Epilogue

A Month Later

Cole

Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

A lot had happened in thirty days. After a ridiculous hour-plus ride in a four-door sedan with a dog the size of the car itself stuffed into the backseat with all three heads sticking out one of the windows and a long-ass flight back to New Orleans with an airsick dog, he and Evie had finally gotten home less than 12 hours after the battle in the Carpathians. He had taken the world’s quickest shower to wash the grime off him before setting off to check the wards surrounding Than’s house, happy to see that not only had Cate over-warded against every deity—except for him and Evie—and beast entering or exiting the premise, but she had also put up several ‘No Soliciting’ and ‘Trespassers will be shot’ signs—so many, in fact, that even the tourists were avoiding the house. Once he let himself in, he was thrilled to find out that Cate had not only ripped out the phone system and taken away any form of more modern communication but, in a perfectly petty move, disconnected the Wi-Fi too. Than shared this fact with a furious glare only after he took a swing at Cole with a knife. Apparently, no work, no play, no internet, and no murder made Than a very homicidal boy.

Cole simply dodged, took the knife away from him with a laugh, and left the house with Than’s spitted curses following him.

Once they were settled in, Evie had taken one look at their home's backyard and scoffed in his face at the incomplete look of it. At that point he reminded her that bachelors didn’t really give care about the appearance of their gardens and she was lucky he had a gardener coming in to do upkeep at all. His loving goddess then told him to get lost.

With a chuckle, he left her to her plants and went to Charles’ house to catch his family up to speed on everything that happened in Romania, including their new feud with Medea and Circle. As if the mass murder wasn’t bad enough, both had supported the harmful measures required of Evie before allowing her to enter the coven. Cole wasn’t exactly calm when it came to people harming his Angel, and everyone already knew that fact. In theory. However, they developed practical knowledge of it after he nearly set Charles’ kitchen table on fire when he lost his cool while sharing what the Council had done to her. There were now scorch marks on the table. Unfortunately, when he quipped to his uncle that it added character, Charles told him, in no uncertain terms, to get out and go home to the person actually willing to put up with him for her immortal life. As he left, he threw over his shoulder that he had proposed to Evie. Essi had cried, Charles had given him enough expensive booze to start his own bar in the Quarter, and Hayden just looked slightly lost. Hmm. A puzzle for another time.

When he got home that night, Evie, sitting calmly in the kitchen with Cerbie snoozing nearby, informed him that the garden was no longer a travesty. He had made appropriate sounds of excitement then shooed Cerbie off his human-sized daybed into the backyard and bent his little witch over the nearest waist-high surface. With their claiming of the Underworld throne, their sex didn’t cause cataclysmic world events anymore, but their home was still being overtaken by flora and fauna, thanks to Evie’s uncontrolled release of magic whenever she came. He happily accepted that he now lived in a greenhouse. Hell, he would live in Tartarus itself if his Angel was with him.

Less than a week after they got home, he kept his promise to Evie and married her in an intimate ceremony in the backyard of their New Orleans home, surrounded by his family, the newly established pantheon of Underworld gods, Sandrine, Hesteia, Thea, Bernadette, and her other coven sisters. Frankly, once he saw Evie in her wedding dress, nobody else existed for him anyways. A fact that he now received endless ribbing about given that he had stolen her away to their bedroom during dinner and made her scream so loudly and pitch perfectly for him that she shattered three guest’s wine glasses. Worth it.

Evie steadfastly refused to move to Romania, saying flatly that she wouldn't live that far away from Sandrine, Hesteia, Thea, and Bernadette. With some assistance from Charlie and the witches who were venturing further afield from the preserve, she dedicated herself to figuring out a magical method for travel. A week after their wedding, Evie proudly announced that they now had a portal from New Orleans to the Underworld by way of one of the historic trees in their backyard. He asked zero questions. Whatever made her happy.

Even with all of the progress they had made, though, they were still trying to figure out the best way to collect both the shades still wrongfully in the human plan and carry those the Moirai pegged for death to the Underworld. The gods of their pantheon bore a significant amount of power between them, but none had the skills necessary for this particular task. Which was why, after weeks of nonstop discussions between him and Evie, he was now walking into Than’s heavily-warded house a month after imprisoning him.

“What the fuck do you want?” Than glared at him from his spot at the table. A glass of what looked and smelled like whiskey sat in front of him, despite it only being—Cole checked his watch—barely 11:00 in the morning.

