Siggy looked up from his plate of food, a fork in one hand, a piece of bacon in the other and blinked at Stieg. “Hiding what?”
“No idea. But it’s something.”
Siggy rolled his eyes and went back to devouring his food. “You accuse everyone of being up to something. You’re completely paranoid.”
“I am not completely paranoid. You should have seen their faces when they noticed I was standing there. Like they’d been caught doing something.”
“So? What if they are hiding something from us? So what? They’re our Elders. I’m sure they wouldn’t put us in any situation we couldn’t handle.”
“You poor, delusional fool.”
Siggy shrugged rather than trying to speak with the half a roll he had in his mouth. The man ate like he was still on the Viking boat and hadn’t seen food in days.
Rolf sat down at the table, placing a copy of the Wall Street Journal beside his empty plate before asking Stieg, “You slept with Erin Amsel?”
Stieg frowned. “What?” Then he remembered the psychopath’s plan to get away with whatever she’d been up to. “Oh. Yeah,” he lied. “I, uh . . .” He made a loose fist and sort of jabbed at the air. “I gave it to her good. Or something.” That should be convincing, right?
Although Rolf didn’t look convinced and Siggy only seemed concerned.
“Do you want to talk to my therapist?” Siggy asked, patting Stieg’s forearm.
“No, I do not want to . . . wait. You see a therapist?”
“It was court ordered after the, uh . . . incident.”
“That was like five years ago. Why are you still seeing a therapist?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at his nearly empty plate. “I just like having someone to talk to that’s not you guys.”
“You slept with Erin Amsel?” Rolf asked Stieg again. “And lived to tell the tale?”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s Erin. She can take most guys down with a thought. But you . . .”
Stieg glared at his friend. “But me what?”
“Nothing.” Rolf picked up his paper and began to read it.
Siggy continued to focus on what was left to eat on his plate.
Stieg let them ignore him for another few minutes while he ruminated on the last three minutes of conversation. Then he slammed his fist on the table and yelled, “Both of you are complete and utter assholes!”
* * *
Erin sat at the kitchen table while her Strike Team stood over her . . . disgusted.
“How could you?” Kera demanded.
“Poor little Stieg,” Maeve sighed out, shaking her head.
Leigh pointed a damning finger at Erin. “Did you even think about him? When you were taking advantage of that poor defenseless boy?”
Annalisa kept her hand pressed against her mouth and nose, trying to keep her laughter in.
And Alessandra asked, “How was he?”
The only one missing was Jace, but she was outside trying to help with the twins.
“Are you all done?” Erin asked.
“You can stop smirking,” Kera snapped at her.
“Okay.” She grinned instead and Annalisa walked out of the room, unable to handle another moment, her laughter echoing back to them from the hallway.
“We expected more from you,” Kera told her.
Leigh frowned a bit at Kera. “Did we? Really?”
Maeve scratched her arm, then informed them all, “I think I have a flesh-eating bacteria in my hand, spreading up my arm.”
“You do not,” Erin informed her as strongly as she could without hitting, “have a flesh-eating bacteria.”
“How do you know?” Maeve held her arm out for Erin to look at. “They could be eating me alive inside!”
“You don’t even have a rash!”
“Can we focus on one psychosis at a time?” Tessa asked before informing Erin, “You should apologize.”
“To Kera?”
“To Stieg!” they all yelled at her, which made Erin burst into a fit of giggles.
She couldn’t help it. They were all being so—
“Why don’t you make yourself useful,” Kera ordered her, “and deal with the twins.”
“I thought they were Betty’s problem.”
“She’s not here! So get out there and assist!”
“Okay. Okay. No need to get hysterical.”
Still laughing, Erin walked out of the kitchen and went into the backyard. As the twins rolled by her on the grass, she reached down, grabbing each woman by the back of her long blond hair. She yanked the pair apart and proceeded to shake them—still using their hair—until they both calmed down. “That is enough!” she bellowed.
When their arms hung limply at their sides, Erin tossed the pair in two separate directions. Smiling, she wiped one hand against the other and said, “See? Not so hard.”
“What’s this?” a sister-Crow asked, shoving a cell phone close to her face.
“I have no idea. You’re holding it way too close.”
“You slept with Stieg Engstrom?”
That’s when even the birds in the trees went silent, and Erin realized that all her sister-Crows were now staring at her.
Then Jace’s soft voice said, “Oh, Erin. You didn’t!”
“He—”
“Do not say he started it,” someone barked at her.
Erin threw up her hands. “Then I have no response.”
CHAPTER SIX
Stieg walked into the Bird House kitchen to find Jace getting together a bunch of ingredients for something he was sure would taste great. Since she had connected with her father’s side of the family, she’d been cooking more, and absolutely everything she’d made so far was amazing.
But as soon as Stieg stood next to her, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be getting whatever she was making. “Hey.”
“Shut up,” she snapped back.
“How could I have made you angry already? I just got here.”
