Eventually, the virus was dead. Gone. A thrill of excitement rode her as hard as exhaustion did, and she smiled as she released Pamela and collapsed against the side of the shack. “It’s gone,” she rasped. “I think you’re okay.”
Con looked up from digging through his medic gear. “What about you?”
“I could use a month of sleep, but I’m fine.” Sin reached over and helped the other female sit up. “How are you feeling?”
Pamela swayed, but remained upright. “I’m hungry.” “That’s a good sign.” Con smiled, and though this wasn’t the time or place for Sin to appreciate the raw masculinity he threw off when he did that, well, she definitely appreciated it. “I’m going to take some blood, but I want you to head to Underworld General.”
“The demon hospital?”
“Yes.” He took some rubber tubing from his bag. “You’ll find the medical symbol inside the Harrowgate.”
As Sin watched Con draw blood, she hoped this was the beginning of the end for this disease. The nightmare had gone on too long, and way too many people had died. When Con finished, Sin helped Pamela to her feet, angling herself to shield the warg from the sight of her slaughtered friends and family. Gripping Pamela’s shoulder, she guided her toward the path to the Harrowgate, but froze when her scalp began to tingle with awareness. They were being watched.
“Sin!”
At Con’s shout, she spun, felt the whisper of a blade as it sailed past her ear, heard a thud and a cry, and Pamela dropped, a throwing ax meant for Sin embedded between Pamela’s eyes. Oh… shit! All around, the forest came alive as assassins launched both themselves and their weapons. Sin dove behind the shed, Con on her heels. A female Croucher demon leaped from the branches of a tree, her three eyes focused on Sin with deadly intent. Con moved in a blur of motion, slipping behind the demon to wrap his arm around her throat as Sin shoved a dagger into the assassin’s third eye. The Croucher’s shriek was cut off by a twist of Con’s hands and the snapping of her neck. He released her, and she crumpled to the ground.
It was too easy—this female was an amateur, but the others wouldn’t be.
Con must have come to the same conclusion because he gripped Sin’s hand and yanked her into the forest. “We have to run!” The sounds of pursuit were hot behind them, and then, out of nowhere, a horse screamed. Sin and Con wheeled around, and Christ on a cracker, this couldn’t get any worse…
“That’s the dude I saw at my place,” Con breathed. “Only… different. His armor is tarnished.”
“Tarnished” wasn’t the word Sin would use. It was dirty, scuffed, and black sludge oozed from the cracks. His horse, a massive white beast with crimson eyes, was smashing assassins under its hooves. The rider’s deadly aim sent arrows punching into throats, heads, and hearts.
“Now we need to run faster,” Con barked, and, yes, she agreed. Wholeheartedly. “There’s a cabin a few miles up the mountain,” he said, as they sprinted through the woods. “Belongs to an ancient spellcaster friend of mine. It’s not protected by a Haven spell, but it is warded against demons.”
Sin ducked under a branch, but caught another in the chin. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a demon.” “I can get you through her mystical minefield.”
She hoped so, but based on the way the day was going, she wasn’t going to count on it.
Eidolon’s father, Resniak, was not an easy male to talk to. And though Eidolon allowed very few people to rattle him, Resniak, a hulking Judicia demon whose expression was stuck on stern, made Eidolon’s intestines twist into knots, and always had. Didn’t matter that Resniak wasn’t his biological father—the male had raised Eidolon as his own, and the Judicia were strict parents.
“Favors are not something Justice Dealers grant,” he was saying as he stood in Eidolon’s office, filling it with more than his big green body and giant rack of antlers. His forceful presence sucked up all the air and left Eidolon’s chest tight, as though oxygen were at a premium.
“I’m aware of that, Father. And I admit that my request is based on the fact that Sin is my sister. But the request is reasonable. She’s entitled to an investigation.”
Resniak idly stroked the ends of his black beard. “An investigation can be performed while she’s imprisoned.”
