Kat paused as she thought back to the creature she'd been fighting. It'd been scary all right. "I assume you mean that... thing that attacked me."
"Yes. The gallu demons are running rampant now and the Dimme are about to go free and I'm the only person alive who can push them back. If I don't have my powers to fight them, the world is going to end. You remember what happened to Atlantis? This is going to make that look like fun and games."
"No offense, old man, Atlantis was destroyed before I was born, so I don't remember squat about it."
But she did know the stories of how the continent sank.
She sat still for a moment, thinking. She knew Artemis wasn't trustworthy. But she didn't know if the same was true of Sin. Was he feeding her a line or was there truth to what he said? "What about those people last night? Why did you behead them and then burn them?"
She realized that was the wrong thing to ask as his eyes flared murderous rage at her.
"You spied on me?"
"Artemis told me to, so yeah."
His rage was so potent, she could honestly feel it filling up the air between them.
"Don't look at me like that. I can spy if I want."
"And why did you spy on me?"
Kat squirmed a bit. Telling him that what Artemis had really wanted-his death-would most likely only piss him off more. So she opted for a more delicate explanation. "Artemis wanted to know what you were up to. She thought you were trying to kill her."
"Yeah, and as much as I want that bitch dead, right now I have bigger problem." He paused before he spoke again. "The reason I cut the heads off the gallu and burn them is that if I don't, they come back like a bad horror movie reject."
That at least explained part of it, but it didn't explain why he desecrated their victim.
"Why did you do that to the human?"
"Why do you think? One bite from the gallu and their victim becomes a mindless demon they can control. Desecration is far kinder than what they do to humans like her. Whenever a human dies by their hands, they have to be slain and dusted or they'll be back, too."
Oh... No wonder he'd been frantically searching her for a bite wound before he'd knocked her out.
"Is that why you burned your arm last night?"
He nodded. "If you can catch it early enough, you can cauterize the wound and stop the poison from spreading through your body."
Yeah, but that had to hurt and it made her wonder how many times he'd done that in the past. "Out of curiosity... does Artemis know about the gallu?"
"I don't know, Artemis. Do you?"
She sighed at his insistence that she was her boss. "I thought we'd gotten past this."
"Until I see conclusive proof, no. I stand by what I know about you, you bitch. Now give me my powers back."
Fury snapped through her veins at his denseness and insult. What was it going to take to make the man realize that she wasn't Artemis?
Break the net and then break his bead...
That urge was so strong that it was all she could do not to yield to it.
"Katra?"
Kat jerked at the sound of Artemis's voice in her head.
"What's going on? Why are you so angry? Is Apollymi bothering you?"
Kat rolled her eyes. "Stop spying on me."