,” I said. The words hung in the air, a bitter confession I never wanted to voice. Sharp pangs jabbed at my heart, each one reminding me of my failures, of the moments I should have acted but didn’t.
The memory of Aaron purging my blood replayed in my mind, a haunting reminder of rejection that cut deeper than any blade. How could I admit to anyone that I felt powerless? They all expected more from me—more strength, more control. I was the God of the Dead, yet here I was, crumbling under the weight of my inadequacies.
“Well, how can you get strong enough?” Jamal asked, his face tense with concentration and thought. He was like me in how he calculated and problem-solved, unable to let go of a problem once he sunk his mind into it.
“Take souls of the living,” Aoiki said from where she absently spun for the eighty-sixth time. “Fight fire with fire.”
“I can’t break the rules,” I said, a little harsher than I meant to. Aoiki paused her incessant spinning, and I felt the eyes of everyone on me, even the rabbit familiars.
“Timothy,” Miranda said, compassion in her tone.
I broke them for Aaron, and it didn’t matter. I was willing to take him, by force, from Seth, and it hadn’t made a bit of difference. In fact, the pain of failure had almost been more than I could bear. Not only because I had to face the wall of my ownlimitations, but because it smashed the small yet strong hope that Aaron and I could be, into a small bloody pulp.
“Why do you think Grim can do what you can’t?” Jamal asked. He was still in calculation mode, no judgment attached to his words, but they hit me like boulders.
“Jamal,” Miranda said in warning, shaking her head.
I’ve always enjoyed Jamal’s inquisitive mind, but his questions were pushing me to the brink.
I couldn’t help but pull at my hair in agitation. “Because he will do whatever is necessary to take Seth out.”
“Then do that,” Jamal suggested quietly.
Another blanket of quiet fell, except for the clacking of Echo’s keyboard.
I stared at Jamal, and he met my gaze unblinking. How could he make it sound so simple? How could the logic of it eschew all my arguments to stick to the rules?
My objective was to stay in control of the gods, to punish any who stepped out of line. To protect the souls of the living and the dead. To protect mortals from the machinations of gods.
I had all the power Grim had at his disposal, so him returning would not necessarily yield different results. I hadn’t counted on his power. I told myself I counted on his influence, but truly it was because I expected him to return and do whatever it took to win, to assert power.
And if I couldn’t do that myself, I was never worthy of the mantle of God of the Dead. I wasn’t worthy of Aaron. And he needed me.
As the new logic settled, clicking into place, overriding my old logistics, my spine straightened, shoulders squaring as a new energy flooded me.
Even as I processed, Aoiki stared at Jamal with something that resembled amazement, as if she was seeing him for the veryfirst time. He blushed under her gaze, putting his attention back on Darth Vader.
“Echo,” I said, a new authority in my tone. “Keep looking for Grim, but I need eyes on Seth. I want to know his movements.”
A kaleidoscope of possibilities morphed in front of me, patterns arranging themselves into perfect order, illuminating the dark corners where I'd been hiding the truth from myself. My purpose crystallized with such clarity that blue hieroglyphic light briefly flickered across my fingertips.
I knew what I had to do.
The woman paused to grin at me, a terrifying visage if I ever saw one. “Thought you’d never ask.”
I was going to throw everything I could at Seth. The only question was, would it be enough to overpower tens of millions of souls of the living?
17
AARON
Seth’s face filled every screen on the Strip. Every billboard, every rooftop display, every casino marquee. His teeth glowed so white they looked backlit, which only made the rest of him read like a badly adjusted spray tan.
“Citizens.” His voice rolled across Vegas, amplified and theatrical. “For so long, your city has thrived on indulgence. You eat, you gamble, you sin.” His tone dipped into a sultry rumble, his eyes practically licking the camera. “You pray at the altar of desire, only to leave empty and yearning for more. I am here to change that. To give you a life of excess, pleasure, spectacle.”
A red carpet materialized out of thin air. Literally appeared. It unfurled down the center of the Strip in one long, unbroken ribbon, trimmed in gold. Seth stepped onto it with a swagger so practiced I wondered if he spent time rehearsing in a mirror.
