Strider turned. Gwen, a redheaded beauty who was stronger and more vicious than any of the Lords, approached him, a glistening bottle of water in her hand. She tossed it at him, and he easily caught it. Within seconds, he had the entire thing drained. Gods, the cold felt good as the liquid moistened his dry throat.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Slowly she grinned, and he knew exactly why Sabin had fallen in love with her. Naughty women ruled. “I stole it from Sabin.”
“I heard that, wife,” Sabin said, striding around the boulder across from them. He increased his speed until he reached Gwen’s side, then draped an arm around her shoulders.
Immediately she reached up and twined her fingers with his. She even leaned her head against his side, trusting the man to hold her up and keep her safe. They might enjoy one-upping each other, but they were unified. That much was clear.
Their pairing had initially shocked Strider, truth be told. After all, Gwen was Galen’s daughter and Galen was leader of their greatest enemy. More than that, Sabin was the keeper of Doubt and Gwen had been a timid little mouse the first time the two had met. The demon had practically eaten her alive.
Now, there wasn’t a more confident woman alive. How the two had reached this point and made things work, Strider wasn’t sure. He was just glad he wasn’t the one in a committed relationship. He liked women—even the un-naughty ones. Oh, did he like women. But relationships? Not so much.
He’d had a few girlfriends over the years, and at first, he’d loved it. Loved the commitment, the exclusivity. When they’d discovered his penchant for winning, however, most of them had tried to work it to their advantage.
“Bet you can’t make me fall in love with you.”
“I doubt you can convince me that we’re meant to be together forever.”
He’d played that game too many times before, winning hearts he’d no longer had any interest in winning. Now, he enjoyed them once—maybe twice—fine, maybe three times—and then it was goodbye old, hello new.
“What’s this about breaking early?” Sabin ushered Gwen to the altar and leaned his hip against the stone. He guided her in front of him, again wrapped her in his arms and held her tight against his chest, her head resting under his chin.
Strider shrugged. “I was thinking.” Rather than examining the stones for symbols or messages as he’d been ordered.
Sabin had been Strider’s leader his entire life. Yeah, Lucien had been commander of the elite army while they’d lived in the heavens, but it had been Sabin that Strider had looked to for advice and guidance. Still did. The man would have beheaded his own mother if it meant winning a battle. Not that any of them had a mother. They’d been born fully formed. But Strider valued that kind of commitment.
“Did I hear someone say it was break time?” Kane, keeper of Disaster, asked with a grin of his own as he rounded a corner. His hair, which was a mix of brown, black and gold, as well as his eyes, which were a mix of brown and green, gleamed in the amber sunlight.
Had he always been that colorful? Strider wondered. They’d been together forever, but Strider didn’t think he’d ever seen the man so…happy. Almost glowing. Maybe the temple agreed with him.
A gust of wind suddenly rose among the trees. A branch snapped off and flew toward the men. Of course, it smacked Kane in the back of the head. Used to such catastrophes, his stride didn’t even slow. Maybe the temple didn’t agree with him.
Strider chuckled. That wouldn’t be the last of Kane’s woes, he was sure. Rocks tended to fall and ground tended to crack whenever the warrior arrived at the scene.
Behind him, gravel crunched under boots and Strider turned again. Amun, Reyes and Maddox, the last of their group, were closing the distance.
“Break?” Amun said, his deep voice almost raw from disuse. He was dark from head to toe and as the keeper of Secrets, he rarely spoke, too afraid he would reveal devastating truths the warriors wouldn’t be able to recover from. But as he’d recently spilled many of those secrets, anyway, to calm Gideon from a rage, he’d been a bit more talkative.
The change did Strider’s heart good.
“Guess so,” he replied.
Sabin rolled his eyes. “Look what you’ve started.”
“What’s wrong with a break? I’m tired. And gods know we’re not making any progress.” Maddox was, perhaps, their most dangerous member. Or rather, had been. Before he’d met his Ashlyn. Now, there was a gentleness to his violet eyes that none of the other Lords possessed.
