This was one of those situations.
“Hey, you guys,” I said cheerily, waving at the twins.
Artemis sat up and whipped off her sunglasses. “Can it, Mason. My brother had to sleep on a hammock all night. A hammock! What the hell happened to the hut you were supposed to build?”
Apollo slowly sat up in his own hammock, smiling. “Artemis, chill. I’m totally fine. Perfectly happy to sleep in a hammock. Also, we kind of don’t need to sleep. And we were up super late last night, what with all the cocktails and – ”
She waved her hand irritably in his face. “Shush, shush. Not the point. You’re still supposed to have a door that closes. I can’t have guests going shelterless and sleeping in the hot sun.” She stretched her arms out to either side. “That’s not the level of service you’re meant to receive at Chez Artemis.”
I tutted at her. “Really? It’s called Paradise. Also, I didn’t get the memo about you turning this place into a bed and breakfast.”
She sprang off the hammock. “Well, I’ll write you that memo right now. And another one telling you to stop mouthing off. As soon as I find a pen.” She patted herself down, as if the goddess of the hunt went around with a ballpoint on her person at all times. “Just you wait,” she continued, stalking off in search of stationery.
Apollo tutted and shook his head. “Don’t you mind her. She gets these ideas sometimes. At some point she wanted to run an animal shelter, until she realized how much work was actually involved.”
I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “I’m totally used to it. She’ll get bored with the idea and go back to watching TV and eating cheesy snacks by this time tomorrow.”
From somewhere among the trees, Artemis protested. “I heard that!”
I shrugged again. “She hears everything. In here, at least. But speaking of which, you mentioned that you, yourself, see everything. Out there.”
Hah. Real smooth segue there, Mason.
He gave me a flattered grin, scratching at his stomach, trying to play it cool. “Well, you know, not everything. And it’s not like I can see through roofs or walls or anything like that.”
I felt my stomach drop a little lower with every limitation he mentioned. It was interesting, though, seeing all these different ways that scrying could shift between various magical, divine, and supernatural disciplines. The Lorica had their own Eyes, who used remote viewing through mirrors and crystals and what have you to gather intelligence for the organization. Florian and the root network mostly tapped into things to do with nature and plants, and Asher could commune with the dead, apparently on an extremely wide scale. Still, it was strange how he couldn’t find the spirits of the murdered nephilim. Where had they gone?
Interesting, yes, but also a little frustrating. We had eyes and ears everywhere, and yet not enough to really go on. And then there was Sadriel, the one person who could actually help us home in on the nephilim. She could easily drop in on each of them, the way she loved to pop up in my life with zero warning. And surely she wasn’t the only field agent in her department. Samyaza’s system only vaguely showed us where the nephilim were, and maybe if he and I worked at it, together we could actually track them down and help.
But no matter if we got Samyaza or Sadriel to do the surveilling, there were just too many nephilim. It was just like Asher said. To stop the beast, we needed to cut off its head, stab it in the heart.
“How about locally?” I said. “We can start with that. Put together any information we get from you, Asher, Samyaza, anybody, and try to, uh, triangulate from there. Am I using that right? Triangulate?”
“You watch too much television.” Artemis came stomping back up to us, a pen and a legal pad clutched in her hands.
I folded my arms and frowned at her. “Barely. You and Priscilla are always hogging the TV for your soaps and that disgusting pimple show.”
She thrust her finger at my face. “Dr. Pimple Popper is a national treasure. Global. Interdimensional. I will not have you besmirch her name.” She started scribbling furiously on the pad.
“Oh, look, she really is going to write me a memo.”
Artemis rolled her eyes. “No, stupid. I was joking.” She raised the pad, showing me a rough sketch of what looked like – huh, wait. It was an approximate map of Valero. Then she flung the thing at Apollo. “Here. Get to work.”
Apollo glanced at the pad, then nodded in understanding. “It’ll take some time to scour the area, but I think I can see what you’re going for. Track the surroundings, right? Figure out the local presence of this – did you call it the Hunger?”
“That’s exactly it,” I said, the inside of my chest a little lighter as I threw Artemis a grateful smile. “Thank you. The both of you.”
Artemis allowed herself a tiny grin before dropping it and playing the part of a hard-ass once more. “It’s the sensible thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. We’ll help you any way we can, Mason. I think animals will always be better than people, but I will not condone the slaughter of innocents either way.” She clambered back into her hammock and slipped her enormous sunglasses over her eyes. “Wake me up when you find something.”
“Uh-huh,” Apollo said, poring over the rudimentary map like it was a crossword puzzle. His tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth in concentration. One of his eyes burned a faint gold as it looked beyond the dimensional barriers of Paradise and into reality. “Start local. Right.”
I stepped away to start construction – again
