“Geez Louise, girl!” Sophie said, bounding onto the end of the bed with a little hop. The whole mattress shook from the impact. “Your head isn’t fixin’ to do a three-sixty or anything, is it? I might be a healer, but I’m not sure even I could help with that.”
Emma waved dismissively. “Ignore her,” she said, flopping down beside Sophie on the end of the bed.
Shay strode to Ari’s side. “Mace is waiting on you. He and Nik are in the great room looking at some more of the Shades’ lore. Something that Mace brought with him from the house.”
Ari shifted against the headboard. “Leonidas back yet?”
“Nope,” Emma said. “Nikos made some calls to gather the troops, but it’s going to be a little while still. The others are all out in the field still.”
“Here, baby,” Ari said, gently dislodging her from his arms. “The girls will hang with you for a bit. I gotta go powwow with Mason and Nik.”
She searched his face. “You know I’m not evil, Aristos. Please . . . tell me that you understand I’m not bad.”
He kissed her forehead, holding her close. “Darling, I know who you are. And what you are.”
She pulled back and used sign language. “But do you know what’s inside of me?”
He gave her a bittersweet smile and answered, “I’m still working on that one. I just need a little time.”
The only problem, Juliana knew, was that time was one luxury they couldn’t afford. Ari clearly saw the anxiety in her eyes. He bent down, pressing his lips against her forehead. “I’m going to protect you, sweetheart. I promise. Nothing’s going to keep us apart ever again.”
“I’ll keep fighting, too,” she whispered in his ear.
“Actually,” Shay volunteered as soon as Ari left the room. “I had an idea earlier. Something we Daughters can do to help. It’s one reason we came down here.”
Emma added, “We’re all ready to fight for you, Juliana.”
“Go on, absolutely,” Juliana said, bobbing her head. “Tell me what you have in mind, please.”
Shay deposited a drawing pad in the center of the bed, tapping a charcoal pencil against the blank page. “So,” she told Juliana, “we all have our unique gifts as Daughters, right? Several, sometimes. Mine is that I draw prophetically.”
“How does that ability work?” Juliana asked, as Shay began to move her pencil across the page.
“I get visions, scenes that I am compelled to draw—sometimes a trancelike state overtakes me. I’m sensing that there’s something related to your situation,” she said, the first lines of a balcony emerging on the page. “Something . . . crucial.”
Jules watched as Shay quickly sketched in more details; a set of French doors emerged, then a very recognizable pair of wings. Jules held her breath, knowing what might be coming next.
Shay tightened her hold on the charcoal pencil, releasing a slow, pained groan as she hesitated.
Emma reached for her cousin. “What is it? What’s wrong, Shayanna?”
Shay trembled slightly and then resumed drawing, her eyes assuming a glazed expression. Her hands flew across the page, nimbly outlining more details from that pivotal night . . . and roughing in the shadowy figure of a male. The male who’d been in the room!
In a distant voice Shay said, “He’s talking. This man in the room. He’s saying something. Don’t recognize the language . . . strange, foreign.” Shay closed her eyes and began chanting, repeating whatever she heard in an eerie monotone.
“What does this mean?” Sophie whispered, glancing among the rest of them with saucer-sized eyes. “Geez Louise . . . redux.”
Shay’s whole body swayed, back and forth, more of those alien words passing over her lips.
Juliana’s body began to vibrate, a kind of humming sensation starting in the middle of her belly. It was a demon language; she knew it based on how Layla was apparently reacting from within her own body.
This might be her only chance to find out what had happened the night of her death—and how it was possibly linked to the current situation with Layla.
Jules closed her own eyes, reaching deep inside to try to activate her own prophetic ability. Perhaps, just as she’d been able to track Ari that afternoon—the ability still alive in her—she might also be able to see the events Shay was conjuring.
She reached out her hands to Emma and Sophie. “We need to link,” she said. “Join our powers as Daughters. All of us tied together, to try to get additional information about what Shay’s channeling and seeing.”
