alone. “The others,” he’d said. “The Believers.” Others who would believe I’d made a deal with the devil, others who would murder me like Mom, like Meredith, like Lilly.
Who would murder Gideon, when I’d just brought him back.
But the Aureum itself didn’t know; he’d said that too. He thought the dominus would want the power I represented. That sounded shitty, but it also sounded like not being dead. Like having a possible ally against David’s murder cult.
“Then I’ll just have to tell everyone first. I’ll go to the local dominus, explain everything. Prove I can touch the ley lines. They’ll protect me.” Gideon raised a brow at me, and I shrugged. “If the bad guys know who I am, I need someone powerful on my side, even if they’re also assholes.”
I tried to push up to my feet, but almost immediately sat down again. I didn’t think the room was literally spinning, so I definitely had a concussion. Note to self: don’t head butt attempted murderers. Or maybe anyone. Unless, you know, you don’t have another choice.
Gideon didn’t look convinced about the Aureum, but he sighed and crouched next to me. “Someone powerful on your side is a good idea, that’s true. Where’s your phone?”
“Bedroom,” I panted.
“Not going to tell them,” David promised as Gideon left the room. He wasn’t even looking at me, but staring at the ceiling. His voice had gone hoarse, and blood flecked his lips with each word. I just snorted and didn’t respond. Like it would be so much better if he didn’t tell his murder buddies about me and came to kill me again when he recovered.
A moment later, Gideon came back with my phone. I dialed nine-one-one just as David started to choke. “Holy fuck,” I said into the phone, not having to fake the panic in my voice at all. “You’ve got to get here right now. He’s—I think he’s dying.”
Chapter Thirty-One
David killed himself.
That was the only explanation I could think of when he choked to death on nothing before I managed to hang up with the emergency operator. I’d given her my address, told her a quaesitor was choking to death on my kitchen floor, and by the time I finished, he was staring blankly at the ceiling, red foam leaking from his parted lips.
I think my brain shorted out then. I remembered Gideon taking the phone away from me, and me just staring at David.
First Mom, then Cheese, and now David. Lina too, if you didn’t just count the kitchen. So much death.
Fortunately for all of us, Gideon was still sensible enough to hide the gun before the ambulance arrived. He stripped out of his duster, hat, and gun belt, leaving him looking like a sort of normal, if still excessively handsome, guy. Putting the lie to his modest “oh I’m only good at punching things,” from before, he expertly touched the convergence, opened a glowing golden hole in reality, and dumped the things into it.
When he turned back to find me watching him, he winked. “Convenient hiding spot, since it’s best I’m not me just now.”
In the most perfect coincidence of all time, one of the EMTs who arrived was the same one from the night before.
“Holy hells, Mr. McKinley,” he exclaimed as he and his partner came in. “Again?”
“She came back,” I managed to choke out despite the increasing pain in my head, waving weakly toward the entryway and the mess that had been Lina.
Before I even understood what was happening, Gideon and the EMT, whose name was Jason, were weaving a story for the cops who arrived. Jason had been present at the scene of my first attack, and told them all about it, and how David had been investigating it.
He explained the facts that Lina had been a murderer, and David a quaesitor trying to stop her. In this version, though, Lina killed David and somehow burned herself out and up in the process. Jason didn’t even seem to realize that he was creating the story as he went along, and Gideon was happy to guide him through it.
The cops seemed mildly dubious at first, what with the bullet hole in David and no sign of a gun, but then somehow they didn’t find a bullet, either.
“She was a body mage,” I mumbled, even though every move made my head ache more, and it was making me more and more nauseated. “David said low-class body mage. Stealing the magic from other low classes to boost herself.”