Well, the trip to Kyros's house was a complete wash. He wasn't home and his Squire didn't want to let them in until Kyros returned. Danger sighed as they stood on the wraparound porch of Kyros's blue and white antebellum mansion.
Aberdeen was quiet tonight, with a little breeze whispering around them through the large oaks that flanked the white wooden steps. The old Mississippi town had a very special charm to it that was indicative of a town lost in a time warp. Even the downtown area, where the sidewalks were covered with a metal awning, harkened back several decades.
Danger was particularly fond of the small Catholic church, which had a distinctly old world feel to it. She really loved this town. It was a hidden historical jewel that most people didn't even know existed.
Alexion looked strangely out of place with his urban-chic of a black turtle neck-which was no longer torn from the dagger toss-his black wool slacks, and white cashmere coat. He honestly looked as if he'd just stepped off a runway in Milan. He was so incredibly masculine... so much so that he was downright edible.
What was it about him? If he could bottle that sexual attraction, he'd be richer than Bill Gates.
You've got much more important things to think about than what he'd look like naked.
True, but there was something about him that just made her want to take a bite out of him and it was starting to really irritate her. She wanted herself focused and detached-her normal state of functionality.
"What do we do now?" she asked, trying to distract herself. "Wait here for him?"
"No, it could be hours before he returns. I think we should patrol. If the Daimons are in league with Kyros, then they'll be hunting and feeding tonight. Where's the closest population center for them to draw from?"
Danger thought about it for a minute. Tupelo was really spread out, and though there were a few clubs that the Daimons would occasionally stalk, there really wasn't much Daimon activity in her neck of the woods. Not like there was in other areas of Mississippi, such as the coast, Tunica, and various college towns-which was why there were six Dark-Hunters in the Golden Triangle area of Mississippi where Kyros was stationed.
"There are two colleges they hit a lot. The W, which is the Mississippi University for Women in Columbus, and MSU in Starkville."
"How far away are they?"
"Not very. Columbus is about half an hour. Starkville another fifteen, twenty minutes from there."
He nodded as if he were considering the information. "Which school is larger?"
She gave him a teasing look. "I thought you had a mystical orb that could tell you these things?"
He narrowed his eyes at her, letting her know he didn't find her ribbing humorous.
"Lighten up," she said with a smile. "Starkville. It has over fifteen thousand students in residence. The Daimons love to party there with the co-eds. Kyros, Squid, and Rafael are assigned to it. Tyrell, Marco, and Ephani are in Columbus."
Alexion indicated the car with a tilt of his head. "Then that's probably where we should start. With any luck, Kyros might be there tonight." He headed down the steps.
Danger followed him, trying not to notice the fact that he had a killer walk. In more ways than one. It was predatorial and deadly. The kind of walk that women would stop to stare at and admire.
When he went to the passenger side of the car to get in, she gave him a puzzled stare. "What, no hocus-pocus this time? You're not going to get in and start driving away?"
"I don't know the way."
She was rather stunned he admitted that. It made him seem almost human. He'd been so larger than life up until now that she assumed he could do just about anything. "You knew how to get here without my help."
"I cheated. There were signs along the road, and once we were in Aberdeen, it wasn't hard to find this house since it's right off the main stretch. I recognized the outside of it from the sfora. But I didn't see any road signs for Columbus or Starkville."
Danger laughed. She liked a man who was honest... and relatively normal. "Okay. OnStar is here and you're covered. Get in."
She got into the driver's seat and belted herself in while he joined her. She went to start the car, only to realize that in their haste to leave the Charonte, she'd forgotten her keys. "Um, a little help here, please?"
He frowned, then smiled. "Sure."
The car started.
She shook her head as she put it in gear. "You know, as handy as that power is, it could also get you arrested."
The smile he gave her warmed her all the way to her toes. Not to mention she loved the way he smelled... like fresh soap and all man.
"Then I'll be careful of whose motor I start," he said in a devilish tone, indicating that he meant the double entendre she inferred.
"I wish," she whispered under her breath as she backed out of the driveway. She really wished he wasn't starting hers all the time. It was hard to stay on track when her libido was literally drooling in his presence.
