Jess gaped while Abigail backed away at Zarek's dire words, but she couldn't go far. Zarek threw up his hand to hold her in the hallway next to them. Even before he'd married a goddess, Zarek had held some impressive telekinetic powers. Nowadays, they were downright sick.
He gave Zarek a disbelieving stare as he digested his orders to kill her. "You're telling me that Acheron, my boss, the really tall Atlantean pain in most of our asses, actually authorized the killing of a human?"
Zarek shrugged. "I can see your confusion. It is highly out of character for him. But since she's been killing off Hunters ... I guess he figures it's tit for tat. Or maybe he's just having a really bad day."
"You're seriously not joking?"
Zarek let out an irritated growl. "Really? How many more times are you going to ask me that? I could be on a beach right now with my wife, son, and daughter, baking in the sun while they frolic and play. Am I? No. I'm here, and I want nothing more than to yank you around with bullshit 'cause this gets me off more than my wife running in a bikini."
Jess counted to ten before he let Z rile him. That was the thing about Zarek. The man had a short fuse, and Jess's wasn't all that far behind his. Not that he blamed Z for it. As bad as Jess's childhood had been, it was a picnic in paradise compared to what Z had suffered.
Still, those orders were so contrary to what they normally were that he couldn't wrap his head around it. Acheron profaned hurting humans in any way. Why would he be okay with it now?
That alone told him just how scary this whole thing was. Playtime was over.
Jess removed the gag from Abigail's lips. No need in making this worse on her. He expected her to shriek and curse. At the very least, head-butt him again and fight.
Instead, she was remarkably calm, given the fact she'd just heard Zarek call for her death. "You are not sacrificing me ... to anything," she said between clenched teeth.
Zarek scoffed. "You started this, babe. The choice is simple. Either you die alone, nobly like a good sport, or the entire world dies with you, which I don't think they'd appreciate much. So put on your big-girl pants and own up to what you and your stupidity caused. It's Joe Versus the Volcano time."
He folded his arms over his chest. "But in the end, I don't give a shit what you do. With the exception of the cowboy there and my family, I hate people with a passion that makes your feelings for Jess look like a schoolgirl crush. Lovely thing about my current situation, I'm truly immortal. You annihilate humanity and the world ... I'm still good. So whatever you decide, it won't affect me personally. I would say you're the one who'll have to live with the guilt. But either way, you're dead. Whatever. I delivered my message. My job here is done, and I need to get back to the one that I'm still not sure how I let them talk me into doing-which is even weirder and scarier than the Dark-Hunter gig." He turned his attention to Sundown. "Jess, call me if she wusses, and I'll make sure you survive the holocaust." He vanished.
"Thanks, Z," Jess called after him. "Always nice chatting with you."
Now what should he do? Really ... it was the kind of thing that even his vast and varied experiences had never prepared him for. Yes, he'd dealt with Daimon outbreaks galore. A run-amok Daimon slayer up in Alaska who'd walked in daylight. But Daimons who were demons and could convert anyone they bit, and all-out death prophecy were a whole new territory for him.
Jess wasn't sure where to go with that.
Abigail's eyes were filled with a mixture of panic and suspicion. She did not appear happy. Not that he blamed her. He'd hate to be told he had to sacrifice himself to save the world. It would seriously muck up even a great day. And honestly, he wasn't sure he'd be any more inclined to do it than she was.
"He was lying." Her voice had a tiny tremble in it.
Wouldn't it be great if life were that easy? You got bad news, you called it a lie and everything was fixed....
One could only hope.
Jess sighed in sympathy. "Unfortunately, Zarek doesn't lie. And as you saw, he doesn't pull punches either. He's as frank and tactless as the summer day is long." He cut the rope on her hands and let it fall to the floor. "You still going to fight me?"
She rubbed at her wrists. "Given what he said, I was thinking about running."
Well, at least she was honest. That, he could appreciate. He slid his knife into the back of his pants, waiting to see when she'd bolt.
Abigail stood there, unsure of what to think or do. Sundown watched her with a nonchalance she knew was misleading. His reflexes were as honed as any she'd ever encountered or fought. The fact that her demon-enhanced powers weren't enough to subdue him said it all. None of the others she'd killed, including Old Bear, had stood toe to toe with her for very long.
Never mind knocking her out and kidnapping her.
In fact, Old Bear had barely put up a fight. Why, if he was so important, hadn't he fought harder?
