“I got a job at a fast food restaurant—I was too scared to continue with my paramedic career. I walked to and from home for my shifts—traffic in Savannah can be hell sometimes, and I liked the exercise and the thick, humid air. Though my job wasn’t in the best part of town, I never really gave much thought or caution to thugs. But I should have.
“As I was walking home one night—I’d had to work the closing shift, which I hated because it was so hard to find a babysitter for those hours—I ran into some trouble. I was mugged. It was a routine theft at first—if any theft can be routine. I gave the man my wallet. He should have moved on. But he got too close, he scared me a little too much.
“It was the fear that made me strike out. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was doing, it just happened. One minute he was leaning in—I freaked out thinking he was going to rape me or kill me—and the next he was on the ground twitching. The heat, the perfume, it came on me like a flood and he was down. He was dead. And I had killed him.
“I enrolled Jada in a boarding school right after that. No way was I going to put my baby at risk. What if I lost my temper around her? What if she hurt herself on the playground and I got scared? How could I protect her from myself if my emotions got out of control? I didn’t want her in danger—I couldn’t put her in that kind of danger. She didn’t understand. But I did it because I love her. I can’t control it, even now, not like I should. And so I can’t take any risks. I can’t have any friends or family. I’m human and we all have emotions that we cannot control, only in my case people die when I give in to them.”
“Jesus.” Cady took a deep breath. “That’s how you killed the Daemon. You let your power loose and down it went. No wonder they wanna kill you so badly—you’re a bigger threat to them than we are.”
“They don’t want to kill her, Cady,” Tryton murmured. “It’s so much worse than that.” He turned to look at Niki, his gaze taking in all of her before he spoke again. “Why don’t you tell them the name of the woman you saw that night?”
“Raine Lansing. Her name was Raine Lansing and she’s the reason the Daemons are after me. She’s the reason I am what I am. And I, for one, wish I’d never tried to save her.”
Chapter Eleven
Chaos erupted about the room.
Tryton tried to quiet them down, striving to keep some order amidst the shock and surprise of his team members.
Emily jumped from her seat and dived for Niki. Niki, shocked speechless at the woman’s attack, jumped up and away, out of the Emily’s reach. Tryton stepped between them, holding Emily back from her with a stern command. Edge rose behind them both, protesting his leader’s hands upon his woman in no uncertain terms.
Steffy burst into tears, raving at Niki in thickly accented German. Cinder held her tight in his arms, even as she too struggled to rise and approach Niki with all the pain and rage in her heart.
Niki had expected a reaction, but none so explosive as this. She didn’t understand why they were so incensed, so affected by what she’d told them, and her heart nearly broke with the pain of their displeasure.
Cady and Obsidian remained stoically silent, with pensive, thoughtful expressions on both their faces.
Grimm, for the first time, showed emotion, and none of them expected how volatile he could be.
“Silence!” He roared the command, his voice so loud and powerful that it echoed for many deafening seconds about the room.
Everyone was stunned into obeying him.
He flung his cowl back from his features, his hair more red than black in the light. His gaze, so black and so frightening, bored into Niki’s. He came to her, putting his hands on her shoulders.
Niki was floored by everyone’s actions, wondering what the hell had caused them to react with such violence. She felt Grimm’s hands settle upon her, felt too how they shook with emotion, and her confusion and nervousness grew. Grimm didn’t seem the type to feel any emotion, strong or otherwise.
“Are you sure her name was Raine Lansing?” He asked it with deceptive softness.
“Yes.”
“How can this be?” he mused, as if to himself.
Niki shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand—”
“Quiet all of you, and I will try to explain what I know,” Tryton told them all, quelling the tide of their emotions.
“How is this possible?” Steffy managed through her sobs.
“I was as shocked as all of you when I heard Niki speak the name Raine. But I have had more time to think on it and I believe the answer, the why and the how, is simple.” He looked at Niki. “Are you all right?”
Niki nodded, as curious as the rest to hear what he had to say.
“Come, sit by me again,” he urged.
They all took their seats, all but Grimm, who paced before the fireplace in a rare display of agitation. He was like a shadow, black and brooding and at war with his reflection upon the wall, full of pent-up energy that had no place in such dark confines.
“We all know that before the time Cady joined us, the Daemons were a threat, but essentially they were not half as powerful as Shikars.”
There were nods all around.
“It’s true that sometimes Daemons strayed into the Territories, the surface world. But it was not often and it was mostly accidental. But there came a change around the time Cady turned fifteen. That was when the Daemons began swarming, moving en masse. Like a tide of evil seeking release from the boundaries of their poisoned lands, they began creating backdoors from their dimension to the world of humans. They crept in the dark through the lands of humans and preyed on those few mortals gifted—or cursed as the case may be—with psychic gifts.
“Daemons feed on psychic energy. It keeps them alive. It enables them to create, to give birth as it were, to more and more of their kind. Without it they would all surely die. Until that fateful day when Cady stepped forth and accepted the weight of her great destiny, the Daemon Horde relied on their Lord Daemon for such great stores of energy.”