At least in the driver's seat she had more to focus on than how much she'd like to take him out of those clothes for a test-drive. Jeez, Danger, stop with the bad car analogies and cliches. You're acting like a slut-puppy, panting after him.
It was true, but she couldn't seem to help herself. He was compelling.
Clearing her throat, she forced her thoughts back to business. "Is there any magical way you can pinpoint where Kyros is right now?"
"I wish, but no. Not without the sfora."
"Why didn't you bring it with you?"
He sighed before he answered. "It's forbidden. It could be very destructive for something that powerful to fall into the wrong hands."
"You think?"
Alexion shook his head and forced himself not to laugh. The last thing he wanted was to encourage her. She had to be the most sarcastic human to ever live. But he found her strangely entertaining.
More than that, he found her invigorating. She was such a welcome change from the monotony that made up his regular life. His world was without color or emotion. It was cold and lonely. She, on the other hand, was vibrant and warm. He wished he could have a part of her to take back to Katoteros with him.
But it could never be.
All too soon, he would return to what he'd been.
And she wouldn't even know that she'd ever met him. He wouldn't even be a faint memory of a dream. All knowledge of the time they were together would be removed from her mind.
But he would remember, and he would miss her always. Strange how that had never happened before. He thought of the Dark-Hunter men he'd spent time with in the past while he judged the others, but there was no regret in not keeping in touch with them.
He'd only just met Danger and already he knew he'd miss her.
How peculiar.
He watched as she handled the car with total precision. For the first time ever, he found himself completely curious about her.
What did she like? What did she hate?
Normally, he asked no personal questions of anyone. After living so long with Acheron, he knew the futility of it. Not to mention, he didn't like getting to know someone he'd have to leave and never see again.
Don't get personal. It would be a mistake of grand proportions.
Still he couldn't listen. "Do you like being a Dark-Hunter?" he asked her before he could stop himself.
Her answer was automatic. "Most days."
"And on the others?" Stop it. But that was easier thought than done. He really did want to know what she thought about everything.
She gave him a winsome smile that made his groin jerk in reaction. She was truly lovely and it wasn't just her looks. There was something infectious about her. It drew him in, making him want something he knew he couldn't have.
"Like with any life," she said, "some days are wonderful and some stink. It gets really lonely late at night when there's really no one around. Sometimes you wonder if you made the right choice. If maybe you reacted in anger too soon and made a pact you shouldn't have. I don't know. I wasn't completely dead long enough to remember it or to know if death would be preferable to this life, so maybe I did choose rightly."
She glanced at him. "So, Mr. All-Knowledge, you want to clue me in on what the alternative is like? Do you remember being dead?"
He thought it over. "Yeah, I do. When you're not a Shade, it's peaceful. I always thought as a mortal man that I'd spend eternity in the Elysian Fields with my family gathered around me."
"So what made you go with Artemis instead?"
The old pain lanced through him. It was weird that after so many centuries it would still hurt to remember the wife he'd once loved so much and the callous way she'd allowed him to die. But as Acheron so often said, there were some wounds that not even time could heal. Humans learned from their pain. It was a necessary evil for growth.
Yeah, right. He sometimes wondered if Acheron was a sadist or masochist. But he knew better. Acheron understood pain in a way very few did. Like Alexion, he lived with it constantly and if he could he'd banish it forever.
He looked at Danger, and watched as the streetlights illuminated her fragile face. With the exception of Kyros, Brax, and Acheron, no one knew much more about him than his name. He was a vague legend who was held up as the first of their crew to become a Shade.
He was essentially their bogeyman. An example of what happened if the wrong person tried to restore their soul back into their body. But that was the extent of what they'd been told.
They knew nothing about the shame of his trust in his wife, or the fact she'd had a lover. They knew nothing about the fact that he'd been a blind, trusting fool.
Kyros and Brax had held their silence on the matter all these centuries. It was one of the reasons why Alexion had wanted to come back and save Kyros if he could.
Even in death, the man had been his friend.
Alexion took a deep breath before he spoke. "The first time I died, I was murdered," he said simply. "Like you, betrayed by someone I trusted."
