Page 65 of Grave Curse

“Shh, baby girl.” His arms came around me as if he understood how cold I suddenly was, and put his lips to my ear. “It said,Nice try, fuckers. I told them everything.”

Chapter Seventeen

Post-Massacre Party Prep

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this.” Pushing a cart down the wide aisles of Costco, Misty absently grabbed up a couple towers of Halloween-themed disposable plates. “Generally speaking, I hate violence of any kind, but all I can think about is how glad I am that it was the Chicago Gravediggers that got hit by some rando gunman, and not us.”

It wasn’t a rando who’d pulled the trigger, or a man, but I kept that to myself as I strolled beside her, my own cart piled high with birthday-slash-Halloween party stuff. I looked past Misty to Mabel, who strolled behind Ashtray’s wheelchair. “You two usually know what’s going on even before Tyr does. Any news on casualties? Was there anyone we knew who died?”

“Honey, what I’m hearing from my connections with the mamas still in that club, it’s more like whodidn’twe know,” Mabel muttered in her smoky voice, pitching it just above a whisper as we passed an older couple bickering about how much they actually needed a 5000-count package of paper napkins. “From what I’ve heard, I think there were only two we didn’t know—a couple of prospects guarding the gate at the back. Unlike everyone else, those two boys had their throats slashed.”

“Ninja-style,” Ashtray put in just as quietly, before drawing a finger across a neck that his heavy beard hid. “Some sort of professional hitman snuck into Hades’s compound and did what hitmen do best. You didn’t hear that from me, though. That’s club business.”

“A professional hitman? That’s wild.” And completely inaccurate, but I was fine with going along with it. “Who else got hit?”

“Radar.” Mabel steered around a paper towel stack that reminded me strongly of a giant Jenga game. The need to pull one package out near the bottom was almost irresistible. “From what I hear, that asshole got the worst of it. Ten rounds pumped into his chest and face, and after he was dead the killer took the time to undo his pants so he could cut Radar’s junk off.”

“Oh, God.” Misty looked horrified as she turned into the Seasonal Foods aisle, where purple and orange lights twinkled above super-sized bags of candy. “That sounds personal.”

Everything about this was personal, but again I kept that to myself. “Who else? Pirahna?”

“Sad to say, nope. That weird fuckstick is still out there somewhere.” Ashtray twisted around to wink at me. “By the way, at our last church meeting I told Tyr and the other officers about your little Piranha story.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Just like that, Tyr put out a bounty on that dick, promising to pay a thousand bucks for each one of Pirahna’s pointy teeth.”

Misty whistled.

“Exactly.” Ashtray nodded gravely, as if Misty had said something profound. “But there’s a catch. It has to be proof-positive that they’re his actual teeth or Tyr won’t pay. Everyone agreed that the best way to do that is to bring Tyr Pirahna’s entire head. Zee and Ana-Sofia are expecting their first kid any day now, so Zee’s bound and determined to get Pirahna himself. College tuition, he’s calling it.”

“Wow.” I put a hand to my heart and tried to not look like I was melting. Romantic gestures, Gravedigger-style. “If that’s the case, I’m not going to give Pirahna another thought.”

“Who else died?” Misty wanted to know, looking from Ashtray to Mabel. “Lasso wouldn’t say, and the local TV guys just keep babbling out the stats—nine dead including the shooter,fourteen wounded, three critically, one in grave condition. No one knows who the shooter was or how he died. I mean, we knew these people at one point in our lives, so shouldn’t we send flowers? Who would we even send them to?”

“As much as I love you for that thought, I wouldn’t send flowers right now, Misty,” I warned my friend as gently as I could. “I know your heart’s in the right place and you’re hurting for the people who lost loved ones. But sending flowers would probably be seen as mockery, and we don’t want to pour salt into their wounds. They’re hurting enough.”

“Besides, a lot of the assholes who died don’t even have loved ones,” Ash added, shrugging. “Remember that grizzled old cunt who constantly chewed tobacco and spat that ass-juice wherever he wanted? Cheese?”

“I remember Cheese,” I said, feeling my lips curl back in anickface that couldn’t be helped. “He was Hades’s shadow, always trying to pull off the indispensable wise-advisor role, but in reality he was nothing more than an irritating gasbag. Loved watching shit go down, especially my petty little tortures. I think he got off on it.”

“Probably did,” Misty muttered, her own expression twisting into her version of theickface. “So, Cheese is dead?”

“Deader than a doornail. Gone. Past tense.” Then Ash frowned. “What’s the past tense of the word cheese?”

“Cheese,” Misty assured him.

“Hold on a second,” I gasped as a thought hit me. “Cheese was always with Hades, so does that mean… Oh my God, is Hades dead, too?”Please, please, please, please…

Ashtray snorted. “Woman, d’you think I’d tell you about that dumbass Cheese buying it, but not Hades? Tyr’s got spotters all over the place, from Indianapolis to Milwaukee and just about every street corner in this city. So far, no one’s mentioned Hades getting a fuckin’ booboo, much less toe-tagged.”

Damn it.

“Only the good die young,” Misty muttered, looking as vexed as I felt as she dropped a five-pound bag of chocolate bars into her cart. “I’ll bet he hid behind Cheese to save his own ass.”

“In the end, the Cheese really did stand alone,” Mabel intoned. Startled, I looked over at her before I burst out laughing, and the somber mood eased as the others joined in. We made it all the way to the freezer section before our hilarity finally petered out, and while I checked the mile-long party list, Misty parked next to Ashtray’s chair.

“I really wish that crazy gunman had unleashed all their fury on Hades instead of Radar,” she muttered while I went for bags of meatballs the size of throw pillows. “Talk about a waste of energy. This war would be over if the shooter had just focused on the head of the Chicago Gravediggers and taken that bastard out.”

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