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Crux replied as he peered into the box. “Our uncle Eidolon developed a drug that helps us survive for a couple of days.”
“Survive,” Logan reminded him. “Not thrive.”
Logan could recall several times, both before and after Chaos’s death, when Stryke had been so deep in an episode they’d had to hold him down and force an injection just to keep him from going insane. Or dying. And several other times when they’d brought him females after the injections stopped working, and he’d become mad with pain and delirium.
Logan had no idea how Stryke was still alive without his family and friends to force injections or bring him females. Masumi, probably. Or maybe he paid someone. That sounded about right. He threw money and insults at everything.
Crux reached into the box and held the controller out to Eva. “He anointed you Pilot Queen.”
“Hold on.” Logan confiscated the device before Eva could take it. “We still don’t know anything about this.”
She looked at him. “We know we’re out of time. I don’t know Stryke personally, but I do know the tech he develops works.” She gave a sheepish shrug. “Mostly. There were those few incidents—”
“You mean like when a defective demon detector at the US embassy in Sweden melted the werewolf Australian Ambassador? Or when a half-demon lawyer who represented demon clients was decapitated by a courthouse security system in Argentina?”
“Well, yes, those are the incidents I was talking about.” Her annoyed glance amused him. “But what choice do we have?”
She was right, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Draven, paired with Lilith, was a deadly, dangerous combination, and Draven wouldn’t stop until Eva was dead, or he was strapped down on a ritual table next to his parents and a demon priest.
But Logan didn’t want to risk Eva’s life with Stryke’s sketchy new tech. “I’ll do it,” he said, but Crux gave him an are-you-kidding-me look.
“You can’t. Only Eva can. Stryke said so. She’s The Anointed One.”
The kid needed to come down from the clouds. “Crux, man, I know you believe in your brother—”
Eva clamped her hand down on his forearm. “Can I talk to you for a minute? In private?”
“Sure.” He let her lead him to the kitchen.
“Look.” She turned him, a bundle of strength and determination despite the exhausted shadows in her dark eyes.“I know you want to take all of this on your shoulders, but you’re the only one who can handle Draven. Don’t worry about piloting the remote. It’s something I can do. After everything The Aegis has done, this is something Ineedto do. Let me.”
“If anything happens—”
She put a finger to his lips, shutting him up. “Then at least we tried.”
Man, this woman was amazing.
Harvester, I know you can’t be dead. And I know you said if I was dense, you’d send me a sign when I found the right mate for me. You don’t need to send a sign. I’ve found her.
While Logan contacted his DART people and family to coordinate a battle plan, Eva familiarized herself with the tech Stryke had sent.
Crux took her to the game room, figuring she’d be most comfortable there in a chair designed for piloting a virtual craft. Pretty cool. She’d been so busy with her journalistic life that she’d neglected the part of her that loved playing in virtual reality and losing herself in the flow of another world. It was so, so easy. Because real life was just so awful sometimes.
She sank into the chair meant to simulate the cockpit of anything from a fighter jet or starfighter to a race car. What the guys living here had set up was pretty extraordinary. Sure, virtual and mixed reality was a big thing, making leaps and bounds tech-wise over the past couple of decades, but most people didn’t have the kind of space these guys did. This heavily padded room would allow them to play across huge spaces, like a holodeck fromStar Trek.
But she wasn’t playing a game right now, and that realization hit her hard as she gathered the controller in her hands. This was real life. This washerlife. If this failed, she could die. Draven could die. Heck, for all she knew, she could blow up the entire house.
Well, she’d always loved a challenge.
Determined to win the game, she pushed the A button on the controller. A sudden, mind-numbing jolt snaked through her temple at the site of her comms’ chip implant.
Then, standing in front of her in 3D transparency, was Stryke.
“Hey. Whoever you are, you’re getting ready to hunt Draven. And for the record, I always liked him, so I hope you’re successful. Anyway, here’s the deal. You’re going to guide a…let’s call it a bubble. It’s a grain of matter that operates in an alternate dimension, in a space between the demon realm and ours, but that’s not important. Your bubble is going to seek out the specific person programmed into the controller. There are limitations, though. It can only find Draven if he’s in the human realm. If he’s in Sheoul, the bubble will just circle around aimlessly and eventually self-destruct.” He hesitated. “Probably.”
“What’s going on?” Crux asked. “What do you see?”
Eva smiled at Crux’s enthusiasm. “It’s Stryke. He’s explaining how to use the device.”
