Page 72 of Seph

But it feels like warmth, coming from the inside out. Like with Simeon—his is a different kind of heat, but he doesn’t need to be human to make me feel it.

“I will go with you, Emily. Would that help?” Mr. Minegold whispered sincerely.

“No. No, you stay here and protect people for me,” she stepped back, squeezing his hands.

“Just call me if you need me. I will be there. Simeon will look after you. You should always hunt in a pack, yes?” He stroked her hair once, still with that same brave, encouraging smile that radiated...

What is that?

Pride? Love? Confidence?

All of it.

And he’ll be there for me if I need him.

Oh, God... This vampire that I’ve known for less than a year is a better dad than my father ever was. My own father never told me he was proud of me. Or that he’d come to rescue me. He did sometimes, but it was always with an air of supreme disappointment and anger that I’d failed.

Well, I’m not going to fail these people.

More of a family than I ever had, to hell with the “Van Helsing family code” and “family mission” and “family honor.”

“Zagreus incoming!” Simeon said loudly, too loudly, coming up behind her. “Steady on, Van Helsing.” He gave her a bracing pat on the arm, but when she left Minegold’s side, she sank easily into his.

“You all right? What’d he say?” Simeon looked at her with concern.

“In five minutes, he said all the things I wished my father had ever told me. Just once.”

“He’s like that.” Simeon sighed. “Kinda like the father I wish I’d had.”

She arched her eyebrows, a tiny chuckle escaping her. “We can bond over Daddy Issues, even a couple centuries apart?”

“Sounds like. Ooh, that’ll be him.”

Madge’s fiancé, Reynaldo, suddenly let out a yelp and a whole torrent of Spanish, hopping away from a glowing portal in the middle of the room. Flames and sulfur surrounded the dark-haired young god as he stepped out.

“Should have warned us you were coming straight from work,” Simeon said, coughing as a wave of smoke filled the room.

“Straight from Tartarus, I’m afraid—getting some inside info and then bribing people not to say anything about it.” Zagreus brushed off his hands.

They were red, with golden streaks.

Emily blanched. That rusty red—she knew that shade intimately. Blood. Blood that soaks into your skin and leaves it rusty red no matter how many times you scrub, waiting until a layer of skin replaces it. And the gold?

Wasn’t the blood of the gods called ichor... and didn’t some myths say it was golden?

“How long since I called in your time?” Simeon asked softly as Hades’ son pulled off a soot-blackened steel helmet.

“Huh? Oh, a few hours to me, a few seconds to you, right?” Zag wiped his hands on his tunic, catching Emily’s eye. “It’s for my mother,” he said simply. “Nothing can stop me from helping you find her—not when we’re this close.”

“Peachy, mate. Pull up a chair.” Simeon gestured to the crowded table, where things were starting to look less cluttered and more systematic.

“Okay, but I can’t stay long.” He pulled out a heavy gold jar from under the short cape he wore that hung from his shoulders, pinned by epaulets of bones and silver. “Water, from Lethe. That’s the first gift.”

“What’s the second?” Emily asked.

“Information.” Zag smiled.

Simeon looked at his notes. His days as a secretary had come in handy, he thought with a rueful smirk.

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