The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)(32)

I’d told Aric we’d rewrite history. Wasn’t that the same as defying fate? If fates couldn’t be changed . . .

No, I refused to believe that. If I ever accepted that, then I would lie down and never get back up.

Kentarch quietly said, “You no longer think we can end it.”

“Maybe it’s possible. But probably not before the world is beyond salvage. The gods like their games, and we’re all pawns.” Why me? Why had I gotten tapped for this bullshit?

“Then we need to figure out how to fight the gods instead of each other—to take control of the deck.” He leaned against the driver’s side door. “What a splendid battle that would be.” In time, he drifted off as well.

I believed the Chariot was a decent-minded, disciplined guy. But I also suspected he would slit my throat with a song in his heart if it meant saving his wife.

Still, he’d gotten me thinking. What if we Arcana had all banded together to fight our shitty fates?

Each of us had myriad weaknesses and strengths. Ogen had been immune to my poison but suffered from hydrophobia. Though Joules didn’t have great physical strength, he could electrify his body in defense. Gabriel’s black-feathered wings were awing, but they were also a huge target. All-powerful Aric had succumbed to Paul’s influence, yet hapless Finn had been unaffected.

What could we all have accomplished if we’d pooled the resources of twenty-two Arcana?

Would even the gods have trembled?

I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling, thoughts racing. This was my first night away from Aric in months. I tried to call up a memory of his unguarded smile, but all I saw was that rage in his eyes.

The image of him in the window had been seared into my brain forever. I’d learned something in that moment: Rage is a type of madness.

Would he ever come back from it? Did some deep-down part of him understand what he’d done? No matter what, he must be hurting.

How was Lark dealing with her grief? A new worry emerged. What would happen if she tried her faunagenesis—on Finn?

No, Paul would never allow it. The Hanged Man’s powers had been activated with that kill.

Closing my eyes, I replayed Finn’s beach illusion. That last bit of harmony had been the calm before the storm. Years seemed to have passed, but less than a day had gone by.

Finn’s voice echoed in my head. I freaking love you guys.

Tears spilled down my cheeks.

Though I cried silently, Joules woke. In a rough voice, he said, “Finn was my friend too.”





14


Day 536 A.F.


Still in the foothills





“I say we rent her out at the Sick House.”

“No way. The Stix will pay more for her.”

“But they’ll be wantin’ her untouched. And dang it, we should acknowledge our own limitations.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” I told my two would-be pimps as they debated what to do with me. Stix? Sick House? I had no idea what they were talking about and didn’t care. I just wanted to be absolutely certain they deserved what was coming to them: their executions. “Look, I don’t want any trouble with either of you.” My damsel-in-distress act was getting old.

One guy’s halitosis smelled like radioactive waste. I’d deemed him Hal. The other had a handlebar moustache littered with food debris. He was Stache.

“Please let me go.” I wasn’t managing a believable level of panic. “I’m trying to make it home to my husband.” Not a lie.

After parking their serial-killer van, they’d approached me with raised weapons—a bat and what was probably an empty pistol. They’d asked me if I was alone, and I’d said I was.

Definitely a lie. Kentarch and Joules crouched nearby behind an overturned tractor trailer.

I still hesitated to steal from innocent folks, so whenever Kentarch heard a vehicle coming, he and Joules got scarce, and I trotted out to the road to do my damsel routine. If anyone tried to hurt me, the boys stepped in, and the non-innocent forfeited everything. Including their lives.

All I had to do was give the signal. Kentarch would easily pick them off with his rifle, pistol, or throwing blades. Joules normally held off using his spears in close quarters. His javelins tended to go boom in a big way.

My powers remained fritzed.

“You ain’t ever gonna see your husband again, peach,” Hal told me from way too up-close. His mouth smelled like someone had told him to eat shit, and he’d complied. He kept licking his chapped lips as he leered at me. “But soon you’re gonna have plenty of fellas to keep you company.”

I was so over this. For the last week, we’d encountered a surprising number of survivors; I supposed they tended to converge like Arcana did.

Not as surprising—they’d all been bad guys. We’d scored twenty-three gallons of gasoline, a bug-out bag for me, half a bottle of gin, and a case of Sheba canned cat food.

I’d declined my share of kitty chow, fearing I’d just throw it up anyway. When Joules had first dug his fingers into a can to scoop chunks to his mouth, I’d gone running to vomit.

My perilous escape from the castle seemed to have done nothing to interrupt my pregnancy. Fatigue was taking its toll. My hunger pangs were constant, the pain like an old, untended wound.