3

LILIANNA

Lily wasn’t sure of what to make of her surroundings. She had not had the best luck with men, or people in general, in her life. But she trusted Jacob, loved him in a way that she never would have thought possible. That love, however, was not stopping her from being terrified of him. They drove on through the desert night and he rocked back and forth, back and forth, behind the steering wheel of his old Buick Century. She watched him carefully, out of the corner of her eye, as he carried on a dialogue with himself.

Jacob’s rational voice was distressed. “I still don’t buy it. There’s nowhere safe left on Earth for us.”

Reverend chided him. “You must have faith, I say unto you. Morrigan will shelter us. She is a friend of Temple Discordia, even if she is not aware of it yet.”

David’s approach was far more violent. “We go back and fight. They expect us to flee. We kill the other wizard. Kill all the gunmen he brought with him. Teach them what happens to those that defy us. That should entertain your goddess plenty, right, Rev?”

Reverend shook their mutual head in disbelief. “Eris’ love for me overfloweth, despite the Fiery One’s warnings to the contrary. Verily, she could not dispose of me for a better Hand regardless of what we do.”

Jacob intervened pragmatically. “In case you two weren’t paying attention, we got shot. A lot. I’ve mended them as best I can, but my magic is getting a little unstable.”

Lilianna knew the word he wanted to use there and didn’t. His magic was getting a little dark. She had seen Jacob do some things before his ascension to whatever his current state was. It had always intrigued her, sparked her curiosity and wonder. But when she watched him healing his wounds, his magic seemed darker, almost hellish. Something worse than Eris was creeping over Jacob, replacing her gentle love with a man who terrified her. “Maybe we could stop, Jacob. The man who caught me, he said he wanted to help you…”

She had started talking to Jacob, but it was David who shot her a dark glance. “Yeah. Helping me was exactly what he was trying to do when he threw those dice grenades at me. Blasted the shit out of me.”

“Then Morrigan. Reverend is right. She’s good people. She and her husband can help us, I’m sure of it.”

Reverend piped up. “See, out of the mouths of babes comes forth the truth.”

Jacob replied to himself. “Fine. But we keep a low profile. We’ve got enough money, even if we did leave half of it back in the hotel room.”

Lily watched him, long into the night, until sleep finally overtook her. She wished she knew where everything went wrong. It was only as she drifted off that she realized it had all started to go wrong, really, seriously wrong, the last time she had been in the home of Marianna Morrigan.