I put down my hammer for a moment, leaning against the framework, careful not to get splinters in my palm. “Preaching to the choir there, Sam. Oh, yikes. Do you mind if I call you Sam?”
He leaned out from behind the wooden beams, smiling. “You can call me anything you like. I don’t care.”
“I think it works for me. It’s weird thinking of you as ‘Dad,’ you know? Even though that’s exactly what you are. But speaking of which, there’s the matter of my mom.”
Samyaza’s smile dropped, his face going stony and hard with intent. “I remember. Azrael said that Beelzebub has her. You don’t suppose all this nephilim business has something to do with her as well?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s still a shock to me learning that she isn’t dead. That’s huge. But I hate the idea that every second I spend not digging up everything I can on her location means that Beelzebub could be hurting her more and more.” I thumped my fist against the wood, grunting. “That fucking sucks.”
Sam went back to hammering, like the normalcy and routine of it was helping him think. “Your mother wouldn’t want you to overtax yourself. You’re no help if you’re weak, or sick, or dead.” He nodded at me, his eyes focusing on a spot just above my head. “How was your first night with your special new hat?”
I groaned, my eyes swiveling up, trying to focus on the brim of something I couldn’t really see. “That sucked, too. At last you don’t really see it during the day. It kind of fades out. Weird. And yet I spent all night trying to dim the stupid thing and nothing.” I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching my fists, focusing on – well, I wasn’t sure what, exactly. I opened my eyes again, staring at Sam hopefully. “So, anything?”
He shook his head. “Still the same brightness as before. Don’t worry, kid. You’ll get used to it.”
“This sucks,” I grumbled. “This all sucks. And you know the worst thing of all? We don’t even have any leads on the matter. How are we even going to know where the killers will strike next? Are we supposed to track down every nephilim one by one, warn them, guard them? There’s too many, even just here in California.” I ran my hand through my hair, grimacing at the dampness of it.
“We’ll figure something out,” Sam said. “Maybe we can talk to Raziel, get him to reason with Sadriel. She’ll listen to him, right? More than she’ll listen to me, at least.”
“Everything’s worth a shot at this point. Hang on. Phone’s buzzing.”
I wiped my hand on my shorts, fishing my phone out of my pocket, surprised to see that it was Dionysus calling. I almost dropped it in my excitement to answer. I picked up the call and put it on speaker phone.
“Hello?”
The god’s voice was uncharacteristically gloomy. “Mason Albrecht, I won’t mince words. I’ve learned a few new things about the murders. You aren’t going to like this.”
I braced myself, every muscle in my body held tight. “I’m listening,” I said, my eyes locked with Samyaza’s, who was listening just as intently.
“The nephilim corpses, and the missing organs?” Dionysus hesitated, then sighed. “Mason, they’re eating them. Your brethren are being killed for food.”
9
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock to my system. That’s what we’d been suspecting all along anyway, right? Beelzebub’s involvement, and the absolute possibility that the organs were being so carefully removed because they were being collected for some sinister purpose. But to hear Dionysus explicitly say that my kind were being harvested for food drove a spike through my core.
Samyaza punched a fist straight through the closest wooden beam. The skeleton of the hut collapsed into a pile of kindling, burning in the blue flame of his divine light. I couldn’t even be angry with him. I was too angry at the world.
We sat on the ground, my father and I, next to the ruins of what was meant to be Apollo’s vacation home. I rubbed at my temples, the day feeling colder, and grayer, despite the sweat and heat.
“I’m really sorry,” Sam said, gesturing at the smoldering wood, the strange blue fire. “About that.”
I shook my head. “Don’t blame you. I was gonna do the same, honestly.”
“We can build a better one in a minute. I just – I just have to sit here and breathe for a while.”
“Someone is eating us,” I said, suddenly angry again, my eyes locking with his. “I can’t even begin to understand what’s going on right now. Someone is out there eating our people.”
“We’ll come up with something,” Sam said. “We’ll talk to Dionysus, get more details, and we’ll hunt down whoever’s responsible.”
I pushed myself off the ground, my hands getting smeared with earth. “Agreed. I’m gonna go wash up, think in the shower. Apollo can sleep in the dirt for all I care.”
“Well, that’s not very nice,” said Apollo.
I turned quickly on my heel. How did he sneak up on me like that? Florian and Artemis stood behind him, Florian looking sheepish for forgetting to help me with construction, Artemis’s eyes huge as they flitted between Apollo and the burning remains of his hut.
“Sorry, man,” I said. “Things have been rough. I didn’t get to sleep much last night. Also, someone out there is eating nephilim organs. I’m all kinds of fucked up right now.”
Florian and the twins gathered around me, suddenly curious. Florian, especially, looked concerned, draping a reassuring arm across my shoulders. See, that’s how you know someone’s your best friend. They’re there for you in times of need, even if comforting you means that they have to risk basking in your sweaty nephilim musk.
“So it’s verified,” Artemis said. “Dionysus said so himself.”
Apollo nodded. “Dionysus is a party boy through and through, but he keeps his ear to
