Page 63 of Left Hand of the Divine
Me:
He’s with me.
My phone started buzzing immediately, but I was stopped from answering it when Lila shouted my name in a panic.
I turned to look behind me and saw Lila standing still about two metres away. “What is it?”
“I can’t cross the district line,” she replied shakily. “And look.”
She held her hand up, and I could see through it.
Fuck.
No.
No, no, no.
I rushed back to her and grabbed her hand. The normal jolt of static electricity I got from her was barely a tingle. “We shouldn’t have come here.”
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Lila said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “It’ll be fine. I’ll just stay here with the others and wait for you to figure this out.”
But what if I couldn’t? What if she faded because I couldn’t figure this out?
No. I wasn’t about to lose my best friend. I summoned my death magic and reached towards her.
“What are you doing? You can’t give me some of your power, Roux. Don’t be an id—”
I slammed my hand down onto her chest and fuelled her with some of my power. It wasn’t strictly against the law, but ghosts were supposed to tie themselves to a less ‘alive’ power source. Lila drew hers from GRIM HQ, but others would attach themselves to ley lines or their old homes. Anything that was important to them and would remain important to them. That was the key to a good power source for a ghost. For now though, I was going to be her power source.
I pulled my hand back, and I was glad to see Lila was at least back to her normal solid self. She was even glowing faintly. Whoops. Maybe I gave her too much.
“You’re an idiot,” Lila said as she wrapped me in a hug. “Thank you.”
“Hey, I can’t have you fading on me now,” I replied, my voice trembling a little with the loss of energy. I didn’t know what I’ddo if I lost Lila. She was more than just my handler; she was my best friend, and she’d been my rock in the early days. Both she and Thane had done so much to help me acclimatise to the Underworld and rediscover a sense of who I was. I’d do anything to stop her from fading.
She let me go and braced her hands on her hips. “You know, I think I can do some good whilst I’m stuck here.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’m going to rope Penny and Bernard into heading up a census of all the ghosts trapped here and their level of fading. Perhaps it’ll help us monitor things while you figure out what to do next.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I will see if there is anything I can do to stop ghosts coming this way. Although, with most of them actually living here, that’s probably going to be difficult.” I would see what I could do though. I’d have a word with Hades. He’d know what to do. “Also, have a look around the Atwood house and see if you can find anything, but don’t be reckless. We don’t know what kind of power we’re dealing with.”
If there was something at the house that was fuelling the power of the mark in the sky, I didn’t want Lila going anywhere near it.
“Okay,” she said with a firm nod. Then she glanced at Erebus, who was lurking in the shadows behind me. “What are you going to do about him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. The others are a bit wary of him, but there’s a part of me that feels connected to him.”
“And he’s hot.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on,” she snorted. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Of course I’d noticed. “Fine, yes, he’s good-looking.”
“And he can’t take his eyes off you,” she crooned.
