Page 109 of The Reveal
“She means after the initial bloodbath, when everyone collected themselves and it was time to think about restoring order,” Ariel says coolly.
“After the party, in other words,” Ty chimes in, and his lieutenants all laugh.
Even I have to bite back a laugh at that, which horrifies me immediately. How far have I fallen if I’m laughing at a werewolf calling a massacre a party?
It’s a relief when Savi keeps talking.
“After a few rules were established and cooler heads prevailed, we went looking for her,” Savi tells us. “And not just for Vinca, specifically. It wasn’t clear, then, which god was responsible. Or if it was any god at all.”
“Most gods are dicks,” Ty says.
Samuel sputters at that, but I’m pretty sure it’s the confused look on my face that gets Maddox to pipe up.
“The Reveal was foretold forever.” She tells me this, then rolls her eyes. “‘For there will come a day when the black rot of humanity will be peeled back and the Kind shall rise. They will reclaim what is theirs and wash the world clean with blood. Once this earth is cleansed, so too shall the Kind be free.’”
She intones that in such a way that I’m certain I see every other supernatural creature in the yard stand a little straighter.
“That sounds like something you’d say in church,” I say.
Augie nods. “An evil church.”
Specifically like Christmas and Easter, when Gran would drag us in and make us stand too straight, exuding politeness, or she would make us wish we had.
“Some religious sects arranged themselves around that prophecy, yes,” Savi says. “But it has been around as long as I have.” She cuts her gaze to Ariel. “As long as he has, even.”
“Longer,” Ariel agrees, his arms still folded and that forbidding look on his face.
One I should not find attractive. Especially not at a time like this.
I order myself to concentrate.
“Once the Reveal happened, we all felt that same ...” For the first time since I’ve met her, Savi looks ... uncertain. As if she doesn’t know what words to choose.
“An unlocking,” Ariel says, the way he did to me.
“A locked gate flung wide open,” Ty growls.
“And about damn time,” one of the bikers flanking him throws in.
It’s in this moment that it occurs to me that if I view some of these monsters in my yard as friends or a lover, I also have to take onboard the possibility that they lived in some version of their own Reveal for a whole lot longer than I have. If people are people, but some of them have claws or powers, then none of those people should be hiding away in fear.
I’m going to have to sit with that, and this is no time forsitting.
“There are two further prophecies that follow on from that one,” Savi tells me. And everyone else. “Two locks to open. And two different keys. The first, a living sacrifice, as painful as possible beneath a full moon. The second, a terrible betrayal and an unwilling sacrifice. You’ll notice those are both quite vague.”
“The bigger the prophecy, the more likely you can claim it came true no matter what happens,” Maddox murmurs. “It’s all in the marketing.”
Savi nods. “All over the world, there are different cults and sects and communities claiming that they felt that first lock open wide last night. What I haven’t heard reported or whispered about in any capacity is what happened to you, Winter.”
I try my best to catch up. “But you knew it was going to happen. That she was going to come for me. Specifically me.”
“We knew that it wouldeventuallyhappen,” Savi says, which sounds like splitting hairs to me. “The details were fuzzy.”
“The cards could not make up their minds,” Gran chimes in, with a wave of her hand.
That was exactly the sort of thing I would have taken as confirmation of dementia a month ago. No one in this clearing blinks.
Aside from Samuel, that is.
