This time Inez allowed Mike to pull her into a hug. Damali watched as her best girlfriend melted into her Guardian brother's bearlike embrace. She knew the terror and could feel it stabbing into her chest as Inez's breaths shuddered, making her back expand and contract in uneven bursts.
But the question of logistics shimmered in each Guardian's eyes. How wasthat going to work-two civilians in a compound . . . a toddler and a grandmother, Inez's mom, who hadn't a clue about all this supernatural shit? The only thing that Mom Delores, as she was affectionately called, knew was that her daughter was on tour with a hot band, was on the road, and that Damali was treating her and her grandchild to the best of everything.
The poor woman had no clue that she'd been living under the watchful eye of Covenant clerics, or that every fabulous house she'd moved into had been previously anointed for safety.
Damali wiped her palms down her face.Jesus . Carlos couldn't even do a clean, fold-away sweep to pick them up because Mom Delores would have a damned heart attack for sure. Yeah, right, a silver-eyed brother would just swoop into her house and fold her into nothingness with her granddaughter-and the poor baby . . . lord have mercy. Ayana might be scarred for life or left catatonic behind all of that! Which left only one way to go get them: Mike and Inez would have to split off from the team to collect civilians, but then what? And how dangerous was that, given that daywalkers had just shown up on the planet?
Plus, there was that terrible thing that neither she nor Carlos had wanted to think about, much less even discuss, since they'd walked out of the Judean Desert: They'd both seen Lilith's progeny fly away. . . . Without question, that was the Devil's spawn. The silent prayer she'd said months ago filled Damali's entire being:Please, God, let her prayers be answered -letHannibal have gotten that nasty little disease-carrying critter. If it wasn't exterminated by the Neteru Councils, then it could be somewhere, anywhere, churning out daywalkers with its infectious, immediate-turn bites.
For the moment there were no answers. The most she could do was listen to the coffee brew as the Guardians finally sat down with a thud one by one, the magnitude of what they faced weighed heavily on them all.
He had screamed until he'd blacked out. In the back of his mind he heard the titter of Harpies that were still near enough to taunt him. He tried to open his eyes and the glare of sunlight blinded him. Nuit shielded his face with his forearm and rolled over, then covered his head with both arms. Moist earth and freshly mown grass filled his nostrils with the pungent scent of morning dew . . . and life. Suddenly he realized that he wasn't on fire. There was no pain. He slowly removed his arms from his head and opened his eyes. Through his tear-blurred vision as he lifted his head, he saw his oldNew Orleans mansion, fully restored to its preflood splendor.
His right hand became a fist, and he pressed it to his mouth to stem the sob. He knew that Lilith's cruelty knew no bounds, but to bring him here, at dawn, and to stem the pain temporarily just to tease him before letting him explode into an inferno . . . Nuit hung his head and wept.
"Darling, you are much too paranoid," Lilith murmured, materializing beside him. "I had to wait until you'd collected yourself-you made such a fuss about this timeless gift I was trying to bestow upon you that I had to restrain you before you hurt yourself." She stroked his profusion of disheveled onyx curls and laughed as he jerked away from her caress.
"Just do it!" Nuit shouted and glared at her. Battle-length fangs filled his mouth, but he knew better than to attempt an attack-that would only prolong the punishment.
"I already did," she murmured, a wry smile gracing her beautiful face. "Do you like the morning, lover?"
His confused expression made her laugh again and then she leaned over and brushed his mouth with hers. "Daywalker," she crooned. "How does it feel, Fallon?"
"Non. . ."Nuit tumbled backward and then flexed to a quick stand. "You lie."
Lilith smiled and stood with easy grace. "Normally, I do-and thank you for the rude compliment. But this morning, it's true. That was one hell of a battle atMasada .Lu loved it."
"He gave you the key . . . the-"
"Uhmmm-hmmm.Even Dante couldn't deliver for him like I could. He was very,very pleased. For your loyalty, I have decided to share his gift with my councilmen."
"You created the Antichrist?" Nuit's voice was a harsh whisper of disbelief.
"Who better than the Devil's wife, I ask?"
Nuit covered his mouth and began to pace with one hand behind his back as though he'd been stabbed. He trudged back and forth beneath the grand bows of the dogwood trees, disturbing the drapes of Spanish moss with each pass. Tears streamed down his face as he stared at the antebellum structure that had once been his original lair, hundreds of years of memories cascading through him with such exquisite pleasure that he was forced to close his eyes. After a moment, he turned and stared at Lilith, finally understanding. He said nothing, just dropped to his knees before her and opened his arms, bottom lip trembling.
She smiled and slowly walked forward. "Yes," she murmured inDananu . "I thought you might like it after all. No more attempted coups.Deal?"
It was the cruelest of all punishments he could have ever envisioned.Death by daylight. Sebastian kept his eyes squeezed shut as he scuttled into a nearby shadow provided by an abandoned barn. Open, sun-drenched farmland sprawled before him; not even the cover of shrubbery would give him scant oasis between this human-forsaken building and the dense tree line hundreds of yards away.
Terror constricted his lungs as dust motes danced in the shards of light, taunting his intrusion. His gaze tore around the structure-there was no haven. Light found every crevice in the dilapidated wood frame. Pools of the insidious toxin blanched the barn's floor. He looked up, and to his horror, the roof was mostly gone . . . by noon, there wouldn't even be a corner left to cower in. Burning slowly was imminent.
Bereft, Sebastian slumped against the wall, pulling his shredded council robes around him like a blanket. He sensed the earth and closed his eyes. Lilith had brought him home toBulgaria , how fitting. Once top advisor to the czar he'd betrayed, he would not even be allowed to return to the royal palace within the belly of Mother Russia. Instead he'd be left to turn to ash in a remote hole in the wall . . . left like a vagrant, a lower-level vampire who had lost his bet with the sun.
A mournful wail began the sobs as he remembered his old power, but the slow clucking sound of feminine amusement made him open his eyes and jerk his attention toward the far side of the barn. Fury replaced defeat and he wiped his face so bitterly that he drew blood under his left eye.
"I thought you might enjoy an old-fashioned breakfast of farm maidens in the old country-the way it used to be done, love," Lilith said with a sly smile. "The next farm down the road is fully occupied, but you were in such a state unbecoming to a councilman that I thought it best to bring you here until you'd collected yourself."
"Do not make the indignity of this all the more intolerable!" Sebastian shouted, bearing fangs. "To tease a dying man with the thought of food . . . to say it is merely a few miles acrossan abyss of sunlight-is there no mercy in your black heart?"
"None whatsoever," she murmured and then blew him a kiss. "But I do feed my pets, darling." She released a bored sigh. "Haven't you noticed that you're not even smoldering?"
Sebastian glanced around at the places on his body that sunlight touched and tried to squeeze himself farther into the impossible corner he'd been standing in.
"Just be done with it," he said, voice quavering. "Please."
"I heard Dracula's castle is up for sale," Lilith remarked coolly, studying her manicure as she blithely changed the subject. "I thought that after breakfast you might want to stop by the fourth-century Thracian tombs in Topolchane-they found golden masks there, you know . . . and then we might go get you that castle you've always coveted. But if you don't stop behaving like a big baby, none of that will be possible."