Page 19 of The Deeper Game
I looked down at my screen. Venus had been with my guys a few years back. She’d hated being trapped on the run. She’d nearly gotten them caught on a job, and then she killed herself by jumping a hundred feet into a quarry pit. Venus was a tender spot—they spent years blaming and hating themselves for her suicide. Zeus especially blamed himself.
I wondered about Venus often—what she was like, how she interacted with the guys. Times when I felt insecure, I wondered if I really measured up to her. But mostly I felt sad for her, and I thought I would’ve liked to have known her.
“And our gang cloud tattoo.” He pointed his eyes down at my ankle. “Matteo thinks it made you a bigger target. And now the cherub angels on our arms?”
“Hmm,” Thor said.
“I love the tattoo. Screw that.” At least, I liked the tattoo of an angry cloud with four badass lightning bolts representing the four of us. It showed we were a family, and I was proud to have it.
“You making progress with that feather?” Odin asked.
“A little.” I got back to examining the barbules.
Later, Odin sent Thor out to a lab downtown with some of the blood for a DNA test. I knew the place—it was mostly for drug testing and paternity testing, but apparently they could test blood to see what sort of animal it came from.
After that, Odin called Robert Manning, the A/V guy who’d installed surveillance around the driveway and neighborhood and requested extra security cameras installed around the perimeter of the house, so that no inch of tundra would go unfilmed. Then he made sandwiches.
“Thanks,” I said as he set down a plate.
“Zeus isgoing-gto freak the fuck out,” Odin said.
I nodded glumly, staring at my sandwich. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but Odin ate ravenously. It took a lot to make my guys lose their appetites.
“This man will bitterly regret the day he ever so much as thought of you with anything but the purest of admiration.”
“I don’t want him to think of me at all.”
Odin lowered his voice. “Soon he won’t.”
I got up and washed my hands in the kitchen sink, which looked out over the cozy living spaces of the hideout, decorated in a style I’d describe as mod cabin, built for comfort and relaxation, and not at all flashy. The style involved plush rugs,blocky upholstered furniture, and old snowshoes on the wall in front of the fireplace.
Odin eyed me carefully as I sat back down across from him. “You okay?”
I tore off a crusty bit of bread. “It’s just creepy. And if it’s the same person who sent us that Abe Lincoln warning? Does that make it better or worse?”
“Why warn us of something and then threaten us?” Thor said. “None of it makes sense.”
“Hey.” Odin came around and settled a hand lightly onto my hair. “We have you, goddess.”
“I know, and it’s not that I don’t think you’ll get him, but that doesn’t take away the yuckiness of a gift like that.”
“We’ll hurt him extra for the yuckiness.”
I smiled up at him. Odin’s lovely Mediterranean skin had bronzed in the LA sun, and he had a perfect five o’clock shadow below his hot, jaggedly scarred cheekbone. “More than pulling his guts from his belly like fishing rope?”
“I’ll do it slowly,” he growled.
“Oh,” I said. Because, what else do you say to that?
“Finish your lunch. We go to the butchers.”
Chapter Five
After visiting eight butcher shops,we learned one big thing: there are lots of people in Los Angeles buying blood. Some buy sheep and cow blood, but mostly pig’s blood. And butchers are happy to supply it; even the supermarket butchers sold it. Some of them chalked it up to the vampire craze. Others sold it for theatrical realism or religious ceremonies.
You never saw it in the case. I suppose that might be a bit much, containers of blood displayed next to the roast beef or sliced ham.Pig’s blood! Try it for your next black magic ritual or Civil War reenactment! Only $9.99 a quart!
Another thing we learned: they all had the same butcher paper supplier.
