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Gri to hurt Then he pulled at the gold chain around his neck to expose a strange he it to the chain He held it out toward Nick

Nick hesitated before he took it He ran his hand down the cold stone, noting that the skull had eyes made of bloodred rubies The point of the hematite was so sharp, he could probably use it to stake Kyrian should his boss ever get too frisky with hier if he needed to ask his book a question Yeah, this thing had a lot of uses

"What you hold is one of the keys to the universe" Grim’s voice had dropped an octave "You can use a pendulus and--"

"What sort of things? Can it find my mom’s keys when she loses them?"

"Yes," Grim said between clenched teeth "It can also locate people you seek"

Okay, now that was handy Nick swung it back on forth on its chain "How does it work?"

Grim captured it in his hand and used the sharp tip to point at hiher consciousness In time, you won’t need it to do that You’ll be able to access that part of yourself anytime you need to But for now, you’ll require a tool to help you channel all the teenage horh you" He touched the tip to Nick’s nose "The best part of this one is that the stone will change to meet your needs"

"What do you mean?"

"For simple questions, it won’t matter what the stone is You can use any kind of pendulu, a stick, even a pen or pencil But as we progress to other tasks, the material it’s made out of will matter exponentially This one is currently heest stone of protection It li you need, kid And it will protect you Evil and negativity gravitate to the heh, the stone will shatter and warn you while it deflects those powers away froativeOnce he put his ave it back to hiarted it fro it, he knew better than to delay Nick grabbed it and handed it over

Grie

Nick frowned as words and letters ically appeared with arrows In a weird way, it reminded hi a square cross with the words Yes and No highlighted

No, wait They were glowing

"What’s it doing?" he asked Grim

"This is your pendulum map It’ll answer any yes or no question you ask All you have to do is focus your e In time, you’ll be able to ask more complicated questions and it’ll spell out the answers"

"Duly awesoested and hovered the stone above the words He carefully kept his hand steady as he focused on the most important question he wanted an answer to "Will I losestupid and take this seriously"

Nick glared "Can’t ith it if you snatch it out of ave it back

Nick wrapped the chain around his forefinger "What’s wrong with asking that, anyway?"

"It’s a stupid concern"

Bull crap on that It was the primary one he’d had for the last year… Well, that and if he’d ever be able to afford a car "What are you? Asexual or sohed, then stopped abruptly as Death jerked his head in his companion’s direction

"My libido is fine, Nick However, it takes a distant second place to my need to kill people who annoy me"

Normally, Nick would have mocked him for that, but he knew better "Fine" He returned the pendulum and stated his second-most-often-asked question "Will I ever be rich?"

At first, nothing happened But after a few seconds, it began to swing along the yes line So even harder

Oh yeah, he definitely rocked to this "Like Rockerfeller rich?"

Griain "Yes, kid, you’ll have money Can we ate the future of ht A lot"

Griraine"

"Myaround you, I iine she does"

Nick cupped the pendulu Learn one technique, and I’ll teach you others You can’t do geometry until you understand one plus one equals two Besides, you two need to get acquainted with each other"

Nick scowled "What? Are we dating?"

Grim stared at him with a blank expression for several heartbeats "And now that my blood pressure and patience have breached their safety valves, I’ to take a break and leave you here to clean yourCoside hi the… couldn’t they have finished first?

It’s what you get for running your stupid Cajun ence was knohen to shut up One day, he’d learn to heed her wisdo, he went to the otten back on it when he heard so at the front door

He turned to tell them the Triple B was closed, when he saas Caleb Up until yesterday, he’d thought Caleb was just another overprivileged jackweed at his high school Well, not entirely true--Caleb had never been mean to him, so he didn’t really qualify for jackweed status, but he had ignored Nick

During the chaos of last night, Nick had learned that Caleb Malphas, captain of the football teaot the proper term ’cause it just wasn’t that important to hiuard

How cool was that?