Justin stopped hard, but Hercules didn’t. He just kept barreling toward the OtherX killer and the penanggalan.

  “Stop!” the killer yelled. It was the first time I’d heard his voice, and I wondered if he always sounded so nervous and high-pitched, or if it was the effect of a demigod of legend racing toward him.

  Hercules didn’t stop. And what happened next was heartless beyond even what I’d expected.

  The killer stabbed the syringe into the penanggalan’s heart. He pushed her away as she burst into a flare of magic and took off toward the rally. I had never seen an angry penanggalan, but I knew they were capable of tremendous things.

  And this penanggalan went into an absolute manic frenzy.

  Her magic flew out of her like a bonfire, spitting and sparking as her head separated from her neck and went flying and snapping amongst the screaming crowd. Meanwhile, her entrails flew in every direction. One of them shot out toward Hercules and wrapped around his forearm.

  I didn’t think Hercules could be yanked, but I was wrong. A penanggalan combusting with magic could pull Hercules right off his feet.

  When she grabbed him, he landed so hard on the street that he put a new pothole in the asphalt.

  “Go after him!” Ananda yelled at Cupid. “If you don’t get him now, we’ll lose him.”

  Without a backward glance, Cupid struck into motion on his puff, arcing up over the penanggalan and the people in the streets to chase down our killer.

  When I looked back, it wasn’t just Hercules who had fallen. It was Justin, too. Over the past few weeks, I had almost forgotten: their fates were still bound. If one was hurt, the other was, too. And Justin was no demigod. Blood ran down the side of his face as he rose.

  Amidst the penanggalan’s horrifying death throes, Ananda, Justin and I pushed on after Cupid and the killer. If we didn’t get him now, we wouldn’t get him. Not after this. His face was too familiar to us. He would be careful, quiet, discreet.

  Ananda was right: if he disappeared into this rally, we’d lose him forever. And we needed to catch him, to get him talking. I was certain he had vital information about the World Army’s plans.

  He was just a few hundred feet from the MEOA crowds when Cupid’s arrow rang out from up high. He’d taken a tough shot, and it had paid off. Our short, chubby killer stopped hard with the arrow protruding from his shoulder. He turned around and looked at Ananda.

  “Oh,” he said. His voice was just as high-pitched as before. “You are so beautiful.”

  And then the three of us tackled him.

  Cupid floated down. “He won’t run away, guys. He’s totally bedazzled by Ananda.”

  Justin and I had stood, but Ananda straddled the killer. She gave him a good sock to the nose. “You terroristic fuck,” Ananda roared, sending her other fist into his cheek.

  Even then, the guy just stared up at her like she was heaven-sent.

  Justin reached down, grabbed one of her arms. “We’ve got him.”

  Ananda jerked her arm away. “You saw what he did to that Other.” She delivered another blow so hard his cheek hit the pavement.

  I knelt by her. The guy’s lip was broken, his nose bloodied. “Ana,” I whispered, “we’ve got him. Come on—people are staring.”

  Her eyes flicked up to me, enkindled with fury. I nearly dropped back; I had seen those eyes before, back when she and I used to fight. To kill. I remembered that look—one that had been locked away from my memory.

  Sometimes, Ananda was hateful.

  But she stopped. She sat back as Hercules trudged up, rubbing his scalded forearms. Tears were running down his face. “She is dead,” he moaned. “The woman of entrails is dead. It’s my fault.”

  Ananda and Justin hauled the killer to his feet. “We need to get this guy somewhere where we won’t be seen,” Justin said.

  “I know a private spot.” Ananda gestured for the OtherX killer to follow her. “This way.”

  A wide grin spread across his bloodied face as he started after her. The rest of us followed.

  ↔

  We crossed into an empty alley, the killer happily following at Ananda’s heels.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “The police will be here any minute,” Justin said.

  Ananda whipped out her cellphone. “We’ll be gone before then.”

