Sin & Salvation (Demigod of San Francisco #3)(74)

“Hi Frank,” I said, trying to edge around him. “You found me, huh?”

“I was worried about you.” Frank scowled at me. “Your mother told me to keep an eye on you. I can’t do that when you don’t come home for days on end. Is this Mister Drusus’s house?” His eyes narrowed and he lowered his voice, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t give the milk away for free, girl. If you want to keep him, you have to keep him on the hook.”

“Frank found us, huh?” Bria asked with a chuckle. “My lucky day.”

“Yes.” Frank’s scowl hardened. “They said we’d see her.” His gaze turned accusatory. “I had to ask these strange spirits where you’d gone. Thank goodness the timing was right, or I might’ve missed everyone entirely.”

I blew out a breath. “Can it, Frank. We need to get people into bodies and go to war.”

The anger and indignation quickly drained from his face. “Alexis, no! What would your mother say?”

I shooed him to the side. “She’d say, Cut off their nuts and call them Sally.”

“Yes, but you know she wouldn’t actually mean it!”

I ignored him as I approached John, the tough guy I’d met in the ghost neighborhood. Behind them stood a line of grim-faced, tough-looking dudes with crew cuts and chiseled jaws. Backing them up was a gaggle of nutters milling around, bumping into one another and randomly screeching. The ghost house where they’d been imprisoned had driven the sense from their minds, and freedom hadn’t returned it.

John, a barrel-chested guy with a wicked scar cutting across his cheek, nodded at me in hello. “I got the best I could. Some I lost to the Line. They couldn’t resist the call. Or maybe didn’t want to.”

After what Valens had put them through, I couldn’t blame them.

Someone yelled from the middle of the throng. A commotion ensued as one of the spirits blasted through the others, dropping to his knees, and then rolled down the driveway like he was on fire.

“Some I couldn’t seem to get rid of,” John added. “They followed me like a bad smell.”

I laughed and took a deep breath. “All right, where do we start?” I asked Bria.

We went through everyone, as quickly as we could.

“I can’t imagine half these guys can fight,” I murmured as Bria told me how to organize everyone in a line.

“Remember those animated cadavers in the ghost neighborhood, as you called it?” she asked. I pushed the spirits she’d deemed unnecessary (surprisingly not the craziest of the bunch) out of the neighborhood. The Line would probably call them home now that John wasn’t around to anchor them in the turbulent world of the living.

I thought back, remembering how the reanimated dead had run at me, knocking me over and trying to rip and tear. They’d seemed more like zombies than anything.

“Even if they’ve never fought a day in their lives, somehow they know how to rip and tear their way to victory. I have no idea why that’s the case, but I look forward to learning one day.”

“If you outlive me, please don’t shove me into one of these things after I die,” I whispered, eyeing one of the worst cadavers. Three broken ribs jutted out through the decaying chest.

“No promises. I might miss you. I’ll put your body on magical ice, though, don’t you worry. Now.” She stopped at the personal effects table. “Do you need some supplies to make it easier to pull these guys out?”

I fingered a small red die in one of the clusters before nudging a rabbit’s foot. “Who are these people?”

“I don’t know. Kieran brought in all this stuff. He said they were all high class fives in life, though, so they won’t be easy to control.”

“And I’m supposed to control all…ten of these, plus whatever leftovers you have for me, plus fight?” I was screeching by the end.

She patted me, as though that would help. I had no idea how she could be so utterly calm about our looming battle with a crazy and cunning and uber-experienced Demigod in his home domain. It was unnatural.

“Controlling them isn’t that hard in and of itself. You just have to give them some gentle direction. You know, keep them from wandering. It’s more like corralling. You’re a natural. You’ll do fine.”

“But yet, you aren’t doing the more powerful ones…”

“I am neither a Demigod’s daughter nor a Demigod’s shortsighted girlfriend.” She patted me again. “Time to work. The faster we get these fuckers in bodies, the more sleep we can get. Oh, and I’m hungry. We’ll need to fuel up after this is done. Lots to do, lots to do. Let’s get some dead guys in bodies!” She slapped her hands together.

Butterflies filled my belly, but I didn’t think about what was to come. I couldn’t. If I did, I’d probably get cold feet and run off. Maybe lose it and roll down the driveway.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh.

“John,” she said, at her Necromancy table. “Come stand beside me. Yup. There you are. What a good, strong soul you got, huh, John?””

“I don’t need to be corralled or controlled. I know what I’m about,” John said. “Just put me in a body and stand aside.”

Bria grabbed her supplies. “The strong and silent type, I like it.”