His gaze drifted past me as if he could see her over the hill. “She’s still upset about the two of us.”
“Among other things, but what did you expect? Her dad and her roommate.” I gave a soft, bitter laugh. “She tried so hard to warn me.”
He took a step toward me and touched my shoulder. “Cassi, those things don’t matter in our world.”
“And that’s why you fail to understand Serenity, or me for that matter,” I said. “We don’t want that world. It makes us enemies for a war that’s lasted for eons.”
He chuckled softly. “That last part is truer than you know, but the beginning doesn’t have to be. We can change things.”
I stared into his eyes as if they would solve this puzzle for me. “Why do you even care? And for me, of all people.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe it’s because you are a pandoran and I like playing with fire.”
“Oh, great. So you just have a thing for forbidden fruit.” I shook my head. “It’s like we’re playing out some cheesy teen romance.”
“I can think of a few things we’ve done that don’t belong in a teen romance.” He caressed my cheek with his thumb. “Tell me you don’t feel it, too.”
I took a step back and let out a shuddering breath. “I don’t know. I need to think about things for once.”
I stepped around him and hurried to the cars parked along the street, hugging myself. Halfway down, my arm flared up with an intense burning that overshadowed the ever-present tingle that came around Hermes.
I gasped and pulled my wrist to my chest as I doubled over. A haze tinted the sky gray that clogged up my lungs, causing my breath to come out in small gasps. The stench of rot and death surrounded me, which was ironic, considering I stood in a cemetery.
I pressed in the tendons of my wrist and fell to my knees as the heat increased so badly that it filled my brain. Hermes’s muted shouts echoed in my ears before fading into the gray.
Chapter 27
I woke to a steady beeping and the sun shining in my eyes. I groaned and rolled on my side, away from the window, and the crinkling of paper filled my ear. What in Hades?
My eyes snapped open, and I sat up on the paper-covered examination table. Across from me, jars of tongue depressors and cotton balls sat next to a sink on a dark green counter. I must have fainted and been taken to a clinic. I traced my fingers on the edges of my tattoo. Its rainbow pattern glimmered in the setting sun.
The burning had faded to nothing during my time unconscious. I’d never felt that intensity of a burn, even back in Georgia, training like an obedient girl. Aunt Jo had mentioned once that daimones were the easiest to detect in spirit form, without a body to possess.
A chill ran through me as if someone had poured a bucket of ice water on me. The ker possessed the dead, but couldn’t or wouldn’t stop the rotting. It must have decided to target Sheridan.
I hopped off the bed, grabbed my shoes that lay on a chair, and glanced at the clock on the wall. Only an hour had passed since the funeral. Was I too late to stop it? I had to try. A nurse in the hall glanced up from her clipboard and smiled at me when I stepped out into the hall.
“Good to see you’re awake,” she said. “Go ahead and return to the room. I’ll get a doctor to come see you.”
I raised my hands and shook my head. “Actually, I feel fine, but I’m in a hurry. I’m just going to check myself out.”
Her eyebrows furrowed as she pressed the clipboard to her chest. “You should really have a doctor look at you. Do you faint often?”
I ground my teeth together and took a deep breath. “It’s no big deal. Just stress, but I have an emergency, and I really need to go.”
She stared at me for a long moment and sighed. “Fine. Follow me.”
She led me to a cashier who eyed me just as suspiciously as she processed my credit card while I dialed the number of the closest taxi service. I paced outside the building until the cab pulled up fifteen minutes later. I stared out the window and tapped my foot against the carpeted mat in the back seat. I had gotten the slowest cabbie in the entire Metroplex.
How long did it take for a ker to possess a body? It wouldn’t hang around the cemetery afterwards, but it might have left some sort of lead to go off of. Or I could wander around and wait for it to find me.