Why hadn't she double-checked his identity? How could Jonah have made such a bad mistake?
And before she could decide on an action, the ground beneath them shook. The force of it was so great that it knocked both of them off their feet.
Abigail hit the floor with enough impact to steal her breath and bruise her elbow. Gah, that hurt. She definitely could have done without that on top of all the other delights this day had held.
Pushing herself up, she met Sundown's gaze from across the hall. "Was that an earthquake?" While rare in Vegas, they did happen. But usually they were minor. This one had felt much, much larger.
"I don't know." He got up and went into a room across the hall.
You should run for it while he's distracted.
The only problem was, she didn't know where to run to. Since there were no obvious windows or stairs, she'd have to search for an exit. That would probably be obvious to Sundown, who'd then stop her.
And that thought died as he turned on the TV and she heard the news.
It wasn't an earthquake.
The ground outside the city was bubbling and opening up, and scorpions were flooding out of the crevices like some bad horror movie as they overran everything. Thousands and thousands of them.
How could there be so many? She'd never seen more than a handful in her entire life. Honestly, it looked like the earth was vomiting arthropods.
She shivered in revulsion.
Sundown let out an audible breath. "Now, there's something you never think about seeing, huh? Zarek definitely wasn't exaggerating about the plagues he mentioned. Why couldn't it be locusts like other people have? No. Leave it to Old Bear to do something different."
She shook her head in denial. "I didn't do this." It wasn't possible. There had to be another explanation as to why this was happening. One that didn't point the finger at her.
Maybe the scorpions were bored?
Or the Scorpion King was ticked off that no one had built a casino for him? At this point, she was willing to grasp any straw that didn't tell her to kill herself to save the world.
"Hon, you're the one who said you killed Old Bear. I tried to deny it, but you corrected me. And if you did cut his head off, you did do this. Accept it." He flipped the channel to another view of the scorpions swarming over a road downtown toward people who were screaming and running to get away from them. "Welcome to the apocalypse. Ain't she pretty?"
Abigail felt sick as more tremors shook the ground under them. She braced herself against the wall to keep from being thrown off her feet again. "He looked like a Dark-Hunter," she insisted. "He didn't correct me when I called him one."
Sundown arched a brow at her. "He had fangs. So what? Plenty of things not a Dark-Hunter have fangs, including Hollywood actors and kids playing vampire. You should have checked his membership card before you attacked. Good grief, what if you'd run across a Masquerade group? Would you have slaughtered a bunch of innocent kids?"
"Of course not. I'm telling you, Jonah did do recon on him. He did recon on all our targets. The man I killed tonight was a Dark-Hunter. Jonah would never have authorized hunting and terminating someone else."
Sundown gestured to the TV with the remote in his hand. "Obviously somebody had bogus information. Or he just plain lied."
She started to respond when all of a sudden, the floor near her buckled. She'd no more righted herself than dozens of scorpions swarmed out, scattering across the floor as they'd done in the desert. And worse, these were the deadliest ones. Bark scorpions. Whereas a sting from a single one might not kill her, to be stung by this many would without fail. The neurotoxins in their stinger were known to be fatal.
And she was allergic to them.
Shrieking, she tried to get away, but the floor shifted even more, pitching her toward them. Frozen in terror, she couldn't move as she watched them wide-eyed.
I'm going to die....
She had no doubt. They were going to overrun her and sting her all at once.
Everything seemed to slow down as they advanced on her with a swiftness that was indescribable. Those little bodies twisted as they moved their legs faster and faster, their tails arched and thrusting for a strike.... She couldn't breathe as the sound of their scuttling feet and snapping pinchers echoed in her ears.
Her entire body cringed in expectation of the pain. They were on her.
Just as they swarmed her feet, she was yanked off the floor and shaken until the scorpions fell away. Once they were clear, she was thrown over a well-muscled shoulder and carried from the room as if she were a rag doll.
Sundown slammed the door shut behind him and set her back on her feet. Unable to speak, she flicked the one remaining scorpion on her boot to the ground and then stomped it until it stopped moving.
Every millimeter of skin on her body crawled in revulsion. It was like they were on her again.
But her relief was very short lived. The scorpions were now tearing through the door.
She gaped in disbelief of their power and persistence. What were they going to do? "How are they doing that?"
"I ain't gonna ask them right now. Don't really rate on my importance scale." Sundown sprinted to a locked cabinet. He entered a code on the electronic lock, then opened the doors. It was a gun case with enough weaponry inside to arm a small nation.