  Within two minutes, a blue sports car zipped up to the alley’s entrance and one of the Bellagio valets hopped out. He didn’t ask questions as he threw open the four doors.

  “Everyone in,” Ananda said. We all made for the car, except …

  I paused. “Hercules?”

  He wasn’t amongst us.

  Ananda was already in the driver’s seat, and the killer had climbed in shotgun, dripping blood on his lap, the arrow still sticking from his shoulder. She leaned past him to catch my eye. “Are you coming?”

  Justin pulled me toward the back seat. “Come on, Isa.”

  I couldn’t see Hercules. “I’ll meet you there,” I said. “You’re going back to the Bellagio, right?”

  “Back entrance, where the staff go in and out,” Ananda said. “We’ll be in the camera room, interrogating the shit out of Mr. Syringe here.”

  I slapped the hood. “Go ahead. I’ll be there.”

  Justin gave me a long look before he pulled the door shut. Then the three of them sped off back to the hotel.

  Which left me standing in the alley. In the distance, I heard sirens.

  When I emerged, it didn’t take me long to find Hercules. He was enormous, after all, but he was also openly sobbing in the middle of the street. He knelt before the corpse of the murdered penanggalan, and I thought I heard him beg for forgiveness.

  When I approached him, he didn’t even notice until I set a hand on his shoulder and whispered his name. “We need to go.”

  “This was my doing,” he said with a thick sniff. “She was an innocent, and he stabbed her because I did what I do.”

  “What you do?”

  “I’m headstrong. I don’t pay heed.” He wiped a hand over his eyes. “I’m the strongest, handsomest man alive, but what good does it do me?”

  I suppressed an eye roll. “We wouldn’t have caught him without you,” I said. “If he’d been allowed to get away, who knows if we would have ever had another shot.”

  His streaked face lifted. “There must have been another way.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. We couldn’t have known.”

  What I didn’t want to tell him was that I was at fault, too. If I had brought a vial of the counteragent with me, I might have been able to save the penanggalan’s life. But I hadn’t thought of it. Stupid.

  When Hercules looked at me, his green eyes blazed. “Promise me,” he said. “Promise me that we will avenge a great wrong.”

  He was referring to his labor—his final labor. Back in New York City, Hercules had agreed to remain by my side until his final labor was completed. The oracle Pythia had told him he needed to slay the goddess Hera, but that was impossible—the gods were gone.

  So he’d agreed to come with me, to help me avenge great wrongs. Perhaps someday we would accomplish something important enough to free him from his bondage.

  I took one of his hands in both of mine. “I promise you.”

  He gazed at my hand, rubbing his callused fingers over mine. The heat off his skin felt like a furnace. “And that this Other did not die for nothing.”

  I had always sensed that Hercules wore his emotions on his non-existent sleeve (the guy never actually wore anything but a lion skin loincloth—well, except the past few days, when he’d been in his Bellagio security uniform), but I hadn’t seen them on such display since he’d gotten drunk on the train from New York.

  And where some cultures painted a man’s tears as emasculating, unbecoming, I found them admirable. Death was never easy, and neither was grief. Hercules wasn’t afraid to inhabit those feelings.

  It also honored me that he had chosen my side to stay by.

  “She didn’t die for nothing,” I said, lifting my voice to be heard above the sirens. “We’re going to save every Other in this city.”

  He nodded, his curls waving in the breeze. “I trust you, Isa.”

  I half-rose. “But right now, we need to leave.”

  With a last look at the faded penanggalan, he rose with me.

  When I tried to remove my hands, he only let one go. The other remained in his grip—gentle and firm all at once. And I didn’t even mind that he continued to hold it as we jogged away from the awful scene and toward the Bellagio.

  “Isabella,” he said as we ran.

  After everything, I could barely get out the words over my heaving lungs. He ran way, way faster than me. “Yes?”

  “I know about your pregnancy.”

  I nearly stopped, but I managed to keep going. “How?”

  “I have exceptional hearing. Always have. It’s part of what made me such a good fighter.” He paused. “I overheard your sister telling Justin of the baby.”

