Sin & Chocolate (Demigod of San Francisco 1)

Then something occurred to me.

I was in Valens’s house. And he was a territorial motherfucker. He’d clearly hired that white-haired guy to put up this strange spirit block. If I messed with it, the old guy would find out when he came around to maintain the spell, which I assumed he regularly did, based on what the girl had said. Valens would retaliate, hard and viciously.

Maybe this was what Kieran had been talking about. Freeing his mother would mean defying his father, and his father would strike out. Since I was needed to free his mother, he wanted to hide me from the fallout.

Aw, whadda guy.

I rolled my eyes.

But one thing was clear: if I tore down this wall right now, I’d paint a huge target on my back. My file said Ghost Whisperer. Plenty of people had seen me in the building. It wouldn’t take them two seconds to figure out who’d tampered with their spectral prison.

“I can’t do this right now,” I said, backing away.

“What?” the large guy asked. “What’s the matter?”

I turned to the girl. “Valens has locked you in. I don’t know if I can do anything about it. I have two kids to look after. If I jeopardize myself, I’ll be jeopardizing them. But you have my word on this—before I die, I’ll send you across that Line, okay? And hell, maybe I’ll just follow you over. Hopefully it kills my body and doesn’t leave Valens with anything to punish. Win-win.”

“We gotta go,” the blond guy said urgently, grabbing my arm and tugging.

I didn’t resist, but I got one last look at the girl’s baleful eyes before being pulled through the door. There wasn’t anything more I could do for her right now, anyway. She’d just have to wait.

“What’s the problem?” I asked as I was being marshaled to the car.

“You know what the problem is,” the blond guy said, hustling me up the stairs in front of Mordecai and the big guy, “and it isn’t something you need to discuss out loud in a magical zone. Demigod Valens has eyes and ears everywhere. He can’t know about you. Not your power, not what you can do, not any role you may play in helping Kieran’s mother—nothing. You gotta keep a low profile.”

“I was keeping a low profile. A very low profile. I had absolutely no problems from magical people at all, especially not powerful ones. That is, until your boss crashed into my life and started lighting bonfires.”

“I realize that, but here we are. So tone it down, okay?”

I gritted my teeth but bit back a response as the big guy helped Mordecai into the car.

I had every intention of “toning it down,” but my mind started whirling.

Demigod Valens had someone on staff who could trap spirits in the land of the living. He used it as punishment. For the girl, he’d trapped her spirit directly, but for Kieran’s mom, he’d trapped the spirit of the skin. I’d never heard of any of this before, but it was clearly possible. Step one was analyzing that wall and figuring out how it had been done. The magical user might not have the same power profile as I did, but he was setting up shop in my house, so I ought to be able to figure out the setup. Step two…

No—what was I thinking? I couldn’t go to step two. I didn’t want to get tied to Kieran, and I certainly didn’t want to go up against Valens. History told us that people didn’t live through that. Hell, he kept people confined after he killed them.

I shook my head and got into the car, ignoring Mordecai’s questioning gaze.

The best thing to do would be to forget all of this. To walk away.

I just needed to return to the way things had always been. Easy.

35

Kieran

Kieran looked up from the biggest shock he’d had all day and picked up his vibrating phone. “Yeah?”

“She can figure it out,” Donovan said. “She can figure out what is trapping your mother.”

Kieran sat forward and leaned on the desk, his elbows pressing into Alexis’s open file. Fatigue drained away instantly. He waited for more.

“It seems Valens is trapping spirits in the government building, and who knows where else,” Donovan continued. “He put up a wall of some sort. She tried to get a spirit through, but it physically knocked her back. Damn near put her on her butt.”

“How is that possible?”

“She doesn’t seem to know, but you should’ve seen her face. It pissed her off good and proper. She didn’t like someone cutting her off from the spirit world. She might not like that facet of her magic, but she’s righteous about it. She’s protective of it.”

Hope surged within Kieran as a smile worked his lips. His Alexis didn’t like to be told no, she didn’t like to be ruled, and yet she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He knew all of those things as well as he knew how to breathe.

“She started talking about forcing down that wall and sending the spirit through,” Donovan said, his voice dropping. “I had to get her out of there in case someone heard her. She’s wild, sir.”

“I like wild.”

She was also highly intelligent and extremely magical. She wasn’t using even a tenth of her ability.

The problem was, how could he get training for her without alerting everyone to what she’d been hiding all this time? Her father could be one of three people. One of those three would kill her outright if she were his. He wouldn’t care about creating a lineage—as an immortal, he had no need for heirs. He’d be more concerned that she might rise up to tear her parent down. Like Kieran was about to do. History was filled with such cases. Less so now that the magical world was out in the open and organized, but immortals had long memories.

The other two… Kieran wasn’t sure. They were both mortal and had a defined line of succession already in place. Alexis would put a wrench in their plans, but would she be a wrench worth dealing with?

One thing was for sure—she could help his mother. Help him. Donovan had just cemented that fact. She had everything it would take, including determination, courage, and cunning. She was the whole package.

The luckiest day of his life had been when he’d nearly run her down.

“Keep watch on her. Keep her safe. Call me with updates.”

“Yes, sir. And sir?” Donovan paused for a moment. “They don’t have any money, and that kid looks grim. He needs food. He’s a shifter, and she’s got him eating vegetables ’n’ shit—” Donovan’s voice hitched with the slip in decorum. This was business, and that talk was out of line.

Kieran let it go. “And?”

“And if everything goes as planned, he’s going to need some real sustenance. Shifters need meat. If he doesn’t get it in human form, the second he can turn into his animal, he’ll take down the first red-blooded thing he can find.”

“See to it. Don’t let her know it’s coming from me, and don’t take no for an answer.”

“Yes, sir.”

Kieran dropped the phone. For once, he wasn’t showing goodwill to get something out of it. This time, he was helping a sick kid, like he had with that blanket. No strings attached.

He heaved a sigh and thought of his mother. She’d be proud of him. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

His thoughts hardened a moment later. What he’d have to do to tear his father off the throne.

Or maybe not.

36

Alexis

“I don’t like the interest you are taking in the Demigod’s situation,” Mordecai said as we pulled up in front of the house. The minions hadn’t followed us out of the parking lot, and I got the sneaking suspicion that someone else was on car-tailing duty. It would have to be a pretty ratty-looking car not to stand out around here. They were probably hunting the used-car dealerships.

I hurried to his side so I could help him out. “I’m not taking an interest in his situation. Honest. It’s just that the girl’s situation is similar to that of Kieran’s mom, and I don’t know what the heck that magical wall is. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s not right, putting that up. It’s a shit thing to do. They killed that girl because she possessed a type of magic that scared them. Sound like a familiar story?”

“And if you stick your nose in, they might kill you, too.”

I blew out a breath, forcing out the image of the girl’s desperate face. “I know.”

“So you need to steer clear.”

“I know.”

“You don’t sound like you mean it. When you stumble on something that doesn’t make sense to you, you pick at the thread until the entire sweater unravels.”

He was right. It was a personality flaw that usually didn’t result in huge consequences. Now, though, crushed between two Demigods who had a fragile relationship, it could have consequences of epic, astronomic proportions.

Frank stood in the center of my lawn, his face lighting up when he saw us.

“Frank, seriously, why do you have to stand on my lawn?” I asked in annoyance. He looked down at his feet. “Anyway, there are some people who are trying to spy on me. Can you keep an eye out for anyone hanging around here who shouldn’t be?”

“Sure, yeah. What do they look like?” he asked, walking toward the door.