Grave Intentions (Darkling Mage 3)

I slid my shoulder under Herald’s arm, helping him to his feet. My hand – the bloody one – happened to land on the back of his neck.

“Dust. Aww. Gross.”

“Quit your bitching. I’m trying my best.”

We hobbled through the exit as Amaterasu blasted the last of the ice imprisoning her, then dashed to her brother’s side, kneeling on the marble. Her crystalline chamber dropped like a curtain around us, and from the warmth of her domicile, we were thrust back into the cool, crisp calm of a dewy Valero morning.

I looked around, heaving, and still wincing from the gash in my hand. “Huh. We’re where Amaterasu’s tether should be. Mrs. Yoshida’s garden.”

A lovely little zen garden, really, in the backyard of an even littler old lady’s house, out in a nicer part of Valero.

Herald slumped to the ground, rearranging his legs against the stone-lined earth, gritting his teeth as he channeled the dregs of his power into his busted foot. The violet light around his fingers flickered, but he sighed in relief all the same. The healing magic must have worked.

“Throw me some of that when you’re done, would you?” I watched him a little jealously, the chill air of the morning at least doing its work of numbing the stinging in my hand. “Man. You think Susanoo’s going to be okay? I didn’t murder him or anything, did I? He wasn’t in his domicile, after all.”

Herald shook his head. “I don’t think so. Susanoo is brash and arrogant, but he wouldn’t risk his life. Not for a sparring session. Amaterasu, Susanoo, and the god of the moon are all siblings. They must share power between their domiciles in some way. He wouldn’t have just hopped over to hang out at her place if he knew it would make him so vulnerable.”

“Oh. Oh good. I don’t need more gods on my ass.” I wiped at my forehead, the sweat beaded there already cooling like little droplets of ice. “Can you believe? The only entity we’ve met that didn’t want to kill me was a demon.”

Herald scoffed. “Dust. Mammon threw us into Amaterasu’s dimension, fully knowing that she still held a grudge against you. That was the second price. That was your punishment.”

Understanding dawned, and I clenched my hand, then yelped softly, because it was the one with a wound in it. “Damn it, you’re right. Something about Mammon’s domicile was messing with my head.” I was impulsive, even more than usual, and borderline irrational about getting what I wanted.

“Prince of greed,” Herald said, shrugging. “Not entirely your fault.”

“So demons don’t play fair, either.” I sighed, my breath gusting into fog. “Par for the course. I guess I’m not as charming as I thought.”

“Well,” Herald grunted, pushing himself to his feet. “Muster it up, anyway. We’re going to need a little charisma in a minute.”

“Huh? What do you – ”

Herald’s body folded into a bow. “Ohayou gozaimasu, Yoshida-san. Great morning, isn’t it?”

The wizened little woman named Mrs. Yoshida looked at each of us, perhaps deciding that she’d had enough of weirdoes turning up in her garden at dawn.

“Ohayou gozaimasu,” she said in polite response, before lifting a whistle to her lips and blowing. The whistle made no sound, but the dobermans snarling and racing out from the other side of the house sure did.

Bloodied and broken, we hoofed it out of Mrs. Yoshida’s garden, with a small fleet of angry, frothing dogs in hot pursuit. Ah. Nothing like a little bit of cardio at the ass-crack of dawn.

Chapter 24

Eight hours wasn’t enough sleep for me to recover. Hell, twenty-four probably wouldn’t have made any difference, either, but Sterling was already itching to drag me out again. Literally. I woke up, and he was actually hauling me out of bed and towards the bathroom.

“Get your ass ready, Graves,” he said, throwing a towel in my face. “We have an appointment to keep.”

Right. The meeting with Diaz. I’d totally forgotten. I groaned, slinging the towel over my shoulders. “Five more minutes?” I bargained.

“We can’t miss this,” Sterling said. “Because then our only option is to try again tomorrow after nightfall, which is dumb, because what if those homunculi show up again?”

“Fine,” I grumbled, scratching at my scalp, smacking my lips. “Wait. How’d you get into my bedroom?”

“I picked the locks. Obviously.”

Well. That woke me up. “So you mean you can break in and suck my blood any old time you want now?”

He held a hand to his chest, feigning offense. “Why, I would never do that to you, Dustin. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

I glowered, and all he did was give me a sly grin.