Damn it. She needed to talk to Nick sooner, rather than later. And he needed to answer some questions. But right now, she needed to get to the store while she had the energy to do it. And besides, she wanted to talk to Nick without Damian listening.
“I’m going to the store,” she told Damian, scooping up her cell phone, along with the rest of what she considered to be the necessities. She checked her Glock quickly, verifying the full magazine, then put that and her wallet into the small backpack she used as a purse when she was working. A knife and a spare mag followed, and she was ready. In the unlikely event she was stopped, she had a valid concealed carry permit for this state. Similar permits for almost every state in the union were in a special folder in a hidden compartment of her duffel. Nick had friends in high places, and he always made sure his hunters had what they needed to protect themselves.
Except maybe the truth about who and what he really was.
Damn it. She had to stop obsessing about something that might be nothing more than Damian’s need to believe, and get back to more practical matters.
Zipping everything into her pack, she turned to Damian. “I won’t be long, but I’ve written my number on the pad by the phone, in case you need to contact me. Pick up the receiver, hit either button, and dial the number.” She demonstrated before continuing. “I’ll be getting clothes for both of us, and food for snacks and stuff. We might be here a couple of days before I pick up the trail of the Talisman again.”
“I should go with you. If your enemies are looking for you, you’ll need protection.”
She ground her teeth together to avoid saying what she was thinking, which was along the lines of inviting him to do the anatomically impossible. He came from a different time, she reminded herself.
“I’ll be fine,” she said striving for calm. “I can protect myself.” She nearly snapped that last bit before reining in her temper. “And you have no clothes to wear. That’s why I’m doing this.”
He shrugged. “I’m fine with the few things I have.”
Casey regarded his bare chest, still visible beneath the loosely tied robe, the breadth of shoulders that nothing could conceal, the gorgeous face and thick blond hair. Yes, he was definitely fine. But he still wasn’t going to the store with her.
“Your clothes may be fine, but they’re bloody and dirty and they make you too noticeable. We’re trying to blend in, and, buddy, you don’t blend.”
He shrugged carelessly. “And Nico?”
“Like I said, he’s traveling. He’s also probably asleep right now, since his current job involves vampires.” She paused to peer at him curiously. “Did you have vampires back then?”
He frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t know what those are.”
“Huh. Well, we’ll talk later. Anyway, I’ll leave Nick a message while I’m out, and he’ll call when he wakes up.” She didn’t tell him that what she really wanted was to call Nick from the car so they could have a private conversation before she dropped Damian on him. “Don’t leave the room, okay?”
He gave her a disgusted look, but nodded his agreement. “I won’t leave the room,” he droned, sounding like a sulky child.
She pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything. She needed to get going. She had a lot of work to do.
“I’ll be back,” she intoned, then realized he probably wouldn’t get the movie reference. So she settled for a quick wave as she walked out the door.
CASEY WASN’T NAÏVE enough to believe that Damian wouldn’t at least watch from the window while she walked to the car. She supposed one could call it protectiveness, but she suspected it was more that he didn’t quite trust her yet. And why should he? Their meeting hadn’t been exactly normal. If she’d been trapped in stone for a few millennia, she’d probably be suspicious of anything having to do with magic, too.
So, she crossed to the car, got inside, and drove away as if she had nothing planned other than a shopping trip. But the minute she got to the store parking lot—she didn’t want to conduct this phone call while shouting into a speakerphone—she called Nick back.
“Casey. Talk to me,” he answered, sounding like she’d just woken him.
“Good morning to you too, Nick.”
“Cassandra,” he growled.
“Okay, so here’s the deal. You always told us to be on the lookout for certain statues, but you never said exactly why. And you never even hinted that they could come to life.”
“To life,” Nick repeated, sounding like he’d just witnessed a miracle. “Who . . .” His breath hitched. Was he crying? “Who is it, Casey?”
“He says his name is Damian Stephanos.”
“Damian,” he breathed, and there was definite emotion in his voice now. She waited, giving him time.
“Nick, you okay?”
“Yes. Yeah. Is he there? Can I talk to him?”
“He’s back at the hotel. I wanted to talk to you first, because there’s more going on here than any of us suspected. That easy in-and-out theft you sent me on? Well, it wasn’t. The buyer had way more power than he should have. He’s either a sorcerer himself, or he’s working for one, and I think it’s the latter. I think Sotiris is behind this.”
“Sotiris. You’re sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything, except that I was up against a hell of a lot of power last night. I’m still going after the damn Talisman, but I’m suddenly running blind, trying to fill in the blanks. And Damian is one giant blank spot. Don’t you think it’s convenient that he just happens to show up now? After all this time? What if Sotiris freed him a long time ago, and now he’s the bait to get you to show yourself?”
“Damian wouldn’t do that.”
She paused at the certainty in his voice. He talked about Damian like he knew him. Personally.
“You don’t know what Damian would do,” she said tiredly, depressed by the growing conviction that Damian, whom she’d just met, had told her the truth, while Nick, a man she’d known and trusted for years, had been lying to her and everyone else this whole time. “He claims the curse was just broken last night, but who really knows? I was there, and I wouldn’t swear that’s what happened.”
