Page 110 of The Reveal
“We explored this entire territory looking to see if there was anything we should worry about,” Ty said gruffly. “Most gods are narcissistic fucksand like to flash it all up with the douchey temple and all the trimmings. There’s none of that around here. There’s a very dramatic collection of vampires in Grants Pass who claim they see a temple every time they turn around, but I’ve never taken Grants Pass vampires seriously. I’m not starting now.”
Ariel inclines his head as if to say,Fair enough.
“Where does this leave us?” I ask, instead of tossing myself down a rabbit hole into heretofore unknown-to-me vampire politics.
“It leaves me intrigued,” Savi says at once. “I think we have some research to do.”
Ty nods. “I’m going to lead a team up to Crater Lake myself. Get a sense of what we’re walking into. Last time I was up there, last night hadn’t happened. She’ll be stronger now. We should be able to feel her.”
“We,” Ariel says, indicating Savi, “will examine the lore. We will do well to reacquaint ourselves with the specifics involving Vinca and her cult.”
“Which specifics are those?” I can’t keep myself from asking, unable to stop thinking of him as herpet.
Ariel’s gaze is bright and silver. I feel it inside me, and all over me, and that mark I wear hums a little. Like the gold is a musical instrument only he knows how to play.
“Her preferred form of a reign of terror,” he tells me coolly. “Better yet, her aspirations. Some gods live for worship, others prefer to destroy all they touch. It’s different forms of power and obedience, that’s all.”
“That’s all,” Augie says under his breath.
“If you think about it,” Maddox says quietly, “a god is only a god because they say so. Everyone else who has a power or two has a community. Not gods. They want to be the one and only, they’re big on killing their own families, and they’re constantly rising here, rising there, fucking everything up. They’re never just living or minding their own business. Honestly, it’s exhausting.”
“We will gather more details in places you can’t access,” Savi tells me when no one else jumps in. It made me think about the place I metVinca and wonder if that’s the sort of place I shouldn’t have been able to access—way out there in the midst of too many galaxies to count, out on some plane of existence I can’t even name. “We’ll come up with a plan of action from there.”
“Can I ask the obvious question?” Samuel says then, with a short little laugh. Instead of being rapt and attentive the way I’ve traditionally been with him, all I want to do now is point out that he is already asking a question. I hold myself back. “What the hell do you think you’re all going to do against a god?”
Ty laughs at that. “I like to start by shoving their religion up their ass,” he grunts. “But then, I like to make a good first impression.”
After that, the conversation seems to fizzle out—or maybe some people are communicating by other means. I tell myself I don’t care when Ariel simply disappears, leaving only mist behind. I tell myself I can’t feel that golden glow of his mark all over me, and that even if I can, I’m not taking any comfort in it.
Ty and his men roar away. Savi and Maddox walk off toward the cottages.
“All things considered, it could have been much tenser than it was,” I say brightly to the humans who remain. “The last time I saw the three great powers of the Rogue Valley in one place, there was significantly more blood.”
“We need to talk, Winter,” Samuel says, frowning at me.
I probably would have entertained his request, not because I’m interested in anything he has to say but because I feel a kind of secondhand embarrassment for him. All this time I’ve believed—and he’d made sure all the humans in Jacksonville believed, if I really think about it—that he has some kind of power around here. Now I know otherwise.
But Augie is shaking his head. “We’re going to have some family time, man,” he says, with all that charm he somehow got at birth that allows him to tell people to fuck off and get them to leave smiling.
It has the same effect now. Almost. Samuel doesn’t smile. But he leaves.
Then we go back into the house. Gran and me and, for the first time in a long, long while, Augie.
“I can’t believe you actually rented out those cottages,” Augie says as we make our way into the kitchen and settle Gran into a chair. I’m still thinking about tense creatures and a far tenser Samuel, but I stop when he laughs. “I didn’t realize you were so enterprising. Way to go.”
“We talked about doing this for years, even before the Reveal,” I remind my twin, trying so hard not to act like it’s weird that he’s back home and in the house and standing here in the kitchen like when things were normal that I ... am clearly making it weird anyway. “Mortgages need to be paid.”
“There are still banks?”
I can’t tell if that’s a dry little joke on his part or if he’s acknowledging how little he knows about the life that passed him by while he was out there letting it run him right over.
Though when I think about the contents of said life, I’m not sure why I would want anyone I love to share that experience. Maybe he’s had the right idea all along. Oblivion sounds fantastic right around now.
Though if I were oblivious, off in my own little world, I would miss this. Gran beaming at the kitchen table. Augie leaning against the counter as if he’s never been away. If I squint my eyes and think only about the here and now—and, at all costs, do not ask myself when, exactly, things werereallyever normal—everything feels right.
I decide to believe in it. Because nothing has feltrightin a long, long while.
“I’ll make dinner,” I say, and I don’t wait for either one of them to respond to that. I need to do something with my hands. I need to perform some kind of task, because the alternative is succumbing to the feelings inside of me, and I can’t do that.
