Sharp points stabbed into Zander’s head all over again, but he charged anyway, swinging his blade out and around to nail the fucker in the side. Blood spurted from the open wound and sprayed over him and the floor.
The daemon stumbled, righted himself. He swung with his left hand, caught Zander’s shirt with his claws and tore through his flesh. A sword followed, barely missing Zander’s arm.
“I won’t let you take the princess, Argonaut,” the daemon roared. He arced out again with his blade.
Zander tried to swivel, but his body wasn’t moving at the speed of his brain. It was like trying to fight in water. The daemon lifted his sword for the killing blow. A growl erupted from the other side of the room. The sound distracted the daemon for a split second, and Zander ducked beneath the monster’s arm. He stumbled out from behind him, lifted his own blade high with both arms. “Go back to hell, motherfucker.” He swung hard, though it took every ounce of energy he had, slicing deep into the daemon’s side.
The monster shrieked, fell to his knees. Zander struck again, slicing into the beast’s arm, his back, his other side. Blood spewed in every direction, most of it hitting Zander in the face. The daemon dropped to the ground, but Zander kept attacking. Rage consumed him, the kind he never let free, and each time he struck, he saw Callia as he had when he’d stepped into the cabin, laid out like an offering to Atalanta.
His parazonium stabbed the creature’s back, a sickening sucking noise echoing through the small cabin when he pulled the blade free and attacked again, never once aiming for the daemon’s neck. It was too soon to end the SOB’s suffering. He struck again and again, his vision blurring in a sea of red.
Someone plowed into Zander’s side, knocking him off balance. Zander hit the floor with a sharp thunk. Surprise widened his eyes as he looked up at Titus, then morphed quickly to fury. “You motherfucking son of a bitch!”
Titus knocked the parazonium out of Zander’s hands. Zander snarled and tried to push himself up, but he was weaker than he thought, and whatever was affecting him was kicking in good now. He tried to get up but fell right back on his ass.
The daemon behind Titus rumbled and made a move to initiate round two, but Titus didn’t give him a chance. His blade arced out to sever the creature’s head from its body with one fell swoop. Then he swung back toward Zander. “Rein it in, Z.”
Struggling, Zander made it to his feet. Sweat and blood slid down his face to drip onto his chest as he narrowed his eyes. His heart pounded hard against his ribs. Menace rolled off him in waves. One word echoed through his mind: Kill.
Titus widened his stance. “Think this through carefully, Zander. I don’t care if you’re fucking immortal or not. I’ll cut you if I have to. And trust me, it’ll hurt.”
Zander sneered and crouched down ready to strike, his focus zeroed in on the body and blade in front of him.
“Fuck, me,” Titus whispered. He gripped his blade tighter. “That daemon’s dead, Zander. They’re all dead. And Ata-lanta’s gone. I’m not the enemy here. I’m your friend. Your brother. Trust me, man. You don’t want to do this.”
It was like looking through a tunnel, with sound and sights on the periphery blacked out. But as Zander focused on Titus, on the way the guardian’s chest rose and fell with his labored breaths, on the sweat pouring down his face, on the way he was fixated on Zander like he was the enemy, a strange sort of realization dawned.
Slowly, Zander’s eyes swept the room, first landing on the daemon he’d been fighting, dead on the ground beside him, then to the pile of bodies across the floor and finally to where Callia lay slumped unconscious against the wall. Awareness flickered through his head, shifting the boiling darkness consuming him into something softer and far more familiar. And like a balloon suddenly popping, air whooshed out of his lungs.
“Callia,” he whispered. Eyes locked on her, he rose from his crouch. His energy flagged as he brushed by Titus and dropped to the floor next to her. “Callia? Oh, shit.”
Titus’s blade clattered to the floor behind him. “Holy Hades,” he muttered.
Zander tore Callia’s shirt the rest of the way open, saw nothing but faint white lines against her chest. He felt for a pulse at her neck, found a weak thump beneath his fingers. He cradled her head in his hands. “Callia, wake up.”
She didn’t move. Her head lolled to the side like a rag doll.
“Callia?” Zander said louder. “Wake up. Shit. Titus!”
“Skata.” Titus pushed Zander’s hands out of the way and felt for himself. “Her pulse was low but there when I checked a minute ago.” He moved his fingers against her throat. “There. It’s there. She’s alive.”
Alive. But not for long. Now that the rage had passed, Zander’s brain was working. But that was about it. “I can’t get her back to Argolea.” Panic clawed its way up his chest. “I’m too weak to open the portal.”
Titus’s intense gaze focused in on Zander. Quickly he pulled something from his pocket, chucked it at Zander. Zander caught the satellite phone with both hands while Titus shifted his arms under Callia and lifted her from the floor. “I can’t take her back to Argolea either.”
“What? You have to. Look, if this is about earlier, I—”
Titus headed for the door. “I can’t take her back and leave you here. You look almost as bad as she does. There’ll be more daemons coming.”
“I can take care of myself.” Zander pushed up, stumbled, would have gone down if the wall hadn’t been there to break his fall. What the hell was happening to him? He paused, sucked in a breath. He’d been through countless battles before, and none had ever left him as weak as he was now.
“Do you have your tracking medallion?” Titus asked from the doorway.
Zander reached for the small round medallion all the Argonauts wore that was their one beacon for help when they were in trouble. “No. Shit. I must have lost it somewhere near that ravine. Or in the cave.”
“I lost mine too.” Titus hitched Callia higher in his arms. “Call Nick.”
“Nick?” Zander darted a look at the satellite phone in his hand. The one Nick had given each of them before they’d left on their hunt from the half-breed settlement days before. The one he’d thought was useless.
“Tell Nick how to reach us.” Titus headed out into the snow with Callia. “And haul ass, Zander. Atalanta didn’t just poof out of here for no reason. She wants your girl, and I guarantee she’ll be back. With an army this time.”
Chapter Fourteen
“There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing wrong? He looks like he’s about to kick it any minute.”
Voices drifted to Zander’s ears, rousing him from the blackness surrounding him like a shroud. He felt like he was pushing his way through a thick, soupy haze that didn’t want to clear and was fogging both his vision and mind.
“Physically,” the female voice said again, “there’s nothing wrong with him. I can’t find a single thing that explains his deterioration. But I can tell you this. Every time her vitals dip, so do his.”
“What are you saying?” a male voice asked. Unfamiliar. Deep.
“I’m saying,” the female said on a sigh, “they’re linked. In a way I’ve never seen before. Nothing we do to him affects her, but that’s definitely not the case the other way around.”
Zander strained to listen through the fog.
“Are you telling me there’s nothing you can do for him?” a male voice asked. This one Zander had heard before. But where? He struggled to make the connection but couldn’t. And why wasn’t his brain working?