But instead of subduing her, the impact turned her into a rabid polecat. For a few adrenaline-soaked moments the world was a sea of scratching nails, vicious hair pulling, and the palpable heat of rage. Somewhere in the tussle I lost my grip on the corkscrew. By the time I realized this, Shayla had managed to get a grip on her gun and raise it.
I froze instantly.
She let out a calming breath and smiled. “Stand up.”
With my hands raised, I stood as slowly as possible. She moved to put a little distance between us. Behind me, the men had gone silent, but I didn’t have time to worry about who’d won when my own skirmish was far from over.
“Do not fucking move”—Shayla’s voice rose with panic—“or I’ll shoot you.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “You may be a whore, but you’re no killer.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I’ve known a lot of killers, Shayla.” I jerked my chin toward her partner. “That asshole is one. Uncle Abe, too. And Aphrodite for damned sure. But you?” I shot her a pitying frown. “You don’t have the hardness in your eyes or the steel in your gut.”
I braced myself. My hands clasping into fists. Trying to focus through the pain and the disorienting surge of magic’s energy through my cells.
“Actually, I lied,” I went on, bending my knees slightly. “According to my mom, you weren’t so hot at whoring, either. It’s sad, really.”
Time slowed to a crawl. The warped echo of a screech. That red fingernail pulling on the trigger. A flash of fire from the muzzle. My leg muscles screaming. Commotion behind me. Each frame of motion flashing like a slideshow. Shayla’s body flying backward. The gun flying loose. Hands, feet scrambling. Fingers yearning for and finding hot metal.
Fast forward. My bleeding fists slammed the bitch’s body against the wall. A smile bloomed on my lips even as the gun pointed at her face made her smile dissolve.
Her lower lip and jaw trembled, like she was too cold. My forearm dug into her sternum, allowing me to feel the rapid pulse of her breath.
Over my shoulder I called, “How we doing, Morales?”
“Peachy keen.”
I didn’t look to confirm. He’d tell me if there was something to worry about. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at the confirmation he’d managed to subdue Dionysus, but part of me was pretty impressed.
“Maybe I should save you for Aphrodite to deal with,” I said to Shayla. Her lipstick had smeared like a wound across her face and her hair stood on end, as if the violence had shocked her system.
Her chin rose despite the fear glinting in her eyes. “I outsmarted the Hierophant once. I could do it again.”
“Tough talk from a dirty mouth.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t admit your other secret,” Shayla taunted, clearly changing tactics. “Why didn’t you reveal how you cooked the potion that killed your mama?”
My left eye twitched.
“Kate,” Morales said.
Shayla’s laugh was low in her chest. Her chin didn’t tremble anymore. Now it was my hands that shook.
“I bet you still cry about it,” she taunted. “But the saddest part is, it’s not even true.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You’ll have to ask your uncle about that.” She pursed her lips. “Knowing Abe, though, I bet he’d let you go on believing it was your fault.”
The dark place in my mind where the demons lived lit up like a volcano about to erupt. Their seductive voices urged me to remove that lying mouth from her face with a bullet. Hell, to even consider what she was saying as truth made me feel capable of leveling the city myself.
“Step away, Prospero.” Morales used his cop voice now. Somehow I’d gone from partner to perp. “She’s not worth you ending up in a cell next to your uncle.”
I didn’t know how Morales knew exactly what to say. But those words managed to break the spell of rage. Panting, I pulled back, lowering the gun.
I started to turn toward Morales. A blur from the corner of my eye. The flash of red nails. A scream of rage. Her weight landed on my back and I started to fall. Swiveling midair, I turned to face her. Hands grappling for the gun.
I don’t know whose hand pulled the trigger. I don’t know if she believed she could actually get the gun from me. But I did know her body went lax and that the breath on my face was her last.
The sound of two hands clapping cleared the foggy haze of shock. Turning my head, I saw Dionysus lounging on the low bench set into the bow, clapping as if he’d just watched dinner theater. Morales, stoic expression firmly in place, stood with a gun pointed at the asshole.
“It—it was an accident,” I said.
“Sometimes accidents are merely manifestations of wishes long denied,” the fake god concluded.
“Shut the fuck up.” Morales grabbed the false god by his arm and jerked him to a standing position. To me, my partner said, “What now?”
In death, the priestess was a lot heavier than she had been alive. It took a couple of shoves to roll her body off me, and when it hit the deck, it did so with a hollow thump. I pushed myself to standing as gracefully as possible, which wasn’t very. Once I was upright, I had to steady myself against the wall of the boat. My hand left a red smear on the gleaming white hull.
As I stood, I realized the pain from the potion had dissipated a great deal. I was smarting from all the wounds I’d earned in my catfight with Shayla, but the sickening tingle of magic in my veins was almost gone. Volos’s truth potion had been strong, but it hadn’t been long lasting. Guess I’d have to mention that little defect to John if we survived the night. Right after I punched him for making the fucking thing in the first place.
The promise of being able to have that conversation gave me enough perverse pleasure to ignore the exhaustion rolling in my gut like an ocean tide.
“Now,” I said, “we deal with the goddamned bomb.”
Dionysus snorted. “You’ll never figure out how to disarm it before the moon reaches its apex.”
I punched him in the throat. He doubled over, wheezing and choking. Morales smiled at me like I was a genius. “Then I guess we’ll just have to torture you until you share your own secrets.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dionysus’s secret bomb location turned out to be a wooden platform that was anchored to a mooring buoy about half a mile away from the boat. To reach it, we had to row over in a rubber raft that had been tied to the cabin cruiser where we’d been held.