“Agreed,” Eidolon ground out. No more arguing. Either his father would find his request to be logical, or he wouldn’t. Logic. It was something Eidolon had grown up with, but as a purebred Seminus demon, instinct and emotion had trumped logic at the worst possible times. And at the best times. Logically, he should have killed Tayla the first time he’d seen her, when she’d come into his hospital, injured after killing demons. Instead, he’d been fascinated, and his desire for her had obliterated logic and common sense.
Thank the gods. Time stretched, and the oxygen level in the office kept plummeting. Finally, his father nodded curtly. “I can guarantee nothing. But I’ll see what I can do. As for the punishment that you, Wraith, and Conall face for interfering with Sin’s arrest, I can make a plea for suspension until after the epidemic is over.” He exited without so much as a good-bye, but that he was going to try to pull some strings to get Sin out of trouble was the same as someone else throwing a big I-love-you party, and Eidolon collapsed into his chair with relief.
He heard footsteps in the hall, prayed it wasn’t his father coming back, and switched on his computer.
“E. I waited until the Vulcan ambassador was gone. We have a problem.”
“I don’t want to know. And stop calling the Judicia Vulcans.” Eidolon didn’t look up from his computer. Maybe if he pretended Wraith wasn’t there— “Then I have two problems for you.”
Eidolon finally looked up to see Wraith and Kynan standing in his office doorway, both looking like Armageddon was at hand. And since Armageddon had been at hand not long ago, this was serious.
“What is it?” Kynan entered, his mouth set in a grim line, his denim-blue eyes flashing. “Word’s out that only turned wargs are affected by the plague.” Though Ky’s voice was always gravelly from damage sustained during his Army days, it was even rougher than normal now. “They’re blaming born wargs for the outbreak, and born wargs are using this opportunity to destroy turned wargs.”
“Shit,” Eidolon breathed. “We need to prepare the emergency department for an influx of patients and get the word out to our turned staff.” Though the turned staff members were still in isolation to avoid infection, isolation wouldn’t necessarily protect them from extermination.
Kynan sank down in a chair and kicked his booted feet up on Eidolon’s desk. Funny how comfy the human had gotten since he’d been charmed by angels and was now impervious to harm. Then again, the guy had always been fairly comfortable in his own skin. “I’ve already given Shade a heads-up. Runa should be safe in the cave, but he’s still going into total lockdown mode.”
No doubt he was. Eidolon wouldn’t hesitate to do the same with Tayla.
“There’s more,” Wraith said, because yeah, of course there was. “Con wasn’t answering his cell, so I went to his place to check up on Sin.”
Eidolon frowned. Odd. Wraith didn’t check up on anyone out of the goodness of his heart. “And?” The way Wraith shifted his weight and didn’t meet Eidolon’s gaze sent a tremor of dread through Eidolon. “The house has been bunker-bustered. Nothing but ashes and smoke.”
Eidolon froze. “What?” Wraith jammed his hand in his leather duster’s pocket, doing the weapon-molesting thing he did. “It was really f**ked up, E. Looked like the house had been firebombed. The ground had been all torn up by the fire department, but I did a sweep of the area. Found traces of footprints—could be the assassins after Sin. Also found horse tracks leading to and from the Harrowgate.”
“Hell stallion?” Kynan asked. Wraith shook his blond head. He’d tied back his hair with a leather thong, and the ends slapped violently against his coat. “Their hooves char the ground. These were regular tracks. Big, like Clydesdale hooves.”
“Wraith.” Eidolon cleared his throat, but that didn’t rid it of the raw rasp in his voice. “Do you think Sin and Con are dead?” Wraith let out a long, drawn-out breath, and Eidolon’s heart plummeted to his feet. When Wraith finally spoke, his voice was strong and sure. “I found evidence of a skirmish near the Harrowgate. Con hasn’t survived for centuries by being stupid, and Sin’s got instinct. My gut says they got out.”
Since Wraith’s gut was usually right, and it was all they had to go on, Eidolon let himself relax. “Does Lore know?”