Her brow wrinkled in sympathetic pain. "Who killed you?"
"My wife's lover."
She grimaced. "Ouch."
"Yeah."
"And then your wife dropped the medallion instead of freeing your soul," she said, her voice filled with anger. "I can't believe she'd do that to you."
Alexion appreciated her rage on his behalf. "Hell of a way to find out that the children you thought were yours weren't."
To his amazement, she reached over and placed her hand soothingly against his. The unexpected kindness of that single action sent chills over him. It meant a lot to him that she treated him like a normal man when they both knew he wasn't. "I'm really sorry."
He covered her hand with his other one and gave a light squeeze. The delicate bones under her skin belied the strength he knew she carried within her.
"Thanks. I'm sorry your husband was a dirtbag."
Danger laughed at his unexpected use of that slang word. Against her will, she felt her guard softening toward him. It'd been too long since she'd spent time with a man chatting like this. Most of the people she talked to were other female Dark-Hunters, and all of them she'd known for decades. This was a nice change of pace. "Did you go back and kill your wife?"
"No." He gave a short, bitter laugh. "I have to say, it was truly one of the finer moments of my life... or death. I felt like a complete and utter asshole, lying there, looking at her as she watched me die. There wasn't even pity or the smallest amount of regret in her eyes. If anything, she was glad to see me go."
Poor guy. She knew firsthand that it was not only painful but humiliating to have misjudged someone so badly. "So what happened to her?"
One corner of his mouth quirked up in wry humor. "Acheron turned her to stone. She's now a statue that stands in the hallway outside my room."
Danger widened her eyes. "Are you serious?"
"Absolutely. I blow her a sarcastic kiss every morning when I walk past her."
"Man," she said, shaking her head, "that's cold."
"You think so?"
"Honestly? Not at all. I'd have been much cruder."
Alexion was curious as to what would be a worse punishment than the one he had meted out for her. "How so?"
"I'd have put her in a park somewhere so the birds could crap all over her."
He laughed. Okay, that really would be much worse. "Remind me to stay on your good side."
"Yeah, well, my mother used to have a saying, 'hell hath no fury as a woman angered.'"
"I thought it was 'as a woman scorned.'"
"Angered, scorned, either one. I come from a long line of vengeful women. My grandmother would have given Madame Defarge a run for her money any day."
He nodded. "Then I'll make sure I don't tweak that portion of your personality. The gods know I've had my fill of vengeful women."
Danger sighed at his light tone about a matter she was sure he didn't find amusing. In fact, his words made her heart catch. "I guess you have."
She squeezed his hand. "So what happened to the kids after Ash turned their mother into stone?"
"Acheron found them a good home. He's not the type of person who would leave a child to suffer over something he did."
"Yeah, I've noticed that about him."
Neither of them spoke again while they rode the rest of the way to the MSU campus. It was an overcast night without much moonlight. But what little light there was reflected against the trees, forming eerie, monsterlike shadows.
Danger had always liked to drive at night. There was something very peaceful about it. Well, except for when the occasional deer turned suicidal and decided to play "chicken" with her on the highway. That she could leave behind.
But at least she didn't have to worry about that in Starkville. It'd grown so much over the last few years that until they headed back toward Tupelo, deer dodgers wouldn't be a problem.
Alexion looked out the car window as Danger drove them past the sorority houses toward central campus. It looked as if a party of some sort were going on at one house. He could see cars parked in the lot with kids hanging out of the windows while others leaned up against the frame, talking to the ones inside. Groups of college students were milling about on the porch and in the yard while more could be seen inside, dancing.
"Look at them," he said quietly. "Do you remember being human and that age?"
She glanced over at the partying co-eds. "Yeah, I do. At that time in my life, I thought I was going to be one of the greatest actresses in France, like my mother. I thought Michel and I would retire wealthy, to the countryside, to raise our multitude of children and to watch our grandchildren play." She sighed as if the memory were too painful to dwell on for long. "What about you?"
Alexion let his mind drift back all those countless centuries ago. It wasn't something he did often, for many reasons. But old dreams never really died. They were always there, living as regrets for what might have been.