Without even looking at what she was doing, Jace cracked eggs into a bowl. “I can’t believe you slept with Erin and that you then ran around telling everybody.”
“No, I didn’t. She ran around telling everybody.”
“Erin is not one to brag. Not about that. I know her.”
“You don’t know her that well.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t talk about it.” He leaned over, trying to see what Jace was putting together. “What are you making?”
“Nothing for you!” she snarled.
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Taking advantage of my friends is not doing anything?”
“I didn’t take advantage of anyone. I—” Stieg remembered his promise to Erin to keep her stupid lie going.
“You . . . what?”
“Can’t talk about it.”
Jace stopped putting ingredients into the bowl and faced Stieg. “What are you two up to?”
“I’m not up to anything.”
“Implying that Erin is up to something?”
“I didn’t say that. I can’t talk about it.”
Jace threw up her hands. “All right. Fine. But you have to let everyone know you’re not the poor abused boy here. That whatever you two did was mutual and consensual.”
“And how do I do that?”
“By saying that it was mutual and consensual.” She shook her head and grabbed a small bottle of vanilla. “I don’t want Erin hurt.”
“Can she be?”
Jace slammed the bottle down on the counter. “What kind of question is that?”
“A very non-hysterical one. Unlike your question.” Stieg finally took a step back and asked, “What’s going on with you?”
He knew that Jace was at the forefront of the Clans’ work on finding a way to destroy Gullveig for good. Every day and many nights, she worked alongside the Protectors, researching very old books in a vast number of languages. And he was beginning t
o worry she was getting burned out, unable to find anything that could help.
Because, at the end of the day, even Odin and the other gods couldn’t stop Gullveig. And they’d tried. Three times they’d stabbed, impaled, and burned her. And three times she’d come back.
If the gods couldn’t kill her, what could some humans with a lot of books do?
“What? Nothing,” Jace said too quickly. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Come on, Jace. It’s me. Don’t lie.”
She spun on him, one finger angrily pointed at him. But before she could say anything, two blond women Stieg didn’t recognize head-locked their way through one end of the kitchen and toward the other side. They occasionally stopped to punch each other in the face. One punched her twin in the breast, which seemed . . . an unusual fighting choice. Then they released each other from the headlock so that they could shove each other out the other side of the kitchen through the swinging door.
A few seconds later, a group of Crows followed after them, begging them to, “Stop! Stop! What the hell is wrong with you two?”
“New girls?” Stieg asked Jace once they were alone again.
“Yeah,” Jace said, her anger forgotten in the distraction of two women brawling in the kitchen. “Twins. Very sweet.”
“Clearly.”
* * *
Betty Lieberman had been in a coma for weeks before an old Albanian witch helped her snap out of it, and ever since then, she had been making up for lost time. She opened the front door to her palatial mansion and led the very young actor into her home.
“I really appreciate this opportunity, Mrs. Lieberman,” the twenty-three-year-old gushed.
“Oh, sweetie, call me Betty,” she purred, taking his hand. “Everybody does.” She walked down the marble hallway toward her home office where she could give the young man a chance to read for a part she was sure he was right for.
Then some fine dining ordered in and . . . they would take it from there.
As she neared her sunken living room, she heard the TV playing. She stopped outside the wide open entryway and released her prey . . . er . . . potential client.
She walked until she stood on the other side of her very long, specially made leather couch, which could fit her entire original Strike Team from her battle days. The ladies still loved to get together once a month, drink, watch movies with hot men, and talk shit about everybody.
It was what they still did best.
But it wasn’t one of her Strike Team sitting on the couch, pouting. It was Erin Amsel.
Erin looked up at Betty with those big green eyes, her red hair in two adorable ponytails, and such a look on that puss.
The pair of them had had a similar upbringing. Betty had been born and raised in Queens. Her early training came from the world of New York TV news, where she found out from a very direct and rude boss that, “You’ll never get on camera with that nose, sweetheart. You better get it fixed.”
Betty never got that nose job, but she did decide that if she was going to work behind the camera, she was going to own the industry. And she did. And the man who gave her that unsolicited piece of advice? She’d crushed him. Not physically. But she’d pushed him out of the business, made sure he never worked in the industry again.
And she’d made sure he knew who’d destroyed his career.
The bitch with the big nose.
Erin Amsel was originally from Staten Island. A nice, middle-class girl with real artistic talent and a big mouth. Her sense of humor reminded Betty of her own, and they’d both entered their Second Lives at the end of a bullet. So Betty had been more than happy to be the kid’s mentor.
And now, she was getting ready to pass on that torch.
But first Betty had to do what she had always done best . . . deal with an upset artist.
* * *
Erin hadn’t realized she’d be interrupting Betty and one of her, uh, “recruiting” sessions, but she also hadn’t been thinking too clearly. Too baffled to call first, she’d done what she’d always done. Stop by 7-11, pick up a Big Gulp and a large bag of chips, and crash on Betty’s couch, watching favorite shows on Betty’s giant TV.
Betty stared at her for a long moment.
