Graham had as good as said he was a member, but that he’d withdrawn when he learned that his wife intended to sacrifice their children to the gods of murder. Three children were to be killed as part of a ritual, not simultaneously but in some kind of specific, pertinent sequence. Luis Gallardo was meant to be the first, and though Indigo had interrupted the ritual, she hadn’t been in time to save him. Would his death count toward the rite? Would the murder gods consider it a proper sacrifice?
Indigo had killed every member of the New York chapter’s inner circle in that warehouse, but she knew that didn’t mean the chapter had been completely obliterated. There would be Phonoi assassins, at the very least, though she had no idea who would give them orders now that their high priestess was dead. Rafe Bogdani, perhaps. The man had real magic at his command, not the kind of dabbling that the Phonoi typically engaged in. Was he some kind of sorcerer-for-hire, or was he truly a part of the cult? She tried to recall his exact words, the things he’d said before she’d dropped through the shadows in the ritual circle of that basement, where he’d tried to kill her. Or capture her, or whatever he’d intended. Had he said anything that gave away the nature of his relationship to the Children of Phonos? She didn’t think so.
Maybe it’s over, she thought. Not her tussle with Rafe, which obviously required a rematch. But she wondered hopefully if killing the high priestess and the inner circle had torn the heart out of the cult, at least that chapter. Maybe Graham Edwards’s children were safe, now. Maybe whatever had been planned would never come to fruition.
She had so many enemies now, worst of all this evil cancer of a demon that had taken root inside her. It would have been nice to think that the Children of Phonos weren’t her problem anymore.
But that felt too easy.
The cult was global, and they worshipped the gods of murder. If she’d erased one cell, others would arrive to fill that void, particularly if they were involved in the somehow more mundane criminal horrors of human trafficking. And then there was Rafe. Whatever the magician had done to her in that basement before she’d been transported here, it had ended up with Damastes locked inside her. Or given him access to the dark void inside her.
“You’re one of the murder gods,” she whispered.
Damastes laughed inside her.
I have worshippers throughout the world. My followers are legion.
“I’ve met a few. They die easily enough.” Bravado.
Even now my followers seek to serve me. They seek to win my favor. They know what you refuse to know, that I will eventually climb free of you or seize complete control. A foolish mistake on the part of your parents and the high priestess that night. A miscast summoning, that is all you are. You were meant to be my offering, a promised body to climb into and take as my own.
Nora shook her head. Lies! Her parents would have never done anything of the sort. Her mom and dad loved her! Still, she felt the sting of tears at the corner of her eyes, unshed but threatening to fall.
A gathering of fools tried to claim my power as their own, and the end result is a trap, a gateway that was sealed with me halfway through it. That will change soon enough. I will bend you to my will or Bogdani will find a way to release me. His friends hoped to summon and enslave me, but only a fool would attempt that a second time. His only hope is to separate me from your flesh. Then perhaps I will allow him to serve me the way he and his cult wished me to serve them. Or I will kill him, and so many others.
Her thoughts were scattered in so many directions as she tried to pull all of these threads together.
“So I was meant to be, what, a vessel?”
A doorway, nothing more. But I am trapped on the threshold. I fought their summoning because they wished to bind me as their slave, like a genie they might use to make them rich or fetch them water or seduce reluctant lovers for them. I fought … and somehow, so did you. And in fighting … we became one.
Ice flowed through her, a cold, calculating hatred that soothed her and helped her focus. She could feel the shadows breathing in the corners and beneath the table. Rafe’s magic, the shock of being shifted thousands of miles in a moment, the tumorous presence of the demon in the void … something had stripped her of her powers, broken her ability to concentrate and to touch the dark. Now, for the first time since Damastes had tried to seize control of her, she felt that connection to the shadows again. They knew her. They yearned for her.
For Indigo.
“Rafe’s gonna die,” she said.
If he is loyal to me, he will live. If he ignores my commands, he will die. The same could be said of you, Nora Hesper. You, who have siphoned your power from me while I lay dormant within. But now I am awake … now that the Phonoi have been trying to summon and enslave me again, from afar. And the time has come for me to walk the world in this flesh.
She could feel the darkness hiding at the edges of her awareness as if trying to decide whom it should obey, Nora or Damastes. Now she called and the darkness fluttered, whispered closer to her.
“It’s my body. You’re nothing but a virus. Poison in my veins.”
And you are little more than a corpse too foolish to die. Oh, little Nora—
“Not Nora,” she said quietly. “Indigo.”
And what is Indigo? A mask on a frightened girl.
“Flesh and blood. Solid and alive, which is more than you can say. You need your precious sacrifices and your cult of killers! You need their worship. I need nothing and no one!”
To prove her point she ripped the darkness closer, wrapping herself in the reluctant shadows and slithering free from the restraints that tried to hold her. She could move through a keyhole; what possible chance did a straitjacket and leather straps have?
Are you so sure about that? Are you certain there is no one and nothing that you need?
Nora stood and felt her legs under her, once again hers to command. There were no seizures now. He blood pumped and her nerves sang and her fists clenched until she felt the crescents of her nails biting into soft skin.
Indigo sneered.
Nora asked, “What do you mean?”
Can you so easily live without Shelby or Sam? Even now Rafe watches Shelby’s domicile. Even now he waits for Sam to arrive, the better to kill them both without having to hunt either of them down. Give me free rein, surrender control of this body to me, and I will stop him.
“I’ll kill him. And then I’ll kill you.” The words were whispered from a cold throat, choked by rage. Her friends were half a world away and she wasn’t even certain how she’d gotten here. Rafe had done something to her with that ritual circle, used some kind of spell, but had he chosen this destination or had Damastes pulled her to his seat of power, to the place he’d once called home? One or both of them had broken the laws of physics, strained the ties of reality, and cast her a few thousand miles through the darkness. How the hell could she hope to match that task?