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She clicked the photo icon on her camera to view the pictures. She wasn’t sure if she hoped to see the now-dead man or not. Confirmation that the battle she’d seen had been real, or confirmation that she was crazy? Seriously, which was more preferable?
Holding her breath, she waited for the last photo she’d taken to pop onto the screen, and nearly cried with relief when the picture revealed only a street full of cars, buses, and people. No bleeding man with an arrow sticking out of his chest. No Jeff dressed like a Dark Ages warrior.
She tucked her cell in her jacket pocket, and by the time she’d walked the six blocks to the B&B Cara had convinced herself that nothing she’d seen was real, that she wasn’t loony, and that she was never drinking anything she hadn’t poured with her own hands again. Inside the nineteenth-century home, Cara waved to the sweet fifty-something lady who owned it and mounted the stairs to her room. It was tempting to fall into bed with her clothes on, but she managed to peel out of her jeans and sweater. Wearing nothing but her underwear—she rarely wore a bra—she dug through her suitcase for her pajamas.
Straightening, she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
And screamed.
In the center of her chest, between her br**sts where the arrow-pierced man had touched her, was a brand. Welted, bright crimson lines formed a shield and sword… the tip of which lay over her heart.
It had all been real.
“Damn you, brother,” Ares breathed. “Damn you.” Ares widened his stance and raised his sword—broken off at the tip—and braced for another round of who-can-hurt-who-the-most. Fortunately, his armor and weapons had rehardened now that Ares’s agimortus was no longer nearby. For a few tense moments, he’d been sure his sword would shatter under Reseph’s blows, or worse, that his brother would land a lucky stroke that would cut through his weakened armor as if Ares were wearing nothing more protective than a Hanes wife-beater and tighty-whiteys.
Reseph grinned, revealing blood-streaked teeth. “Touchy. When’s the last time you got laid? Just wait until your Seal breaks… demon females will fall at your feet in worship.”
Ares gripped the sword hilt tighter. He’d known that the destruction of a Seal would be catastrophic, but he truly wasn’t prepared for the evil that had been unleashed—especially not in Reseph.
“You can fight this,” Ares said. “Let me take you to Reaver—”
Reseph’s laughter rumbled up from deep in his chest. “The angel can’t help. You know that what’s done is done.” He ran his tongue along the length of his blade, catching a drip of Sestiel’s blood. “Being evil is way more fun than walking the boring-ass line we straddled for five thousand years.”
Ares glanced down at the smashed—and now decapitated—fallen angel on the street. Normally, only another angel could kill an angel, but the Horsemen were exceptions to the rule. Fury tripped through him as Sestiel’s body began to dissolve. There would be no second chances for Sestiel—as an Unfallen, his soul couldn’t return to Heaven, and instead, he’d now suffer in Sheoul-gra, the demon-soul holding tank, for all eternity.
Furious as Ares was at Sestiel’s fate, he kept his voice even, unwilling to give his brother the satisfaction of seeing him riled. “You must be so disappointed that you didn’t break my Seal.”
Reseph’s eyes flashed unholy crimson. “It’s only a matter of time. I’ll find that human whore Sestiel transferred it to, and then you’ll join me on the side of win.” He swung up onto Conquest, his stallion. Battle snapped his teeth, but Conquest danced out of the way of the strike. “Because evil will win, Ares. Good has far too many limitations.”
A portal opened, and in a whoosh of air displacement, Conquest and Pestilence were gone.
Shit.
Ares glanced around the city—York, England. He’d recognize it blindfolded. Bloody battles had been fought here over the centuries, and he’d been drawn to them all.
He inhaled the layers of odor, from the ancient stench of chamberpot sewage and slaughter house waste to the modern scents of auto fumes and Earl Grey tea. Swirling throughout was the faint funk of hellhound that had clung to Sestiel.
