There was a note of sarcasm in his voice she didn’t understand and wasn’t sure she wanted to. Pretty much, she just wanted oxygen.
“This is a key to the end of days. You, my dear, are also a key. And once I take your virginity, I will become the most powerful key of all.” He put his forehead to hers and looked into her eyes with his flat, soulless ones. “I look forward to ridding the human infestation upon this earth. Starting with you.”
Cairo. The Triumphant City. A sprawling urban rat race that came alive—and, in Wraith’s opinion, looked best—at night. As a hunting ground, Wraith had always found Cairo to be adequate, but for the most part, he wasn’t fond of it. The mix of modern and ancient, extreme wealth and extreme poverty, gave the city a mixed-up vibe, as if it couldn’t settle on any particular mood. Its history fascinated him though, and sometimes he wondered what life would have been like back in the days of the pharaohs
Not life for humans—that would have sucked. But being a demon back then would have been sweet. They’d been called gods—Ma’at, Ra, Osiris, Khepri, scores more—and had been worshipped as such.
Demons had long memories—many were immortal or damn near so, and they wanted that power and worship again.
If the shit going down in the underworld was any indication, it looked like things were looking up for those demons.
As the train pulled out of Cairo station, Wraith watched through a window, its reflection revealing that the sand in his hourglass glyph was down to the last grains.
He wondered if he’d made the right decision.
Even though Tayla was an incredible warrior, especially when she tapped into her inner demon, she wasn’t strong enough to protect Serena. On the other hand, he wasn’t at his strongest either.
Gods, Serena must think he was such an ass after he took off on her like that. She’d told him to go, but after watching Shade and Eidolon deal with their mates, he now understood that sometimes females wanted you to fight for them. Then again, sometimes they didn’t.
As he fingered the top Serena had given him, he realized he’d never understand the opposite sex.
He came to his feet, knowing Serena wasn’t going to be happy to see him again. Still, he was going to stick by her side until she was back in the States and he could get her someplace safe, because Val wasn’t an option.
With a growl, he tore open the door to the cargo hold. Halfway to her cabin, a sense of wrongness slammed into him hard enough to make him stumble. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, acknowledging the familiar evil.
Byzamoth.
Wraith hit the first sleeping-car door at a run. Slammed one of the passengers out of the way and went through the second door almost without opening it. The dark, oily sense of malevolence grew as he ran.
He skidded to a stop, nearly overshooting her door. A black cloud of evil pulsed all around the doorway, and he slammed his shoulder into the thin door, caving it in with a crash and explosion of twisted metal.
“Josh!” Serena’s scream penetrated all the way to his heart.
The sight of her, pinned beneath Byzamoth’s hideously transformed body, sent him into kill mode. All his aches, pains, and nausea disappeared as a veil of crimson sliced down over his vision and thoughts.
Wraith threw himself at Byzamoth, seized his leathery wing, and yanked him off of Serena. He slammed the angel into the narrow space between the door and the seats. A crack of bone accompanied Byzamoth’s high-pitched yelp, and his wing drooped.
“Semin—”
Wraith popped him in the mouth. Lifting his knee, Wraith nailed the bastard in the junk. Very large, exaggerated junk. The knowledge that he’d planned to use that monstrous thing on Serena burned to ash what little remained of Wraith’s control.
“You’re so dead,” he snarled, and pulled Byzamoth’s head down to meet his knee. Blood splashed on the floor, but not nearly enough. He threw the angel into the hall, slamming him into the door of another compartment.
The screams of passengers who heard the commotion pierced the air, mixing with Serena’s bellow of fury as she came at Byzamoth, drilling a quick double-tap to his mouth, followed by a hard jab to his throat. Fierce admiration and pride lit Wraith up from the inside. Good girl.
The angel lunged for her, but she swung her elbow into his gut as Wraith put the heel of his hand into Byzamoth’s nose.
“My necklace,” Serena yelled. “Get it!”
“Mine.” Byzamoth spun away, his grayish lips pulling back from sharp, yellowed teeth. “And so is she.” He spun with a lot more grace than he should have had, given that his wing was broken and the passage was so narrow, but in an instant, he was sprinting down the aisle.
Wraith gave chase. At the end of the car, Byzamoth collided with a passenger. With a furious snarl, he hurled the male human at Wraith. They both went down in a heap. Son of a bitch. Wraith untangled himself from the human, who was whimpering, his dark skin turned ashen, his eyes haunted by what he’d seen.