"I wanted to retire from the army. I never really wanted to join in the first place. But my father insisted on it. When they came to our village for boys, he grabbed my older brother and I, and literally threw us at the recruiters. He wanted us to be more than just simple farmers trying to eke out a living from a stingy soil that would rather see us starved than fed. He thought a soldier's calling would be our chance for a much better life."
"What happened to your brother?"
Alexion paused as he remembered Darius's face. His brother had been full of life and had never wanted anything more than to be a farmer with a good wife by his side. All he'd ever talked about was going home again, seeing the cattle and tending the fields.
His heart ached at what had happened to both of them. "He died about a year before I did. I would have, too, had I not been in a regiment with Kyros. For some reason I never understood, he took me under his wing."
"He was older?"
"By only three years, but at the time it seemed like he was an adult while I was just a terrified kid."
Danger could hear the admiration in his voice. It was obvious he'd once worshiped his friend. No wonder he wanted to save him.
"The other boys didn't think much of me," he confided. "Like Kyros, they came from a long line of soldiers and thought that I should go back to the farm. They didn't want to waste time training or supplying someone they figured would die soon anyway. Better to save the food for someone who could earn his keep."
She didn't need his sfora to see how they'd made their displeasure known. Nine thousand years later, she could still hear the pain in his voice.
"But you hung in there."
"As Nietzsche said, 'that which doesn't kill you-'"
"Will only require brief hospitalization. And if you're a Dark-Hunter, just a good day's sleep."
Alexion laughed at her humor. She definitely had a unique way of looking at things.
He returned his attention to the campus and to the cars that sped past them with stereos thumping and kids screaming and laughing just from the sheer joy of being alive.
How he envied them. With the exception of Danger, who had an incredible knack for poking his sore spots, he normally felt nothing at all. "You have no idea just how amazing this world is. It hasn't really changed all that much since your birth, but mine..."
"Yeah, you're from what, the Bronze Age?"
Alexion snorted. "No, I predate even that. We were so primitive, we really should have had dinosaurs to ride."
"Primitive how?"
Inwardly, he cringed at the memories of how his people had lived, what they had been forced to endure just to survive. It had been survival in its purest, rawest form. "Modern" man had no idea how good they had it.
"We had no swords, no real metals, no pottery. Our daggers and spear points were made of stone that we chipped with our own hands until our hands were bloody and bruised from it. Our armor was made of leather from the hides of the animals we killed for food. We boiled and shaped it ourselves. We had no government to speak of, no real laws. If you got screwed over, there was no one to appeal to. You either handled it yourself or you let it go."
He sighed at the harsh memories of his human life. "Hell, there were no judges, police, or politicians. We had only two classes of people: the farmers who fed themselves and the soldiers who protected the farmers from those who wanted to steal their food and kill them. That was it.".
"You didn't have priests?"
"We had one. He'd been a farmer who'd lost the use of his right hand in a fire. Since he couldn't support himself, he interpreted signs and the farmers fed him for it."
Danger frowned as she tried to imagine the world he described. And she had thought her life without a proper toilet was primitive. Suddenly her eighteenth-century world looked very high tech indeed.
"My people never dreamed of a world like this," Alexion continued. "Of having so much without back-breaking, debilitating work. And yet for all the physical improvements, people are still people. They're killing each other to get more or to prove a point only the killer understands. Still brutalizing and torturing each other over things that in another hundred years won't even matter."
Danger's eyes teared as his words struck a particular chord in her own heart. "Tell me about it. Just like everywhere else in the world, the rich in France are still rich. There are still countless in my homeland who starve every day, and it's not because they're anorexic or fasting. It's because they can't afford food while the rich waste money all the time on trivial things. And yet my entire family was killed-I was killed-to make a better France where no one would ever go hungry again. Every time I hear about the starvation in Paris, I ask myself what good was the so-called Revolution? All it did was ruin thousands of lives."
"Chronia apostraph, anthrice mi achi."
She frowned. "What is that?"
"It's Atlantean. Something Acheron says a lot. Roughly translated, it means 'time moves on, people do not.'"
Danger thought about that. It was very true and very Ash-like. "Can you imagine the world he must have known? As backward as yours-"
"His world was extremely advanced," he said, interrupting her. "The Atlanteans most definitely weren't in the stone age."
