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When the wind abruptly changed directions, the scent of fresh blood speared through the chaos and panic of her mind, and yanked her body to a halt. The illumination was still there, still blinding her—even though she was no longer facing thesource—and she could sense thesymphath’s presence, looming in her wake. The blood, though…
“Gus?”she gasped as she wheeled back around.
Lowering her arms, she blinked fiercely—and could not comprehend what was coming toward her across the frost on the ground.
In the midst of the brilliance that threw no shadows and carried not one inch into the lunar-lit landscape, Blade’s body and red robes were an unmistakable black silhouette in the center of the halo. But unlike before, he was not alone.
In his arms… he carried a lifeless body.
“Gus!” she screamed as she started to run.
Thesymphathwas still a good distance off, a hundred yards at least. And the instant she called out and started racing toward him, toward the light, he stopped and stared at her.
As she closed in, his face became clearer to her, his expression locked into a mask that gave nothing away. And then, without a word, he bent down and laid out the remains on the lawn.
There was so much blood on Gus’s corpse that it glistened.
Blade straightened, looked at her one last time—and then he seemed to bow to her. After that, he was gone. Into thin air.
And he took the strange, holy light with him.
“Gus,”she choked out as she skidded up to the body.
Falling to her knees, her breath coming out in cloud bursts, she pulled Gus into her lap. With tears falling, she arched over him and wept for so much more than the death of a compassionate healer—
The cough wasn’t much. And at first, she thought she was the one who’d made the sound. But when it happened again and she realized it wasn’t her, she straightened a little.
Gus’s head had fallen back on her arm, and for a split second, the sight of his bruised and battered face was so horrific, she couldn’t think of what had gotten her attention.
But then his mouth, slack and open, clicked. As if his tongue had moved.
Lydia looked down at his bare, blood-slicked chest. By some miracle… the ribs expanded and contracted weakly.
“You’re alive?” Disbelief warred with confusion. But then she snapped to attention, whipped her head up, and screamed, “Heeeeeeeelp! Help me! Heeelp—!”
Whether it was from security monitoring, or her yelling, a guard came bolting out of the house, his hand locked on his communicator as he appeared to be barking orders into it.
“He’s alive!” she hollered. “He’salive…”
Lying in bed, Daniel heard the commotion out in the front of the house, and the scramble and voices were so loud, there was no mistaking that something was happening—and anyway, he’d been waiting for another dramatic interruption. After he’d left Lydia and C.P. up in that bedroom-oh-wait-maybe-it’s-an-ICU, he’d come down to find some sleep, but that hadn’t gone far. The sense that another shoe was about to drop had been like a prowler in the room with him.
And here it is, he thought, as he shuffled to his feet and went for his cane.
The magnitude of what was going on became apparent as soon as he opened the door: There was what sounded like a squadron of guards moving around out by the front entrance. But no alarms. No shooting.
So it wasn’t an attack. Or at least… not one that had reached the interior of the house yet.
In the foyer, the front door was open and four guards were standing in it, with guns drawn. As he came up to them, he expected an argument when went outside, but they just let him pass—and the lack of attention they paid to him was a loud-and-clear that he was too slow and infirm to be a concern. If they needed him out of the way, they’d move him. If they wanted him to stop, they’d hook his arm. If he got hurt? He was dying anyway.
Now he knew what being an eighty-year-old was like.
Heading under the overhang, he worked his way around the SUV and—
Lydia and a guard were closing in at a fast pace, and they were sharing a load: A body was strung between their arms.
Gus.
But why were they rushing? Dead bodies had no timeline to worry about—