“Nope. I called him a few minutes ago to see if he’d heard from Sin. He hadn’t, but I didn’t tell him about the house. Didn’t see any reason to freak him out until we know something.” “Agreed.” Eidolon checked his watch. Still several hours until morning, when Wraith would return home and not leave his son and vampire mate until nightfall again. Not unless there was an emergency. “Can you do what you can to track Sin and find out who is behind the attack on Con’s house?”
Wraith nodded. “There’s something else. Whoever blasted the house used infernal fire. I could smell it in the ashes.” Eidolon’s stomach wrenched. “Someone was serious about killing Sin and Con.” “What’s infernal fire?” Kynan asked.
“It’s like underworld napalm,” Wraith said. “The shit is massively powerful, but what’s special about it is that it calls fire spirits in the flames.” “Which hunt down anyone within the range of the heat,” Eidolon finished. “Its use is forbidden in the human realm. So whoever is responsible was willing to risk getting caught and burned alive by Justice Dealers.” Eidolon cursed. “We have to find Sin.”
“I’m on it.” Wraith started out the door, but Eidolon stopped him.
“On your way out, tell Bastien I need to see him.”
“You got it.” Wraith took off, leaving E with Kynan.
Kynan’s eyes were calm, assessing. As Tayla liked to put it, when you looked at him, you knew he was reading the situation about ten seconds into the future. “You calling the R-XR?” While functioning as a local Regent in The Aegis, Kynan had worked with the Army’s paranormal unit, the Ranger-X Regiment, for years after being attacked by a demon while serving in a regular Army unit as a medic.
“They’re going to be in damage-control mode.”
“Yeah,” Kynan sighed. “This is bound to spill over into the human world. The Aegis will need to engage in damage control as well. I’ll head to HQ for a conference.”
“What do you think they’ll do?” “I don’t know.” Kynan ran his hands through his spiky, dark hair, ruffling it even more. “We’ve kept a lot of turned wargs under surveillance to make sure they chain up during the full moon, but we may end up guarding instead of monitoring.” He laughed. “How weird is that? Not long ago we were killing them, and now we might be saving them.”
“You think Guardians will protect werewolves? It’s one thing to not kill them, but another to actively protect them.” Kynan looked troubled. “Yeah. There’s been an incident that is going to make my argument a little harder.” He shifted his feet off the desk, spread his legs, and braced his forearms on his thighs as he leaned forward, his gaze even sharper now, his military conditioning coming to bear. “A Guardian was recently outted as a werewolf. Remember when I asked you if you knew of any wargs that shifted during the new moon? Well, whatever she is, her cell put out the word and chased her into Canada. They lost her, but one Guardian is dead. On top of everything else that’s been going on in The Aegis…”
Eidolon swore. Kynan didn’t need to finish the sentence. A lot of what was going on was Tayla’s fault. Undercurrents of dissent had been filtering through The Aegis’s ranks over the fact that Tayla, a half-demon, was not only a Guardian, but also a Regent in charge of a large cell. Kynan’s marriage to Gem, Tay’s sister, had stirred the pot even more. And then, a couple of months ago, Tay had put a vampire on the payroll—a Guardian named Kaden, who had been turned into a vampire after being captured during an Aegis raid on a nest.
Now Guardians were quitting, while others were calling for change. This werewolf news could cause the already simmering pot to boil over.
“Tayla sure has a way of stirring things up,” Kynan said, as if reading Eidolon’s mind. “Tayla wouldn’t be Tayla if she wasn’t always in the middle of a shitstorm.” And Eidolon wouldn’t have it any other way. “You saved her life, E.” Kynan’s gravelly voice was quiet. “She was headed down a bad road, and you took her off it.”
A sobering, pleasant warmth filled Eidolon’s chest cavity. “She saved me, too.”
“You’re a big sap,” Kynan said, as he shoved to his feet, and Eidolon nearly laughed. Tayla had accused him more than once of the same thing. “If you need any help with Sin, let me know.” “I might take you up on that. Good luck with the Sigil and your rogue werewolf.” Kynan left, brushing by Bastien on his way out.
