Desh bent down to her ear to yell, “Sure ye have this, little luv?”
Remembering her last meeting with Nïx, Jo stifled the urge to rub her arms and nodded.
“Gotta warn ye, smells like they’ve got an army in there.”
Since Jo had been here earlier (who knew how long ago, with the weird time flow?) dozens of cars had been parked near the manor¸ as if a party was happening inside. The scents coming from Val Hall were different from before. The sounds too.
Desh glowered at the entrance. “Scurvy wenches didn’t invite me.”
“I’ve got it,” Jo yelled.
“I’ll be at Lafitte’s, in case they don’t accept yer white flag.”
“Thank you, Desh. Fair winds.”
He met her gaze. “Good luck.” Then he disappeared.
Jo marched toward the spine-chilling Ancient Scourge. What wouldn’t she do for Thad?
As she neared Val Hall, the new sounds and scents bombarded her. She couldn’t place so many threads: fur, smoke, a cool slice of ice. So many hisses, growls, and mutters.
Hadn’t she once recognized these creatures as fellow Loreans? Why couldn’t she remember? Out of habit, she gazed up at the stars, seeking an answer, but clouds hung low, concealing them. Just as a cloud stood between her and her memories!
Her entire life was a mass of frustration. Her inability to remember her early childhood basically meant she didn’t have one. Same with her parents. Her inability to retrieve her brother tore at her.
My ex, my former guy, is inside someone else right now. I love him, and he’s inside another woman.
Before coming here, Jo had flagged down Dalli and left a message for Rune. Because she was done with him.
Done.
So damned frustrating. She couldn’t fix Rune, or her memories—but she could reach Thad.
All she had to do was scream, I surrender. But that galled Jo.
As if in another lifetime, she’d watched girls retreat from Wally’s house with their fight stolen. She’d seen it happen to the women around her motel.
Rune expected Jo to surrender her dreams, to stop fighting for what she wanted? That made her more furious than the actual infidelity!
He expected Jo to just lie down? Like he did?
Like I once did. I surrendered Thad as a baby.
She needed to scream two little words. But Jo didn’t surrender; she Hulk-smashed. She squeezed until things broke.
She’d forgotten that over the last two weeks.
Just outside the wraiths’ reach, she turned intangible, then launched a fist into the tempest. When she drew back her arm, gashes covered it.
“We’re alike, then?” Jo was death and death rolled into one, a shapeshifter between the living and the dead; it made sense that the Scourge could harm her if she was in ghost form.
The whirling wraiths slowed. One swooped down, hovering inches from Jo’s face. They met gazes; the wraith’s eyes were black pits. Yet then a flash of another image crossed the creature’s face. She saw a beautiful woman for an instant, as fleeting as the lighthouse’s beam. “Let me in,” Jo murmured. “Or suffer.”
The thing canted her head.
What are you seeing, wraith? Jo’s tears had dried into hard tracks on her face. Are you seeing Josephine Doe, a half-dead girl with absolutely nothing to lose?
A girl with a lot of unresolved anger and abandonment issues? Jo whispered to her, “If I can bleed . . . so can you.”
The thing was sucked into the tempest once more. Still in ghost form, Jo backed up, bringing power into her hands.
The wraiths screamed louder, sensing her growing threat.
I surrender?
Never. Fucking. Again.
The ground quaked from her building fury. What did she need Rune for? Jo would kick the ant mound, making the Valkyries—and anyone else—spill out. Once she’d dragged enough of them into their new graves, she would demand Thad’s freedom.
Jo popped a crick in her neck and smiled. No, Rune, some things are simple.
Dalli was waiting for Rune at the edge of the barroom, her expression grave.
Outside of Meliai’s perfumed room, he’d tried to catch Josephine’s scent. And failed. “Where the fuck is she?”
Whatever Dalli saw in his bearing made her nervous. “I tried to stop her, but she left.”
His lungs constricted. “She left me.”
Dalli frowned. “That’s what I just said.”
“No, Josephine left me. She ended this.” She’d warned him she would kick his ass to the curb.
“She gave me a message for you.”
He straightened. “Talk.”
“She wasn’t quite . . . alone.” Dalli fidgeted with the sash of her skirt. “She said she’d be thinking of you the entire time.”
Having these words thrown back in his face made him realize how ridiculous they sounded. How hurtful. Hateful.
“Who took her away from me?” He’d accused Josephine of having jealousy issues? Rune was about to rip this place to the ground.
This godsdamned world.
“What male?” Who was about to die?
“Fair’s fair, Rune. You were just with another.”
He bared his fangs at her. “What. Male?” With the different time flows, she could already be beneath another.
“A demon named Deshazior.”
Rune’s claws stabbed into his palms, spilling his poison. Would Josephine go with that demon to his home or to her motel?
“I heard them talk about Valkyries,” Dalli said.
Josephine couldn’t have gone to Val Hall on her own. He’d rather she be in a motel room with Desh.