Page 53 of Grave Curse

In my head, I began mapping out possible routes. “What else?”

“According to the completely stable and not at all fucked-up Yoyo here, there are anywhere from thirty to forty brothers living within the Chicago Gravedigger compound itself, including Hades. In fact, he hasn’t left there since we saw him at Arthur’s funeral months ago.”

Ha. Uncle H would die a coward. “Personal security for Hades?”

Ajax tilted his head toward Yoyo. “Little Miss Slit-Your-Throat claims Hades is never alone. Always has Cheese, his advisor, and at least one bodyguard with him wherever he goes. They even check out bathrooms with guns drawn before he goes in to take a dump. And get this—he’s got himself a food tester now. Thinks we’re a bunch of bitches who’d stoop to poisoning him. Personally I find that insulting.”

“Look at it this way, my brother. If we know he’s thinking about shit like that, it means he’s thought about pulling shit like that. Nothing is useless information here.” I glanced back at Yoyo when she cackled again. “What? You think that’s funny?”

“No, I think it’s smart.” Her humor vanished like someone flipped a switch, and she peered at me with narrowed, angry eyes. “How the hell did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“How did you make him think you were stupid? And weak? Big Man Hades is just so… so wrong about you. About your club. Abouteverything.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, Yoyo. Uncle H is famous for being wrong. That’s why so many of us left him back in the day. We were sick of dying useless deaths because of how wrong he always was.”

She looked at the bottle in her hands and slowly began to throttle it. “I wish I had known that… before.”

“Before you were sent to kill me?” When she merely shrugged a shoulder, I looked at her. Really looked at her, and slowly my humor fled while my blood iced over. “Damn, Yoyo, look at you killing that bottle. Even if it meant you would never make it out of here alive, you’d still try to slit my throat, wouldn’t you?”

“Or someone’s. Hades’s, maybe, for being so stupid and wrong. Honestly, I’m not choosy.”

No, but she was a rabid animal that needed to be put down. And goddamn it, Hades knew it.Thatwas why he sent her, I realized as the light finally went on. Throwing Yoyo our way wasn’t a weak move, and it sure as fuck wasn’t proof that my uncle had finally learned to appreciate the strength of women.

No.

Yoyo had become too dangerous to keep within the Chicago Gravedigger family. Hell, Hades may have even feared for his own life with this killing-obsessed psycho sitting right next tohim, but since he couldn’t show fear of a bitch and survive in our world, he’d sent her our way. Either she would complete her mission or we would kill her—a win-win, as far as he was concerned. More to the point, he’d be able to get rid of this embodiment of chaos without antagonizing Radar. No doubt he had plans of using Yoyo’s death as a rallying cry for his men—all of whom had fucked this psychotic little cumbucket—to burn us to the ground.

They would have tried, of course. And failed.

They’d still fail, especially now since I had figured things out.

Sorry, Uncle H. I’m not taking out your trash. That’s your job.

Better yet, I had an idea on how to make him do it.

“Do me a favor, brother,” I said to Ajax. “Contact that tattooist I evicted across the street—Draco something. Misty can help you find the contact info. Tell this guy that I’ll foot the bill for wherever he wants to set up in this city if he comes in with his tattooing equipment and does a very specific tattoo, single color, no questions asked.”

“You don’t want Loki?”

“No, he’s out of the life. I want Draco.”

“Understood.” Ajax nodded and vanished out the door.

“Now, then.” I took my phone out and hit the photo app. There was no signal down here, but I didn’t need a signal for this. “I only have one more question for you, and then we’re going to get you cleaned up and into some nice new clothes.”

She stared at me. “Is this a trick?”

“Nope.” I found the picture I wanted, hunkered down in front of her once more, and showed it to her. “Who’s this?”

She looked at the phone seemingly against her will. Then her jaw dropped, so comically it couldn’t have been faked, before she burst into her patented staccato hysterical laughter. I let her go for about half a minute before standing to loom over her. Herlaughter cut off as if it had never been, and she stared up at me through her hair, quaking.

“Answer me, Yoyo. Who is this?”

“Marvel’s replacement.”

I frowned. “What?”

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