Endless Knight (Darkling Mage 9)

He nodded at the far end of the parking lot. “Golden convertible just pulled up.”

Prudence craned her neck. “You mean the golden four-wheel drive, right?”

I groaned. “This again.”

The Greek god of the sun had a strange enchantment on the hideously gaudy car he liked to drive around, the modern manifestation of his beloved chariot, that same one that was supposed to draw the sun across the sky in all the ancient myths.

Gil growled as he followed the rest of us rubbernecking to look for Apollo and his magical chariot. “He’s going to take forever to get here. Look at him basking in all the attention.”

Basking was one way to put it, and pretty apt, if you ask me, considering how much the sun god was enjoying the disproportionate amount of attention passing women in the parking lot were giving him. He’d just stepped out of the driver’s seat, his white linens unbuttoned to show off his torso. Artemis emerged from the passenger side, her face dark with fury as she swatted at the air, pressing her way through the gaggle of girls gathered around her brother. Where had all those women even come from?

“Grab some extra chairs for the twins,” Prudence said.

“Already on it,” Asher said, dragging a couple of seats over, giving the gods places of honor at opposite ends of our table.

It took longer than expected – I had time to suck down half of a fresh daiquiri – but Apollo finally gave up on his brazen peacocking, plied with attention and possibly some limp napkins and receipts with hastily scrawled phone numbers on them.

“You should just carry around business cards to hand out to all your admirers,” I joked as he slipped into his seat. He was beaming so hard that it felt as if the sun had left the sky to join us for a drink.

“I do. Remember? I gave you one myself.” He winked in a way that had bits of me puddling on the floor. Beside me, Herald laughed softly, like he’d noticed. “But I don’t like having my number out there jus

t with any old person. You were special, Graves.” He winked again. This time I had to clutch onto my seat for support.

“Apollo,” Artemis barked. “You do this every damn time. Enough flirting and let’s get down to business.” She swept a lock of beautifully curled hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. A simple blink of her eyes, and the ferocity melted from her features. “Now. You said you had something for me, Dustin?”

I rummaged through my pockets, then stretched out across the table to hand her the scroll, the deed that Odin had extracted from Loki’s very blood itself. Something passed across Artemis’s face as her fingertips brushed against the parchment, electric, the ends of her hair almost quivering. If there was power in the deed, I couldn’t detect it. She certainly damn well could.

She unfurled the scroll in one swift motion, her eyes moving lightning quick as she read its contents. I wasn’t sure which bit of it she saw that did it, but her eyes welled up with tears. Asher – sweet Asher – forgot himself, reaching out to pat the goddess of the moon and the hunt on the back of the hand. That’s just who he was. Artemis sniffled, then smiled at him gratefully.

“Thank you,” she said to me, then again to the table. “You don’t know how much pressure this takes off of me, off of everyone.” She brushed under her eyes, her voice breaking as she laughed. “I can rest easy now, knowing I have somewhere to keep the animals. I mean, it’s small, but the All-Father gave me enough to start. Plus this means I don’t need to crash on Apollo’s proverbial couch anymore.”

Apollo sucked air in through his teeth, then tutted. “This is what I get for being generous,” he said to me, shaking his head.

Artemis rolled her eyes and leaned in towards Asher. “He takes his conquests home every night. It’s gross. I mean, he’s my brother, I have to hear that shit. And even if I don’t, I know it’s happening somewhere in his domicile.”

“Oh, I get it,” Asher said, nodding wisely. “My best friend is super horny, too. But at least he doesn’t take his vict – I mean, his partners home.”

If Mason was offended at playing second fiddle to Sterling as Asher’s bestest friend, he made no indication.

Artemis sucked in huge lungfuls of breath, then exhaled, her very being brightening as she did. “Seriously, Dustin. Thank you for this. Thank you. I mean, it was your fault I got evicted to begin with, but thank you anyway.”

Prudence laughed, as did Gil. So did the rest of the table, actually, with Herald rubbing my back good-naturedly. I shook my head and rolled my eyes in mock surrender. Entities, am I right?

“This calls for a celebration,” Apollo said, his face buried in a menu, one hand signaling for a server.

“A perfect day for it, too,” Mason said, looking out to the sea. “Beautiful waves, clean sand, gorgeous people. And a – well, I’ll be damned. Would you look at that geyser.”

That what? I followed his gaze to a waterspout that rose not far from the shore, a pillar of liquid swirling and building, much to the delight of Lucero Beach’s many, many normal civilian visitors.

“This isn’t right,” Herald muttered, his voice dark with warning. “Something’s here.”

“Or someone,” I said.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, partly from the anticipation of something terrible, but also from the telltale activation and preparation of spells, that eerie tingle and buzz that sometimes heralded the coming of powerful magic. I glanced around – everyone in our party was practically ready to rumble.

With a spurting rush, the waterspout dissipated, droplets of seawater scattering in a glittering pinwheel. But the water at the spout’s base was still spinning, like the funnel of a tornado – or the center of a whirlpool.

Oh. A whirlpool. Oh, damn it.