Page 148 of Blood of Hercules
I pursed my lips and shook my head no.
Kharon took a step closer.
Achilles pointed at me angrily at the same time Patro said, “She’s lying.”
I glared at my mentors.
Click. Kharon flicked off the safety on one of his guns. “WSDL” flashed on the barrel as he clipped in a cartridge. Then he rolled up his cuff sleeves.
BOOM.
Smoke billowed in the hall, the faint scents of salt and rain lingering like the aftermath of a summer’s storm.
He’d leaped away.
Patro sighed. “We might as well watch the show.” He gestured to my deck, and the three of us walked over and squinted at the greenery behind the house.
Long minutes passed, and nothing happened.
“Maybe he couldn’t find them?” I said hopefully.
Patro shook his head like I was an idiot. “Oh, he’s gonna find them all right. It’s Kharon. He’s known astheHunter for a reason.”
“What makes Karen so special?” I muttered petulantly.
Patro arched his eyebrow. “I wouldn’t call him that name to his face. He’ll snap, and it won’t be pretty.”
Too late. Also, newsflash, it already isn’t.
“Why WSDL for your company?” I changed the subjectand pointed between my two mentors. “Why chooseWandSas your monikers?”
Patro tilted his head in confusion. “We didn’t.” He held up his tattooed knuckles, then pointed at Achilles’s fading tattoo. “Death and lies—DL—those are the two letters that represent us.”
The grates of the muzzle shifted as Achilles made an expression and something told me it wasn’t a smile of love and happiness. Crimson eyes shone with pride, like he wasproudof being called death.
I shuffled discreetly away from Achilles.
He shifted closer.
Swallowing a nervous scream (hysteria was a lifestyle), I asked, “So what doWandSstand for?”
Is it War and Sex still, or something else? Stifling and Weird?
Patro never answered because gunshots echoed loudly.
Splash.
The two cameramen slammed into the sea a few yards away, like they’d been thrown. They sputtered and struggled to stand up in the shallow water.
Kharon stalked in after them.
“Who else,” he bellowed, “knows about this location?” He pointed the gun down at their heads with one hand. With his other, he pulled out the wicked dagger from his holster.
The Spartan chasers babbled and cried as they pleaded for their lives, splashing about frantically.
Kharon drove the knife into one of the men’s legs—an ear-piercing scream echoed—then leaned over and said something, too low for us to hear.
The screams got louder.