Too bad that gentleness only extended to the delicate Ashlyn. Maddox was paired with the demon of Violence and when that boy erupted… Ouch. Strider had been on the receiving end of the man’s need to hurt and maim a time or two. And yes, Strider had won, even then, dishing more punches and slices than he’d received. He just couldn’t help himself.
“We’ve searched the grounds, x-rayed the stones hoping to find something inside them, and spilled our own blood hoping to draw the Unspoken Ones out with a sacrifice.” Reyes, as dark as Amun but far more tense, splayed his arms, still cut and bleeding from his latest offering. Or from self-torture. One never knew with Reyes. “What’s left for us to do?”
Everyone looked to Sabin.
“They were the ones who told us Danika was the All-Seeing Eye. I don’t understand why they won’t help us out again,” the warrior said, his own frustration clear.
The All-Seeing Eye could see into heaven and hell. She knew what the gods were planning, what the demons were planning, as well as the outcome of all those plans—but not necessarily at the right time. Details came to her in spurts, out of sequence.
Sabin spun in a circle, calling, “All we want to know is where the other two artifacts are. Is that too much to ask?”
“Just help us, damn it,” Kane shouted, getting into the spirit.
“Otherwise, I’ll rip each stone from this island and toss them into the sea,” Maddox added.
“And I’ll help him,” Strider vowed. “Only I’ll piss on them first.”
As his voice echoed from the rocks, the air seemed to thicken with challenge. The insects in the trees even quieted.
“Whoa—maybe you shouldn’t have threatened to violate their property,” Reyes muttered.
Oopsie.
Next, the world around them faded, leaving only the pillars and the altar. Only, every one of the pillars was suddenly upright and the altar was now gleaming white marble scrubbed clean of debris.
Unsure what was happening, each of the warriors stiffened, straightened and grabbed for a weapon.
Strider was proficient with both guns and knives, but usually preferred to slice and dice. Today, however, he’d make use of his Sig Sauer. He kept the muzzle down, but that didn’t mean it was any less dangerous. He could aim and fire in less time than it took to blink.
“What’s happening?” Gwen whispered.
“Don’t know, but be ready for anything,” Sabin warned.
Any other warrior would have shoved the woman behind his back to protect her. Not so with Sabin. Men and women had always been equals to him, and even though he loved Gwen more than life itself and wanted her protected more than he wanted victory, everyone here knew that Gwen was the strongest among them. She’d saved more than one Lord already.
Strider, though, did inch to the front—of her, of everyone. That sense of challenge… He had to be the one to win this thing.
His demon was already chanting. Win…win…must win…can’t lose.
I know, he growled. I will.
He pivoted, gaze roving, searching. Finally, he spotted his prey. A huge man—no, that thing couldn’t be called a man. A huge beast had materialized between two of the pillars.
Even as Strider’s stomach tightened, he took his quarry’s measure. The beast wasn’t dressed, but then, he didn’t need clothing. His skin was furred like that of a horse. Snakes danced and hissed from his head, their thin bodies acting as his hair. Two long fangs protruded over hi
s bottom lip. He had human hands, but his feet were hooves.
Muscle was stacked upon muscle on his torso, and his nipples were pierced by two large silver rings. Metal chains circled his neck, wrists and ankles, and those chains kept him tethered to the pillars.
“Who are you?” Strider demanded. No need to ask what the thing was. Ugly as shit covered it.
He hadn’t expected an answer, but damn if the ensuing silence didn’t irritate him.
Then, beside the beast, between two other pillars, another monster appeared, and Strider blinked at the sudden addition. This one was male, as well, but only the lower half of his body was covered by carmine fur. His chest was a mass of scars. He, too, was anchored in place by chains.
Still. Those chains didn’t detract from the menace radiating from either of them.
“My gods. Look,” Kane breathed, pointing.