Erin was about to tell her she was going, when Betty looked at the extremely handsome young man and said, “Get out.”
“But I thought we were going to—”
“Out. My assistant will set up another appointment for you.”
Unable to hide the frustration on his face, the young man stomped out, and Betty dropped on the couch beside her.
“You didn’t have to tell him to go.”
“You know my rule, sweetie.”
Erin grinned. “Clits before dicks.”
“Always.” Betty shoved a handful of chips into her mouth and leaned back into her shockingly expensive couch. “Now tell me what you’ve fucked up today, kid.”
* * *
“Wait.” Jace put the brownie batter in the oven, set the timer, then grabbed Stieg Engstrom’s arm, and dragged him out the sliding glass doors from the kitchen and into the yard. She kept walking, taking the big man with her. She knew he was letting her “drag” him. Unless she was in one of her rages, her strength was just regularly enhanced. Not majorly enhanced.
But she had to make sure she’d heard Stieg right.
Once they were a good distance from the Bird House, she faced him. “You didn’t sleep with her?” She needed to make sure she understood what she’d gotten him to tell her with the promise of licking the brownie batter–covered spoon.
Happily cleaning that spoon, he said, “Uh-uh.”
“Then why did you say—”
“I didn’t say anything.” He licked brownie batter off his bottom lip. “She’s the one running around telling people. She insisted. But don’t say anything. I’m not supposed to tell anybody.”
“Why?”
Stieg looked off and Jace knew he was debating whether to break Erin’s confidence more than he already had, but Jace was already worried. Her friend tended to go off on her own sometimes. Take risks she shouldn’t. At least risks she shouldn’t when her fellow Crows weren’t around. When they were too far away to come to her aid.
“Tell me, Stieg. It’ll be between us. I need to know what she’s doing.”
He shrugged. “She went to a club last night.”
“Erin?”
Erin hated clubs . . . and club people. If she felt the need to dance or whatever, she went to the gay clubs with the lesbian Crows, knowing that she’d get to dance to great house music with the certainty that the gay men dancing next to her would have absolutely no interest in her whatsoever.
“Yeah. And while she was there . . . some guy from her past came along and took her.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who killed her in her First Life.”
“Oh my gosh!”
“I know. He and his thug friends took her to some dirt road and shot her in the head.”
Good Lord. How many times does that make that Erin has been shot in the head?
“And then?”
“Well . . .”
Jace nodded. “Okay.” That “well” meant Erin did what she did best. Most likely killed everybody involved and went about her day. “That still doesn’t explain why she didn’t come back here. What’s she hiding?”
“I’m not sure. She wouldn’t even tell me, and I helped save her.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I did. I was very helpful.”
“Sure you were. Erin always needs help during a fight.”
Stieg growled a little.
“So, how did this guy find her?” Jace asked.
“I guess he saw her at the club and was worried she’d recognize him. Probably a little surprised she was still breathing. You know . . . after the head shot and all.”
“One does not usually walk away from two shots to the head.” Jace shook her finger. “But you can’t tell me the man who kill
ed her just happened to be in the club Erin was in. A Staten Island mobster isn’t going to move to LA and not have every mobster in LA trying to kill him. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Get that kind of criminal knowledge from your family?”
“They’re not criminals.” And when Stieg did nothing but stare, “They’re not all criminals.” Jace began to pace. “So first, we have Erin’s past coming back to haunt her. That’s weird. And we still don’t know what Erin Amsel, of all people, was doing at an LA club.”
“Looking for a date?”
“Erin doesn’t go to clubs to find dates.”
“Where does she go?”
“Is that important now?”
“I’m just curious!”
“I need you to focus. She’s looking for something. Or someone. We just need to figure out who.” She blinked. “Or whom. One of those.”
“Why?”
“To protect her.”
“From herself?”
“Someone has to do it, and you’re not busy.”
“I could be busy. I have a life now.”
“Is this about that goat?”
“I’m getting her a house.”
Jace blinked. “You’re getting a house for a goat?”
“Well . . . I’ll be living there, too.”
“Why?”
“Erin said it needs a herd. But I’m pretty sure I can’t have a herd of goats in my apartment.”
“Soooo . . . because of what Erin said, you’re getting a house?”
“She seems to know goats so . . . yeah.” Stieg frowned. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
Jace shook her head. “No reason.”
* * *
“Jourdan Ambrosio, huh?” Betty reached for Erin’s Big Gulp and took a sip, then she gazed down at the giant cup in her hand before sighing, shoving it back at Erin, and leaving the room.
When she returned, she had a very expensive bottle of wine and two glasses.
“It makes sense, don’t you think?” Erin asked. “About Ambrosio.”
“It does.” Betty filled the two glasses, handed one to Erin, and dropped onto the couch beside her. “I know Ambrosio. She’s a horrible person. Petty. Vapid. Shallow. I tried to get her as a client, but my nemesis got her first.”
“You tried to get her as a client? The woman has no talent.”