"I'm fine, really. I didn't sleep well last night and I just needed a nap."
Kat made a rude noise. "It's all that Beowulf you and Chris were reading. It sucked all the energy right out of you. Beowulf… incubus… same thing."
Now that was just a little too close to home for Cassandra's comfort. She laughed nervously."Yeah. I'll be out in a few minutes."
Cassandra shut the door and turned back toward her crumpled clothes. What was going on here? Was Beowulf really an incubus? Maybe… Brushing the ridiculous thought aside, she picked up her clothes and added them to the laundry hamper, then dressed herself in a pair of jeans and a dark blue sweater.
As she prepared to leave, a strange tingle ran through her. Something was going to happen tonight. She knew it. She didn't have her mother's psychic powers, but she did get strong feelings whenever something good or bad was going to happen.
Unfortunately, she just couldn't tell which one it would be until it was too late. But something was definitely up tonight.
Chapter 5
"Welcome tokolasi," Stryker said under his breath, speaking the Atlantean word for hell as he surveyed the leaders of his Daimon army that was ever ready to attack at his command.
For eleven thousand years, he, as the son of the Atlantean Destroyer, had led them.
Handpicked by the Destroyer herself and trained by Stryker, these Daimons were all elite killers. Their own brethren referred to them as Spathi Daimons. A term that had been bastardized by both the Apollites and Dark-Hunters who didn't understand what a true Spathi was.
Instead they applied the term to any Daimon who fought them. But that wasn't right. The true Spathi were something else entirely.
They weren't the children of Apollo. They were Apollo's enemies, just as they were the enemies of the Dark-Hunters and humans. The Spathis had long ago forsaken whatever Greek or Apollite heritage they might have had.
They were the last of the Atlanteans and were proud of it. Unbeknownst to the Dark-Hunters and humans, there were thousands of them. Thousands. All far older than any pathetic human, Apollite, or Dark-Hunter dared dream. While the weaker Daimons lived in hiding on earth, the Spathis used laminas or bolt-holes to travel from this realm to the human one.
Their homes existed in another dimension. In Kalosis, where the Destroyer herself resided under imprisonment and where the lethal light of Apollo never shone. They were her soldiers.
Her sons and daughters.
Only a very select few of them could summon the laminas on their own—it was a gift the Destroyer didn't bequeath often. As her son, Stryker could come and go at will, but he chose to stay near his mother's side.
As he had for the last eleven thousand years… All this time, they had planned well for this night. After his father Apollo had cursed them and left Stryker and his children to die horribly, Stryker had embraced his mother willingly.
It was Apollymi who had shown him the way. She who had taught them to take the souls of humans into their bodies so that they could survive even though his father had damned them all to die at twenty-seven.
"You are my chosen ones," she had told him. "Fight with me and the world shall belong to the Atlantean gods once more."
Since that day, they had recruited their army with care. The three dozen generals who lounged around him in the "banquet" hall were the best fighters among them. They all waited for word from their spy as to when the missing heiress would reappear.
She'd been out of their reach all day. But now that the sun had set, she was within reach once more. Any moment now and they would be free to ran the night and rip her heart out of her. It was a precious thought Stryker cherished.
The doors to the hall opened and from the darkness outside came Stryker's last surviving son, Urian. Dressed all in black like his father, Urian had long blond hair that he wore in a queue secured by a black leather cord.
His son was more handsome than any other, but then all of their race were beautiful.
Urian's deep blue eyes flashed as he walked with the pride and grace of a lethal predator. When Stryker had first brought his eldest son over, it had been strange to play father to a man who was physically the same age as him, but that aside, they were father and son. More than that, they were allies. And Stryker would kill anyone who threatened his child.
"Any word?" he asked his son.
"Not yet. The Were-Hunter said he has lost her scent, but that he will pick her up again."