Eidolon’s doorway was getting a hell of a workout today. “Bastien. Thanks for stopping by.” The warg nodded, making his mop of curly brown hair bounce into his eyes. “What do you need, sir?”
Con looked up from digging through his medic gear. “What about you?”
“I could use a month of sleep, but I’m fine.” Sin reached over and helped the other female sit up. “How are you feeling?”
Pamela swayed, but remained upright. “I’m hungry.” “That’s a good sign.” Con smiled, and though this wasn’t the time or place for Sin to appreciate the raw masculinity he threw off when he did that, well, she definitely appreciated it. “I’m going to take some blood, but I want you to head to Underworld General.”
“The demon hospital?”
“Yes.” He took some rubber tubing from his bag. “You’ll find the medical symbol inside the Harrowgate.”
As Sin watched Con draw blood, she hoped this was the beginning of the end for this disease. The nightmare had gone on too long, and way too many people had died. When Con finished, Sin helped Pamela to her feet, angling herself to shield the warg from the sight of her slaughtered friends and family. Gripping Pamela’s shoulder, she guided her toward the path to the Harrowgate, but froze when her scalp began to tingle with awareness. They were being watched.
“Sin!”
At Con’s shout, she spun, felt the whisper of a blade as it sailed past her ear, heard a thud and a cry, and Pamela dropped, a throwing ax meant for Sin embedded between Pamela’s eyes. Oh… shit! All around, the forest came alive as assassins launched both themselves and their weapons. Sin dove behind the shed, Con on her heels. A female Croucher demon leaped from the branches of a tree, her three eyes focused on Sin with deadly intent. Con moved in a blur of motion, slipping behind the demon to wrap his arm around her throat as Sin shoved a dagger into the assassin’s third eye. The Croucher’s shriek was cut off by a twist of Con’s hands and the snapping of her neck. He released her, and she crumpled to the ground.
It was too easy—this female was an amateur, but the others wouldn’t be.
Con must have come to the same conclusion because he gripped Sin’s hand and yanked her into the forest. “We have to run!” The sounds of pursuit were hot behind them, and then, out of nowhere, a horse screamed. Sin and Con wheeled around, and Christ on a cracker, this couldn’t get any worse…
“That’s the dude I saw at my place,” Con breathed. “Only… different. His armor is tarnished.”
“Tarnished” wasn’t the word Sin would use. It was dirty, scuffed, and black sludge oozed from the cracks. His horse, a massive white beast with crimson eyes, was smashing assassins under its hooves. The rider’s deadly aim sent arrows punching into throats, heads, and hearts.
“Now we need to run faster,” Con barked, and, yes, she agreed. Wholeheartedly. “There’s a cabin a few miles up the mountain,” he said, as they sprinted through the woods. “Belongs to an ancient spellcaster friend of mine. It’s not protected by a Haven spell, but it is warded against demons.”
Sin ducked under a branch, but caught another in the chin. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a demon.” “I can get you through her mystical minefield.”
She hoped so, but based on the way the day was going, she wasn’t going to count on it.
Eidolon’s father, Resniak, was not an easy male to talk to. And though Eidolon allowed very few people to rattle him, Resniak, a hulking Judicia demon whose expression was stuck on stern, made Eidolon’s intestines twist into knots, and always had. Didn’t matter that Resniak wasn’t his biological father—the male had raised Eidolon as his own, and the Judicia were strict parents.
“Favors are not something Justice Dealers grant,” he was saying as he stood in Eidolon’s office, filling it with more than his big green body and giant rack of antlers. His forceful presence sucked up all the air and left Eidolon’s chest tight, as though oxygen were at a premium.
“I’m aware of that, Father. And I admit that my request is based on the fact that Sin is my sister. But the request is reasonable. She’s entitled to an investigation.”
Resniak idly stroked the ends of his black beard. “An investigation can be performed while she’s imprisoned.”
“Agreed,” Eidolon ground out. No more arguing. Either his father would find his request to be logical, or he wouldn’t. Logic. It was something Eidolon had grown up with, but as a purebred Seminus demon, instinct and emotion had trumped logic at the worst possible times. And at the best times. Logically, he should have killed Tayla the first time he’d seen her, when she’d come into his hospital, injured after killing demons. Instead, he’d been fascinated, and his desire for her had obliterated logic and common sense.