Automatically, Ares fingered his Seal. Sestiel had transferred the agimortus before he died, and Ares had no doubt it had been transferred to Cara—she had been the only human able to see what was happening, which was a side-effect of being bonded to a hellhound… but the big clue had been how his armor and weapons had returned to normal strength after she took off. But where had she gone? He wondered if she’d located her hell beast.
And if she truly understood what had happened to her.
He swung around in the direction she’d gone. All around him, the membrane separating Ares’s plane from the human one began to crack as the concentration he needed to maintain the quantamun fragmented. Select beings like angels and the Horsemen used the supernatural plane to move amongst humans at a different frequency, a million times faster than their eyes could see. Once it collapsed, he’d be visible to the humans.
A portable Harrowgate opened, and smoky shadows billowed out, followed by Thanatos. “What happened?”
“Reseph killed Sestiel, but not before the angel transferred the agimortus.”
“That’s good news. Why so glum?”
“Because he transferred it to a human.” A vision of Cara, shot through with one of Pestilence’s arrows, flashed in his head. And that was a best-case scenario. “Our Watchers said the agimortus isn’t meant to be borne by a human. It’ll kill her.”
Thanatos adjusted the weapons harness criss-crossing his plate armor. “What the hell was Sestiel thinking?”
Ares swallowed a curse. He’d been so busy hunting Sestiel that he’d not filled in his brother and sister on the hellhound crap. Quickly, he brought Than up to speed.
Than let out a low whistle. “Hellhounds don’t bond with humans. In all our time, I’ve never heard of one.”
“Tell the hellhound that,” Ares said sourly. “You got anything helpful, because I could use some good news.” He supposed it was good that Pestilence couldn’t sense Cara, but then, neither could Ares.
Styx tossed his head, and Than reached down to pat the stallion’s neck until he settled. “I did squeeze some information out of another of Reseph’s minions. He hasn’t located Deliverance, but he’s got demons digging up ancient burial grounds all over the world, and in a lot of places we’ve already been over while seeking Limos’s agimortus.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. It had taken centuries to even figure out what Limos’s Seal-breaker was. They’d finally determined that somewhere in the world was a small cup or bowl that, if drunk from, would break her Seal. They’d never found it.
Thanatos was the lucky one—his virginity was the Seal. Though if that could be called lucky… Ares shuddered.
“We’re too fractured,” Ares said. “We don’t have the manpower to search for Limos’s agimortus, locate Deliverance, and protect Cara. We’ve got to focus.”
“Cara then?”
He nodded. Even though her very presence would weaken him, he had to find her and keep her close. “She’s the priority, but I have a way to locate her. After that, we need to do everything within our power to protect her.” Ares exhaled on a long breath that was visible in the icy air. “I know myself too well, Than. If she’s killed and I go evil, nothing on this earth can stop me from wiping out every last remnant of the human race.”
Eight
Cara didn’t sleep. She couldn’t. In a daze, she’d called down to the B&B owner for an extra blanket, showered, tried to scrub the weird mark off her chest, and when that didn’t work, she’d put on pajamas and tried to call Larena again, but it figured that she was unreachable.
She sat on the creaky bed in her rented room and stared at the TV. BBC was covering rivers in Africa that were running red with poisonous algae, but Cara barely heard any of it. She was too numb, her mind disconnected from her ears. The last time she’d felt like this was after the breakin.
After she’d killed the man.
The official coroner’s report had cited heart attack, but she knew the truth. She’d seen a heart attack firsthand, when her father had collapsed in front of her.
God, she missed him. He’d loved her even if he’d been wary of her ability. All she’d have had to do was call, and he’d have been on the next plane out of the States.
His death, just one month before she’d moved to South Carolina, had crushed her. She’d only started to get her life back together when, four months after that, the men had broken in.
And now this. She’d finally lost her hold on reality.
Her cell phone rang, and she grabbed it off the nightstand. “Larena?”
“No.”
The deep, resonant voice echoed through her ears and brought an instant surge of both relief and anxiety. “Jeff?” she whispered.
