Was it too late for a redo of the past year?

2

Alexis

The higher we climbed, the more the landscape changed. The slope on the right side of the car shot up steeply, and on the left the land dropped away to limitless blue sky. The narrow road wound upward, and our speed continued to drop as we hugged the side of the mountain. The SUV pitched and rolled, shaking us as it lumbered over rocks or dipped into craters.

Finally, Red stopped the SUV in the middle of the small road. Looking forward, I widened my eyes.

Another black Cadillac SUV, just like ours, was parked in front of us, hugging the mountain as closely as it could. In front of it, the road was blocked by a large boulder sitting in a pool of earth of its own making, having clearly fallen or rolled from farther up the mountain. Red and Bria climbed from the SUV.

I pushed my spirit sense as far out as I could, looking for souls. I found two, Donovan and Thane, stationary, ahead of us but clearly waiting. The lack of any other souls in the area indicated we’d be hiking the rest of the way.

Jack stared at me.

“Don’t lecture me,” I said into the sudden hush.

“Kieran doesn’t need a wow factor at the Summit,” he said, not at all what I thought he’d say. “He does need more people guarding his back, but they don’t have to be exceptional. They just have to be good. Once he gets into the politics of everything, he’ll bring the wow factor himself. He’s as good as his father ever was—maybe better.”

I shook my head slowly, my stomach churning. “Maybe if I wasn’t in the picture, sure. Maybe if I wasn’t marked. But I change things, Jack. You must see that. My magic, the fact that all of the Demigods of Hades want me—hell, anyone who needs an assassin wants me—puts more pressure on Kieran. Strip me away and he can slowly build up his empire. Who would bother to stop him? Keep me in the picture and he’s basically at war with two, maybe three established Demigods and a plethora of treasure seekers. He doesn’t just need wow, like the ladies said—he needs an incredibly potent, somewhat rare arsenal to keep his growing list of enemies at bay. Or he needs to get rid of me.”

“He’d never get rid of you. Don’t even talk like that.”

“Exactly. So I need to help where I can, and apparently I’m a weirdo charmer. Worst case, I can drop this giant sonuvabitch before he kills and eats us.”

“Not if he drops a rock on your head.”

“Donovan is up ahead. Surely he can use his magic to hold the rock up so we can scramble away. If we get desperate, Thane can go Berserk on him.”

Jack started, looking ahead. “Has everyone lost their minds?”

“No.” I swung the door open and accidentally slammed it on the rockface at our side. Hopefully Kieran got the full insurance, because that was going to leave a mark. “They just want to help where they can. Kieran would never ask for something like this. He wouldn’t admit he needs the help. But that won’t stop us from trying.”

“His ability to inspire loyalty is unequalled,” Red said as I met her and Bria at the back of the SUV. The tailgate was down and Red was strapping weapons onto her person as Bria dragged dead bodies out of the back. So this was what Red had “needed” to do instead of joining us for lunch: she’d been on cadaver collection duty.

I hoped I never got used to that.

“The level-five fire elemental in Sydney has to be a close second,” Bria said. “What’s Dara’s story, anyway?” She pulled out her backpack and took incense from the side pocket, preparing to call spirits to shove into the cadavers. “She helped take down Valens, so you’d think she’d be in Kieran’s camp, and yet she’s keeping her distance.”

“I can do it,” I said in annoyance. “I’m faster. Who are you calling?”

Bria replaced the incense, pulled out a locket, and handed it to me without missing a beat.

“Valens was a thorn in Dara’s side,” Red said. “It behooved her to usher him out of his office. But she doesn’t know what direction Kieran is going to take politically. Until she does, it’s smart to keep her distance.”

“True,” Bria said, motioning me on. “That’s Chad’s locket. Remember him? The powerhouse with the eighties name?”

Of course I remembered. He was back at the house in magical San Francisco, watching over things and leading the spirit sentinels in shifts with John, a spirit that had been with us since we’d freed him from Valens.

I handed back the locket. “You could’ve just said. All I have to do is think of them when they’re on this side of the Line and they sail toward me, remember?”

Five minutes later, four spirits were strapped into fairly fresh bodies and learning the ropes—John, Chad, and a couple of others from their squad. Jack stood a few paces away, pouting because he couldn’t understand why he didn’t get to participate. Given he’d never been in a cadaver, I didn’t want this to be the first time. It would be distracting as he tried to learn how it worked, something he didn’t much like hearing.

“These falling rocks weren’t an accident,” Red said, looking at the steep road ahead. Beyond the huge boulder, small and medium-sized rocks littered the way, clustered together or solitary, all too large and plentiful for a car or SUV to navigate around. “Our guy is trying to head off visitors.”

“That’s nice, at least. It’s like posting a warning.” I chanced a look over the edge, immediately dizzied by the drop. “He can’t be all bad if he’s at least warning people away.”

“Both his parents were giants, right?” Bria said, making it around the boulder and hiking her backpack a little higher on her shoulders.

“Yes,” Red answered. “He was born of two immortal Demigods of Athos, but he didn’t get the Demigod magic. Both of his parents are dead, but I couldn’t figure out how they died. It was before modern-day recordkeeping.”

I knew that mortal Demigods still lasted five hundred years or more, but I hadn’t heard of a non-Demigod living that long. I said as much.

“It usually only happens to those with two Demigod parents, though it’s not common,” Red said, glancing back to make sure the animated cadavers—which I called zombies, given how they lurched and jolted when they moved—made it around the large barrier rock. “Sometimes the kid of two Demigods gets the long life without getting the power. Magical genetics can be unpredictable.”

“Why didn’t those nut sacks wait in the car?” Bria mumbled as we went around the bend, finding more rocks littering the road. “Where are they, Lexi?”

“Hundred feet as the crow flies, give or take. Probably a few turns to go.”

A shape manifested next to me, and I jumped back with a start. Bria grabbed my arm, probably worried I’d trip and pull a Superman over the edge of the road.

Harding, the Spirit Walker of old, grinned at me. His tousled blond hair, dark brows, and the slight bags under his eyes made him look like a wild child, worn out from too much fun. His sparkling blue eyes said he knew I was in danger and wanted a front-row seat.