"What do you mean?"
"The world he was born into was amazingly high tech. They had carriages of sorts, medicine, metal-working, you name it. The Greece and Atlantis he knew were several millennia ahead of their time."
"Then what happened that it was all lost?"
"Succinctly put, the wrath of a goddess. Atlantis was swept into the sea, not by natural means, but by the anger of a woman who wanted vengeance on all of them. She ravished her own continent and people, then moved across Greece, throwing them all back into the dinosaur age."
"Why?"
He let out a tired breath. "They took something from her that she wanted back."
Danger nodded as she suddenly understood. "They took her child."
He looked stunned that she had jumped to that conclusion. "How did you know that?"
"I'm a woman and that is pretty much the only thing that would cause a woman to destroy her own people."
He didn't comment. In fact, he seemed to be extremely uncomfortable about the turn their conversation was taking. If she didn't know better, she would think he was hiding something from her.
Suddenly, Alexion went rigid in the seat beside her.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Turn right."
His tone told her it was urgent. Deciding not to argue, Danger turned off Creelman Street to the small road that ran in front of McCarthy Gym. At the end of the road was a series of parking lots.
"Stop the car."
As soon as she did, the car's engine turned off on its own and Alexion was out of the passenger side, headed toward the Holmes building. Danger immediately ran after him.
She caught up to him just behind the gym. As she slowed down, her heart hammered at what she saw there.
Deep in the shadows, Kyros was coming to his feet over the body of what appeared to have been Marco, a Dark-Hunter who was from the Basque region of France.
"What happened, Kyros?" she asked, her tone breathless from her sprint.
She knew Kyros hadn't killed Marco. No Dark-Hunter could harm another. Whatever blow or wound one Dark-Hunter gave to another, the one who gave it felt the pain ten times greater than the one who received it.
Had Kyros killed Marco, he would be dead too.
Kyros turned slowly to face her. He looked pale and shaken. "Don't mess with me, Danger. Not tonight."
"Kyros?"
His head snapped toward Alexion. If she thought he'd been pale before, it was nothing compared to what he looked like now. He stared at Alexion as if he were seeing a ghost... and that's exactly what he was doing.
"Ias?"
Alexion walked toward him slowly. "I have to talk to you, brother."
She saw Kyros's gaze narrow as he took in Alexion's white coat.
"You?" he asked, his voice disgusted and yet she heard a note of hurt beneath it. "You're Acheron's right hand? You're the one who delivers his ultimatum?" He shook his head in disbelief. "It's not possible. You're dead. You've been dead."
"No," Alexion said calmly, moving another step toward him. "I'm alive."
Kyros stepped back. "You're a Shade."
Alexion held his hand out to him. "I'm real. Take my hand, brother, and see for yourself."
Danger held her breath. Given his hostility, she half expected Kyros to attack Alexion.
But he didn't.
He reached his hand out methodically until he could shake Alexion's. But the instant he touched Alexion's hand, he let go and stumbled back.
She could tell that Kyros still didn't want to accept what was right before him.
"It's okay," Alexion said, as he moved another step closer to the angry, terrified Greek.
"Don't touch me!"
Alexion drew up short. She could see the pain in his eyes that Kyros's harsh words caused.
Kyros continued shaking his head as if he couldn't believe it. "It can't be you. You can't be Acheron's destroyer. You can't."
"I'm not his destroyer. I'm here to help you avoid making a fatal mistake. Whatever you do, you can't trust Stryker. He's lying to you. Believe me, Kyros. We were brothers once. You trusted me then."
Kyros's eyes snapped fire at his former friend. "That was nine thousand years ago. We were human."
Alexion searched his mind for the words it would take to make his friend believe him. But he could tell it wasn't working. There was too much anger and mistrust. It was as if Kyros were looking for a reason to hate him.
"C'mon, Kyros. Trust me."
"Fuck you."
"Then trust me," Danger said, moving nearer to Kyros. "You've known me for five years. You trusted me enough to introduce me to Stryker and let him spiel his bullshit about Acheron." She looked over at Alexion who stood with an anguished glint in his eyes. He wanted to save his friend and she wanted to help him. "I believe Alexion, Kyros. Completely. Stryker is lying to us. He wants you to die."
