Sin & Salvation (Demigod of San Francisco #3)(5)

Alexis





“I’ll be damned,” Jack said, rising slowly.

“See?” Bria pointed at a panting Thane, his hands still clutching his chest. I closed off the Line and let the magic dissipate before sagging where I stood. I wasn’t sure if it was from using the magic, or the excessive adrenaline, but I was exhausted. “Zorn is freaked out he’s going to end up like that.” She stowed her knife.

I ran my fingers through my hair. “Would someone mind explaining to me why a freaking Berserker was involved in my training?” I hadn’t meant to yell. “What if I hadn’t been able to stop him?” Or screech.

“But you did.” Bria nodded at me in pride.

My flat stare prompted a better explanation.

She sighed as Jack squatted by Thane’s side. “Look,” she said, “Thane’s the most balanced of the Six, and has the most control of his kind in the entire world. He’s trained to handle a lot of situations, but you don’t fight like anyone else on the planet—” She paused for a moment. “Probably. I mean, I don’t know what the Hades Demigods get up to, but—”

“You’re losing your point,” Jack said softly.

“Right, right. Berserkers are scary, sure, but labels are misleading.” Bria started dragging me toward the back door. “I don’t have to tell you that. Soul Stealer, hello?” She shoved Daisy out of the way and pulled me into the house. “Kieran knows Thane is in these trainings.” She stopped short. “Dang it, I forgot my backpack. Hang on…”

My feet felt like lead as I trudged down my small hallway to the round table straddling the line between the living room and the kitchen. When Bria returned, she grabbed my fabulous Burberry handbag, a gift from Kieran, and shoved it at me.

“As I said, Kieran knows Thane is in these trainings,” she continued. “He’s cool with it. He trusts Thane.”

“Berserkers…”

I jumped at Daisy’s voice. She passed me into the kitchen before grabbing a glass out of the cabinet. Her plain red T-shirt was streaked with dirt and something blue. Chalk? Lord only knew.

Mordecai padded in behind her. Changing form took a lot of energy, and apparently it also hurt for the first handful of changes, so he wasn’t keen on shifting back and forth too quickly.

“Ew.” Daisy kicked at him. “No dogs in the kitchen. Get out! Shoo!”

“Daisy, don’t kick—”

Mordecai growled, a deep-chested, rather terrifying sound.

“Mordecai, don’t you growl at your sister,” I admonished him. “Honestly, one of you can’t even talk. How can you still fight?”

“Lexi, he’ll get hair everywhere.” Daisy inspected the ground behind him. “See? A dog hair.”

“He’s a wolf, Daisy, and you leave hair all over the house. You make the bathroom look like a Sasquatch’s murder scene.”

She huffed and filled her glass. “Anyway, as I was saying before Fido came nipping at my heels… Berserkers are hard to take down, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” Bria nodded adamantly. “When they’re really rolling, they’re hard as hell to stop. Their brain shuts off, rage takes over, and they destroy. That’s their one function—destroy. They make one hell of an ally in battle. Thane was only just starting to get rolling.”

Silence filled the room, thick and gooey. Daisy stared at Bria, unblinking.

“And Lexi was able to take him down?” she finally asked.

My mouth dropped open. “That’s what you took away from all that? Daisy, Berserkers are incredible war machines who stop thinking when the rage takes over. They stop thinking. That’s really dangerous to have around a couple of teens only a few months into training. You didn’t get a good look at him out there, but he was terrifying.”

Mordecai growled softly.

“What’s that, Lassie? Timmy fell down the well?” Daisy smirked at him.

“Daisy, would you stop picking on your brother?” I asked, exasperated.

Daisy crossed her arms over her chest. “Lexi, your magic is stealing souls and leaving dead bodies in your wake—”

“We call them cadavers,” Bria corrected.

“—and you’re not trained. Sometimes you sucker punch Mordie and I through the chest when you’re pissed. You don’t even know you’re doing it, but it still hurts like hell.” She held up a finger. “Hell isn’t swearing, remember?”

We had an agreement that if she swore, I’d punch her in the face. It was terrible parenting on my part, but the threat sometimes worked. More often than not, however, she’d offer a compelling explanation for why she’d broken the rule.

“At least Thane knows what sets him off and can usually avoid it,” she finished. “You just flail around, invisibly slicing people in two.”

“I’m learning to control my magic, and I can’t steal souls yet,” I said in my defense. “He is ruled by rage. He would’ve ripped the house apart to get to you, then ripped you apart.”

Daisy rolled her eyes and drained her glass. “That Demigod you always have hanging around—”

“You mean my boss?”

“He could kill us all, rage or no, and get away with it. And not just him. Every one of the Six could take us down. Zorn wouldn’t even make a sound while he was doing it. The whole crew is dangerous. I don’t know what you’re getting all bent out of shape about.”