Welcome to my world, buddy. Wraith jumped to his feet and tore off after Byzamoth, though the sense of evil had dissipated. He wasn’t sure what powers the angel had, but he was pretty sure the bastard couldn’t fly off with one wing, and a broken one at that.
Ahead, he found a group of humans gathered around an open door on the side of the train, their excited chatter telling him all he needed to know. They’d seen a guy leap from the train, though apparently Byzamoth had taken human form, because these people weren’t nearly as freaked out as they should have been. But where had he gone?
Wraith sped back to Serena, taking no special care to go around passengers. Their indignant curses followed him, but all that mattered was getting to Serena.
The moment he blew through the twisted door frame, she flew into his arms. “Thank God, you’re okay. Oh, my God, thank you. Thank you.” She was babbling and sobbing, and only a colossal effort kept him from doing the same.
“It’s okay. He’s gone.”
“My necklace—”
“Gone, too.”
She cursed, the first really dirty word he’d heard from her.
“I’m sorry I left,” he said into her hair. “I should have been here.”
She tore out of his arms, and he lurched, had to catch himself on the wall. She’d been holding him up, and a sense of dizziness nearly knocked him over. “Don’t you dare be sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry. I had no right to get mad at you. Or chase you away. God, I’m a fool.” She looked at him through watery eyes. “Josh, are you okay?”
Pain tore through his gut, doubling him over. “No.”
“Are you hurt? Did he do something to you?”
“Need… my… room.” He stumbled toward his cabin, doing his best to hold in the contents of his stomach. Though his room was next door, it felt as though it took about six months to get there, and when he did, he couldn’t open the door. Instead, he sank to the floor, his muscles convulsing and his stomach heaving.
“I’m going to see if there’s a doctor on board,” Serena said.
“No. Need… meds. Inside.”
Her soft curse made him smile despite his misery. Second use of profanity in as many minutes. “Fine, but if it doesn’t help—”
He grabbed her wrist, and when she winced, he kicked himself for being such a brute, and loosened his hold. “No doctors. Promise.”
“I don’t like it… but I promise.”
She opened the door. Gathering what remained of his strength, he dragged himself inside and crawled up on the bed. Soft. Cool. Fuck, he was going to die here, wasn’t he?
“You’re not going to die,” Serena said, and he realized he must have been talking out loud. “Now, what meds do you need? Where are they?”
“Bag. Under bed.”
He heard her rummaging around, but then all sounds faded and the world went black.
Twenty-one
Serena tried to control her fear as she pulled medicine bottles and some ketchup-sized packets filled with a dark red substance from Josh’s bag. But panic had taken root and was growing into something unmanageable. He’d said he was dying, but she’d assumed he had time. This… was looking bad.
A river of tears streamed down her face. She hadn’t cried—truly cried—in years. There had been way too much of that when she’d been sick, and then even more when her mom had died. But this… God, so much had happened since she’d met Josh, both good and bad. On top of losing the necklace, how could she deal with losing Josh, too?
Her hand shook as she gathered the bottles and one of the packets of the red liquid. Josh lay facing her, his breathing labored, sweat beading on his brow.
“Josh.” She smoothed her hand over his cheek. “Josh? Can you hear me?”
No response. She patted his cheek, gently at first, and then with more urgency. “Josh.”
“Mmm?”
Her relief was cut short as he began to convulse, his eyes rolling back in his head. Helplessness made her tears fall faster, and by the time he’d settled down, she was sobbing.
“Josh, I have your medicine.”
His head lolled forward, and he groaned. “T-the packet… pills.”
“Same time?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
She took one pill from each of the two bottles, tore open a packet, and placed the pills in his mouth. With one hand she held his head up, and with the other, she tipped the liquid into his mouth. He swallowed. When he finished, she covered him with a blanket. His hand caught hers, weakly.
“Dying. But… thank you.”
“You’re going to be okay,” she whispered. “Just fight, all right?”
He sucked in a rattling breath, the sound sending a shudder through her. Helplessly, she sank down on the floor, her back against the bed, and reached for her necklace out of habit, only to find that it wasn’t there.
This was bad. So bad. She needed to call Val. He could help Josh. She knew he could. She dug into her skirt pocket for her phone. No signal.