She smiled so wide, her fangs showed. “You gots the blue eyes. They’s very beautiful, just like you are.” Taking his hand, she turned back toward her sister. “We should make akri-Uri an honorary Charonte, what do you think, Xixi?”
Screwing her face up, Xirena narrowed her gaze as she stared at him. “He could look cute with horns.”
Urian’s eyes widened at the thought of them putting horns on his head. The image of them drilling them into his skull was horrifying. Charonte were known to do things like that.
Luckily, Xirena got up with a pair of stuffed red ones that attached with clips. Making herself taller, she handed one to Simi and each one clipped a horn to his head.
They stepped back to stare at him, then high-fived each other. “Charonte!” they said in unison.
Simi gave a firm nod. “You’s a perfect, beautiful Charonte now!” She grinned. “Can you look in a mirror or are you still too Daimon for that?”
He laughed. “I can look in mirrors now.” That was one of the things Ash had fixed about him that still freaked him out whenever he happened to see his reflection.
“Goody!” Simi used her powers to conjure a crystal-encrusted, Hello Kitty hand mirror that she held up for him so that he could see the horns.
Urian grinned at the silliness of it. “Perfect.”
“Charonte!” She held her hand up for him to high-five her.
“Charonte!” he said, and gently touched her palm with his.
Alexion picked that moment to come in and burst into laughter. “Should I even ask?”
Urian glared at him. “Not if you want to live.”
Simi snorted. “Akri-Uri is a Charonte now. We’s adoptive him. He our baby now so if you make our baby cry, we make you cry.”
Urian’s grin turned to straight shit-eating. “I like that a lot.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he dared Alexion. “I’ve got Charonte mamas now. Go ahead, insult me.”
Alexion sputtered as he looked back and forth between the two demons, who were now very alert. “The only Danger I flirt with is my wife. Who I’m going to find right now. But word to the wise about your adoption, Uri … they feed their babies habanero sauce straight up from the bottle, and good luck with the burping.” Then he vanished.
“Hey! That a joke?” he shouted after him.
No answer.
A bad, sick feeling went through Urian. He turned toward the demons. Both of whom were now on their feet and coming closer with purpose.
Oh shit …
October 2010
“We have a problem.”
“You’d have had a bigger one had you arrived a minute earlier before I pulled my pants on,” Acheron said drily as Urian materialized directly in front of him as he stood in the kitchen of the New Orleans home he shared with Tory. He’d been scooping ice cream when Urian made an unannounced appearance. “Were you raised in a barn?”
A loud knock sounded on the back door.
Acheron rolled his eyes at Urian’s sarcasm when it was obvious Urian had thrown the sound as a “screw you” to him. The expression on Ash’s face said, Lucky for you, I just had great sex with my wife that put me in such a happy place that not even your assholishness can disturb it. Otherwise Urian was sure he would have been a flaming stain on the wall. “What’s up?”
“Dev’s not on crack.” Dev Peltier being the Were-bear from Sanctuary who normally stood guard at their front door, which let out onto the street. Apparently, the bear had claimed that he saw Daimons out in daylight, walking around with tourists. Since everyone knew Daimons couldn’t do that … the natural assumption was that the bear was on crack.
Acheron licked the back of the spoon before he set it in the sink. “Never thought he was.… Ketamine maybe, but never crack. Why, did you?”
Urian watched Ash return the ice cream carton to the freezer. “I just came away from a chat with one of my old friends.” Which really just meant Davyn as he had no other friends on the Dark Side. “He told me that the Daimons are able to take gallu demon souls into their bodies and that Stryker is converting his army with their blood.”
Just as Urian had done when Davyn told him what his father was up to, Acheron froze at those words. The Sumerian gallu powers were intense. The ultimate in evil, one of them in a Daimon’s body was a nightmare of biblical proportions.
More than that, gallu bites turned their victims into mindless drones. Like a zombie on steroids. One could make thousands.
A Daimon would now be able to make more of their kind. Lots more.
While the great Acheron could take one down without breaking a sweat, a normal Dark-Hunter …
Good luck with that.
“What’s Stryker planning?”
Urian gave him a droll stare. “What he’s always wanted. To kill my grandfather and subjugate the humans while staying beyond Helios’s reach.”
Ash returned his “duh” expression. “I didn’t ask for the goal, Urian. I’ve known that. What I need is the game plan. Why is he converting his people?” Ash’s phone rang. He started to ignore it until he saw the ID.
Sighing, Acheron looked at the bowl of melting ice cream on the counter. He refroze it, then flashed it away.
With an aggravated expression, he flipped open his phone.
“Nick is working with the Daimons.” Urian couldn’t identify the voice on the other end, but he heard those words plainly.
“Nice hearing from you too, Spartan. Care to tell me why you think this?”
“’Cause the little shit tried to kidnap Sam out of Sanctuary. He was there in all his glory, offering her up to our enemies.”
Urian tried to make sense of that. Nick was the current Malachai after the death of his father, Adarian. And after they’d rescued Tory and Nick had killed Satara, they’d discovered that Stryker had somehow tied Nick’s life force to his own.
Ash hung up the phone and met Urian’s curious gaze.
“Get over to the Charonte club and ride herd on Dev and Sam. Anything comes at her, I don’t care who or what, you protect her.”
Great. Protect another Dark-Hunter. Just what he wanted to be assigned. Especially Samia, who’d once been an Amazon who had taken out a large number of his people and who was related to the gods who’d cursed and abandoned them. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“Just do it.”
That tone always flew over Urian and made him want to punch Acheron when he used it. It also made him want to feed Sam to the Daimons.
But the gallu were a whole other matter. They were as big a threat to the Daimons as they were to mankind.
What the hell was his father thinking now?
October 24, 2010
Urian was supposed to meet Davyn at Sanctuary so that he could gather more information about Stryker’s plan. He and Davyn had always tried to pick spots where there was no chance of any of the Apollymians seeing them together. If Stryker ever learned that Urian still talked to his old friend, he’d kill Davyn immediately.
And it wouldn’t be quick. Last thing he wanted was to cause any harm to befall Davyn. He’d sooner cut his own throat.
Instinctively, he rubbed the scar left by Stryker’s attack on him the night Phoebe died. The bitter memory of that night was never far from the surface, and it was carved in blood on his heart.
He’d worshiped his father his entire life—had committed all manner of atrocities to please him.
And for what?
So the bastard could kill Urian’s wife and then cut his throat the first time he displeased him? One day I will have my vengeance.
If it was the last thing he did, he would kill Stryker for what he’d taken from him.
“C’mon, Davyn, have something good for me.” Urian went over to the bar to order a beer while he waited.
Colt Theodorakolpolis—one of the bears who lived and worked here—handed it off to him.
Without a word, Urian drifted around the game area. He checked his watch. Davyn was late. Highly unusual for him.
Fear tightened his gut. Had Stryker found out? The mere thought made his blood run cold.
Suddenly a familiar tingle went down his spine and danced along his neck, alerting him that there was a Daimon on the premises.
Urian scanned the semicrowded bar, looking for his friend.