Gods, she was magnificent.
And he was a dumbass for admiring her when he should be guarding her. He forced himself into battle mode, staying alert as Serena wandered through the ruins, completely oblivious to the danger surrounding them. When a stick snapped beneath her foot, he whirled, fists clenched and ready to strike.
“Geez, you’re jumpy,” Serena said. She gestured to the multitude of visitors swarming the island. “Are you worried we’ll get caught?”
He stared off in the direction of the Harrowgate. “It’s not that. Something else. Bad vibes. Maybe we should go. Come back later.”
“Does this have something to do with Byzamoth?” The way she asked, with a slight hesitation in her voice, surprised him. Up until now, she’d been incredibly nonchalant when it came to the demons they’d encountered.
“Maybe.”
She appeared to consider his suggestion to come back later, but after a moment shook her head. “We’ll be fine. This is too important to wait.” She started for the Temple of Hathor, and he had no choice but to follow. He kept his eyes peeled, scanning the landscape for anything out of place or unusual. The hair standing up on the back of his neck told him something was watching. Waiting.
They worked their way across the hot, dusty land to the temple, which rose up out of the island, a broken shell of the great building it once had been. Its small courtyard was empty of visitors, but then, the courtyard was pretty much an uninteresting pile of old rocks.
She stopped at the enclosure wall. A breeze, cooled slightly by the surrounding water, blew her hair into her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. She’d gone statue-still, her eyes twinkling like amber caught in the sun.
“Can you feel the history?” She finally brushed the hair off her cheeks. “I love the places I get to visit. I love the way they come alive. The vibes here are almost overwhelming.”
“You can say that again,” he muttered, but he wasn’t talking about the same vibes. He was still picking up demons on his radar. But he knew what she meant. Back when E had first asked him to be UG’s artifact hunter—a job created solely to keep Wraith out of trouble—Wraith had been game because he liked the chase. The danger.
But gradually, thanks to all the research and travel he’d done, he’d come to appreciate the history—both human and demon—bound to the places that turned up the treasures. They all possessed a different feel, some good, some bad… most somewhere in between. But always there was a palpable imprint of past activity that energized him.
She moved off, working her way carefully over the stone slabs, a hand-drawn map in her hand. The sense of malevolence grew stronger, almost with every step she took, and he was seriously ready to get the fuck out of there.
“We need to hurry. How can I help?”
She held up her hand, her concentration so fierce she obviously didn’t want to be interrupted. Frustrated, he kept an eye on their surroundings as she muttered to herself, checked each pillar with methodical precision, poked around the rubble at the bases.
“Oh, crap.” She kneeled next to a broken pillar lying on its side.
“What is it?”
“The pillar. It’s been destroyed. It either fell over or was pushed.”
He crouched beside her. The broken edges were sharp. This was fresh. “Serena? What is this tablet you’re looking for? Straight up. What’s it do?”
She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. “Val—and the Elders—believe there’s some sort of demon invasion coming. The Tablet of Mons Silpius is supposed to work with the coin to provide some sort of protection. I think… I think it’s supposed to render the Harrowgates useless.”
That was some damned powerful magic. And any demon in his right mind would do whatever it took to prevent The Aegis from carrying out their plan. Maybe that was why he was sensing the evil presences—demons had taken the tablet already, and they were either on their way off the island with their treasure… or they were waiting around for the person who carried the other half of the equation.
He grabbed her wrist. “We’re out of here.”
“Absolutely not.” She tried to jerk free, but when that didn’t work, she started peeling his fingers off her arm. “I can search the broken stone and see if the tablet is still there. And intact.”
A tingle shot up his spine and spiked through his brain. This was bad. Very bad. Inside he was chafing, all his instincts spinning like blades in his chest, telling him to grab Serena and run.
And goddammit… his stomach had chosen now to act up with poison reflux. “No—”
A foul wind spun up, swirled around them like a dust devil. Still crouching, he whirled around with a hiss.
“Josh?”