“What did you do?” he demanded. “I mean, how was he freed?”
Casey blinked at the abrupt question. “Um, well. I did manage to grab the Talisman initially, but I didn’t make a clean getaway. I was under heavy fire, with a pair of hellhounds on my heels—hellhounds, Nick!” she interjected, wanting him to understand just what she’d been up against. “Anyway, I set a false trail, then climbed to the top of a building in old downtown, hoping to escape over the roofs. There’s a statue there, or at least there was, that looks over the street, so I braced my hand on it to lean over and check out the guys chasing me. And I said, I don’t know, something like, “I wish you could help out, big guy.”
“That was it?”
“I’d been shot, so there was blood. Damian says—”
“Wait, you were shot? Are you okay?”
Casey felt a rush of affection for her boss. He might be a lying bastard, but the one thing she could always say about Nick was that he took care of his people. He sometimes had to send them on dangerous missions, but he provided the best resources available, and when the shit hit the fan, he was always there.
“I won’t be doing push-ups any time soon, but I’m fine.”
“Did you see a doctor?”
“Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “You know they report bullet wounds, and I didn’t want to deal with that. It was a clean shot to the upper arm, through and through. As far as I can tell, no bones were hit, but I’ll have it x-rayed back home. Damian helped me clean it out.”
“Right. Damian. So your hand was bloody when you braced it on the statue.”
She nodded automatically, even though he cou
ldn’t see it. “Yeah. And now, according to him, he owes me a blood debt, and until I agree it’s been satisfied, he’s honor-bound to help me.”
“What did he tell you about . . . himself?”
Casey heard the hesitance in Nick’s voice. He was asking about Damian, but he also wanted to know what the newly freed warrior had told her. “That he’s a god of war,” she said casually.
Nick surprised her by snorting a laugh. “That sounds like him. He’s not actually a god; he was just treated like one. If you’re still going after the Talisman—”
“I am.”
“Then from what you’re telling me, you’ll need help. I’ll be finished here tonight, so I’ll fly over there. But in the meantime, you should use Damian. He has remarkable skills when it comes to fighting. He’s a genius tactician, and there’s no weapon he can’t master.”
“So he says. He said something else, too,” she added, deciding in that minute to just lay it all out there. “He said that you led an army back in the day, that he and his fellow warriors were your brothers-in-arms. Math was never my strong suit, but I’m pretty sure that makes you a few thousand years old, boss.”
“Damn.” She heard Nick’s soft curse.
“So, it’s true,” she said, stunned. “Damn it, Nick, who are you? And how come you haven’t told us? I mean, if you were around back then . . .”
“I was there, and yeah, I’ve been letting you and the others think I’m just like you, maybe a little stronger. But there’s a reason for that, or there was. I thought if I laid low, hid in plain sight, so to speak, Sotiris wouldn’t know where I was, and I could find my men. But I’ve been thinking about that lately, and, damn it, Damian’s return just proves it. It’s time for me to stop hiding and start knocking down some walls.”
“Why weren’t you cursed into a statue, too?”
“Power,” he said simply. “Sotiris could never defeat me, one on one. That’s why he struck against Damian and the others. He knew what it would do to me to lose them.”
Casey concentrated on breathing normally as she took all of that in. First was the shock of what Nick was. He’d always struck her as a charming man, a salesman, maybe a bit of a con artist. But a sorcerer? And not just any sorcerer, but one who could take on Sotiris? No wonder he’d kept that part of his life a secret. Most people would be scared to death of him if they knew. She frowned. Hell, she was a little afraid now.
“So Damian was a friend?” she asked finally, changing the subject like a pro.
“More like a brother than a friend.”
“Families have been known to hate and kill each other, Nick. Maybe he blames you for everything he’s suffered all these years.”
“Casey,” he said, chiding her a little bit. “I told you, he’d never do that. Did you call just to argue with me?”
“No,” she responded quietly. “I called because if this was my long-lost brother, I’d want to know about it. The decision has to be yours, Nick. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“But you don’t want me there,” he said flatly, as if she could stop him if he put his mind to it.
“It’s not that. I just don’t want you to walk into a trap.” She waited, and when Nick didn’t say anything, she said, “Look, he says he wants revenge on Sotiris—”
“Hell, yeah, he does. Wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t need an excuse to go after Sotiris. That bastard is evil and needs to die. But I see your point. And you’re the one who said that he was handy in a fight. So, let me use him, and I’ll check him out for you. If he’s telling the truth, he’ll help me recover the Talisman. If he’s playing a game, then he’ll get in my way, and we’ll know.”
“I already know,” Nick said softly. “Damian would never betray me. But it doesn’t hurt to do it your way, especially since I can’t get there until late tonight. I don’t want you to get hurt any more than you already are, babe. I’ll feel better knowing he’s with you.”
“I’ve warned you about the babe thing, Nick,” she joked, desperate for a return to their familiar banter. All this other stuff, the revelations about Nick, the reality of a statue come to life . . . she’d process it eventually. She just needed time. Like a few hours. Something more than the length of a phone call.