The other women nodded, and they immediately formed a four-way circle, their hands clasped. As they did so, a powerful jolt of electricity rang through Juliana’s veins. Her vision changed, the room around her vanishing, time itself dissolving.
She was standing in her own bedroom in 1893.
All time had folded back, like tissue paper in a gift box, revealing that past moment as something real and alive. Vivid. Exactly as it had been.
Ari stood at those French doors, the midnight dark shadowing his form; the outline of his wings gleamed, illuminated by the gaslights below. She took a step, mesmerized, and a deep male voice came from behind her, chilling her. “I will destroy him.”
She spun and found herself staring into the coldest, most lifeless eyes she’d ever seen. “Who . . .” Then she reached back, toward Aristos, in a panic. He stepped closer to the door, shielding his eyes and looking through the glass.
“Turn away from him now. Or he dies,” the stranger threatened.
Horrified, she put her back to Aristos, even though he stood on that balcony waiting for her. Expecting her. “What do you want? . . . Who are you?”
She pulled her robe about her lingerie-clad body, needing to place whatever barrier she could between this menacing stranger and herself. The man sneered in response, tugging on the satin pink ribbon that fastened the lingerie. “He’ll never touch you, not now.”
She slapped his hand aside. “I insist, sir, that you reveal your identity!”
His answer was to plant a cold palm atop the crown of her head. “By this curse that I place upon thee, you shall die . . . that his soul may die with you.”
“No, no, you’re wrong,” she tried denying, but his hand tightened about her skull, a sensation like fire flowing out of his hand and into her scalp.
“This curse will live—and live beyond your grave,” he proclaimed. “It shall live through every woman of your heritage. Death to the voice of life!”
Juliana cried out, trying to get Aristos to hear, even through the closed doors. Over and over she kept calling his name, but the man would not release her. In fact, hands were all about her, grasping at her, pulling.
Help me! she thought.
“Juliana!” That voice—it belonged to someone who cared, a female. “Juliana, snap out of it!”
She blinked, the scene fading, replaced by the guest bedroom. “Oh, dear God. Oh, thank you, Shay,” she said, realizing that the huntress had been shaking her. That because of her physical intervention, the horrifying vision of the past had been broken.
Emma pulled Juliana into a sisterly embrace. “What were you seeing? What happened? You were shaking all over, sweetie.”
Jules rested her cheek on Em’s shoulder. Closing her eyes, drinking in the reassuring comfort of Emma’s arms, she finally whispered, “I saw the man who killed me.”
Nikos kept rolling his shoulder, rubbing the obviously knotted muscle. Ari knew, from years of experience, that Nik did that only when he was in a tremendous amount of pain. It was an old injury, one he’d earned at Marathon, and when the warrior got tense or distressed, the discomfort kicked in triple time. “Man, you should get Straton to look at that shoulder,” Ari suggested.
“He’s not back yet,” Nikos said.
“Call him. Last thing we need during this shit storm is for you to wind up sidelined. Get him to rub you down.”
Mason’s gaze flicked sideways, the first time he’d looked up from the lea
ther-bound book he held in his lap since they’d gotten back from the Crab Shack.
“Why don’t you spend a few minutes in the hot tub?” Mason suggested.
Nikos shook his head. “I want to help you. I can soak later.” He rotated his shoulder once again, wincing. “Although, ah . . . yes, it is definitely tight.”
That was about as close as ole Nikos would ever get to admitting, “This hurts like ever- living bloody hell.”
“Dude. For real,” Ari insisted, motioning him toward the doorway. “Go take a plunge right now. Leonidas will be back in forty-five minutes. I’m gonna need you in on that meeting—and feeling tip-top. Need you both for that.”
Thank the Highest that Mason had been won over, a significant victory. He’d said something in the truck that gave Ari particular hope that Juliana could be saved.
He’d clasped Ari’s shoulder after they pulled into the compound. “It’s my job to protect the innocent and defenseless against creatures like that Djinn,” he’d promised. “I’ll do whatever I can to help your Juliana. You can count on that.”
