Page 47 of Monsters of Mayhem

“You want to go to New York and talk to the DGC?” I asked. “Don’t you think we need an introduction or something like that?”

“Let’s go see if Magnus will take us,” Laney said. “It’ll give you something to do while Ryder’s gone fighting the baddies, and it’ll give me some time to spend with Magnus. We’ll see what kind of influence he has in New York.”

Without even waiting for me to make a response, Laney was out the door, I followed her quietly. “Let’s wake Magnus and ask him.”

Magnus didn’t need waking up. He was pacing around the living room.

“Are you okay, Sugar buns?” Laney asked, slapping his ass.

He looked a little surprised but took it all in good spirits and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“We want to go to New York,” Laney whispered to Magnus.

“She’s not allowed to leave,” Ratchet said, tossing his head toward me.

“You’re not the boss of me,” I said, suddenly feeling like a petulant teenager.

“I just want to speak to the DGC. I’ll be back before you know it. It’s a portal straight in and straight out,” Magnus added. “There’s hardly any danger in it and I’ll go as an escort.”

“Why should I let you go?” Ratchet asked.

“Have I not proven already that I’m not willing to be kept locked up in the tower?” I pointed out. “Ryder can come and go as he pleases and I understand I’m in greater danger than he is, but at the same time I need to have my own life too. I need to be given the opportunity to talk to the DGC directly.”

“What are you going to talk to them about?” Ratchet asked.

I glanced over at Laney, who nodded at me encouragingly.

“I want to get funding for a cancer research laboratory,” I announced.

Ratchet’s eyes widened and he folded his arms across his chest.

“What makes you think the DGC is going to think it’s a good idea?” he asked. “I mean, it’s an admirable one, but it’s not exactly in their wheelhouse.”

“Maybe it’s about time it was,” I suggested. “I’m a legitimate member of the supernatural world and I’m sure cancer doesn’t just strike humans.”

Ratchet nodded. “Yes, we have a type of cancer that affects the supernatural world. It’s a little different than yours, but it’s the same idea. The body’s cells mutate inside the body and destroy it from the inside. That’s how my brother died.”

“So, you’ll give us the portal to the DGC.”

“You have thirty minutes to find out if Vina will even speak to you,” Ratchet said. “If you can’t get it done in thirty minutes, I’m bringing you back, no questions asked. That’s the only deal I’ll make with you about this,” he said.

“I’ll take deal,” I said. “Open the portal.”

Chapter 29

I stood outside the house in Bodega Bay. It’s low-rise style blended into the landscape around it. This single-story ranch house was unusual as my mother had planted soil and plants all along the top of the building. It bloomed in the summer, but now the grass was yellow and broken, bending over from the fall heat. Even though Bodega Bay was coastal, it didn’t stay green year-round like most of California; it was golden.

Now, as I stood there staring at the building where my mother had lived for the last sixty years with my brother in attendance, I thought of all the places where she’d placed her domicile since we were born. It had always been by the ocean; there was something about the water that soothed her soul and made her a little less moody.

It was never quite enough.

She had a period in the south of France and had sworn at the time the Mediterranean was her permanent home. However, when the wars between the fae and the demigods happened, we had been relegated to New Attica. My mother could’ve chosen the fae for she wasn’t a demigod or a witch.

Her children, though, my brother and I, were demigods.

I think Magnus would’ve chosen the fae or just chosen to live where he wanted, but I was absolutely tied to the DGC. So it was really because of me they had chosen to live in New Attica. My mother had pressed for Southern California but at the end of the day it proved too crowded for her and she had ended up moving north to the small town of Bodega Bay.

I had hoped she would find happiness here and that she would find some sort of fulfillment, but she had not. In fact, she had descended a little more into the morose darkness where she tended to reside. I had thought maybe it was a lack of sun, but any trip she made to a place of sunnier climes had always ended in her return to Bodega Bay where she wrapped the cloak of fog around her as if it would protect her from her internal pain.

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