come toward him with a knife. Vlad says, ‘Don’t,’ and you say, ‘Oh, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to let Mencheres do that.’ Then the video ends.”
I hadn’t been there that day, but I knew what happened next: Ian had cut off the warding tattoo that had been blocking Dagon from finding him. And Dagon had come running.
“Now, I finally understand what you meant.” Mencheres’s voice lost its amiability and became a harsh rasp. “You were vowing to bring me back so I could avenge my own death, and there’s only one way you could do that—by selling your soul.”
“Except you weren’t dead.” Ian’s tone was light, as if he hadn’t paid in misery, death, and worse for his selfless act. “Gave Dagon a right good belly laugh, telling me that after our bargain was struck.”
Pain was etched into Mencheres’s features so deeply, for an instant he looked all of his true age despite his unlined, handsome features. “I promise you that I will fix this.”
“You don’t have to.”
Mencheres’s head, which had bowed with grief, snapped up at that. Ian continued with a wave in my direction.
“My wife is full of surprises. Yanking me back from the grave after my death voided my soul debt to Dagon is merely one of those surprises.”
“How?” Cat’s disbelieving outburst was echoed by her husband. Mencheres looked too shocked to speak.
“The same way I do everything else,” I said, hoping vagueness would be enough. “Bibbity-bobbity-boo.”
Mencheres finally found his voice. “Magic can briefly reanimate flesh or bones, but it cannot pull a soul from the afterlife and restore it back to their body. Only a demon deal can do that . . . or, perhaps, a demon herself.”
Revulsion touched Cat’s features. From Bones’s hardening expression, he’d suspected that, too.
“Don’t insult me,” I snapped before realizing I was insulting my own half brother with the comment. “Though not all demons are evil,” I amended. “Besides, I’m”—the daughter of the embodiment of the river between life and death, to hear my half-demon brother describe it—“Something else,” I finished.
“A demigod,” Ian said with the same casualness that he’d offered them whisky with.
Mencheres gave me a look that wasn’t entirely surprised. Bones, however, rose to his feet.
“Your hair.” He’d actually started to recoil from me before he caught himself and stopped.
Ian rolled his eyes. “Really, Crispin? Act your age.”
Cat was more succinct. “What the hell, honey?”
Bones sat back down, a flash of embarrassment crossing his features. Then they hardened and his aura flared as if arming itself. “Your. Hair.” Each word was an indictment.
“Rude,” Cat hissed to him before saying, “I think your lowlights are cool,” in a louder voice to me. “Granted, I’m a Buckeye fan, and blue and gold are Michigan colors, but—”
“They’re not a Wolverines tribute, Kitten,” Bones interrupted. “Remember the Angel of Death I told you about? When I caught a glimpse of his true form, his hair was just like hers.”
Cat’s eyes bulged until they looked as if they were attempting to escape her face. “I thought my family tree was fucked up,” she breathed. “Wow.”
Suddenly, the air felt like it was squeezing me; a warning from Mencheres. “Ariel, daughter of Aken,” he said, voice low and resonant as he true-named me. “Is Ian truly free from his soul debt to that demon?”
At last, something I could answer without hesitation or vagueness. “Yes.”
“She also had a ghost secretly guard me and set a spell on me that boomeranged any malicious magic off me and sent it back to its caster,” Ian said, resulting in Mencheres giving me his first real smile. “But none of that is why I called Cat and Crispin here,” he continued. “I just found out that Timothy’s alive.”
“My friend Timothy?” At once, Cat gave Bones an accusing look. “You didn’t tell me you thought he was dead!”
“Because I didn’t,” Bones began in an exasperated tone, then stopped when he saw Ian’s face. “You don’t mean . . . ?”
“I do indeed,” Ian replied grimly. “Saw him myself while I was stealing this,” a swipe indicated the bulge beneath his sleeve. Right, they hadn’t seen the horn yet. “And you’ll never guess why he’d hidden himself away from us all these years.”
“Oh, you mean your friend Timothy from when you were all human,” Cat said, cluing in. “If he’s alive, that’s great!”
Bones gave Ian a measuring look before turning to her. “If this were only good news about Timothy being alive, Ian wouldn’t have insisted on giving it