Sin & Surrender (Demigod of San Francisco #6)(45)

“Can you…” Dylan took a shuddering breath and wiped his nose with his shirt—not a good look on anyone, but he was so hot he could get away with it. “Can you go to… Maybe Kieran can go to Zander with your concerns? If the object was taken from him, he has an investment in the situation. Plus, Harding isn’t likely to look kindly on him.”

“All Aaron has to do is hide the evidence.” Bria slowed with me as I saw a man at the other end of the corridor, standing in the middle of the space, facing us. “No one is going to do anything without proof, except maybe caution him. Our biggest issue, though, is that Aaron is out to lunch. He hasn’t been thinking clearly for a while. He’s not going to listen to anyone cautioning him, and since Lexi just scattered all his on-call spirits, the only way he can beat her is with his own offspring, or so he’ll think. No, if that’s the railway the train is on, it has already left the station. There is no stopping it.”

“That was a serious railroad metaphor,” Thane said, and cracked his neck. “We need to talk this over with Demigod Kieran. Get his input. Right now, though, we have other stuff to do. That’s a Berserker up there, I bet you. Someone is very stupid. I could yank his arms off and…” Thane scrunched his eyes and flexed his arms out to the sides, enormous even in his human form.

The man down the way continued to stand there, waiting for us, or maybe just waiting for a challenge from anyone. A little closer and Dylan pointed out a woman standing behind him a ways. She had fisted hands, and the door to her right stood open.

“She’s of Zeus,” he said.

Thane started to laugh. “Stupid. Stupid and horribly ignorant.”

“Maybe explain a little more?” I kept walking, mostly because everyone else kept walking, even though usually we’d stop about now and come up with a plan.

“That guy has the look of a Berserker, and the little miss behind him probably has the kind of magic that forces someone to change back to human. The guy will change, the woman thinks she’ll force me to return to human, and the guy will thump me. That’s their whole plan, I bet you a hundred bucks. I doubt he’s changed in such a confined space before. This is no place for a Berserker. You saw what I did at Lydia’s place, and there was a lot more room to maneuver.”

“And you still made a few new doorways,” Boman said with a grin.

“Exactly.” Thane took a steadying breath. “Take him down, Lexi. I won’t let my other form loose in here. But we gotta go soon. My energy is flagging and my other half wants to come out to play. Soon I won’t be able to stop it, especially after this bastard changes. Another Berserker is like a battle cry—it’s hard to resist.”

“Hi!” I lifted my hand and took the lead. I swore I heard Daisy mutter, “Nerd.”

The man stared at me, watching my approach. I could just make out the muscle working in his jaw, his teeth tightly clenched.

“Thane—our Berserker—knows better than to change in here.” I hooked a thumb back at Thane. “You probably should, too. We can either take this out to the garden so he can play too, or we should just let bygones be bygones.”

The man’s face turned red.

“I can see you’re going to ignore me.” I looked back for the cats. They came forward without being called. “He’s still not going to change, so if you do, you’ll be tangoing with me. I just want to warn you: I am not pleasant. It would be best to head to the garden or just go home. We’re tired. We’d rather go home.”

The man started to laugh, his voice deepening slowly, his size increasing. Fear wormed through me. Berserkers had always terrified me. Didn’t matter that I’d seen Thane change more than once, or that I’d subdued him a couple of times. The primal feeling would probably never go away.

“You think you can stop me, Soul Stealer?” His eyes tinged red.

“You mean, because I’m not supposed to kill you?”

He didn’t answer, just continued to grow larger much more slowly than Thane would have if he’d decided to make the change.

“Well, either way, the answer is yes, I can stop you,” I said. “It won’t be pleasant for you. Or me, actually. I really dislike dealing with your kind. No offense, Thane.”

“You can’t kill me. Only a Demigod can take down one of my stature.” The guy roared, the sound filling the hall. My legs started to shake and my heart ramped up. Here we go.

“Young hotheaded clown,” Thane murmured, his voice strained. He was fighting the change.

The Berserker in front of me grew, larger and larger until he took up half the space between the walls and topped my height by four feet. For all his size, he wasn’t as big as Thane.

He roared again, sending tendrils of fear winding through my gut. I braced myself as he bent, about to charge.

My heart ramped up. “Here we go. Who’s on knife duty? Donovan, you can keep those whips off me, right?”

“Those whips come with age, and this kid doesn’t have them,” Donovan said, almost sounding bored. Unaffected. “He’s nothing to you, Lexi.”

“Okay, but what if you’re wrong?”

The Berserker thudded his feet on the ground, coming at me. Ready to bowl us all down. His enormous, grotesque muscles bunched and coiled. He swung his arms a little, side to side and then in front of him. If it was part of his strategy, I didn’t understand why.