Free Deadly Descendant by Jenna Black Page B

to the Olympians.”
    I was right: I didn’t like it.
    “No way in hell I’m handing anyone over to those sons of bitches,” I said in what I hoped was a calm voice.
    I thought my statement might piss Anderson off, but there was no sign of it.
    “What do you suggest we do instead?”
    And that, of course, was the problem. Dogboy couldn’t be allowed to run around ripping innocent bystanders to shreds, and Anderson wouldn’t tip his hand by killing him.
    “We can lock him up,” I said weakly, though I already knew the suggestion sucked. We had some rooms in the basement that were basically prison cells, but it wasn’t like we were equipped to be the killer’s eternal prison guards.
    “It’s really hard to keep a death god descendant locked up. Most of them can walk through walls and doors.”
    I sighed. “And fences,” I murmured, remembering Jamaal’s demonstration at the reservoir.
    “If we can’t contain him, then we have to kill him. And we’re not equipped to do that.”
    He gave me a meaningful look, and I swallowed my desire to argue. “So we hand him over to the Olympians, and they have one of their pet Descendants kill him, and now they have a new Liberi under their thumb.”
    “I’ll admit it’s not an ideal solution,” Anderson said. “But it’s the best we’ve got.”
    Anger burned in my chest, and I fought to holdit back. That wasn’t the best solution we had, and we both knew it. Death-by-Anderson was not a pleasant fate, and I hated the thought of putting anyone through it, but better that than to hand the Olympians a new Liberi on a silver platter. Not to mention that from what I’d heard, the Olympians weren’t exactly into clean kills themselves.
    “Why won’t you—”
    “Do not go there!” Anderson warned, and the steel in his voice told me in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t open to discussion.
    I bit my tongue, but it was hard. Generally, I liked Anderson. When I was able to see him as something other than my boss or a god, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and I respected his mission to make the world a better place. If it weren’t for him, every descendant of a Greek deity in this mansion—me, Maggie, Blake, Emma, and Leo—would have been forced either to join the Olympians or forfeit our immortality to one of the Olympians’ pet Descendants. Those descended from other pantheons—Jack, Jamaal, and Logan—would have been killed, their immortality “harvested” for someone the Olympians considered more worthy. And let’s not even talk about all the hidden Liberi and their Descendant families Anderson had helped.
    Anderson was one of the good guys, but right now, I thought he was being a coward.
    I didn’t say that out loud, of course, but I didn’t make any particular effort to keep my opinion from showing on my face.
    Anderson and I stared at each other in a silent battle of wills. Ordinarily, I’d bet on myself anytime, but to my shame, I looked away first. I could never unlearn what I’d found out about him, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to stand up to him the way I thought I should again.

S IX
     
    We headed out toward the Rock Creek Cemetery at about ten o’clock. To my surprise, when Anderson had said we were all going, he’d really meant all. Even Emma joined us, though it was clear she’d rather have stayed home and let us do all the work. She had little interest in fighting evil—unless that evil was Konstantin.
    It was way earlier than any of the previous attacks had occurred, but there was always hope—however faint—that we might be able to find and capture Dogboy before he struck. Anderson had assigned us to teams of two, with Leo, our immortal accountant and nonfighter, tacked on to one of the teams as a third wheel. I’d argued against him coming, but he was another warm body, and it was theoretically possible he could be helpful. Maybe he could capture our killer and bore him to death with talk of managed