“Man, you look like shit,” Cole responded cheerily, kicking a chair out from the table and taking a seat. In addition to everything else they had done in the last month, he had taken on a named partner-only status at the firm so anything he did for work was at his discretion. It meant an escape from the daily grind of the last ten years. It also meant that he could wake up late and spend as much of the morning as he wanted making his gorgeous wife come apart for him. “You ever hear of sleep and a shower?”

“I have some extremely rude neighbors.” Than’s terse reply only made Cole chuckle.

“I dunno what to tell you. May be time for you to move.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Eyes the same color as the whiskey in Than’s glass fixed on his in a furious glare. “I’m a prisoner in my own fucking house.”

“Well, technically, that’s not really true now, is it?” Cole pulled out a set of papers from the briefcase sitting next to him. “Technically, this house belongs to a Todd Waterson, born in Baton Rouge in 1981, gone missing in 2018. Family’s still looking for him, even after all these years.” The man across from him didn’t so much as glance down at the papers that Cole slid across the table. “You murder Todd, Than?” he asked mildly.

Than shrugged carelessly. “More of a mercy killing, really.”

Cole nodded, glad he had been correct in his assumption. “That’s why I’m here, actually.” At that statement, one of Than’s dark brown brows shot up. “Not about Todd—I don’t give a shit. Seems like the world’s better off without him in it anyways, given the shit he was into. More about your illustrious career as the world’s longest-running serial killer.”

With a tug of his wrist, he pulled another envelope from the briefcase and splayed newspaper clippings, case summaries, and random notes across the table. “You didn’t stop after Kore and Aidoneus. You spent the next several millennia popping up from place to place, murdering anyone you saw fit and then ducking your head back down until your next big exploit.” The table was now covered in enough true crime materials to write a book. “You’ve had a lot of names over the years, buddy. Nero, Vlad the Impaler, Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac Killer. Any time something big and bloody happened, you were at the center of it, situated in just the right way to revel in it. Helluva career in killing right there, couyon .”

Another shrug. “You here to lecture me on my past? Because, after what I saw you do in that field in Romania when you thought your girl was dead, I’m not really up for a showcase in hypocrisy.”

“First off, that’s my fucking wife so have some goddamn respect when you talk about her,” Cole hissed before forcing himself to sit back into his chair. “And, second, I’m actually here to offer you a job.”

Those cold eyes darted up to his, interest sparking for the first time since Cole had walked in unannounced. “What?”

“As it so happens, the Underworld is desperately in need of a god of death. Evie and I could collect shades to our heart’s content, but a ton of our time has to be dedicated to building a structure in the Underworld or we’re just going to have another mass exodus of souls.” He tapped his finger on the newspaper clippings across the table. “As a shade, you’ve spent lifetimes spilling blood and murdering your way across the globe. During that time, I’m assuming you’ve amassed untold power from the people you’ve executed. Taking this role would just allow you to do that on… the company dime, let’s call it. You would just have to collect all the outstanding shades and carry new souls to Charon when they die. And you could keep up the extracurricular of being everyone’s favorite unsolved true crime monster.”

“What’s in it for me?” Than demanded.

“Well, for starters, it’s either this or Evie comes over here and turns you into dust the way she’s been begging me to let her do for the last month.” Cole’s mouth twisted fondly at the memory of his bloodthirsty little witch sitting naked in his lap, begging him to let her destroy Than. “All the other perks are fairly standard—real immortality rather than whatever half-life, shade-based bullshit you got goin’ on now, ear of the royals, deity status, blah, blah, blah.” Cole went in for the kill. “Plus you get to choose where you live. Can be in the Underworld or here.”

Than’s eyes flared at that.

Hell, he guessed Evie’s voice carried more than he thought… or maybe it was that Cole sometimes made an extra effort to piss off their neighbor by fucking Evie outside or opening the windows when he took her inside the house. “You would trust me?”

“Well, to be fair, your entire life force would be tied to the Underworld so destroying you if you fucked around and we found out wouldn’t be too difficult.” Spreading his hands, Cole inclined his head. “Frankly, I can’t hold Evie off much longer. She’s been itching to destroy you since Romania, and I’m running out of reasons to stop h—”

“I’m in.” Than shoved his hand across the table. “So when do I start, boss?”