Sundown grabbed a pump-action shotgun and a bunch of shells, which he put into his pockets. She ran toward him as the scorpions began flooding into the bedroom from the space they'd made under the door.
He slammed the cabinet doors shut and then pulled her behind him before she could arm herself. With a feral gleam in his eyes that was more frightening than the scorpions, he opened fire on them.
They blew back in every direction like a clawing cloud.
But it didn't stop them. They kept coming, and in greater numbers.
Desperate, Abigail looked at the cabinet. "You have a flamethrower in there?"
"Yeah. Bad news, though-it'd burn down the house if we used it, and that wouldn't do us any good."
There was that. However, she'd rather be burned alive than stung by that number of scorpions. "What are we going to do now?"
"Find a steam roller?"
If only ...
"You're not funny." Growling, Abigail tried to think of a real solution. The first thing she'd learned as a kid when they found a scorpion in her bed was that scorpions didn't react to insecticide, and even if they did, Sundown would have had to have gallons of it to stop them. The only way she knew to kill them was to squash them.
Yeah ... her feet weren't big enough to even make a dent in that horde. She'd be overrun and dead in a matter of seconds.
"What we need here, folks, is a really big chicken."
She scowled at his bizarre comment and the fact that his drawl had actually gotten deeper as he spoke. "What are you? Hungry? Now?"
He laughed at her irritation. "Nah. They love to hunt and kill scorpions. Damn shame I don't have a flock or two million of them right about now. Who knew? I just hope those damn things aren't chowing down on my Squire."
Sundown pulled her through a doorway and into another bedroom. He held the gun in one hand as he slammed the door shut and locked it.
They could hear the scorpions on the other side, scurrying about. The sound made her cringe. It wouldn't take them long to breach this door, too.
"We're dead, aren't we?"
Jess wanted to deny it, but right now, he couldn't think of anything else to escape. They were out of rooms to run to, and the scorpions were chewing his door down. Not that it mattered in his case. He couldn't die from their stings.
But the woman could.
And even without death, those sons of bitches would hurt. Not exactly something he was craving.
He glanced around the room, then grinned as an idea hit him. "Get on the bed."
She stiffened indignantly. "Excuse me?"
Jess grinned at the direction her thoughts had gone. Normally he wouldn't mind, but right now, sex was the last thing either of them should think about. "We need height. Get on the bed." He didn't wait for her. He launched himself at it. He loaded more shells into his gun, then fired up at the ceiling.
"What are you doing?"
He didn't respond as he reversed the gun and used the stock to widen the hole by slamming it against the plaster and knocking it down. Don't let the damn thing go off by accident. If it did in this position, it'd take out a piece of his anatomy that he sure would miss.
Abigail let out a squeak before she sidled up against him. She actually wedged herself between him and the wall. Any other time, he'd appreciate having those curves pressed so close against his body.
But right now ...
"They're swarming in."
He glanced over his shoulder to confirm her words. "All right. I think there's enough room that I can lift you up into the floor above."
Sundown was trying to save her? Abigail was stunned by his offer. Especially since she'd been trying to kill him just a short time ago. Before she could respond, he dropped the gun, then braced his hands on her hips and lifted her up with an ease that was startling. She reached for the hole he'd made and pulled herself up through it.
It wasn't easy, but she finally wiggled all the way through the tight opening.
Laughing in triumph, she started for the front door, which was only a few feet away. She'd barely gone a step when she heard Sundown firing at the scorpions again.
He was still trapped.
Leave him. He didn't deserve anything better than to be stung until his head exploded. Every part of her wanted to hear him screaming in pain.
He saved your life just now.
So what? That didn't undo her parents' deaths.
But what if he wasn't lying? What if someone else had really killed them? If he died, she might not ever find out the truth.
The thought made her pause. If Sundown hadn't killed them, who did?
And why?
There's more to all of this. She could feel it with every heightened instinct she possessed.
I've never been an unreasonable person. She prided herself on that fact. When others panicked and freaked, she was always calm and rational. Methodical.
More gunshots sounded.
Unable to leave him to the scorpions until she knew more, she reversed course toward the hole in the floor. She knelt down so that she could see him below. Sure enough, the area around the bed was crawling with the arthropods. "Give me your hand."
Sundown looked up at her with a shocked expression that would have been comical if they weren't in such a bad situation.
