I gazed out at the night. Endless night. Maybe I couldn’t fully invoke the red witch, even if I wanted to.
With that bottle in hand, Jack sat on my other side, offering a drink.
To hell with it. Down she goes. Burn. Gasp. I handed Death the bottle.
Jack grimaced. “Am I goan to die drinking after the Reaper?”
“Sadly”—Aric took a deep pull—“no.” With a gauntleted hand, he passed the whiskey back to Jack.
In some small way, it was a measure of trust that Jack drank after Death. And of course, the competitive Cajun had to tip the bottle up longer than Aric had.
“Milo’s right, though.” Jack handed me the whiskey. “It’ll be damn hard to open that bunker. I’ve got munitions, but a blast door is designed to withstand them. Unless we can wedge the explosive into the metal, it woan work.”
“Why not?” I asked over the rim of the bottle.
“It’s like throwing a stick of dynamite at a bowling ball. It’ll just bounce off. But if you jam the stick into the ball? Boom.”
“Maybe the twins will answer tomorrow.” All day we’d hailed them by radio and through Aric. Not a blip in response. “They might face us.” Though I hoped they actually gave a damn about their father, I doubted it all the same. We’d even dangled the bait of their chronicles. Still, nothing.
“Ouais, peut-être.” Yeah, could be. Jack’s expression told me he didn’t have high hopes either.
I asked both of them, “If we’ve overridden all the rules to the twins’ ‘game,’ why don’t we call up the rest of the Arcana to help us?”
Aric surprised me by setting the chronicles away. He was choosing whiskey around a camp fire over study and contemplation? “Because the Fool’s rules still apply, Empress. He said the three of us must ride to save Selena.”
Strange, I’d forgotten I’d been in fate’s crosshairs.
Jack turned to Death. “I like that Spartan story, me. Is it true?”
“That’s how I heard it back then.”
Back then. Back in the day. He’d been alive.
Jack’s sense of curiosity was still vibrant in him, forcing him to ask, “What’s it like to live for thousands of years?”
Staring straight into the flames, Aric said, “Immortality is the utterest hell.”
His words hurt me like a blow to the body. To the heart.
“Are there any others out there?” Jack asked.
“Not that I’ve ever met.”
The bottle made another round. I couldn’t believe the two had been talking this long—without fighting. I was hesitant to say anything, didn’t want to spook them.
Aric asked him, “How did you come by your talent for reading people?” Though Aric possessed so many gifts, did he wish for that ability? For all these years, he’d been an observer of mortals, but rarely a participant in their interactions.
Jack’s gaze clouded. “Nécessité.” Deep draw. Pass bottle. “That story true about your armor?”
Under my lashes, I gazed from one to the other. They were lowering their guards a bit.
“Very true. I thought I’d been maddened, suffering from hallucinations, until I found the crypt.”
“So . . . gods are real?”
Aric nodded. “That’s how the game came about. They grew bored.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I had to speak up. “And? What happened after boredom set in?”
“You wish to hear the origin story?”
“Uh, yes.” I passed him the bottle.
After all my evil in past lives, shouldn’t I atone in this one?
“Some cards will have to be destroyed regardless of the game.” Aric’s free hand clenched. Was he thinking about the Emperor? “They will never come to heel. Just as the Lovers refuse to.”
“We woan have to worry about those two much longer.” Jack absently rubbed his bandage.
“You shouldn’t wear their mark, mortal.”
Jack scowled. “Ain’t like I got a choice, me.”