False Gods (Sins of the Father 2)

Florian beamed. “Always a pleasure.” He trundled towards the river to wash up. I leaned back onto the cot and sighed, closing my eyes against the sun.

The sweat on my forehead was drying off, my body temperature lowering, and despite the initial absolutely horrific bout of pain, I could feel Florian’s plant magic working on my cut already. I didn’t even need to check to know that my flesh was probably stitching itself back together. Florian was just that good at his work.

Artemis rolled her eyes, her lips stained orange from the Snacky Yum-Yums. “That was it? Ugh. Boring.” She turned on her heel and wandered off, Priscilla following closely behind her.

“Thanks for the help,” I called out, half sarcastic. So maybe she spent several minutes just gawking at my injuries. Like I said, she did help with plucking out the broken shards of armor from my chest. I shuddered to think of how much shrapnel got into my torso. At least we had Gambanteinn. One legendary Norse weapon down, two to go.

Still, the thought of it unsettled me, knowing how often I was getting blasted in the chest. First it was that slash that a demon cut into me, back in a nighttime fight at the Nicola Arboretum. And then this? You may scoff, but I didn’t like this pattern. My father, Samyaza, that fallen angel I never met? It was how he died, by spearing himself through the chest with an enchanted sword, and he did that to bring Dustin Graves back from the brink of death.

Samyaza’s death gave fruit to two new lives: Dustin’s second chance, as I said, and my own rebirth from regular dumb idiot kid into a regular dumb idiot nephilim spawn-baby. I followed the scent of my father’s blood to Valero and found it on Dustin, which was how that running joke of him kind of being my father started going around the Boneyard. But Dustin’s entire reason for entering the arcane underground was being stabbed in the chest with an enchanted dagger, and he disappeared from reality the night he was pierced in the torso by not one, but five magical swords.

What the hell did it all mean? It was creeping me the fuck out. I didn’t want to go out like that. I pushed my forearm over my eyes, hoping that the temporary darkness would blot out all thought of the creepy pattern, stave away some of the heebie-jeebies. Nope, didn’t work.

The cold, wet hand that landed on my bare shoulder didn’t help, either.

I yelped, jerked to sit upright, then fell painfully back down onto the cot again, the strain too much on my wound. My eyes flew open and I gripped the side of the cot in pain, only to find Florian standing above me, staring apologetically into my face.

“It’s just me,” he said, raising the same wet hand, because apparently he couldn’t be bothered to dry it off after rinsing in the river. “Just me, buddy, here with a quick reminder.”

“You just shocked me, is all,” I murmured, trying not to be so damn harsh with the guy who would always do everything in his power to ease another’s pain. “What’s up?”

He sighed. “I know you don’t like the idea of it, but we really need to go see Beatrice about the handbag we ruined.”

I pushed my hands over my eyes again, this time genuinely praying it would blot out the world. Nope. No such luck.

“Everything is the worst,” I grumbled.

“Well, not necessarily.”

That voice. I forced myself into a seated position for real this time, wincing through tears of pain. See, this just proved my theory. Even being hidden inside a goddess’s domicile wouldn’t keep me from the prying eyes of the supernatural. Not for long.

I blinked, clearing my vision, rubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands, because I wanted to be sure. There he stood, clear as daylight, golden as the sun pouring from far above.

“Hello, Mason,” said Raziel, the angel of mysteries.

18

“Well, well,” I said. “Look who it is. It’s Mr. Shows Up When it’s Convenient.”

Raziel frowned. “Hey. How about a little gratitude, huh? More like Mr. Throws Himself on You to Protect You from a Bomb Thingy Person.”

He had me there. “Oh, fine. You’re right. Sorry.”

“Sorry’s right. You’re being a bit of a brat, Mason.”

Florian shrugged. “He’s just upset that you didn’t warn him about flying sickness. Honestly, who knew it was even a thing?”

“Oh, that?” Raziel scoffed. “That’s nothing. You’ll toughen up with practice. It’ll get better over time.”

I shook my head. “Not sure I’ll ever want to do that again. And seriously, being reminded about how nauseous all that flying made me isn’t helping when my chest is ripped open like this.”

“Hmm?” Raziel stretched his hand out, a pair of delicate golden tweezers appearing in his palm, which he used to carefully lift the poultice away from my skin. I hissed, but kept my fists balled and sat still, like a big boy. “Oh, you weren’t joking. That definitely looks quite nasty.”

Florian tutted. “You should have seen it before we cleaned it out. There were pieces of broken breastplate in it and everything.”

“Really?” Raziel shook his head. “The armor was broken? That doesn’t bode well.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” I said.