“But Daemon disappeared for centuries—we know that much for certain. And his power is now withdrawn from the Horde—we know that as well. He’s either dead or whatever, that I don’t know,” Cady pointed out.
“Exactly. I think it was around this time—when you were but fifteen—that Lord Daemon’s support was withdrawn. I think something happened, and the Daemons suddenly found themselves without an ample energy source.” Tryton grimaced. “I didn’t see it before, but now I understand why the Daemons wanted not to kill you four women, so much as they wanted to capture you. They needed your energy, they wanted to live.”
“But I wasn’t psychic,” Emily reminded him.
Tryton nodded. “And that is the tie that brought it together for me.”
Grimm stared intently at his leader. “What tie?”
Tryton smiled. “Raine is not dead, my friend. That’s the tie, the link, between Steffy and Emily and Niki. Cady was the catalyst, the first target, because she was so strong. But we got to her first, thank all the Fates. After Cady, there was Raine, and unfortunately they managed to capture her.
“We know that Raine was a strong psychic. The Horde took her and now they feed from her, keeping her alive, because alive she can continue to provide them with the energy that they need. In life she was a master of astral projection—hence the Daemons inherited from her the ability to Travel.
“She was friends with our Steffy, and knew that Steffy had psychic abilities of her own, though they were not so strong that the Daemons might have hunted her down on their own. But Steffy knew her, held her memory in her mind—hence the Daemons sought her out. That’s why they were there in Germany, so close to Steffy’s club that night.
“Emily was her sister, and though Emily had no real powers and therefore no real worth to the Horde, no doubt Raine’s thoughts focused on her sister. The Daemons used those thoughts, those memories, that love that Raine possessed for her sister, and moved to find Emily like dogs
on the hunt. That’s why, after weeks of inactivity, the Daemons suddenly surfaced in New York City, so close to our Emily.
“And now Niki…Niki was the last person Raine saw before being taken. And Raine imparted something of herself to Niki, giving her a bit of power. We know this is possible because she did the same with Emily, to help Emily become a Shikar. This power and the memory of her in Raine’s imprisoned mind, made Niki the next target. The Daemons sought her out—captured her—but Niki was too powerful, too lucky, for them to keep her for long. She escaped and she came to us.
“And she knows the way back. Back into the lair of the Horde, beneath the paws of the Great Sphinx. She can lead us there, down into hell, and it is there that we shall finally bring the Daemons down.”
Emily shuddered. “Raine would never willingly help them.”
“There’s no telling what kind of torture she’s enduring,” Steffy choked out.
“All this time, we’ve been running in circles,” Edge said. “It was never about Emily, or Steffy or Niki. It was never about us, never about an overpopulation of Daemons. It was, and always has been, about Raine.”
“Through her, the Daemons are more powerful. More intelligent. They are able to recoup their numbers more efficiently. They are being fed all the energy they need to rise up and become a real threat to us, indeed the entire world,” Obsidian pointed out.
“But that doesn’t explain the badge or the uniform,” Steffy frowned.
Tryton breathed deep. “Do any of you really know what a Daemon is?”
Silence.
“Haven’t you thought of it?”
“They’re monsters,” Cinder offered. “Spawn of the devil himself, Lord Daemon.”
“No,” Tryton shook his head emphatically. “They are so much more than that. They are flesh golems, resurrections of the dead, humans or Shikars returned from the dead, reanimated—but poorly so. They are shells, pieces and parts of living flesh, put together by their creator.” Tryton ran a hand through his hair erratically, gritting his teeth. “I can’t explain—”
“Tell them everything, Elder.” Grimm spoke into the roar of the flames, clenching his hands around the elaborate curves of the fireplace mantel. “Tell them all and be damned to these secrets.”
“Hold your silence, Traveler,” Tryton snapped. “You let your heart move your tongue, but hold to caution. I see no need to tell all.”
“You’re saying that Daemons are like zombies or something?” Cady clarified, ignoring the volatile mix of emotions that threatened to set fire to the room.
“Something like that,” Tryton nodded. “Yes, very like that.”
“And Niki can lead us into the heart of their lair?”
“Yes.” Glad at least to be able to contribute to this part of the conversation, Niki answered her. “At least I assume that’s what it was. It’s not all that hard to find, once you know where to look.”
“Then what the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s go out and stop this war right now,” Cady exploded.
Tryton looked at them, each one in turn. “I do not know what we will find down there.”
“The truth.” Grimm stalked over to Tryton, moving as silently as a sigh. “And the truth has never been anything you should fear, my friend. You have fought this fight for millennia…it’s time to let it go.”
Tryton nodded and held tight to Niki’s hand. “We’ll go at dusk. When the sun falls low over the horizon of Egypt—it’s only midday now—we will finally put an end to this. Just us, our team, our family, as it should be. And may all the gods help us in the doing, for we’re surely going to need it.”
Niki shuddered and knew that, come good or come ill, her world would change forever with the coming of the Egyptian night.
It had already changed so much.
What more could happen, she didn’t know.
Hell, she didn’t want to know.
