Sin & Salvation (Demigod of San Francisco #3)(6)

I ran my fingers through my hair. I hated when the kids stomped on my reasoning. “I’m just worried about what would happen if I couldn’t stop him.”

“Right.” Daisy pushed forward and pointed at me. “Let’s get back to that. You did, actually, stop him? All by yourself?”

“She did.” Bria nodded with a smile. “She’s making strides. And let’s remember, she also started it. That’ll sink in soon. She’s not quite there yet, but it’ll happen.”

“What’ll sink in, that she is more dangerous than a Berserker?” Daisy asked. “Or that Soul Stealers have a worse reputation than Berserkers?”

I scowled at her. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“Look…” Bria paused in order to open the front door. “Today was a learning experience. For everyone. This won’t be taken lightly, trust me. All of the guys will be thinking about how they could have handled it differently. Kieran definitely will be. He would lose his shit if anything happened to you. He coddles you far too much.” She pursed her lips, and I knew it was because she thought I was an idiot for getting involved with him. “But no one—and I mean no one—will take a harder look at this than Thane. He’s gone over three decades without a mishap. The guy might look like he’s in his lesser thirties, but he’s more like sixty. These bastards don’t age normally. Thane will beat himself up for this. The very last thing he needs is for you to make him feel worse.”

I opened my mouth, but what could I say? She was right on so many levels. I had caused the problem in the first place, and it had been a learning experience, albeit a terrifying one.

“Come on.” She jerked her head at the door.

“Where are we going?” I asked in confusion. I looked down at my Burberry medium buckle tote, in pink, hanging from my forearm like it was on display.

“There is a bar close by, and I’m pissed I only recently found it.” Bria jerked her head again. “Come on. I need a libation after that shit-show turned awesome situation. We can discuss what happened.”

“You would want to hang out with a bunch of derelicts in a dive bar,” Daisy muttered, refilling her glass.

Bria gave Daisy a gooey, Bambi-eyed smile. “You get me.”

Daisy’s eyebrows lowered. “Ugh.”

Bria motioned me out of the house.

“Oh, it’s you,” Frank, my resident poltergeist, said from the middle of the walkway leading to my front door. His watery blue eyes shifted to Bria, narrowing as they did so. His gray comb-over didn’t move in the small breeze.

A month ago my yard had been full of spirits who’d followed me home from a haunted house in the magical zone. If it hadn’t been for Kieran, who could now see ghosts courtesy of our soul connection, they’d still be loitering on my lawn.

But one whipcrack of command from him, and most of them had found somewhere else to be. The rest had been hauled away by John, a very able-bodied spirit who hated Valens as much as we did.

The only one who’d stayed was Frank. He, for some reason I didn’t want to think about (which likely had to do with my mother), thought of my house as a place of comfort. He wouldn’t leave. Unfortunately.

“Why is she always hanging around?” Frank asked, staring at Bria.

“One could ask the same thing of you,” I retorted.

“Is that Frank?” Bria asked, stepping onto the walkway. She was able to feel stronger spirits, but Frank wasn’t one of them.

“If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: you don’t need riffraff like her hanging around,” Frank said, bracing his hands on his hips. “She’s a bad sort, make no mistake.”

“Yeah, it’s Frank.” I followed Bria down the walkway toward him.

“I have a lovely cadaver for you, Frank,” Bria said with a wry grin. “A real nice one. You’ve always wanted to have a vagina, right? Didn’t I hear Alexis say that? The breasts aren’t there anymore, but you can always pretend.”

Frank’s expression soured. He backed away from us. “She’s vulgar. Why do you hang out with such foul-mouthed women, Alexis? Think of what your mother would say.”

“A vagina and breasts are parts of a woman’s anatomy, Frank,” I said dryly. “Fifty percent of the adult population has them. How is that vulgar?”

“Snatch. Now that’s vulgar,” Bria said. “Do you want a snatch, Frank? I’ll stuff you into a body good and tight. That’s why you hang around, isn’t it? To be shoved back into the world of living in a different skin? How about a granny? Do you fancy coming back as a granny?”

“Wretched woman.” Frank reached the sidewalk and went left, which was, unfortunately for him, the way we were headed. “Repulsive. A skin, Alexis? Has this woman no respect for the dead? Well, I won’t have it.”

We turned his way and he sputtered, about-facing and walking faster.

“No, I will not,” he muttered. “I will not tolerate such a woman.”

He flickered and then disappeared, probably heading home to the house he had died in. Ms. Merlin, his roommate, unbeknownst to her, would not be pleased with the slamming doors and mysteriously opened cabinets. She was a crotchety old woman, though. They deserved each other.