Page 63 of A Single Thread Of Hope

I hugged her back. “I will.” Pulling back, I gently pushed her back down the road. “Go back to Tech Duinn and ride your very own Death God right to Nirvana. When I see you again in thousands of years, you better be Queen of Tech Duinn and be leading that giant hunk around on a leash!”

Fea looked aghast at the idea. “I, uh, will take that under advisement.”

“You’ve been the very best soul guide! I’ll give you an excellent review on Yelp!”

She just looked at me like I was an alien, but waved as she walked away. Turning back to Cy, I sucked in a deep, fortifying breath. I gripped his hand tightly, and we stepped up to the door. I didn’t know what was past this point, but it was the first step to getting me back to my life.

“Ready?”

“I’m with you always,” Cy murmured.

Pushing open the door, we came face-to-face with a decapitated head.

Chapter 34

WREN

The decapitated head turned to look at us.

Let that sink in. The bodiless head turned to look at me, glaring like I was the out-of-place thing in the room.

“Who are you?” he grumbled, and I dragged my eyes from the talking head to look around the rest of the room. There were lots of people here—or more specifically, Mythics. I also realized it was a damn bar. It was loud as everyone spoke at once, questions being lobbed at me from all sides.

Now I remembered where I’d heard of the Tar Pits before. From the Valkyries.

“I was talking to you, mortal. Who are you?” the head grumped again.

I slow-blinked, trying to get my brain to come back online. “Uh, hi. I’m Wren Mahone. I was hoping that you could help me arrange the Weighing.”

Silence.

This silence was so loud, it could have been a vacuum, sucking out all the air in the room.

“You better come up to the bar, girl, and start at the beginning. A Weighing isn’t something you call haphazardly. Noone wants to piss off one God of Death, let alone several. It’s not worth my head if they decide you’re full of shite.” He laughed at his own joke.

Stepping softly, I tried not to shrink under the weight of the room’s collective gaze. I sat at a barstool at the heavily shined bar, suddenly realizing that the head was in some kind of bubble of magic. It didn’t float around like Glinda the Good Witch in Oz on Halloween, but it definitely let it be far more mobile than a head should be.

I contained my shudder, but barely. The meaty bits of its neck were still showing.

“Unfortunately, you’ll be needin’ to pour your own drinks. No arms.”

Normally, I’d be skeptical about accepting drinks from strangers, but if I was going to have a conversation with a head, I was going to need a shot of whiskey. Reaching behind the bar for the bottle and three glasses, I poured us all a couple of fingers of the amber liquor.

I passed one to Cy, then held the other one awkwardly out to the head. “Uh, do I…?”

“Pssh, girlie. I’ve never needed assistance drinking my whiskey, and I ain’t about to start now. Just grab my straw over there.” A set of carved wooden straws sat behind the bar in a tall glass. Grabbing one, I popped it in the glass and hoped for the best.

Then I downed my liquor. And Cy’s. I shot him an apologetic look, and his eyes laughed at me.

“Well, at least you can shoot your whiskey. I’m Brân, proprietor of the Tar Pits. We don’t get many mortal souls. They don’t often make it this far into the lands beyond, before finding their final resting place.”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “I was motivated.”

“Ah yes, with the Weighing. We haven’t had one of those in… well, I don’t know. Sucellus, when was the last time we called a Weighing?”

“Maybe one of those monolithic worshipers. Hmm, a Saint something or other?”

Brân winked. “Ah, so it was. What they don’t tell you about these Weighings, girlie, is that if you fail, there’s no skipping off to some green field somewhere. You’re giving them your soul. If you fail, they keep that little trinket for their efforts, and you get obliterated from existence.”

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