Chapter Twelve
When the last person had left, Tryton closed the door behind them and leaned heavily against it.
“You have many questions,” he said, voice muffled, forehead resting against the ornate wood of the door.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on anymore,” she admitted. “But I’m willing to go a little farther on faith.”
Tryton chuckled but it was a mirthless sound. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, human or Shikar. You don’t seem surprised by anything. You don’t seem to hold any disbelief in your heart.”
“I’ve seen a lot,” she admitted, “and done more. But if it hadn’t been for that night in the blizzard I probably wouldn’t be so understanding. Seeing monsters and being ‘tetched’ by Raine, has somewhat skewed my perceptions.”
“Understandably,” he chuckled again, sounding weary and drawn. “But I can sense you want to know something.”
“I do have one question.”
“Ask it.” He seemed to steel himself in anticipation.
“If those women were once human, how did they become like you?”
He was silent for a long time. “It is not for you,” he said at last, as if the words were difficult and painful for him.
“What do you mean?” she frowned. “I’m just curious. How did it happen?”
“I won’t!” He slammed his fist with sudden violence against the door, and she jumped. “I won’t do this.”
“Do what?” she asked in surprised exasperation.
“This, this, all of this.” He shoved away from the door, raking his fingers through his hair. His eyes, when they met hers, were haunted and filled with raw anguish. “I won’t love you,” he said, shocking her at last.
“I never asked you to,” she responded defensively, even as her heart thumped and ached with a suspicious, yearning disappointment.
“Well I won’t. I can not,” he gritted, shaking his leonine head back and forth so that his hair was a halo of white-gold shimmering about him. “I won’t.”
“You’ve made that clear,” Niki gritted out. “But you’ve ignored the most obvious truth here. And it’s that you already do love me.”
Tryton sank back against the door, his knees giving out under him, his eyes a burning sea of unshed tears.
“Whether you want to love me or not is irrelevant. Just as it’s irrelevant what I want out of all this. I don’t know you, Tryton. I don’t know where any of this will take us over the next several hours—and if we survive that, then the next few days, weeks, months and so on. But I do know this—there’s something in you that calls to me. There has been from the first. And it’s the same for you with me. We’re meant, you and I. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I don’t want to love you,” he whispered. “I have no heart, I have no love.”
“You can keep telling yourself that all you want, but it won’t change a damn thing. You’ll just look foolish after a while. Accept it, you do love me. Don’t you? Admit it.”
He buried his face in his hands. “You don’t know the danger of what you’re asking. I cannot do it.”
“What danger is there in love?” She moved to his side, running her hands down the length of his silken hair.
“You can ask me that, after you’ve spent these last years protecting your daughter from that very thing?”
“But to love my daughter could mean her death.” She pursed her lips, eyes blazing at his reminder of it.
“And what do you think my loving you could lead to?” he shouted at her, jumping up to pace before her. “I killed my heart long ago, there’s nothing of it left. There can be no more risks, not for me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You wanted to know how Cady and Emily and Steffy became Shikar? They died to their lives and were reborn to ours,” he shuddered. “They were lucky. More lucky than they know.”
“I don’t understand where you’re going with this.” She slowly rose to her feet, meeting his gaze as best she could. There was such raw pain there, such suffering. She wanted to
go to him, offer comfort, offer strength, but something held her at bay.
It was fear. Elemental, instinctual and strange, but there it was.
“You could die from my love. I won’t put you in that danger. You, of all people, must understand this.”
“You’ve lost someone before,” she stated, hating the pang of jealousy in her heart. The knowledge that he had loved before, when he would deny her now, made her very soul weep with sorrow. “Haven’t you?”
“I won’t lose you.” His eyes were pools of endless suffering.
“I won’t let you,” she promised, without knowing how she could offer such a promise. One never knew what the morrow would bring…or the next coming hours.
He swept her up in his arms, holding her tight, resting his face against hers. “I will always keep you, always be faithful to you. Jada will want for nothing, for she will be my daughter as well as yours. Neither of you will every want for anything else, ever. But do not ask me to love you. Please, I beg of you, do not ask that of me.”
Her heart was breaking. What could she say to this? How could she respond? She didn’t know her own heart, her own needs, but she knew that she wanted his love. And here he was, warning that he would never give it.
She’d seen him with Jada. Seen the light of adoration in his eyes when he’d looked at her—a father’s love for his daughter, pure and shining and bright. She’d seen the acceptance in her daughter, seen the possibilities with Tryton that she’d never seen with Jada’s birth father.
There’d been such pleasure, such joy in his arms and in his bed. He was a lover unlike any other. Powerful and strong, yet tender and gentle. Demanding and careful of her pleasure, hers above his.
He was the first person she’d known—since becoming what she was—who had understood her. He even understood her powers—when she did not fully understand them herself. There was no fear, no danger of her harming him when she lost control. Indeed, he seemed to crave it from her, the power that had always been such a curse to her in that regard. There would be no accident with him, no shadow of doubt that she might not be able to hold her power in check at those most crucial moments. With him she could lose her temper, lose her patience, lose her heart.
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