Thank the gods. Time stretched, and the oxygen level in the office kept plummeting. Finally, his father nodded curtly. “I can guarantee nothing. But I’ll see what I can do. As for the punishment that you, Wraith, and Conall face for interfering with Sin’s arrest, I can make a plea for suspension until after the epidemic is over.” He exited without so much as a good-bye, but that he was going to try to pull some strings to get Sin out of trouble was the same as someone else throwing a big I-love-you party, and Eidolon collapsed into his chair with relief.
He heard footsteps in the hall, prayed it wasn’t his father coming back, and switched on his computer.
“E. I waited until the Vulcan ambassador was gone. We have a problem.”
“I don’t want to know. And stop calling the Judicia Vulcans.” Eidolon didn’t look up from his computer. Maybe if he pretended Wraith wasn’t there— “Then I have two problems for you.”
Eidolon finally looked up to see Wraith and Kynan standing in his office doorway, both looking like Armageddon was at hand. And since Armageddon had been at hand not long ago, this was serious.
“What is it?” Kynan entered, his mouth set in a grim line, his denim-blue eyes flashing. “Word’s out that only turned wargs are affected by the plague.” Though Ky’s voice was always gravelly from damage sustained during his Army days, it was even rougher than normal now. “They’re blaming born wargs for the outbreak, and born wargs are using this opportunity to destroy turned wargs.”
“Shit,” Eidolon breathed. “We need to prepare the emergency department for an influx of patients and get the word out to our turned staff.” Though the turned staff members were still in isolation to avoid infection, isolation wouldn’t necessarily protect them from extermination.
Kynan sank down in a chair and kicked his booted feet up on Eidolon’s desk. Funny how comfy the human had gotten since he’d been charmed by angels and was now impervious to harm. Then again, the guy had always been fairly comfortable in his own skin. “I’ve already given Shade a heads-up. Runa should be safe in the cave, but he’s still going into total lockdown mode.”
No doubt he was. Eidolon wouldn’t hesitate to do the same with Tayla.
“There’s more,” Wraith said, because yeah, of course there was. “Con wasn’t answering his cell, so I went to his place to check up on Sin.”
Eidolon frowned. Odd. Wraith didn’t check up on anyone out of the goodness of his heart. “And?” The way Wraith shifted his weight and didn’t meet Eidolon’s gaze sent a tremor of dread through Eidolon. “The house has been bunker-bustered. Nothing but ashes and smoke.”
Eidolon froze. “What?” Wraith jammed his hand in his leather duster’s pocket, doing the weapon-molesting thing he did. “It was really f**ked up, E. Looked like the house had been firebombed. The ground had been all torn up by the fire department, but I did a sweep of the area. Found traces of footprints—could be the assassins after Sin. Also found horse tracks leading to and from the Harrowgate.”
“Hell stallion?” Kynan asked. Wraith shook his blond head. He’d tied back his hair with a leather thong, and the ends slapped violently against his coat. “Their hooves char the ground. These were regular tracks. Big, like Clydesdale hooves.”
“Wraith.” Eidolon cleared his throat, but that didn’t rid it of the raw rasp in his voice. “Do you think Sin and Con are dead?” Wraith let out a long, drawn-out breath, and Eidolon’s heart plummeted to his feet. When Wraith finally spoke, his voice was strong and sure. “I found evidence of a skirmish near the Harrowgate. Con hasn’t survived for centuries by being stupid, and Sin’s got instinct. My gut says they got out.”
Since Wraith’s gut was usually right, and it was all they had to go on, Eidolon let himself relax. “Does Lore know?”
“Nope. I called him a few minutes ago to see if he’d heard from Sin. He hadn’t, but I didn’t tell him about the house. Didn’t see any reason to freak him out until we know something.” “Agreed.” Eidolon checked his watch. Still several hours until morning, when Wraith would return home and not leave his son and vampire mate until nightfall again. Not unless there was an emergency. “Can you do what you can to track Sin and find out who is behind the attack on Con’s house?”
