“What are you doing here?” I asked him, crossing to the mountain side of the road. I didn’t trust my clumsiness.
“What?” Bria asked as Red looked back in confusion.
“Harding,” I answered.
“What’s he doing here?” Bria asked, her eyebrows pinched. “Did you bring the pocket watch?”
Harding was tied to the pocket watch he’d had when he was living, which was buried in a safe in deep waters beneath a particularly turbulent part of the ocean. Kieran was the only person who knew exactly where it was hidden.
“No, I didn’t,” I said, waiting for Harding to explain his sudden appearance.
He shrugged, his grin growing. “You complete me.”
I gave him a flat stare. “But seriously, how’d you find me? Or…why, I guess. Without your pocket watch, I’m not your home base.”
He shrugged again. “You weren’t my home base. Maybe you are now. You’ve grown on me. I like watching you…go about your day.”
Shivers racked my body at the change in his tone. At the unwelcome sexy glimmer in his eyes. That pause spoke of twisted sheets and writhing bodies, and the words he’d uttered did nothing to conceal his true meaning.
I could feel my expression closing down into a scowl. He knew his flirtation annoyed me—I was pretty sure that was why he did it. “Look, we’re about to enter a hairy situation here. I don’t need any distractions. If you’re here to help, great. If not, shove off.”
“What are ya up to?” he asked, looking up at the mountain. “Looking for giants?”
“A particular giant, yes. A level five with a bad attitude, I guess.”
“A very bad attitude,” Red murmured.
“And I see you brought my favorite Necromancer. We’re going to have beautiful babies, her and I. Tell her I said so.”
“You’re dreaming of days gone by,” I said dryly.
“Tell her.”
I did as he said without really thinking about it, looking hard at a half crater punched into the side of the road. An enormous boulder had clearly fallen, too big to stay on this small shelf of a road. It had smashed its way through and kept going.
“No fucking way,” Bria muttered. “A Demigod is plenty bad enough.”
“She’s fooling herself,” Harding said with that handsome, devilish smirk.
“I don’t think she’s the fool, and also, this is getting gross. Knock it off.” I edged around another boulder, three feet across and two feet high. “Where are these coming from?”
“The top, I’d imagine,” Red said.
Even the spirits in the bodies tipped back their heads to look up the mountain.
“But there is no evidence of these things rolling down this slope,” I pushed.
“They probably weren’t rolled. He’s a giant—he can make it rain rocks, if he wants to,” Bria said. “A Demigod could shake this whole mountain. This guy can probably only shake a portion of it. What do you bet that’s the portion he lives on?”
“Well, this just got interesting,” Harding said, and slipped his hands into his pockets. “You and your friends do entertain, I’ll say that much.”
A rust-red splotch on one of the rocks caught my eye, and I wondered if it was dried blood. If so, was it from a human or an animal? Either way, the source had probably been eaten.
I swallowed down a lump in my throat. My stomach turned a little faster.
“There they are.” Red pointed as we went around another bend. The road leveled off for a brief period with a small grouping of trees stuck in a little ravine at the side. Donovan leaned against a large boulder, not unlike the one that had blocked the SUVs. Thane stood with his hands on his hips, looking up through the trees.
“Hey, guys,” Bria said as we drew near, both of them turning to face us. “Why did you walk this far in?”
Thane nodded at me in hello before glancing back at the cadavers following us. “We wanted to see if he’d throw any rocks or whatever it is he does.” It didn’t sound like he was worried about the possibility. “It’s been quiet.”
“Too quiet,” Donovan said, his subdued voice raising the small hairs along my arms and neck.
“What do you think about the size of these boulders?” Red asked, sweeping her gaze across the road.
Donovan shrugged. “Individually, not a problem.” He was a level-five Telekinetic and would hopefully keep us from getting smooshed. “If he creates an avalanche, it’ll get hairy.”
“What about you?” Red turned to Thane.
“I can bust through a decent-sized avalanche, I think. I can catch and relaunch rocks. But once I go Berserk, you’ll have to run.”
As a level-five Berserker, Thane was incredibly strong and powerful. He was also incredibly unpredictable and dangerous. After the change, he stopped distinguishing friend from foe. He saw red and attacked.
An attack on his spirit box, if continued for long enough, would force him to shift back into his human form, but that wouldn’t help if rocks were being thrown at us.
“Right. So we’re essentially trapped up here with very few options should this giant want to kill us,” I summed up, feeling the urgency for action. I was very close to losing my nerve.
“We got this,” Donovan said, moving around to massage my shoulders. “It’s universally believed that this giant likes to play games with his prey. He’ll want to meet us. Feel us out. Then he’ll try to kill us in a clever way. He’s probably bored—he’ll want a little sport. All we need to do is get an audience with him. That’s it. I can lob rocks away to get us there.”
“What if I can’t talk him into joining us?” I said, shrugging him off.
“Then you kill him before he kills us.” Donovan motioned me forward. “Let’s get to it. Kieran thinks we’re escorting you to the outlets. As soon as he has a second to think about the direction we’ve gone, he’ll know something is off. Time is ticking.”
“It’s not going to take him long. He’s not a stupid man,” Red said.
“He’s got that useless magical mayor in his hair all day long,” Donovan replied. “We’ve got Daisy monitoring the situation, ready to step in and run interference if need be. We’re good for a while.”
“Like I said back at the Airbnb, Mordecai is going to give us away,” I said.
“Daisy figured out a way around that. She locked Mordecai in the basement. That little gremlin doesn’t play.” Thane laughed as we got underway, not taking the road, as I had thought we might, but heading through the trees and onto a small path that wound along a natural spring cutting through the mountainside.
“Oh, and Lexi, we’ll absolutely be blaming all of this on you, just so you know,” Donovan said. A huge boulder loomed in our path, and although Thane easily launched onto it, Donovan stood to the side and gave me his hand. I allowed him to help me up, following Thane along the path. “He won’t kill you.”
“Oh yeah, I meant to mention that bit.” Bria took the help as well, then curtsied once she’d made it onto the rock. Red gave Donovan a confused look and hopped up after us as though on springs.