Page 81 of Dead Heat

She flicked the petal off a nearby flower. “Four.”

“You sent four other men to Helheim to retrieve Oskar and not one of them came back?” I asked.

“It seems they lacked the skills required.”

Alessandro paled. “Could I wait and be number seven? That seems like a luckier number.”

“It’s too late, I’m afraid. You’ve been marked. The countdown has begun, and I cannot mark another until… Well, I’m sure you can guess.”

“There are rules against this sort of thing, you know,” I told her. “You can’t go around marking innocent people with magical runes to force them to do your bidding or kill them when they refuse.”

She splayed her hands. “And yet I have.”

Alessandro raised his hand. “I have a question. What is Helheim?”

Erika gave a rueful shake of her head. “Weren’t you listening?”

“I got distracted.” He pointed to the butterfly fluttering near the flowers.

“Helheim is their land of the dead,” I explained.

“But not the good one,” Alessandro said.

“It isn’t that it’s a bad place. The prefix Hel comes fromtheir goddess of the underworld, not because it’s a place of punishment.”

“Valhalla is for champions and warriors,” Erika said. “Helheim is for those who died of illness or natural causes, which Oskar most certainly did not.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with dying of those things,” I added. “You can live a long, worthy life and die of natural causes.”

“A coward’s death,” she scoffed.

Alrighty then. “Speaking of cowards, let me get this straight. You’ve been using your daughters to have sex with strangers in order to sniff out the right someone to rescue your boy toy from the realm of the dead?”

“Well,Icertainly can’t have sex with them. My beloved would never forgive me. The entire rescue operation would be for naught.”

I gestured to Alessandro’s mark. “You’re obviously a talented witch. Why can’t you get him yourself? At least if you fail to return, you’d still be with Oskar.”

Erika’s hands clenched into fists. “I am only interested in speaking to the marked one,” she snapped.

“If you expect me to use my considerable charms, then you’re going to need to restore me to my original form. My confidence is shot.” Alessandro patted his balding head. “I can’t work under these conditions.”

Her gaze raked over him. “Yes, I can see that. Unfortunately, the only way to restore you to your original form is to achieve the task. Once triggered, the magic cannot be undone.”

“And what’s the alternative?” he asked.

“You will continue to deteriorate until you die.”

Alessandro threw up his hands in despair. “And somehow you think this is motivation?”

“I would’ve thought so, but I admit, the evidence is beginning to mount against me.”

Toothless, hairless, and with an expanding waistline I refused to acknowledge, Alessandro wouldn’t be able to charm anybody in his current condition, except women he catfished on dating apps.

I stepped forward. “I’ll go in his place.”

Erika observed me from head to toe. “I’ve barely registered your presence during this entire conversation. What makes you think you’re capable of retrieving my beloved Oskar?”

“Is charm the only weapon allowed?”

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