When the demon claimed Amun’s attention, or sought her own, his skin warmed and hers chilled, the same as when they were making love. Right now, Amun was practically on fire.
“You just gonna stand there?” the beefy man cackled, dragging her from her thoughts.
Shit! She’d allowed herself to be distracted. “Why can’t I kill him?”
Come on. Amun twined their fingers and started forward, maneuvering around the man—only to twist and strike with his free hand, embedding a blade in the man’s spinal cord. Crack. There was a gurgle, that beefy body convulsing, slumping, falling over. Skin turned to ash, and bone to liquid, the ash drifting away in the breeze, the liquid forming a black, oozing puddle. Oh, and to answer your question, you couldn’t kill him because the privilege belonged to me.
When Amun straightened, looking anywhere but at Haidee, he once again started forward. She could only gape up at him, astonished. “Why’d you get the privilege?”
He planned to find you later and…do things to you.
“How do you know?” She knew the answer before she finished asking the question. His demon. Again.
I told you. I read all minds but yours.
“I remember.” She pushed out a breath. “And thank you.”
Thank you? You don’t think me malicious? I just killed in cold blood.
“Malicious? For avenging me? No.” Amun must have forgotten that she had wanted to plant a blade in the man, too. “I think you’re sweet and maybe even went a little easy on the bastard. I would have forced him to eat his own intestines.”
A warm chuckle drifted through her mind as Amun’s fingers squeezed hers in thanks of his own. He’d truly expected her to balk, she realized. Later, she would have to tell him about some of the things she had done over the years, all in the name of vengeance and, foolishly, world peace.
As if the world would be a better place without Amun.
They remained on the gravel path for several minutes. Over and over Haidee’s attention strayed as she searched for the animals she’d seen earlier. She expected them to reappear and launch at her, jaws snapping. Constantly she tripped, but Amun never let her fall. Even better, he never berated her for her lack of concentration as Micah would have done. To him, it was mission first, feelings second.
When you were stalking evil or being stalked by evil yourself, you were to think only of destroying that evil. You weren’t to worry about any physical pain you might suffer. You weren’t to consider what might happen to the innocents around you. And most assuredly, you weren’t to place your fate in anyone else’s hands.
“Come,” a withered female in front of one of the tents suddenly called. “I tell you what awaits. You pay me with a scream.”
Haidee replied before she could think better of it. “I’m not screaming.”
“You will. Oh, you will.” A gnarled finger pointed at her, and a cackling laugh sounded. “Best go no farther, hateful girl. Death, death is what awaits you. And pain, so much pain. Soon. Soon you pay me.”
The prediction was so close to what Haidee had endured countless times in the past, she couldn’t shake a sudden sense of unease. Soon, the old crone had said, and the urge to rush over there and shake the woman, to demand answers, overwhelmed her. She would shake the bitch, she thought, starting forward.
“Oh, I’ll pay you all right.”
Cackling.
Distantly, she thought she felt something—someone, Amun—tugging at her back. She didn’t care. Couldn’t care. When she tried to pull from Amun’s hold, he tightened his grip.
“I have to go to her. Have to—”
Don’t listen to her. Remember what the angel told us? Trust no one.
It took a superhuman effort, but Haidee managed to stop and look away from that stooped body. The moment she did, the overwhelming urge left her. “Thank you. Again.”
There’s no need to thank me, Haidee. He stuffed a piece of paper in his pocket. Come on.
He ushered her off the pathway. He zigzagged and ducked behind the tents, always maintaining a tight grip on her. She had been chased over the years and had chased others, so she knew what he was doing. Preventing anyone from locking on them, their every move random, unpredictable.
“What’s the game plan?” she asked.
While you chatted with the self-professed seer, I had the pack provide instructions for successfully navigating this place.
“And?” she asked.
Another scroll. It said we must find the Horsemen.
Horsemen? “I don’t understand.”
We must find the Horsemen, he repeated. Of the Apocalypse.
Oh, dear God. “You’re kidding me.” Please let him be kidding.
I wish I were. Through death or some other means, the scroll said they were our only way out of here.
She gulped a mouthful of what felt like sand. “And what do you mean by ‘some other means’? We’re supposed to ride them to safety?”
To her surprise, Amun chuckled softly. I have no idea. The scroll told me nothing else. But I do know the Horsemen are in some way related to William, and—
“William?”
You haven’t met him. He’s immortal, a god of some sort, I think, and on our side.
“Our” side. As if they were partners rather than enemies. As if he trusted her completely. As if he no longer saw her as a Hunter responsible for his friend’s murder, but as a woman worthy of him. Inside she glowed, tendrils of his warmth traipsing through her.
“So, if the Horsemen are related to this William person, who’s on our side—” she stressed the word “—the Horsemen should be on our side, as well?”
We can hope.
For some reason, that wasn’t promising.
A shriek sounded at her left, and she stopped to wheel in that direction.
Easy, Amun instructed, stilling beside her. Someone’s playing a game, that’s all.
That was all? The beings here weren’t playing with darts, balloons or plastic balls—and the prizes weren’t stuffed animals. Severed heads were being tossed at boiling tubs of oil, and though the heads were bodiless, their mouths still managed to scream in pain when splashed with the oil, skin melting away.
The little boy who’d just won jumped up and down, clapping, his hoofed feet clomping hard into the ground and spraying dirt in every direction. The proprietor handed him a beautiful golden bird trying desperately to escape the string around its neck, wings flapping erratically, glitter raining from them like fairy dust.
The loveliness of the bird was surprising, considering the ugliness of everything else down here.
The little boy gently held the bird in both hands, muttering soothing words. Those golden wings gradually stopped flapping. Of course, that’s when the boy shoved the tiny creature into his mouth and bit off the head.
Haidee gagged and quickly looked away—right at a group of men who’d locked their sights on her and Amun. Those men were striding toward them, closing the distance. Damn it. She never should have paused to watch the games.
“Amun,” she whispered fiercely.
I see them. He released her, gearing for a fight they both knew would happen. If I tell you to run, you run and hide and don’t return. Understand?
As if. But rather than tell him she planned to stay and help, possibly distracting him, she remained silent and palmed two blades in each hand. The men were almost upon them…they were big, bigger than Amun, with paper-thin skin that draped loosely over pitted bone, their eyes merely sunken holes of black…and still they drew ever closer…