"I'm telling you the truth, Danger, Acheron is going to kill all of us. We know too much about him and he won't suffer us to live."
Dangereuse St. Richard stood in the receiving room of Kyros's antebellum mansion outside of Aberdeen, Mississippi, with her arms folded over her chest. She'd never been on the best of terms with the ancient Greek Dark-Hunter. Tonight, she wasn't in the mood for his bull, especially not after the stories she'd heard that said Kyros had turned Rogue and was allowing Daimons to live-and this from the lips of the Daimons she'd dusted earlier tonight.
She had no patience with anyone who betrayed the Dark-Hunter Code.
The sole job of a Dark-Hunter was to kill Daimons who were former members of the cursed Apollite race-children of Apollo who had offended him and been cursed to live in the night, and to die at age twenty-seven. If Apollites chose to start sucking human souls before that birthday, they became Daimons who could live indefinitely. But for every Daimon who lived, countless human souls died.
It was something she refused to tolerate. If she could kill Kyros for it, she would. But for one Dark-Hunter to kill another was instant death. She couldn't even attack him. Whatever she did to him, she would experience ten times worse.
Thanks, Artemis, for that particular gift.
Until Acheron answered her call for help, there was nothing she could do to stop Kyros from his madness.
In fact, she could feel the drain on her powers just from being in the same room as Kyros. Dark-Hunters weren't allowed to spend any significant amount of time together without draining each other's powers.
The room she and Kyros stood in was dark and musty, and should have been decorated with antiques instead of the modern furniture that clashed with the neoclassical design of the house. The walls were painted a deep, antebellum gold while the ceilings held exquisite white medallions. The hardwood, pine floors under her feet were scuffed and in bad need of repair. How odd for a Squire not to take better care of his Dark-Hunter's property.
But that was neither here nor there. Right now she had much more pressing business with Kyros than the fact that he had no taste and his Squire had no clear understanding of his job description.
"Okay, Kyros." She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Acheron is a Daimon who feeds off humans and all of us were created solely so that he could fight a war with his mother, the Daimon queen, who no Dark-Hunter has ever heard of. Uh-huh."
He slammed his hand down on the cherrywood desk he sat behind. "Dammit, woman, listen to me. I'm more than nine thousand years old. I was there in the beginning-one of the first Dark-Hunters ever created-and I remember stories of Apollymi from my childhood. She was called the Destroyer and she was Atlantean... just like Acheron."
So it was a coincidence. Two Atlanteans did not a family make. She most certainly wasn't the only French Dark-Hunter, she wasn't even the only one to come out of the French Revolution, and none of them were related by a long shot.
Kyros would need a lot more proof than that to convince her that Acheron was the son of this Atlantean god-queen.
She gave him a bored stare. "And this Atlantean Destroyer is now leading the Daimons and sending them out to battle against Acheron, who is just using us and the humans as cannon fodder to protect himself? Really, Kyros, put down the crack pipe... or go write children's fantasy novels." She leaned forward and whispered loudly. "I'll bet you even know exactly who conspired to kill Kennedy, huh? I'm sure the money from D. B. Cooper is what financed your stunning collection of furniture."
He bolted to his feet and approached her. "Don't patronize me. I know I'm right. Have you ever seen Acheron eat food? We all know he's a lot more powerful than the rest of us. Didn't you ever wonder why?"
That was a no-brainer in her book. "He's the oldest and has had his powers a lot longer than the rest of us. You know the saying 'practice makes perfect,' and that man has had a lot of practice. As for food, I haven't been around him enough to notice."
"Yeah, well, I was around him a lot once upon a time ago, and while Brax and I ate, he never did. After we were created, Acheron wrote down his bullshit rules and the rest of us have been blindly following them for centuries without questioning them or him. It's time now that we started thinking for ourselves."
She made a noise of sarcastic amusement. "And what has suddenly brought on this grand epiphany of yours?"
Kyros laughed at that as an evil, spooky look came over him. "Do you really want to know?"
"Pourquoi pas? Why not?"
"Stryker!"
Danger frowned at his shout. Half a minute later, something flashed so bright in the room, she had to turn away to keep her light-sensitive Dark-Hunter eyes from burning. But the hair on the back of her neck rose as she sensed a Daimon's sudden presence in the room. Hissing in anger, she pulled the dagger out of her boot and straightened to confront it.
Kyros grabbed her arm. "No. Don't."
Her temper raged at his actions. "You would invite a filthy Daimon into your house?"
The question had barely left her lips before the Daimon sensation ceased. The newcomer still stood there, but he no longer cast that warning beacon that announced a Daimon presence to a Dark-Hunter.
A bad feeling went through Danger as she looked at the newcomer. Like Acheron, he stood a dead six feet eight, with long black hair that flowed around his shoulders, and he wore a pair of opaque sunglasses over his eyes.
"What's going on here?" she asked Kyros.
