Page 51 of Dangerous Relics and the Women Who Love Them
“I can run between realms when I’m shifted and kill a man with my bare hands.”
“I know. You could probably snap me in half if you wanted to. But, I still think you’re cute.”
“Take the compliment and the hug, son. We should get to the museum. Valentine will be waiting, and that eclipse isn’t going to wait for any of us. Ineedto ask him the right questions this time.”
“Do you actuallyknowwhat those questions are?” Killian asked. “You’ve been pretty vague.”
“I’ll know when I look him in the eyes.”
Oh, my Lilith. I was hoping to play the whole god get out of jail free card when it came to stopping the Cult of the Aether Sisters from returning, and he was just pantsing his way through this.
The eclipse was in five days, and Loki didn’t actually know what the fuck he was doing.
Chapter39
Ravyn
We walked over to the museum in silence. I was basically too pretty to survive without electricity and deodorant, but I kind of wished things were like what they were before Sleipnir and Bjorn went into that box. We could just show up at the warehouse, kill Valentine, and then go fetch the bones for Loki to do the rites.
The law tended to frown on killing people nowadays, even if they cheated on you and then bought ghosts back with them to raise a deranged cult leader. Should I call Kaine? I got his number the first time we met Beyla. Could that grumpy dragon even do anything since he hadn’t broken the law? Was keeping crusty ass bones in your hotel room and bringing ghosts to an otherwise unhaunted hotel against the law?
All of that was moot. All this time, every time we got to the warehouse, Valentine was skulking outside, waiting to be let in because I refused to get him a key. I could have easily had one made for him, but I didn’t. Even after what he did to me, I would have, but his aura frankly creeped me out. After I found out what he got up to on that dig, there was no way in shit I was giving him the keys to my kingdom.
“What now?” I asked.
Loki’s entire plan involved asking him questions in the warehouse. Valentine had been here without fail every morning. He was the type to hold epic grudges, and technically Killian and Loki had both kicked his ass. I was guilty by association because I left him in the rain. Maybe he’d finally gotten it through his thick skull I wasn’t going back there.
Still, Thorunn was a master manipulator if she got everyone to betray Loki like that. She formed a cult before there was even a word for it. Valentine was in her thrall enough to steal her bones before the rites could be performed and take Asfrid too because she wanted it.
“Give me a minute,” Loki said.
I was learning all gods had unique powers. I was guessing Loki could put himself in a trance like Reyson and Lilith did to visit the hotel and see if Valentine were there astrally. I also knew he was super pissed about getting tricked and would want to go in person.
He was definitely going to make a mess at the hotel, but I watched Reyson explode Dorian Gray in a cloud of pink glitter just to stick it to Felix, and I was guessing Loki knew his way around disposing of bodies. I mean, he wouldn’ttechnicallybekilling Valentine on the museum grounds, so there wouldn’t be some random wolf DNA hiding in a crack somewhere when his fangirl Gertrude reported him missing and blamed me.
Reyson always disappeared in a pop of light. Lilith conjured doors out of thin air. Loki disappeared in a big flash of flame and left us all outside the warehouse holding our dicks. Sleipnir was sulking.
“Ihatewhen he does that and doesn’t take me.”
“Best not let Thorunn’s ghost know you’re walking the Earth again just yet,” Killian said.
“Why don’t you all step into my office?”
I let them into the warehouse. We didn’t just have things from the Cult of the Aether Sisters here. There were plenty of other relics in here that I was trying to figure out how to diffuse. Some of them, I didn’t exactly know what was wrong with them. If someone dug them up and locals didn’t want them, there was generally something fucked up about it.
Sleipnir went straight to the giant bronze horse we got from China. The thing was massive and gorgeous.Someonewould have wanted to keep it unless something was wrong with it. Sleipnir looked like he was about to touch it.
It was like slow motion. I wasn’t close enough to stop him, but Killian was. Killian took off running and tried to tackle Sleipnir, who might as well have been made of bronze like that fucking horse. Killian just kind of bounced off him, but Sleipnir lowered his hand and wasn’t trying to touch it anymore.
“Why did you assault me, warlock?”
“Almost everything in here is dangerous to touch unless you know what you’re doing.”
“But this horse is already dead. What did they do to it?”
Adorable. The bronze horse was well done and extremely lifelike. I could see where the confusion came from.
“This is metal. I’m pretty sure no horses were harmed in the making of this statue, but I’m not completely sure. The zodiac is different where this horse comes from. The horse is a star sign, so it’s represented a lot in art. Someone in Macau initially claimed it when we put out feelers. Two weeks later, they called us, begging us to take it from them.
