Page 124 of Half Dead

The sight of her reminded me of the Aite who turned up in my dream about Tartarus. Dream Aite had claimed she wasn’t “dead dead.” I couldn’t decide whether that was wishful thinking on the part of my subconscious or an attempt to ease my guilt over her death. She was right, though. Aite was a goddess who hadn’t been obliterated, which meant she could eventually gather the strength to return. Someday.

“Miss Clay, we meet again.”

My stomach lurched at the sound of Vincenzo Magnarella’s voice. If snake oil were a sound, it would be his.

“Why you?” I asked. The vampire mobster wasn’t someone I cared about.

“You are the reason I am no longer fit to walk the earth.”

“No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.” I attempted to brush past him, but he grabbed my elbow and pulled me toward him.

“Lorelei!” Aite shouted. The ice seemed to tremble from the intensity of her voice.

I yanked my elbow away. “You would’ve killed me if you could have,” I said.

“But I never pretended to be anything other than what I was. It is you who resists your true nature. A goddess of the underworld who spurns death for others?” He laughed. “You’re a fool, Miss Clay. You should embrace the darkness within you instead of letting it drag you into despair.”

I couldn’t possibly feel guilty over the vampire’s death, could I? He was a hardened criminal, and not the cute and cuddly kind like Gun and Cam. He’d brought his death upon himself.

“Lorelei, help!” Aite’s voice echoed across the tundra.

“As you can hear, I’m needed elsewhere.” I pointed at the goddess. “Take a good look. That’s the face of someone who deserves to be saved.”

“You are, once again, too late for her.” He moved so quickly that I didn’t have time to react. Pulling my hair, he wrenched back my head; his fangs were poised a hair’s breadth from the curve of my neck.

“You’re not my type,” I ground out. I jammed my elbow into his Adam’s apple and slipped out of his grasp. “If I’m going for a bad boy, it’s a reformed demon prince of hell or no one at all.”

I left the vampire clutching his neck. I could still hear him choking as I skated across the lake.

“Where do you think you’re going, my dear?” a voice rasped.

I glanced up in surprise. The blood in my veins now matched the temperature of the outside air. The stout figure of Penelope Bridger blocked my path. I hadn’t seen the matriarch of the local coven since she was killed by a monster she’d summoned.

“Your fault,” she hissed. “Not the culebrón’s.”

Why was I shocked she could read my thoughts? She was, after all, a projection of my own subconscious, a physical manifestation of my guilt and regret.

“You were going to kill Ashley Pratt for money,” I said. “Am I supposed to feel guilty that you were killed by your own greed?”

Of course, I did feel guilty, which was the reason Mama Bridger stood in my path now. I craned my neck to look past her. “Where are the other witches?” She wasn’t the only one killed that night. Margaret, Brenda, Sierra, and Kelsey had also been victims of greed. Phaedra lost her entire family in a single night.

“Phaedra only helps you because she’s terrified of you,” Penelope sneered. “If you weren’t a goddess, she would’ve run away from you and never looked back.”

Was that my belief? That Phaedra’s offer of friendship was born from fear rather than genuine affection?

“Phaedra knows she has nothing to fear from me. I would never hurt her.”

“The way you would never hurt the ghosts you rule with an iron fist?”

I scoffed. “I don’t hurt them. I gave them free will!”

“You can let them go. Why not free Ray to follow his family to San Francisco?” Penelope spat on the ice. The spittle froze immediately. “Because you’re selfish, that’s why.”

Her words stung, spreading heat through my chest. “Ray knows what the disadvantages would be. I have no agenda of my own,” I insisted, immediately followed by a flicker of doubt. Was that true?

“Like hell,” Penelope said.

Yes, this was.

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