“Where are you? I need to see you.”
See her? “This is going to sound crazy, but I saw you… or thought I saw you. Earlier. On a horse—”
“Cara, listen to me.” His voice was no-nonsense, sharp, commanding, and she couldn’t have put down the phone if she wanted to. “You’re in danger, and I have to find you. Your message said you were in England. Where?”
She shouldn’t say anything. She knew it. But at this point, she was desperate, with no one to turn to, and he was the only link she had to whatever was going on with the dog. “I’m at a B&B in York.” She fumbled through the bedside drawer for the brochure and gave him the address.
“Thanks.” He hung up before she could ask any more questions.
Now what? Even if he caught a plane right now, it would be late tomorrow afternoon before he could get to York. And did she truly expect any answers from him?
A knock on the door had her leaping off the bed. Calm down, just breathe. It’s just the extra blanket.
She opened the door. And stared in disbelief.
“Jeff—”
“Ares.” He stepped inside, ignoring the fact that she hadn’t invited him in. It didn’t escape her notice that he had to duck to avoid cracking his head on the doorframe. Or that his broad shoulders brushed the sides.
He couldn’t have gotten here that fast. And… Ares?
Unless he had been here. On the horse.
He closed the door quietly behind him, trapping her.
“Stay where you are.” She scooted around the bed, putting it between them. “Don’t touch me.”
Ares held up his hands in a nonthreatening gesture, but it didn’t help. If he wanted to, he could have her in two strides.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Cara. I’m here to help.”
“Can you wake me up? Because the only way you can help is if you wake me so this nightmare is over.”
“It’s not a nightmare. What you saw tonight was real.”
Her hand went to her chest, where the weird mark was throbbing. “So… some bloody guy branded me with his palm, and then you and some other guy came out of thin air, on horseback, and fought? Time stood still? I saw people turn into monsters? You really want me to believe that?”
“It would be helpful. Sooner would be better than later.”
She shook her head, even though denial was becoming something that wasn’t worth the effort anymore. This was all real, and she knew it.
Ares cocked an eyebrow. “You have another explanation for the mark you now have between your breasts?”
Of course she didn’t have an explanation. If an alien spaceship landed outside the window, she wouldn’t have an explanation for that either.
“Who are you?” She took in his combat boots, black leather pants, and black AC/DC tee beneath a black leather biker jacket. “Why would you be riding a horse and wearing armor?”
“We can discuss it after I get you to safety.”
“Are you mad?” She stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
His hand sliced through the air in a silencing motion, and he stalked to the window. “Have you seen any rats?”
Her mind spun at the sudden shift of subject. “Rats?”
“Rodents that resemble large mice.”
“I know what rats are,” she gritted out. “Why?”
“They’re spies.” He peered through the curtains into the darkness. Thick fog diffused the yellow lamplight, creating an eerie glow on the street below. “Have you seen any?”
Rodent spies? The man might be hot as hell, but he was a loon. As inconspicuously as possible, Cara inched toward the door. “I didn’t see any furry little James Bonds.” When he leveled a flat stare at her, she added, “Yes, there were things scurrying in the shadows, but I saw a lot of weird stuff tonight.” More inching.
“You won’t make it.”
“Won’t make what?”
His voice was a curious mix of bored and amused. “You won’t make it to the door.”
Yeah? Well, she could try. She measured the distance, figured she could sprint the rest of the way, but she froze solid when his massive body went taut. “What is it?”
“I heard a horse.”
She swallowed, remembering the scary white stallion with the malevolent ruby eyes. “A… bad horse?”
“Pestilence,” he hissed. Wheeling around in a blur of motion, he came at her. “We’re out of here.”
He threw out his arm, and a strange doorway of light appeared in the center of the room. His hands clamped down on her arms, and just as an ear-shattering boom rocked the building and an explosion of heat and fire roared at them, Ares dove with her into the light.