Wraith nodded. “There’s something else. Whoever blasted the house used infernal fire. I could smell it in the ashes.” Eidolon’s stomach wrenched. “Someone was serious about killing Sin and Con.” “What’s infernal fire?” Kynan asked.
“It’s like underworld napalm,” Wraith said. “The shit is massively powerful, but what’s special about it is that it calls fire spirits in the flames.” “Which hunt down anyone within the range of the heat,” Eidolon finished. “Its use is forbidden in the human realm. So whoever is responsible was willing to risk getting caught and burned alive by Justice Dealers.” Eidolon cursed. “We have to find Sin.”
“I’m on it.” Wraith started out the door, but Eidolon stopped him.
“On your way out, tell Bastien I need to see him.”
“You got it.” Wraith took off, leaving E with Kynan.
Kynan’s eyes were calm, assessing. As Tayla liked to put it, when you looked at him, you knew he was reading the situation about ten seconds into the future. “You calling the R-XR?” While functioning as a local Regent in The Aegis, Kynan had worked with the Army’s paranormal unit, the Ranger-X Regiment, for years after being attacked by a demon while serving in a regular Army unit as a medic.
“They’re going to be in damage-control mode.”
“Yeah,” Kynan sighed. “This is bound to spill over into the human world. The Aegis will need to engage in damage control as well. I’ll head to HQ for a conference.”
“What do you think they’ll do?” “I don’t know.” Kynan ran his hands through his spiky, dark hair, ruffling it even more. “We’ve kept a lot of turned wargs under surveillance to make sure they chain up during the full moon, but we may end up guarding instead of monitoring.” He laughed. “How weird is that? Not long ago we were killing them, and now we might be saving them.”
“You think Guardians will protect werewolves? It’s one thing to not kill them, but another to actively protect them.” Kynan looked troubled. “Yeah. There’s been an incident that is going to make my argument a little harder.” He shifted his feet off the desk, spread his legs, and braced his forearms on his thighs as he leaned forward, his gaze even sharper now, his military conditioning coming to bear. “A Guardian was recently outted as a werewolf. Remember when I asked you if you knew of any wargs that shifted during the new moon? Well, whatever she is, her cell put out the word and chased her into Canada. They lost her, but one Guardian is dead. On top of everything else that’s been going on in The Aegis…”
Eidolon swore. Kynan didn’t need to finish the sentence. A lot of what was going on was Tayla’s fault. Undercurrents of dissent had been filtering through The Aegis’s ranks over the fact that Tayla, a half-demon, was not only a Guardian, but also a Regent in charge of a large cell. Kynan’s marriage to Gem, Tay’s sister, had stirred the pot even more. And then, a couple of months ago, Tay had put a vampire on the payroll—a Guardian named Kaden, who had been turned into a vampire after being captured during an Aegis raid on a nest.
Now Guardians were quitting, while others were calling for change. This werewolf news could cause the already simmering pot to boil over.
“Tayla sure has a way of stirring things up,” Kynan said, as if reading Eidolon’s mind. “Tayla wouldn’t be Tayla if she wasn’t always in the middle of a shitstorm.” And Eidolon wouldn’t have it any other way. “You saved her life, E.” Kynan’s gravelly voice was quiet. “She was headed down a bad road, and you took her off it.”
A sobering, pleasant warmth filled Eidolon’s chest cavity. “She saved me, too.”
“You’re a big sap,” Kynan said, as he shoved to his feet, and Eidolon nearly laughed. Tayla had accused him more than once of the same thing. “If you need any help with Sin, let me know.” “I might take you up on that. Good luck with the Sigil and your rogue werewolf.” Kynan left, brushing by Bastien on his way out.
Eidolon’s doorway was getting a hell of a workout today. “Bastien. Thanks for stopping by.” The warg nodded, making his mop of curly brown hair bounce into his eyes. “What do you need, sir?”