“Taking it to the bank,” Ari had answered. “The fucking bank.”
Mason Angel was nothing if not a man of honor and integrity. His loyalty, his commitment to those he cared about—his service as a marine—all of those qualities emanated from his core nature. The man didn’t make a pledge, not of any kind, unless he intended to fulfill it, even if he died doing so.
“Shit,” Mace muttered now, flipping several pages of the book he had in his lap. “Can’t find what I’m looking for.” He sighed, rubbing a hand over his hair in agitation. “I know it’s in here, and it might help your girl out. Might help all of us out, actually—and in a much bigger way than I’d imagined.”
Mason held up the volume; the cover was tooled, stained leather, the abstract design like something from an old monastery. “I spent all last night, most of today, studying our lore, determined to find an explanation for Juliana’s arrival. But for some reason, I only looked at The Final Crossing briefly.” He pressed the book against his chest protectively. “Should’ve thought more about its discussion on the nature of Djinn. And Nephilim . . . and even all of you. You gotta read deep and sorta between the lines, but there’s information in this book that I’m sure Ares wouldn’t want any of us getting hold of. I mean, do you know anything about Djinn, really?”
Ari scowled. “I know they fueled the Persians’ battle lust at Thermopylae. Sable—bless his horsey little soul—he’s one of them.”
Mason nodded, drumming fingers against the book he cradled. “And he’s obviously made his choice.”
Ari leaned forward. “What do you mean, his choice?”
“Djinn aren’t born dark or light. They decide whether to follow darkness . . . or something more holy. More true. By joining your ranks recently, Sable staked a claim to . . . well, let’s call it the better side of his nature. But they’re mostly dark, yeah.”
“Any of them I’ve ever met up with have been miserable, evil creatures, eager to create destruction and suffering.” Ari scowled, remembering the masses of them that he’d seen flying over the cliffs of Thermopylae after Ares brought him back to life. They’d swarmed the sky, their arrows flying, wings beating at the wind. “You really think Sable’s turned light? He was one nasty bastard at the Hot Gates—and after.”
“Well, turning lighter is probably more accurate. It’s a process, but Sable exercised his free will when he joined your cause in Hades a few months ago. They were created that way, with a built- in choice. That makes them, you know, a little better model than your average demon. But it also means they’re more dangerous, because you can’t predict which way they will choose. Oh, and when they do switch from dark to light—or vice versa? It’s excruciatingly painful for them. The transformation isn’t immediate, and it’s an agony to their souls as they walk the line.”
“Johnny Cash allusion noted.” Ari hummed a riff. “Noted and appreciated. Good ole Man in Black.”
Mason laughed, smiling a little, which for some reason made Ari really happy. He hated to see any warrior, especially such a noble one, live in torment.
“So here’s the thing,” Mason continued. “Your Juliana? She’s back; you’re right. The problem is that nobody—and really, why is that—nobody’s wondering how she got here. Resurrection’s a pretty nifty trick, when it comes down to it, don’t you think? Besides you guys and Jesus, who do you know who’s managed it? Don’t you think that should’ve raised questions from the very beginning?”
“She told us that an angel helped her. We all believed her.”
“A little too easily,” Mason answered and handed over the book. “Take a look at this.”
Ari stared at the page, squinting to decipher the ancient text. It was rendered in his native Greek, thank goodness, but his immortal eyes still strained with the small lettering. Scanning the page, he stopped on one key passage. He read it, several times, trying to absorb the stark reality of what it contained.
“You see it, too.” Mason leaned forward, gripping the sofa’s thick arm until his damn knuckles went white. “You see what caught my attention.”
Ari squinted harder, read the words again, then really looked at the sketch. “Gods of Olympus, that’s Ares,” he told Mason, who’d never actually seen the god.
Mace got a satisfied look. “Exactly what I thought.”
“And you’re telling me that the female is a Djinn? Ares is—what—getting it on with a demon?”