A third beast appeared, and this one was female. Like the men, her torso was bare. Her breasts were large, her nipples also pierced, though with diamonds rather than silver hoops. A leather skirt wrapped around her waist and thighs. She stood in profile, and Strider could see the small horns protruding from her spine. The horns he actually liked—they’d give a man something to hold on to when things got rough. Her face, however, was beaked like a bird’s. So bed her? No. She, too, was furred and chained.
In quick succession, a fourth and fifth appeared, both so tall and wide they were like living mountains. They didn’t have snakes for hair, though. What they had was worse. One was bald, yet shadows seemed to be seeping from his skull. Thick and black and putrid. The other had blades. Small but sharp, they spiked from his scalp, each glistening with something clear and wet.
The Unspoken Ones.
Without a doubt. Strider let out a breath. They should have remained the Unseen Ones, as well. ’Cause damn.
Win.
No challenge has been issued yet, moron. Thank the gods, he added, just for himself. Would he be able to defeat these things?
The female stepped forward, her chains rattling. The Lords held their ground, and this seemed to please her. She grinned, her too-white teeth sharp as razors. Thankfully, she couldn’t get far, couldn’t reach them, bound to the pillars as she was.
“Once more, you have darkened our doorstep.” Her voice rang with the cries of a thousand souls trapped in hell, desperately trying to escape. They screamed from her, echoing through the temple, their tears practically soaking him. “And once more, we grant you the honor of our presence. But do not think, even for a moment, that your threats moved us. Desecrate our temple, will you? Go ahead. However, I suggest you say goodbye to your cock before you do so.”
Win!
Not a challenge, not a challenge, not a fucking challenge. Please don’t let that be a challenge. He had a feeling the woman meant what she’d said. If he whipped out Stridy Monster to relieve himself, he’d lose Stridy Monster. And there was no greater tragedy than that. Ask anyone who’d been with him.
“Uh, our apologies,” Sabin said in an effort to smooth things over.
“Accepted,” she replied easily.
That ease seemed out of place. Wrong.
Damn. Where was Gideon when you needed him? As the keeper of Lies, that boy knew when someone spoke true—or not. Strider had been apprehensive since the beasts had appeared, but now he wondered, what was their angle? The question churned his apprehension into straight-up fear.
“Now, the reason for our appearance,” she continued. “Your determination to defeat your enemy is admirable, and we have chosen to reward you for it.”
A reward? From these creatures? His formerly tight stomach now did a little dance: twist, twist, knot, twist, twist, knot. Wrong, he thought again.
“So you’ll help us?” Reyes asked. Gullible fool. “Help us defeat the Hunters at long last?”
A laugh. “As you said yourself, we have already helped you. And we did so without seeking anything in return.” Her gaze, so much like a black hole he already felt as if he were falling, shifted, landed on him and pinned him in place. “Did we not?”
Just like that, understanding dawned. Anytime you wanted to hook someone on your drug, you gave them the first taste for free. Their aid had been the drug, and the Lords were now the addicts.
They would have to pay for any further assistance, Strider realized. And pay dearly. Ding, ding, ding. Finally, right.
“Perhaps we can help each other,” Kane suggested, the ground cracking under his feet. He hopped to the side to avoid falling into a black hole of his own.
Her chin lifted in haughty disdain. “We need nothing from you.”
“We’ll see,” Sabin said, tone unconcerned. But Strider could see the wheels turning in the back of his friend’s mind. “Do you know where the Cloak of Invisibility is? And the Paring Rod?”
“Yes.” She offered them another grin, this one loaded like a gun and ready to fire. “We do.”
Yep, I’m hooked.
Win! Defeat repeated.
Strider licked his lips in anticipation, bones already humming at the thought of victory against the Hunters. Finally, the Super Bowl of wins, here for the taking. Once they had those artifacts, they could find and destroy Pandora’s box. That wouldn’t destroy the Hunters, of course, but it would ruin their plans to use the box to draw the demons out of the Lords, killing the warriors.
Man couldn’t live without demon, not anymore. They were two halves of a whole, bonded forever. Defeat was as much a part of him as Stridy Monster.
The demons were equally bound, though they wouldn’t die if man and spirit were parted. However, they would be crazed, forever hungry to feed their depraved needs but unable to quench themselves.