She leaned down and held her hand out to him.
"Get back," he snapped.
"I can help you."
He grinned at her, flashing his fangs. "I'm a little wider than you are, sweetheart. I won't fit through that."
She started tearing at the floor to widen it.
Jess arched a brow as he realized what she was doing. Damned if she wasn't trying to help him. Who'd have thought? Amazed, he turned the gun around and started pounding at the ceiling on the other side with the stock again.
Within a few minutes, they had the hole bigger.
And the scorpions were already on the bed.
Jess kicked at them before he handed her the shotgun. "Back up and I'll jump."
She took the gun and vanished.
Cursing as a couple of the scorpions stung his leg, he launched himself at the ceiling. He caught it barely and hung above the bed that was now completely swimming in those nasty little buggers. He kicked his legs until he was sure they were free of scorpions. His arms bulged as he pulled himself up, through the hole and onto the wooden floor. He made it, but his skin was stinging from the scrapes of wedging himself through. Not to mention his leg that was on fire from the scorpions.
Abigail was crouched by a wall, aiming the gun at him.
Jess ignored her as he moved to the bookshelf against the wall and slammed it down to cover the hole. Hopefully, that would delay them a bit longer.
Abigail cocked the gun.
Now, that amused him. "You can't kill me with a bullet, darling. You'll just piss me off."
"Maybe, but shooting you might be fun." She lowered the barrel to his groin. "And while I might not be able to kill you, I sure could ruin your social life."
He laughed at her conviction. "There's only one problem with that."
"Yeah?"
He indicated the shotgun with a jerk of his chin. "The gun's not loaded. I used the last of the ammo downstairs."
She opened the gun and cursed as she realized he wasn't lying. "Figures."
Yes, it did. He wouldn't have handed it to her otherwise. He hadn't been that stupid in a very long time. Still, he admired her gumption.
Jess took the gun back and made a mental note of where the sun was shining in his house and where it wasn't. Man, I hope Andy remembered to lock the house down. If not, she'd stand a good chance of escaping, and there would be nothing he could do until dark.
Unless he wanted to shoot her. He did still have a couple of shells in his pocket ...
Another quake shook the house.
She gasped in alarm. "You think that's more of them?"
"Our luck? Probably."
"How do we stop them?"
He had no idea. Not this many of them. If he were Talon, he might could drop the temperature here to freeze them to death. But unlike the Celt's, his Dark-Hunter powers didn't include weather control.
No sooner had that thought gone through his mind, than the house went completely dark. As dark as a midnight sky from the days when he'd been human and out on the range. He hadn't seen anything like this in decades. Not since modern lights had dimmed the night skies.
"What's going on?"
He ignored her question as he peeked around the wall, toward a window. Thunder rolled like an angry growl. A moment later, snow started falling.
Jess gaped at the last thing he'd expected to see. Now, that was more startling than the scorpion invasion.
"It's snowing." In April. In Las Vegas ...
Yeah, the world was definitely coming to an end.
Abigail didn't believe his words until she stepped past him to look outside. Sure enough, large clumps of snow fell from the sky. The contrast of the white against the black was absolutely beautiful.
And yet ...
"I really did start the apocalypse," she breathed. There was no other explanation. Things like this didn't happen except in movies and end-of-the-world prophecies. "What have I done?"
Sundown rested the gun on his shoulder in a manner that smacked of his past. He looked like a rogue cowboy, locked and loaded and ready for the next round. All he needed was a hat, and he'd be the perfect cliche. But what really bothered her about it was how sexy that pose made him even in Psycho Bunny pajama bottoms.
I have lost my mind.
Surely the stress of the last few minutes had driven her insane. It had to. There was no other way she could see him as anything but a monster.
She swallowed. Her adoptive father had always told her that evil was beautiful and seductive. Otherwise, no one would ever fall for it. That was why Artemis had made the Dark-Hunters so sexy. It was how they lured their victims in before they slaughtered them.
Whatever she did, she couldn't let herself forget that.
Sundown shrugged. "Well, it appears to me that you have opened a big old can of worms. And according to what Z said, you're the only one who can close it."
She pressed her fingers against her temple to help relieve the ache that was starting right behind her left eye. "All I was trying to do was protect my people and family from you."
"I was never your threat."
Abigail started to argue, but she'd barely parted her lips before the floor beneath her feet literally opened up and sucked her down.
Oh, dear Lord, she was going to die!