breakfast yet. And when I brought the head back to the car, she made that “You aren’t going to put that in the car with me” face. Which I’d never seen before but had no problem recognizing.
“No?” I held it up like Medusa’s head.
“No.”
So I tied it to the grill of the car, where it made one hell of a hood ornament. And we drove, following a route roughly similar to what I’d told Amy. Mostly. Truth was, I didn’t really know where I was going, only that it had to be farther away. If a turn looked emptier, more desolate, I took it.
Until at last we hit a dead end.
I got out and looked around. “There.” A rocky outcropping rose from the desert. “We’ll be able to see her coming from ten miles away.”
Grace nodded, collecting the bag with the heart, heading to the outcropping.
After we’d set up the tent shelter, and the water jugs, I took out three lawn chairs and dragged them to the top of the hill. “You want to sit and talk, keep your feet up.” I pointed to the ground. “Brown scorpions everywhere. They don’t bother most folks, but I’d hate for you to miss the fun.”
Grace yanked her feet up, wrapping her arms around her knees and staring at the ground. “Got it.” She didn’t sound like a woman facing her death. “I never dreamed it would come to this.”
“I’m glad you’re with me.” Most people didn’t dream that the most ancient of an evil race would be meeting them in the desert. I’d had that dream a couple of times in the last few days. I stripped down, taking out my new armor, the bag Grace grabbed from the armory back at headquarters. Unlike my old armor, this fit me like a glove, ventilated so I didn’t roast, with woven Kevlar mesh almost everywhere. “You like?”
“I love.” She rose, looking at the lines. Then frowned. “What about here?” She tickled me under the arm.
I squirmed under her touch. “There and the back of the knees. I have to be able to bend. Now for the finishing touches.” I took out the last part of my ensemble. Actually, my father’s ensemble. A BSI gray trench coat he’d worn year-round.
“Dad kept this thing stocked with more weapons than the whole armory.” I shook it out and slipped it on. “How do I look?”
Grace’s lip puckered under. “You look great.” She unzipped her equipment bag and dumped it out. “You’d look even better with a couple of these.” Deliverators lay in a heap at my feat, along with a pile of spare magazines. “And these.” She kicked a crossbow toward me.
“I’ll leave those to you. I like things that cut. It’s how I was raised. How I learned.”
She ran one hand down my chest. “You can learn new ways. I taught you last night.”
Oh, had she ever. So very well, but this was different. I slipped the jar into one of the inner pockets, then studied the array of additional blades. “What do you think? Those are better for blocking, but honestly, if she hits me, I’m probably dead.” While I waited for Grace to decide, I put relics from every single religion Dad visited into different pockets. I’d jingle like a street pimp but had to be ready for anything. Ancient Sumerian or Rastafarian, I had it all.
“I don’t think so. Again, if Ra-Ame could knock down buildings all the time, she’d be doing it.”
I strung a Russian orthodox cross around my neck and slipped it in between the armor. Dad said the cross had saved him on a number of occasions, and I could use every ounce of help possible.
At last, I sat down in my chair and leaned back to doze in the heat.
“How can you do that?”
I patted the back of the chair. “There’s a lever here. It lets me lean back.”
Grace sighed. “No. How can you be so relaxed? Don’t you know what’s about to happen?”
I sat up, the chair creaking under my weight. “Grace, do you know why you were born? Do you know why you exist? I do. I don’t know what my dad did to whatever god he did it to, but this is what he was born for. What I was born to do.”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that.” She scooted her chair closer. “Let’s say we succeed. What then? If this is all you live for, what happens when Ra-Ame is gone? When the