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Menai turned, co face-to-face with Henri, who stood with his back and one boot braced against the wall "How’s the tummy, shifter?"

His hand went to his stoun, but his gaze stayed steady on Menai Henri was definitely into her "It hurts You want to rub it?"

She laughed Menai stepped up to hiht on theHenri shocked and infinitely pleased "Hell, if I knew getting shot in the belly was all it took to get her attention, I’d have done it sooner"

Melinoe followed Menai, but as she went to step over the body by the door, she stopped and knelt by the creature "Still clinging to life," she el ofpathetic and hopeful A pang of eh me I knew from experience that not all of Athena’s creatures were ent, starved for attention, or starved for an end to servitude and torture

Mel ran her white hand over its head in a coesture The creature closed its eyes and shuddered, leaving ently before But it wouldn’t see the angel of ht Mel placed her black hand over its forehead Its body tre a black haze with a bit of brightness in its center from the creature’s head When the haze withdrew completely, the creature’s body went limp and its head fell to the side

Mel turned her hand over, staring raptly at the soul in the palht spilled froers and then died out She opened her hand, glanced over at our astounded faces, and blew the ashes at us like a kiss good-bye

An eerie silence descended in the wake of her departure

Dub sat down beside me and let out a loud exhale "That chick’s messed up Makes the rest of us freaks look like the all-American family" He shivered "Gave ave Violet an affectionate smile, which she returned At some point she’d come back into the foyer, and I wondered how much she’d seen

"I like her," Violet remarked as she stared at the open door

"Yeah, we could tell"

Crank stepped over the bodies, head down, searching She stopped and pulled her hammer from one of theabout how gross it was, took her ha to shake off the creep factor Mel had left us with "I don’t know about you guys, but I’ in a roory?"

"What? I worked up an appetite"

Sebastian’s soft laugh drewanywhere, Henri We can drag them into the backyard and burn thealed Sebastian with his awesouette

Yep, just a norht

FOUR

THE IDEA OF DRAGGING CORPSES through the house and into the backyard was roans and muttered curses No one felt like it Especially after we’d just stuffed our bellies with oyster stew But the bodies weren’t going toa leathery ankle or a bony wrist, tugging the dead out of the house Once that was done, iped up the blood in the foyer and the long, bloody s bodies down the hall

I joined the others on the spacious brick patio Vines grew high on the fence surrounding the property, so branches of the banana trees, growing up over the lireen shield around the property

Violet liked to go out there and hide under the leaves She reminded me of Pascal sometimes in her mannerisms, the way she loved all reptiles and the swas

I watched her as she cliarden nymph She put her elbows on the statue’sher chin on top

The corpses should have left usted and nauseated, but I was ht be a small pile of bodies in front of me, but it sure felt like there was a mountain of obstacles in my way--my curse, the Hands, Athena, Josephine

Dub snapped his fingers, and a flarew, he blasted the pile

Heat blew overcurse