After the Hunters had killed Baden, the demon of Distrust had sprung from his body, tortured, screaming, destroying everyone it encountered. Strider had watched, helpless.
Worse, that demon was still out there, still causing havoc.
That was the reason the Hunters no longer sought to kill him and his friends. They didn’t want the demons free and unable to be captured. But with the box, they could do both.
Yet thanks to Danika, they now knew the Hunters had a new plan of action. Somehow, they had found the demon of Distrust. They had managed to capture it and were trying to force it to possess another body. If they succeeded… Strider shuddered. They wouldn’t have to wait for the box. They could kill the Lords, place their demons inside bodies of their choosing and do whatever they wished.
They claimed they wanted a world without evil, but would they say the same thing if they were in control of all that evil? Hell, no. Power wasn’t easy to give up. As he well knew. No way he’d be able to give up his. He liked winning—and not just because of his demon.
“So what do you want from us?” Sabin asked, cautious now. “In exchange for those artifacts?”
Strider almost grinned. Sabin didn’t like miscommunication. He wanted the facts laid out so everyone knew what they were getting into.
The Unspoken One laughed, and it was a far crueler sound than before. Maybe because this time, she mocked with that laughter. “Think you it is that simple? That you give us a token and in return we give you that which you desire most? How wrong you are, demon. You are not the only ones who seek what we have to offer. Behold.”
Above the altar, the air thickened, coagulated, and colors sparked to life before bleeding together and forming what seemed to be a movie of some kind. Strider strained to decipher the images—then tensed as Galen came into view. His blond hair, his handsome features, his white feathered wings. As usual, he wore a white robe, as if he truly were an angel rather than a demon-possessed warrior like the rest of them.
Beside him was a tall, slender female. She was pretty in a sturdy sort of way, with sharp features, dark hair and pale skin. He’d seen her before, he thought, flipping through mental files of ancient Greece, ancient Rome and everywhere else he’d been throughout his very long life, but coming up blank. He pored throu
gh more recent times, but again—oh, shit, there. Danika, he realized. Danika had painted her. An enemy.
Shit, he thought again. Danika had painted this woman in a scene set twentysomething years in the past, yet nothing about her had changed. There wasn’t an age line on her.
She wasn’t human, then.
Today she was dressed in black leather and strapped to a table, but she wasn’t struggling against her bonds. There was determination in her expression, her gaze following— No. Surely not. That couldn’t be… It wasn’t possible… But as Strider watched, he saw a ghostlike creature bouncing from one corner of the room to another. Its eyes were red, its face skeletal, its teeth long and sharp.
No question; it was a demon. A High Lord, like the very being that possessed Strider.
Strider stopped breathing, every muscle in his body clenching his bones.
“Baden,” Amun rasped in that unused voice of his, so much longing in his tone that it actually hurt to hear. There’d been something about Baden, something they’d all gravitated to. Something they’d all needed. They’d loved Baden more than they’d loved themselves. More than they loved each other.
Still did, despite his death.
“No damn way.” Kane shook his head almost violently.
Strider agreed. No damn way. That demon did not carry the essence of their friend. Couldn’t possibly. But there was something familiar about that ghostly being…something gut-wrenching.
“Enter her,” Galen commanded. “Enter her and your torment will end. You’ll finally have a host. You’ll finally be able to feel, to smell, to taste. Don’t you remember how wonderful that is? Finally you’ll be able to destroy, to shred human trust as you were meant to do.”
Shred human trust. As Distrust was meant to do. No, he thought again.
The spirit groaned, and its speed increased. Clearly, it was agitated. Did it know what was happening? Did it want another host? Or was it simply too crazed to understand?
“Please,” the woman begged. “I need you. I need you so badly.”
So. She was willing. That didn’t mean she knew what would happen to her if she got her wish. For the first century—at least—there would be no remnants of the person she was. She would be fully demon and many, many humans would suffer because of that.
The Darkest Passion lotu-6 Page 11
