inky gulf below them.
Silence.
He nodded for a third time, and they burst simultaneously into the dark basement. Shots, accompanied by flashes, bangs, and shouts, echoed off the stone walls as a large black shape hurtled between them, knocking them to the hard cement floor.
Poole lost control of his gun. It clattered as it hit the unforgiving ground. The flashlight went flying, illuminating isolated objects as it spun, the floor, the wall, Cole’s white face. She was groping for her own weapon, lost somewhere in the murk behind her. The flashlight came to rest against the wall. Its light reflected off the brick and revealed their attacker.
Gideon Damek.
His face, highlighted by the reflected light, shone like a macabre mask in the blackness.
He grabbed Poole by the throat, choking him. Poole clawed at the other man’s large hands. God, he was strong! Each of Damek’s fingers was a steel manacle constricting around Poole’s windpipe. As he struggled to breathe, Poole’s raspy, desperate coughs seemed to come from far away. Tears of pain streamed from his eyes. The edges of his vision fogged. He was dying. He kicked out at Damek. The blow landed with a thump, but it was like kicking granite. The man didn’t even flinch. As the fog expanded and finally swallowed him, Poole heard a shot ring out.
He barely restrained a laugh as he bolted into the cool embrace of the summer night. Blood dripped from his shoulder, but it was easily replaced. The policewoman probably thought he had run off because he feared her weapon. He feared nothing and no one except the dawn.
They had no idea how lucky they were to still be breathing. How the rush of their blood called to him. How he longed to feel the warm, rich spurts upon his tongue, to glut himself on the delicious fluid. If only he didn’t need the pathetic fools. Even now he could imagine the ecstasy of draining the last embers of life from their twitching corpses. He shivered. Oh, the power, the pleasure of the Claiming, how he loved it. Even the taste of blood could not compete. Unlike Gideon, he was not restrained by some fatuous notion of morality. A notion his enemy had not espoused as a human.
He smiled, and felt his eyes flame, not with bloodlust this time, but with anticipation. He was so close to his goal. It wouldn’t be long now. Soon he would have power such that would make the Claiming seem like nothing but a cheap thrill.
If only Inanna were here to share his triumph.
Hatred seethed through him. It was Gideon’s fault he was alone. Everything was Gideon’s fault. It was long past time for his enemy to pay for his crimes.
Thalia fought to wake up. There were things she had to do. Gideon to find, a murderer to stop, but the tentacles of unconsciousness wrapped around her, burying into her flesh, unwilling to let her go, and she lapsed once more into fevered dreams. A swirl of images solidified into another place and time, all at once foreign and familiar.
She walked down a long, smoky hallway lit with flaming reeds and approached the throne, falling to her knees and laying down her heavy basket in front of the pharaoh and his guest, keeping her eyes carefully downcast.
“Is she to your liking?” Pharaoh’s tone was idle, but his deep voice sent a shiver down her spine. The attention of the god/king could be very dangerous. She, a mere slave, had never thought to draw his awesome gaze.
“She is beautiful,” his guest observed.
Thalia hid a gasp. It wasn’t his words that startled her, but the godlike timbre of his voice. Even Pharaoh’s voice could not match its majestic resonance. Her eyes skimmed up across the stranger’s face before she remembered herself and glued her gaze back on the stone floor.
Who was this man who dwarfed Pharaoh?
His commanding presence implied he was at least a king, but she had not heard of a visiting king, nor seen the extensive entourage traveling royalty would require.
“You have served us well. She is yours.”
Thalia bit her lip. Her breath came fast. Three words and her life had changed.
“I’m honored by your generosity.”
“Her name is Neferet.”
Thalia opened her eyes and stared into the darkness, her heart still pounding within her chest. The dream had seemed so real. Her breathing slowed. She could hear Spirit snuffing softly in his sleep.
Only a dream.
She’d had vivid dreams before. The one she’d had the night before she met