Kyros let go of her. "Yeah. I didn't believe it, either, at first. But he can mask the Daimon in him so that we can't feel his presence."
"How?" she asked.
The Daimon laughed, flashing her a set of fangs. "It's a trait that runs in my family. My mother can do it. I can do it and my brother can do it."
Scowling at the two men, she didn't understand what he was talking about.
Not until he removed the sunglasses and revealed a set of swirling silver eyes that she had only seen on one man before...
Acheron Parthenopaeus.
"He's Acheron's brother," Kyros said as if he could hear her thoughts. "And he's told me lots of things about our fearless leader that have left me cold. Acheron isn't who or what you think he is and neither are we."
"So how did you do that thing that made all them Daimons explode?"
Sitting next to the Squire who was driving him back to Danger's home, Alexion winced as Keller continued to ramble on with questions and comments. The man had three speech speeds: fast, faster, and "shut up before my brain explodes from trying to follow you." He'd always been told that Southern Americans spoke slowly.
That was apparently a myth.
He hadn't had a headache since he'd been human, but for the first time in nine thousand years, he was beginning to feel throbbing pain between his temples.
Much like an irritating toddler, Keller kept going, picking up speed with every word. "Now, you haven't answered me and I gotta know. You know, if we could all think them Daimons into pieces it would sure be a whole lot easier. Can you imagine all of us just looking at them-and boom! They're dead. You got to tell me how you do that. C'mon. I have got to know, you know?"
Alexion flexed his jaw before he answered. "It's a trade secret."
"Yeah, but I'm in the trade. Squires need to know, too. We're not the ones who are immortal so it seems we should know first, you know? C'mon, tell me how you did it."
Alexion stared at him in warning. "I would show you, but it would kill you to use it."
Come to think of it, that wasn't such a bad idea...
He opened his mouth to tell him.
"Don't."
Alexion growled at Acheron's voice in his mind. "Either do this yourself, or stay out of my head."
"Fine, you're on your own from now on. I'm outta here. I'm going to go play solitaire or something."
Yeah, right. Acheron playing a game. As if he had a minute to spare.
Keller pulled into the driveway of a small mansion in northwest Tupelo, which was Dangereuse's domain. The Dark-Huntress had been assigned to the area for the last fifty or so years. Her home was designed after a French chateau complete with a courtyard that was set off to the left side of the house.
Keller pressed the control in his dark green Mountaineer for the garage door to open. "Fine, be that way. Don't share, but when I get killed, I'm going to haunt you for not telling me diddly when you had the chance to save me. You know, that's just not right. Not right at all." He whipped the dark green SUV into the garage, then shut the garage door behind them.
Even though it was a three-car garage, there was no other car inside. He had assumed that Dangereuse would have returned before now. "Where is your mistress tonight?"
"I dunno. She took off about an hour after sundown and I ain't heard nothing since. Wish she'd been here, though, to get those Daimons. I thought I was toast until you popped into the alley. And speaking of popping in, how did you do that, anyway? Where did you come from? I know you had to have some way to get here, you know?"
Alexion got out of the car slowly as he tried to get his bearings. He'd only seen her house a time or two in the sfora. But things looked very different in person than they did through the mist's distortion.
"Hey?" Keller snapped his fingers as he came around the SUV. "Did you hear me? How did you get to Tupelo without your own car?"
"I have special talents."
"Are you one of them teleporters?"
Alexion took a deep breath for patience, which was wearing thin in this new body. That was the hardest part about the Krisi-the judgment-and coming to earth. He wasn't used to all the bright colors, sounds, and emotions that were filtered through a real body. At times, he was like an overstimulated toddler-one who had the ability to level a city if he got pissed enough.
Keller was even more inquisitive and annoying than Simi on her worst day. And that was quite an accomplishment. "Don't ask me any more questions, Keller. I'm just going to lie to you and I'd rather not have the stress of trying to remember what lie I handed you."
Scoffing at that, Keller took him into the house, which was done in contemporary retro decor. The small foyer that led from the garage to the kitchen was a dark purple color.
Keller dropped his keys in a basket on the counter. "Why you want to lie to me?"
"I don't want to," he said drolly, "which is why I said not to ask me anything else."
The Squire snorted. "You hungry? You want something to eat or drink?"
Alexion sighed at the man's repetition. Keller tended to ask everything at least twice.
"No." Alexion looked about the dark yellow kitchen. There was a lot to be done and he needed Danger to return home so that he could begin this. Kyros was already following the usual game plan of the Dark-Hunters in the past. About a week ago, he'd started calling for Dark-Hunters to congregate in and around his Aberdeen, Mississippi, location so that he could convince them to his way of thinking.
It was a familiar cycle. Every few centuries a lot of Dark-Hunters would find love and go free from their service to Artemis. Inevitably, one of the older remaining Dark-Hunters would think he had figured out why and somehow Acheron always got blamed for tricking them. Jealousy and boredom were a lethal mixture that could cause the most bizarre delusions. Convinced of his reasoning, the Dark-Hunter would contact the others, trying to lead them to freedom too, which meant they would all turn on Acheron.