  I glared at him. “You eavesdropped?”

  “Absolutely not. I was merely seated on the sofa and could hear them in the bedroom.”

  “Was the door shut?”

  “Perhaps. It made no difference to me.”

  “So you were eavesdropping.”

  “It’s an undignified term, but if you insist.” Then, “Isa, could the child be mine?”

  This time I did stop. We were just a block away from the Bellagio now, running down a mostly empty side street, and the sirens were ringing loud and fierce behind us.

  Hercules stopped with me. He turned, but didn’t let go of my hand.

  There was only one way the child could be his: that night on the train when I was hit with Cupid’s arrow.

  “I thought …” I swallowed. “I wasn’t sure if it was you.”

  “It was me,” he said. “You came in like a lioness. How could I resist you?”

  So I had slept with both of them that night.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

  Good humor touched his full lips. “I heard a saying recently. A man doesn’t kiss and tell?”

  “That … doesn’t apply when I’m the other party involved in the situation.”

  Both his large hands enveloped mine, and he stepped toward me. “Just know, Isabella, that if the child were mine, I would consider it one of the great honors of my long life. Even the life I lived before my first death.”

  I stared up at him, completely immobilized. Emotion squeezed my chest, and I didn’t know what to say. Which was all right, I guessed, because Hercules pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around me until his drumbeat of a heart sounded louder than the sirens.

  Amidst death and the promise of it, I relished our moment of stillness.

  Chapter 16

  When we came around the back of the Bellagio, one of the security guards flagged us down.

  “Are you H and I?” he asked.

  I looked at Hercules, then back at the guard. “I think so.”

  He opened the back door and waved us in. “Down the hall and take a left. First door on the right.”

  We followed his instructions until we came to the same security room the four of them had used to stake out the hotel for the past week.

  Except this time, it wasn’t full of soda and junk food.

  Inside, Cupid hovered beside the killer. Justin stood at his other side with his arms folded

  And for his part, the killer sat on a chair with his hands clasped and gazed at Ananda with pure adoration. Meanwhile, she was leaning against one of the desks with her arms crossed, her face radiating disgust.

  When Hercules and I came in, Cupid, Ananda and Justin looked up. The killer didn’t even bother—he was already gazing at the most important person in the room.

  “About time,” Ananda said. “What took you two so long?”

  Hercules and I weren’t touching anymore, but I still felt suddenly guilty. Especially with Justin’s eyes on me. “We didn’t have a car,” I said.

  Ananda swept a hand through the air. “Whatever. Cupid, tell me how to make him talk.”

  Cupid shrugged. “He’s been hit with an arrow. He’ll probably tell you whatever you want to know if you just ask him.”

  “Tell us who you are,” Justin said to the killer.

  “Screw off.” The guy didn’t even meet Justin’s gaze. He just kept staring at Ananda.

  “She has to ask him.” Cupid flitted forward and yanking the arrow out of his shoulder. In his infatuated state, the killer didn’t even groan.

  Ananda sighed and stepped forward. “Who are you?”

  “Mark Engleton Rissetto,” he rattled off.

  “Easy enough,” Ananda said. “All right, Mark. Why are you killing Others with OtherX?”

  He didn’t answer. But in his lap, his hands began to shake. “I … I …” he stuttered.

  Ananda took another step forward. “Mark, why are you killing Others?”

  In the chair, Mark kept on with his stuttering until he let a little yelp, which startled us all. “I can’t tell you,” he blurted, suddenly out of breath.

  Cupid looked surprised. “That’s odd.”

  Ananda glared at him. “I thought he was in love with me because of your arrow. I thought you said he’d tell me anything.”

  “My arrows are the most potent love drug in the GoneGodWorld,” Cupid shot back. “He is completely in love with you.”

  I stepped forward. “What’s going on?”

  Cupid threw his hands up in the air. “I don’t know. This rarely happens.”

  “But it’s happened?”

