by Larissa Ione
And then she wasn’t fighting anymore. She didn’t need to. The razor edge of a blade was biting into his groin, and he froze as solidly as an ice sculpture.
“Kiss me again without my permission,” she whispered against his lips, “and I’ll geld you and sell your balls to a Ruthanian specialty meats shop. Understood?”
“You won’t do that,” he whispered back. “You’d miss them too much.”
Sin snorted and made the blade disappear into her pocket as she stepped back. “Men are always overestimating the worth of their genitals.”
That fast, his anger was gone, and he threw back his head and laughed. “Come on,” he said. “We have work to do.”
Ten
They hadn’t gone more than a dozen yards along a worn game trail when a shot rang out, silencing the crickets and sending the squirrels that had come out for their last foray before nightfall skittering into their holes in the trees. Sin and Con ran toward the sound, and in just a few yards they were following more violent battle noises and the stench of blood.
A lot of blood.
The scent grew stronger as they rounded an outcrop of rock and found two dead people, probably werewolves, beneath a bush.
“Wargs,” Con whispered, confirming her suspicions.
“Born or turned?” She didn’t see any telltale marks to indicate that they were pricolici, but the marks could be covered by their clothing. Or blood.
“Don’t know.”
A scream tore through the air, and they crashed through the brush, not bothering with stealth, not even as they broke onto a trail and into the middle of a slaughter.
“Oh, God.” Sin skidded to a halt. There were two small cabins tucked away in the forest, but they must have housed several families. They were battling, some in warg form, and some still in human, using axes and knives. One male was firing a shotgun at a leaping werewolf.
The ground was soaked with blood, and a child lay dead on a porch. A child.
A big male swung his arm, severing a female’s head with his claws as she pleaded for mercy. “Diseased varcolac scum.” The words were warped by his animal muzzle, but the hatred was as clear as the sky above.
Rabid fury exploded in Sin, and she launched at the born wargs, whose battle gear set them apart from the others. Her throwing knives took out one, and her Gargantua dagger ended another. She lost track of time, of control, and though she knew Con was tearing through the pricolici like a tornado through a trailer park, her concentration was fully centered on causing pain.
Finally, nothing moved. Sin stood in the middle of the small camp, numb. Con was still hopped up from the battle, his fangs as large as a mountain lion’s, his muscles twitching. Sin sensed the darkness in him, the battle and bloodlusts that should have triggered her own, but for once, she was just numb.
The born wargs had managed to take out everyone before they’d fallen victim to Sin’s blades and Con’s hands.
“Son of a bitch,” Con said roughly. His chest still heaved with exertion from the fight. “They did it. Someone leaked the fact that only the varcolac are affected.”
“You think it was a Councilmember? There are probably staff members at UG who know.” She didn’t mention that his granddaughter and her mate knew as well.
He swept the area with his silver gaze, his entire body tense, his expression grim. “It’s possible it was someone from UG, but I’d bet my left nut it was someone on the Council. The varcolac were furious at the meeting. I’m not sure their leader, Raynor, was convinced that SF isn’t a conspiracy to kill them. And Valko… he’ll take any excuse to let the pricolici kill off the varcolac.”
“This whole thing just keeps getting worse.” A sudden, shooting pain streaked down her right arm. She clapped a hand over her shoulder where one of her glyphs, a round sundial-shaped mark, had split in two. Odd. The gashes that usually appeared in her dermoire were straight lines, but this was a zigzag, a perfect Z that didn’t extend beyond the faded black lines of the circle.
Con’s brow furrowed. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she lied, because the truth was, she didn’t care. Her little sting was nothing compared to the suffering she’d caused.
Con’s hand lifted to cup her cheek, and the tender caress of his fingers on her skin might as well have been a wrecking ball, the way it cracked her shield of numbness. Her chest tightened and her throat closed up as all the deaths piled high on her conscience. All of it was her fault, and she suddenly felt like she was drowning in blood.
“I’ve got to fix this,” she whispered. “I’ve got to end it, Con. My life can’t have been about death.”
“This will end, Sin—” He paused, his tawny brows drawing together. “Did you hear that?”
She started to shake her head, but then a small cry breached the silence. She didn’t wait for Con. She sprinted toward the sound, and her heart nearly stopped when she saw a woman lying in the open doorway of a shed behind the cabins. She knew immediately what it was: a sick hut.
For dying wargs.
The female shrank back at Sin’s approach, her watery gaze full of terror.
“Hey,” Sin said softly, as she sank to her knees. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Con sank down on his heels beside Sin, dropping his medic bag to the ground. “Are you injured?”
“Sick.” She coughed, and blood sprayed onto the ground. “My family… are they…”
“I’m sorry.” Con pulled two pairs of surgical gloves out of the bag and offered one to Sin, but she shook her head. “They didn’t make it.” At her ragged sob, Con gripped the woman’s wrist gently with one gloved hand, probably to check her pulse. “When did the first symptoms appear?”
“This morning.”
Con met Sin’s gaze, and she nodded. “Might be early enough for me to try.” Sin smoothed the female’s limp brown hair away from her face as tenderly as she could. Her skin was hot, probably sensitive, and she didn’t want to cause any more pain. “What’s your name?”
“Pamela.”
“Pamela, I’m going to try to heal you. Be still, okay?”
A shudder went through her slender body, but she nodded. Leaving her hand on Pamela’s cheek, Sin powered up her gift. The familiar tingle wound its way down her arm and to her fingertips, and the moment it entered the werewolf, Pamela gasped.
Con’s soothing, deep voice assured Pamela that everything was okay, and though Sin wasn’t so sure about that, she appreciated the way he was so calm, so sure, so… sympathetic. He might have taken the job because Eidolon forced his hand, but Con belonged in the medical field, and she wondered if he realized that.
Sin punched her power through Pamela’s body, seeking out the virus. Compared to the other wargs Sin had tried to cure, this one had very low levels, and taking out the individual virus strands wasn’t nearly as difficult as she’d thought it would be.
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 die
d.
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 fucked 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.”
