The sound of flapping metal wings distracted me out of my thoughts, and I realized belatedly that Little Iron was done writing and had dived right back into my pocket as if needing to recuperate.
I turned to Gorgon, resigned to the need for translation, but just as I was about to ask, I heard Sssusssan hiss, the sound so full of outrage...you just kinda knew after that.
My stomach curled with dread as the Gorgon spun around without a word and stalked inside the hut. My heart started pounding as I followed her inside, and cold sweat enveloped my skin as I took in my surroundings.
There were signs of struggle everywhere. And blood. So much blood that the shattered pieces of the crystal ball on the ground had turned dark with it.
I found her.
Even though the Gorgon's voice was cold and hard, her grief was palpable, like an invisible cloak you could almost imagine brushing against as you came near, a cloak that made the Gorgon's shoulders, normally straight and proud, seem to fall wearily under its painful, terrible weight.
Sssusssan was standing next to a round table covered with black cloth, and behind it was the priestess, her lifeless body on the ground. She was clutching a piece of paper in her hand, the letters in it written in blood, and they spelled...lotus.Chapter TenShit just got real.
I used to work as a makeup artist, and one of my favorite clients had a habit of saying those words every time we heard the TV in her dressing room show a particularly jarring news report.
Shit just got real.
She always said those words lightly, but also with eyes that were too sad to match the tone of her voice.
Shit just got real.
I found myself thinking of it over and over as I watched several skeletal subjects carefully prepare the priestess' body for transport.
I had looked everywhere for her ghost earlier since that was how it usually worked. A person's murdered, a new ghost is born, and I learn about the killer straight from the victim's mouth. But now, there wasn't even the faintest orb hovering over the woman's corpse.
The priestess, despite the abrupt end of her life, had already moved on, and I had to find her killer on my own, hadn't a moment to waste because—-
Shit just got real.
When this whole quest started, a part of me hadn't really been taking it seriously. After hearing what Hadrian and Mira had to say, I kinda thought we were all overreacting, and that there was no way for that vial to be opened without Cerberus knowing, no way for that vial to get smuggled out of the realm, with the Lord of the Underworld himself supervising the borders.
But I was wrong.
And someone else had paid the price.
When I should've been taking this threat seriously, I had been talking my head off about menopause, and now the priestess was dead.
An innocent woman was dead.
Because of me.
And if I didn't get my shit together, my stupidity would just keep getting more people killed. Maybe Mira was right and—-
It is done.
The sound of the Gorgon's voice slithering into my ear pulled me out of my thoughts, and I realized with a start that the others were gone, along with the priestess' body. It was just the two of us now—-
You are being too hard on yourself.
Gorgons didn't read minds. I knew that much at least, and so I also knew that I must look as shitty as I felt, for Sssusssan to actually feel compelled to comfort me.
"This is all my fault," I told her flatly. "I had just this job. One job. And now someone's dead because I didn't take it seriously enough."
You did not kill her. The thief did.
"I wish we could just let Little Iron—-"
We can do many other things, but not that. We must be sssmart about this.
And of course she was right.
No matter how much I wished I could be the one hunting the thief down—-
Shit just got real.
And as LOTUS, it was my duty and responsibility to step back and let others take over. It was just how things worked now, and that was fine. But the moment we found whoever it was that was responsible for this, so help me God, I was going to—-
You are ssshaking.
"With anger, not fear. Our thief is a murderer now, and I know this isn't nice, but I want to murder that person right back—-"
Good.
I almost smiled at this.
You are queen of this realm, and a queen cannot always be nice.
"I hear you." I didn't want to, but I understood now, more than ever, what Sssusssan meant.A LONG WALK AWAITED us outside the fortune teller's hut. It was the only mode of transportation allowed in the Underworld apparently, but I was too busy feeling guilty to care. Maybe someday I'd ask Hadrian about it, but right now I just wanted to find my thief-turned-murderer and change my title from LOTUS to Goddess of I'm-Going-to-Make-You-Pay.