“Not just any demon—one who just so happens to look an awful lot like our vicious little Djinn in residence. This is how she came to me over in Iraq, that hip- length hair, dripping in sensuality.”
Ari rose slightly in the chair. “Whoa! You saying this is her? The same demon that’s possessed Juliana?”
“No, but I am saying this. If this book is right—and we have every reason to believe it is—then it reveals that Ares has a connection with the Djinn outside his relationship with Sable. It means that he has a special relationship with them, an alignment. A greater reach of sorts.”
“He’s always had Sable doing his dirty work,” Ari pointed out. “That’s nothing new, but you’re right—we’ve never known of Ares being connected to any other Djinn. Ever.”
Mace rubbed his jaw, thinking for a moment, then asked, “But Sable was forced into that relationship, wasn’t he? By Ahriman, after Thermopylae?”
“Yeah, that was his punishment because the Persians got their asses kicked—by us.” Ari grinned, pride surging in his chest as it always did when he recalled how valiantly he and his fellow Spartans had fought. “Sable was supposed to motivate bloodlust and violence among the Persians, and he did his best; I’ll hand him that. But Ahriman was shamed and gave him to Ares.”
“As a slave?” Mason asked him, staring down at the open page of the book.
“No, the control’s more subtle than that. Ares enforces Sable’s submission psychologically, physically. Look how he’s used that centaur curse to tether him—that’s just one of about a dozen methods. Our jolly ole war god gets his rocks off by controlling and torturing everyone around him.”
“So I’m right,” Mason said. “This drawing proves that Ares has had more than one Djinn in his life—and apparently been pretty fucking passionate toward at least one of their females.”
“But I don’t get how this helps us. Explain it to me like I’m a nitwit,” Ari urged.
Mason nailed him with a sarcastic look. “When you actually set yourself up for an insult, Petrakos . . .”
Ari responded with his middle finger. “Insult this. But tell me what theory you’ve got brewing—and fast.”
“Two things. First, this image tells us there’s a chance that Ares himself is the one who sent Juliana back to you. He used the female Djinn to somehow . . . I don’t know. Bind with her spirit? Give her physical form? And second, the Shades’ guiding principle has always been to know our enemy as best we can. To get their true name
to command them, to understand their identity . . . to determine if they are a demon of fear, despair, whatever they are. The more knowledge we gain, the better it enables us to destroy and defeat them, one by one.”
Ari saw where the hunter’s logic was leading. “So you’re saying Ares might’ve put her up to this, so to speak?”
“He might’ve known about my past with her—and your past with Juliana. So he sets up the scenario. Your Juliana walks right into our midst, my greatest demon enemy hidden inside of her. Perfect plan to create chaos while waging war against us all—from the inside of the ranks.”
Shay walked into the room but stopped in her tracks when she saw the ancient volume open on the coffee table. “That’s The Final Crossing, isn’t it?”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Ari observed.
“No, but it’s a very powerful book,” she answered, looking down at the sketch. “I mean, duh, brother- in- law, it’s the only written record of you seven immortals, least that we know of.”
“Just testing you,” he grumbled.
She sat down on the other side of the table, and Mace slid the book toward her. “I’ve got a theory going. Something that just might help Juliana get free. Take a look at this drawing.”
She stared at her brother and then at the picture of Ares and the Djinn. “Okay, that’s just way weird. Way, way weird, Mace.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Because the reason I was coming in here, right now?” Her eyes grew very wide. “Was to tell you that I sketched something a few minutes ago. I got a prophetic vision. . . . Something I think might explain what’s going on.”
Ari stood, ready to go get Jules, but Shay caught his arm. “Ari, wait,” she said. “I need to talk to you first. Juliana . . . She got a vision, too. A really vivid one.”
The gravity of her tone made the hair on his nape bristle. “A vision of what, precisely?”
Shay steeled herself visibly. “The man who . . . killed her, Ari.” She drew in a sharp breath. “Juliana saw the man who caused her death.”
She’d seen the male presence, the one she’d recalled when they were at the inn.
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