  Cupid flew back and forth, one hand at his chin. “Yes. It happens when an outside love or lust is so overwhelming that the arrow’s powers can’t make them betray their true love.” He paused. “My arrows are more about influencing than commanding, you see.”

  “So that question was forcing him to betray someone,” I said. “The question Ananda asked about why he’s killing Others.”

  Cupid nodded. “I think so.”

  Ananda cocked an eyebrow, her hand touching her chest. “This guy has a great love who isn’t me?”

  “Apparently.” Cupid turned to Mark. “Do you love someone else with all your being?”

  Mark glanced at Cupid. “Screw off.”

  Cupid floated back. “You have to ask him, Ananda.”

  “Mark”—Ananda lowered to a crouch—“do you love someone else more than me?”

  Mark nodded. “But I still love you dearly, my sweet lady.”

  Ananda scoffed. “Do you even know my name?”

  “Ananda,” Mark intoned like a prayer.

  “He just knows that because Cupid of Eros said her name,” Hercules whispered to me.

  “I think you’re right,” I whispered back.

  I caught Justin’s eye, and I stepped away from Hercules and over to an empty side of the room.

  “If you tell me why you’re killing Others,” Ananda said, “will you be betraying someone you love more than me?”

  Mark’s hands began to shake again. “Yes.”

  Ananda set a hand on Mark’s leg. “Who is it that you love?”

  He gasped when her fingers touched his leg. “Oh, you are divine,” he murmured.

  “Focus, Mark.” Ananda snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Who is it?”

  He stared down at her hand, then lifted his eyes to hers. “That would be a betrayal as well.”

  “Someone’s directing him to kill Others,” Justin said. “And he loves that person.”

  “Sounds about right,” Ananda murmured. She leaned closer, running her fingers down Mark’s face. Doing the encantado thing. “Won’t you just tell me the first name?” she whispered into his ear. “Just tell it to me and no one else.”

  Mark trembled. This time, I thought he might break. “I … I’m sorry,” I heard him mumble. “I can’t.”

  Ananda snapped up straight, her hands going into the air. “All right, Justin—torture him.”

  “Woah,” I said. “We don’t torture.”

  “That’s right,” Justin said. “No torture.”

  Cupid shot a finger back at Hercules. “Herc buddy—do your thing.”

  We all looked around at Hercules, whose chest went out.

  “We agreed on no torture,” I said.

  “He doesn’t torture,” Cupid said. “And there’s no one better at getting a man—or a woman—to talk.”

  Ananda looked skeptical. “Better than an encantado?”

  Hercules stepped toward her, flicking his hair over his shoulder. “It’s not always about lust, I’m afraid.”

  Ananda gestured toward Mark. “All right. Go ahead, then.”

  Hercules glanced down at the captive. “I need two minutes alone.”

  She scoffed. “Really?”

  Cupid was already ushering me and Justin toward the door. “Trust in the method.”

  “Fine,” Ananda said. The four of us filed out and into the silence of the hallway.

  Justin made a point of addressing Cupid and not me. “What’s his method?”

  “To be honest,” Cupid said, “I don’t even know what he does. It just works.”

  Ananda leaned against the wall. “Sounds like bullshit.”

  For the next ninety seconds, we didn’t hear anything from the other side of the door. The only noises were echoes from the lobby and Ananda’s heel tapping on the tile floor.

  Just under the two minute mark, Hercules stepped out of the room with a placid look, not a hair out of place. “He says,” Hercules began with a flourish, “that he’s been killing Others under the orders of a woman named Julia Sparkle. His aunt.”

  ↔

  “What?” Justin and I said in unison.

  Hercules one-shoulder shrugged. “It’s what he said. Do you know her?”

  Cupid patted his shoulder. “That’s who we’ve been working for, Herc buddy.” He leaned close to whisper, “How’d you do it, anyway?”

  Hercules shook his head. “My secrets are my own, Cupid of Eros.”

  “How is that possible?” Justin asked. “She’s …”