Kyros glared at Alexion. "I made myself sick over your death. Why didn't you ever tell me that you were alive and well? Why didn't Acheron?"
"Because I can't live in this world," Alexion explained in that same rational tone. "What would have been the point of telling you?"
Kyros returned the words with even more rage. "The point was that we were brothers. You owed it to me to let me know you were all right."
"Maybe I was wrong then, but I came here now to save you."
"Bullshit. This is just a game to you, isn't it?" Kyros looked up at the sky as if searching for something. "Are you watching this, Acheron? Fuck you, you lying bastard. How could you not have told me?"
Kyros started away from them.
Alexion grabbed his arm. "What happened to Marco?"
He shoved Alexion away from him. "What do you care? You were sent here to kill him anyway."
It was true. Because he'd killed the college student the night before, Marco was destined to die. "He'd crossed over to the point there was no way back for him, no reprieve. But you... there's still time. I can save you, Kyros. If you'll let me. Don't be stupid, adelfos."
Kyros curled his lip at him. "I don't want your damned help. I don't want anything from you."
Alexion fought his own temper down. He had to remain calm and rational to get through this. But really, what he wanted to do was shake Kyros for being so blind and stupid. "Acheron isn't a Daimon."
"Then what is he?"
Alexion looked away, unable to answer. Yet he was torn. Part of him wanted to betray Acheron and tell his friend the truth that he needed to hear to save his life.
But if he did that...
No, he owed Acheron too much to betray his trust.
"He is one of you," Alexion said with a calmness he didn't feel.
"Yeah, right," Kyros said sarcastically. "Then why can't I walk in daylight?"
He had to give him that. "Okay, so Acheron is a little different."
"A little? And what are you?"
"I'm a lot of different."
"And I'm a lot of pissed off." Kyros pushed past him and headed toward the parking lot.
Alexion closed his eyes as he debated what to do. What to say.
What would make Kyros listen to him?
Then suddenly he thought of something. "It wasn't your fault Liora killed me."
That succeeded in stopping Kyros's retreat. He froze in place. "I should have told you she was a whore," he said without turning around.
Alexion was grateful that he was at least talking to him in an almost civil tone. "I wouldn't have believed you. Ever. I would have hated you for trying to save me. Please, don't make my mistake, Kyros."
He turned to face him. "Don't worry," he said as his black gaze burned Alexion with its intensity, "I won't. Your mistake was that you wouldn't have believed your friend had he told you the truth. My mistake would be listening to my 'friend' now... Then again, you're not my friend, are you? My friend died nine thousand years ago, and had he lived, he would have told me and not left me to live centuries with guilt over his death."
Kyros turned around and renewed his angry stride toward the parking lot.
"Kyros-"
"Dialegomaiana o echeri," Kyros said without even looking back.
"What language is that?" Danger asked.
"It's our native tongue."
"And what did he say?"
Alexion let out a disgusted breath. "Briefly put, 'talk to the hand.'"
She looked as deflated as he felt. "Should we follow him?"
"To do what? I can't beat sense into him, much as I would like to. The choice has to be his."
Damn fate for that. He hated free will at times. No wonder Acheron cursed it constantly. His boss was right, free will sucked.
His gaze went to Marco. The poor, hapless Dark-Hunter still had a dagger protruding from his chest, where someone, probably a Daimon, had stabbed him. Shaking his head in regret at the man's foolishness, Alexion went to the fallen Dark-Hunter and pulled the dagger free. Of course it wasn't the dagger that had killed him. His decapitated head lay a few feet away.
Danger moved to stand just behind him as she examined the body too. He could sense her revulsion, but like a trouper she kept herself calm and professional. "You don't think Kyros did that, do you?"
"He couldn't have."
"Then who?"
The voice that answered her question wasn't his and it came from the other side of the shadows. "Just your friendly neighborhood Daimon patrol."
Alexion leaned back ever so slightly so that he could see behind Danger.
There in the shadows was a group of six Daimons...