The Darkest Whisper

“Those women…” she whispered.

“Are happy.” Confidence layered every syllable. “Had they not been so eager to be reunited with their men, they would have greeted you personally.”

“Do they know…?” Once again, she had trouble finishing her sentence.

“Oh, yes. They know their men are possessed by demons. Now come.” He waved his fingers.

Still she hesitated. “Where will you take me?”

Sabin pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. He was doing that a lot lately, it seemed. “Come inside or don’t, but I’m not waiting out here for you to make up your mind.” Angry footsteps, the slam of the door.

Anyone else he simply would have picked up and thrown over his shoulder, Paris suspected. Her, he allowed to choose. Smart of him.

The Harpy glanced left and right, and Paris braced himself to give chase. Not that he thought he could catch her if she decided to kick it into hyperdrive as she’d done inside that cavern. But he was prepared to fight her if necessary.

Another red flag started waving in his mind. She could get away, here and now. Even earlier, before they’d boarded the plane. Hell, she could have escaped while they camped in the desert. Why hadn’t she? Unless she was Bait, as he’d suspected, here to learn everything she could about them.

Though she had denied it, Sienna had been Bait. She’d kissed him even as she’d poisoned him—and she’d merely been human. What kind of damage could this Harpy do?

Let Sabin worry about this one for now. You have enough on your plate o’fuck.

Finally, she decided to follow Sabin and headed inside, her steps tentative.

“The prisoners are in need of interrogating,” Paris said to no one in particular.

Cameo flipped her dark hair over one shoulder and bent to grab her bag. No one tried to help her. They treated her like one of the guys because she preferred it that way. At least, that’s what he’d always told himself. He’d never tried to treat her as anything else because he’d never wanted to sleep with her. Perhaps she would have liked to be pampered upon occasion.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, her tragic voice nearly making his eardrums bleed. “I need to rest.” Without another word—thank the gods—she marched inside.

As well as Paris knew women, he knew beyond any doubt that she was lying. There’d been a sparkle in her eyes, a rosy flush to her cheeks. She’d looked aroused, not tired. Who did she plan to meet?

She’d been hanging with Torin a lot lately and…Paris blinked. No, surely not. Torin couldn’t touch another being skin to skin without infecting it with disease—as well as everyone that person encountered, causing a plague to sweep the land. Not even an immortal was safe from harm. That immortal wouldn’t die, but would become like Torin, unable to know the caress of another without severe consequences.

Didn’t matter what they were up to, really. He had work to do. “Anyone?” Paris said to those remaining. He wanted this shit over with, like, now. The sooner he finished beating information out of the Hunters, the sooner he could barricade himself inside his room and forget he was alive.

Strider whistled under his breath, pretending not to hear him as he edged toward the front door.

What the hell? No one appreciated violence better than Strider. “Strider, man. I know you heard me. Help me with the interrogation, yeah?”

“Oh, come on! At least wait until tomorrow. Not like they’re going anywhere. I just need a little me time to recover. Like Cameo, I’ll be ready to go bright and early. Swear to the gods.”

Paris sighed. “Fine. Go.” Were Cameo and Strider a couple, then? “What about you, Amun?”

Amun nodded his assent, but the action tossed his equilibrium into the shitter and he collapsed on the bottom step of the porch with a moan.

Barely a second later, Strider was at his side and wrapping an arm around his waist. “Uncle Stridey is here, don’t you worry.” He hefted the usually stoic warrior to his feet. Would have carried him if it had been necessary, but with Strider as a crutch Amun was able to throw one foot in front of the other, only stumbling occasionally.

“I’ll help with the Hunters,” Aeron said, stepping up to Paris. The offer surprised the hell out of him, truth be told.

“What about Legion? Girl probably misses you.”

Aeron shook his head. His hair was cropped to his scalp and that scalp glistened in the sunlight. “She’d be on my shoulders right now if she were here.”

“Sorry.” No one knew better than Paris how it felt to miss a female. Though he had to admit he’d been surprised to discover the wiry little demon was a female.

“It’s for the best.” A veined hand scrubbed Aeron’s tired face. “Something’s been…watching me. A presence. Powerful. Started about a week before we left for Cairo.”

Paris’s stomach tightened in dread. “First, you have a nasty habit of keeping that kind of information to yourself. You should have told us the first time you noticed it, just as you should have told us what happened with the Titans the moment you returned from your heavenly summons all those months ago. Whoever’s watching you could have alerted the Hunters about our trip. We could have—”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry. But I don’t think it, whatever it is, works for the Hunters.”

“Why?” Paris demanded, unwilling to let it go.

“I know the feel of those hateful, judging eyes on me and this isn’t like that. This one is…curious.”

He relaxed somewhat. “Maybe it’s a god.”

“I don’t think so. Legion isn’t afraid of the gods but she’s damn afraid of whoever this is. That’s one of the reasons she’s so amenable to going to hell for Sabin’s recon work. She told me she’d return when the presence was gone.”

There was worry in the guy’s tone. Worry Paris didn’t understand. Legion might have been a tiny demon with a penchant for tiaras—which they’d discovered not long ago, when she’d stolen one of Anya’s and paraded around the fortress in it, proud as could be—but she could take care of herself.

Paris turned in a circle, intent. “Is your shadow here? Now?” Like they needed another enemy. “Maybe I can seduce whoever, whatever, it is away from you.” And kill it. No telling what it had learned already.

A single shake of Aeron’s head. “I honestly don’t think it means us harm.”

He paused, slowly released a pent-up breath. “All right, then. We’ll deal with that later. Just let me know when it returns. Right now, we’ll take care of the dungeon full of shitheads.”

“You sound more human every day, you know that?” Aeron had said that before, but for once, he didn’t sound disapproving. There was a whistle as he unsheathed a machete from the loop at his back. “Maybe the Hunters will resist.”

“Only if we’re lucky.”

TORIN, KEEPER OF DISEASE, sat at his desk, but he faced the door of his bedroom rather than the monitors that linked him to the outside world. He’d watched the SUVs pull into the driveway and had instantly grown hard. He’d watched the warriors emerge and had had to palm himself to assuage the sudden ache. Watched as one by one they’d entered the fortress. Any moment and—

Cameo slipped quietly inside his chamber and shut the entrance with a soft snick. She flipped the lock, and for several ticks of the clock, kept her back to him. Long dark hair tumbled to her waist, curling at the ends.

Once, she’d allowed him to twirl a few of those ends around his gloveless finger, careful, so careful not to touch her skin. It had been his first true contact with a woman in hundreds of years. He’d almost come, just from the feel of those silky strands. But that small touch was all she’d permitted, all she could ever permit and all he could ever risk.

Actually, he was surprised they’d risked even that much. With his gloves on, sure. The chance of infecting her was nil. But tendrils against skin, silk against warmth, female against male? That required bravery and trust on her part and desperation and foolishness on his. Hair wasn’t skin, but what if he’d slipped? What if she’d fallen against him? For some reason, neither of them had been able to make the consequences matter.

Last time he’d touched a woman, an entire village had been wiped out. Black Plague, they’d called it. That’s what was inside him, swirling in his veins, laughing in his mind. For years afterward, Torin had scrubbed his skin until the black blood poured from him. Cleansing himself of the virus proved impossible, however.