Alexion would be sent in to either save them or judge them Rogue and kill them.
In the beginning, while he was in a human body in this realm, he'd felt like a traitor to his own kind, and yet he understood why it was necessary. Order must be maintained at all costs. The Dark-Hunters had way too much power over humanity for them to start abusing it.
There were few beings in the universe who could battle a Dark-Hunter and live, and humans weren't one of them.
But this time... this time something was different. He could feel it deep inside him, and it wasn't just because Kyros was involved. There was something else here.
Something evil.
Keller was still talking, though to be honest, Alexion wasn't listening. His thoughts were on other things. He paused as he walked into the living room and saw an old painting above the mantel. It was a family portrait of an older man, a young woman, and two small children-a boy and an infant girl. Painted outdoors in what appeared to be a courtyard very similar to the one he'd seen beside this house, it was obvious the portrait was from the late eighteenth century.
It must have been Danger's human family.
Dangereuse had become a Dark-Hunter during the French Revolution. Her husband had betrayed her father and her father's noble children to the Committee. She had been trying to smuggle them out of Paris, to Germany, when they had all been captured. He shuddered at the fate that had befallen all of them.
"What are you going to do for clothes tomorrow?" Keller asked as he moved to stand in front of him. "You don't got none, do you?"
Arching a brow, Alexion looked down at the clothes on his body.
"I mean other clothes," Keller snapped. "Jeez. Don't be so literal."
Alexion met the Squire's gaze. Keller was an odd but likable man. For a nuisance. "They'll be delivered."
"By who? You got you a Squire or something? Now that'd be something, wouldn't it? A Squire for a Squire?"
One corner of Alexion's mouth quirked up as he thought of Simi, who constantly brought things to him because she thought he might want or need them. "I definitely have something."
Keller frowned at him. "Yeah, okay. If you'll follow me, I'll show you to a room upstairs where you can sleep. It's real nice. Acheron has used it a few times whenever he was here in the past, but it's been a while since we last saw him. Well, okay, I've never seen him here, personally, but I know from Danger that he's been here before. I think the last time was before I was born. Or maybe not. Sometimes I get Danger's stories mixed up. Do you ever do that with Acheron? I bet he has a lot of stories to tell, being that he's older than dirt. His house must be really cool, huh?"
Rolling his eyes, Alexion rubbed his thumb against his temple while Keller rambled on.
As they left the living room and headed toward the stairs, Alexion caught a faint trace of magnolias in the air. It was mixed with something else... something definitely feminine. It must be the Dark-Huntress's scent and his body reacted to it instantly.
He was hot and heavy with sudden need. At his home in Katoteros, there was no one to have sex with. Nothing but long lonely nights that left him edgy and hard. The only benefit to being sent in to judge was that he usually had a day or two to find himself a woman and ease the deep-seated ache.
You have much more pressing concerns than getting laid.
That was one theory anyway, but judging by the throbbing erection he had at the moment, he would definitely argue it.
"How long have you served Dangereuse?" he asked the Squire. It was unusual for a male to be Squired to a female. Usually the humans who made up the Squires' Council forbade a Squire to serve a Dark-Hunter if the Squire might be sexually attractive to the Dark-Hunter. Since Dark-Hunters and Squires were supposed to have a platonic relationship, the Council always tried to give the Dark-Hunter a Squire who was the opposite of what sexually attracted him or her.
It made him wonder if Dangereuse might be attracted to women, as opposed to men.
"About three years. My dad is the current Squire for Maxx Campbell over in Scotland, and after I graduated college, I thought I'd like to join the family business, you know?"
The man seemed to love to end sentences with those two words.
Keller continued on without pause. "I wish I'd grown up over there, but when I was a kid, Dad was stationed in Little Rock, serving this Dark-Hunter named Viktor Russenko who got killed a few years back. Did you know him?"
"Yes."
"Damned shame what they did to him. Some Daimons caught him alone and jumped him. Poor guy. He didn't stand a chance. It was awful, you know, so the Council thought my dad needed a change of scenery. I think Scotland was a good move for him. Maxx seems to be a really laid-back Dark-Hunter. Do you know him too?"
Alexion nodded at the name. He knew much about the Highlander Dark-Hunter who had been recently relocated from London to Glasgow. "How does your father like it over there?"
"It's all right, but he misses home. They talk funny over there and not many can understand his accent. He's real Southern sounding."
Now there was the pot describing the kettle.
Keller continued to ramble on as he led the way into a medium-sized bedroom that had an adjoining bathroom. Alexion cocked his head as he felt something strange go through him. It was cold, almost sinister, and he couldn't place it.
If he didn't know better, he'd think it was...
"Acheron?" He sent the mental call out through the dimensions.
His boss didn't answer him.
Then as soon as the sensation had come, it was gone.
How strange...