Page 73 of The Reluctant Reaper
“Okay. Good plan.”
“Yes, I thought so.” Necessary plan, more like. She was reminded of being stuck with a long crochet project, like an afghan. Fun to start, but the middle was a drag and took forever, though it was only a few days. Then you blinked and realized you’d made a huge blanket from a pile of wool.
Not her best analogy. But things had seemed impossibly mysterious when she and Gray got off the train a few days ago. Subsequent events only added to the conundrum. And then she came to realize the problem wasn’t the puzzle she was trying to solve, nor even the design. It was that someone put the puzzle pieces in the wrong spot.
Or maybe she was just clinically paranoid. Either way, the conclave had to happen.
“And I know you’re going to explain why I think it’s a good plan. You’re great at that.”
“I could,” she replied, summoning a grim smile. “Or you could just wait and be surprised.”
ChapterThirty-Seven
Holy shit, holy shit, holeeeeee shit!
Graham Gray tried to calm the hell down for the dozenth time in three days. And for the dozenth time in three days, he failed.
He should have been terrified. Or at least worried. Apprehensive? But nope; seeing Amara in action robbed him of all fear. Hell, he couldn’t even be nervous. Okay, he could, but it was nothing to do with death-god shenanigans, and everything to do with how he finally knew how Amara Morrigan tasted: warm and sweet, with a sharp, almost metallic undertone. Vanilla beans wrapped in tinfoil, except the tinfoil wasn’t as prickly as it looked.
Maaaaaybe don’t be hanging out in Death’s bedroom thinking about how his daughter tastes?
Good advice. He tried to give them all a quick once-over without giving away the fact that he was giving them a quick once-over. Luckily, once they got over the shock of Amara showing up with a guest, they’d politely ignored him most of the time. Given that the enduring goal of his childhood was to be politely ignored, he was fine with it.
So! All the suspects in one room, probably.Let’s start with Hades and Persephone, draped all over each other.Not a chance in hell (argh, unintended pun!) those two were plotting anything beyond who gets the next orgasm.
La Croix? He looked cool as a cuke, which was apparently his thing, and that tracked right now: If he was up to shady shit, why come to Minnesota to fetch Amara? He wasn’t sent; he as much as told them over dinner that night in Minneappolis that he felt it was his duty, not an order. He could have steered clear of the drama, but didn’t. Plus, hereallyliked Amara’s mom. Hard to see him going all in on destroying her husband. Gray still remembered her wild despair when she found Death comatose. Hard to picture La Croix being fine with it.
Arawn? Anyone with adorable hellhoundlets probably wasn’t plotting to do away with Death. All right, he knew that didn’t necessarily follow.It’s possible the houndlets are clouding my objectivity.Still, hard to see Arawn caring enough to try and murder Death. He looked intimidating as shit, but seemed super-detached pretty much all the time. Gray wasn’t sure Arawn cared about anything, never mind glomming new territory.
Skye? Amara’s beloved teacher looked mildly interested in the goings-on, like it was a tennis match you’d bet money on, but not real money. Plus, she was probably the closest thing Amara had to a friend besides himself. Why would she hurt her?
Chernobog? Who the fuck knew?
“Is this the best place to do this?” Penny asked, slipping an arm around Hank’s waist. So weird to know you could blame winter on them. Okay, that wasn’t entirely fair; it wasn’t Persephone’s fault her mom overreacted. Punishing two-thirds of the planet with months of blizzards?Not cool, Demeter!
He turned his attention to the bed. Blizzards aside, Death looked worse each day—you could chart the deterioration—and no one knew the fuck why, except Gray was pretty sure Amaradidknow, and all the suspects were gathered because she had a bit of a Sherlock streak, for which he blamed Benedict Cumberbatch.
“Penny has a point. Wouldn’t the dining hall be more appropriate?” Hank asked, and Gray couldn’t get over the man’s resemblance to Steve Martin. It wasn’t just the short white hair. It was the man’s resting tense face, and how his rare smiles were always strained, like he was amused but also constipated. “Roomier, at the least.”
“Too many temptations for Gray to feed my hounds,” Arawn said with a snigger. And he was right, dammit. The hellhoundlets were locked up somewhere, which sucked because if ever a sickroom needed hellhoundlets, it was this one. Boo! They were born to be free, dammit! Free and cute!
“We’re doing it here,” Amara replied. “The scene of the crime, so to speak. The corpus delicti. Plus, my mother doesn’t need the distraction of tending to our culinary demands.”
“Why?” Hilly asked at once, already rising from her chair. “Are you hungry?”
“Only for the truth,” Gray said. He tried for sincere, but it came off like a TV prosecutor mugging for a jury. Not that he would have minded if Hilly had produced another smoked turkey. The woman was a friggin’ kitchen sorceress. Possibly literally. But Amara was right. Everyone had to stay put.
Almost everyone. He was perfectly aware he was a glorified bystander. “If you’re hungry, Hilly, I’d be glad to bring you something.”
Amara’s mom waved his offer away. “Absolutely not, you’re a guest here.”
So weird that Hilly had set the standard for pale Midwestern homemakers everywhere, centuries earlier and almost by accident. Martha Stewart would give every one of her teeth to apprentice here for a week. Well. Supervise Hilly for a week, maybe. That could be fun to watch, in a death-match kind of way.
Gray made a concerted effort to focus on what was happening right now as opposed to imagining cage matches. If the worst part of the weekend was seeing Death get sicker while helping Amara kill people, the best was solving Amara mysteries, which were his favorite mysteries.
He’d wondered for years about her suburban studio apartment and crap car, just like he’d wondered about her taste in food. Amara favored bitching about McDonald’s while sucking down a Filet-O-Fish with a McNugget chaser. If she cooked, it was ramen noodles and Campbell’s tomato soup. Credit where it was due, she could make a mean grilled cheese and a perfect omelet... and that was about it. No interest in cooking, or even grocery shopping. Takeout, but never from anywhere good.
In other words, Amara’s entire living situation was a collection of knee-jerk reactions to her growing up as Death’s heir, in a luxurious compound where she slept in a tower bedroom, drove a Ford Mustang, and ate homemadeeverything, and plenty of it.