“You can file with HR when you get back,” he teased back. “You’re sure about this, Casey? You’re okay with Damian?”
“I’m sure.”
“All right,” he said, willing, in true Nick fashion, to respect her judgment on the situation. “But if you need me before tonight, I can be there in an hour.”
“Okay. What do you want me to tell Damian?”
“Tell him I’m on my way, and tell him—” He drew a soft breath. “Tell him I love him.”
She felt tears building behind her eyes. She could only imagine what he must be feeling. “I’ll take care of him,” she said.
He laughed. “Don’t tell him that. You’ll hurt his pride. Remember, I can be there in an hour.”
“Yeah, boss. Love you, too.”
“Smart ass. Talk to you later.”
DAMIAN WAITED impatiently for Cassandra to return, pacing from the window to the door and back again. He told himself it was because he was bored, that he’d spent thousands of years trapped in stone, and now here he was, trapped within the four walls of a hotel room. That was true as far as it went, but his concern went beyond that. They faced a formidable enemy. Sotiris was not only powerful, but ruthless and cunning, and never one to forgive an insult. Cassandra seemed to think the ancient sorcerer would have forgotten about her now that he had the Talisman within his grasp, or very nearly, since it was in the hands of his agent. But Damian knew better than that. The fact that she’d managed to steal it in the first place would be enough to rank her among Sotiris’s enemies, and the sorcerer certainly hadn’t survived this long by leaving his foes at his back. Whether or not she recovered the Talisman again, Sotiris would want her dead.
The sorcerer definitely hadn’t been in that alley last night. Damian would have sensed his presence. And, according to Cassandra, he hadn’t been in residence at the home from which she’d stolen the Talisman, either. Which meant the device was still in the hands of Sotiris’s agent, and their best chance to recover it was now, before the agent delivered the artifact, and they had to go up against Sotiris himself in order to recover it.
Damian suppressed a shudder. The sorcerer had captured him once, and he’d been helpless to resist. When Sotiris realized that the curse had been broken, and Damian freed, would he try to curse him anew? Damian wasn’t afraid to admit that the idea of going up against Sotiris terrified him, especially without Nico at his side.
The thought of Nico made him frown. Cassandra was keeping something from him, holding back. He knew that had been his brother’s voice on the phone, just as he knew Nico would come the moment he learned of Damian’s freedom. Unless Cassandra persuaded him otherwise. She didn’t trust him yet. She had no trouble believing that he’d been cursed and imprisoned, but she didn’t seem altogether convinced that it had been her actions that had freed him.
His frown deepened as a thought occurred to him. Did she think he was working with Sotiris? That he’d ally with the creature who’d condemned him and his brothers to millennia of torture? He’d have to be insane to consider such a thing. His eyes widened. Maybe that was it. Maybe she feared his long ordeal had twisted his mind. It had, but not in the ways she might think. Before the curse, he’d done two things well. The first was war. He’d been the greatest warrior ever to exist, and that was not a prideful boast. No one had ever bested him on the battlefield . . . or in the bedroom.
And that had been his other accomplishment. Sex. Women had flocked to his bed, and he’d done his best to fuck as many of them as possible, taking pride in leaving them well satisfied. Including that damn
Amazon queen who, for all her reputed prowess on the battlefield, had been a lousy lay. That fact only added fuel to the fire of his resentment that she’d been the catalyst of his nightmare. Though, admittedly, she’d had nothing to do with the curse itself. He and his fellow warriors had been betrayed. He still didn’t know by whom, but it had to have been someone close, someone with access to their innermost sanctum. But while he hadn’t figured out who the traitor was, he trusted that Nico had, and that the man was already suffering an eternity of torment.
Damian pulled back the curtain on the window again and looked down at the parking lot, his thoughts whirling. Nico. How was it that he happened to be here in this exact time and place? He hadn’t been cursed directly; Damian was sure of that much. Sotiris’s curses would never have worked on Nico. He had too much magic of his own, which had been the major source of friction between the two sorcerers. Sotiris had always resented the fact that Nico surpassed him in both power and skill, and that he’d done so from such a young age. Nico had been barely a teenager the first time he’d defeated Sotiris in battle.
And here they all were again. What were the chances that Damian would finally be freed in the precise time when both Nico and Sotiris were active? Was it Fate’s way of slapping Sotiris down for daring to meddle with the sands of time? Were the gods about to reunite Nico and his warriors for one final battle against their age-old enemy? A fierce desire for revenge, for justice, nearly swamped him as he stared out the window. But he wasn’t seeing the metal cars in the dingy parking lot, or even the airplanes drifting over the airport. His mind’s eye saw only that last battlefield, the great armies arranged on either side, the stench of fear mixing with the musk of courage. And before them all stood Nicodemus and his warriors, shoulder to shoulder, grinning in expectation of the battle to come, confident in their victory because as long as they stood together, no one could defeat them.
And then had come the shattering knowledge that they’d been betrayed, the horror on Nico’s face as the spell hit, the bloody sweat rolling down his face as he’d fought with every ounce of magic he possessed to counter the spell to save them, his brothers.
The Stone Warriors: Damian Page 8
