"Then what's the harm in my staying if it's only a dream?"
Zakar shook his head. "You don't know what you're doing."
"Yes, I do," Sin said emphatically. "I'm protecting my brother."
"One quick question?" Kat asked, distracting the two of them. "Can you kill the gallu in this realm?"
"No," Zakar said. "Why?"
Kat pointed behind the men. " 'Cause they're here."
Sin braced himself for the coming fight, but strangely, Kessar didn't make any moves toward him.
Instead, he stared at Zakar with a twisted half smile. "I see you found my pet, Nana." He returned his gaze to Sin and his face turned to stone. "And my brother."
Sin shrugged in feigned sympathy. "He attacked us," he said sarcastically. "What was I supposed to do? Invite him to dinner?"
"You were supposed to die." Kessar narrowed his eyes on him. "It would have been a good start."
Sin shook his head. "I don't know. I die, you get bored. World ends. Doesn't really fit, does it? Besides, I can't make things too easy on you. What's life without pain?"
Kessar's gaze went back to Zakar. "That's a question best answered by the pet, isn't it?"
Fury darkened Sin's gaze as he saw the shame on Zakar's face, but before he could move to retaliate, Zakar blasted the demon.
Kessar turned it away with a wave of his hand. "Don't you ever learn, dog?"
Zakar glared at him. "I will fight you till I die."
Kessar laughed. "Oh, you're going to die all right. All of you. And for what you've done to my brother you will suffer unimaginably."
"Yada yada yada." Kat slowly enunciated each word before she looked at Sin as if bored by their exchange. "Am I the only one who gets sick of the bad-guy monologue?" She held her arms out like a zombie and mocked Kessar's accent. " 'Ooo, I'm the big evil. I'm going to kill you all. Just wait while I bore you to tears with my egomaniacal bullshit. I'm just a demon windbag who likes to hear himself speak and I'm trying to intimidate you.' "
She looked back at Kessar and put her arms down. "Really, if that's the case, you need to stop letting your mother dress you funny. It's hard to take anyone serious as a killer when he looks likes an investment banker. The only part of me that's nervous is my checkbook."
Kessar ran his tongue over his fangs as he eyed her as if she were a tender niblet. "Your girlfriend has quite a mouth, Nana. I'm going to enjoy shoving her words down her throat."
Sin glared at him. "Not nearly as much as I'm going to enjoy killing you."
Kat rolled her eyes. "What is this? A hen party? For a couple of guys, you're talking more than an episode of Oprah. If we're going to fight, let's fight."
Zakar frowned at her. "So eager to die are you?"
Kat shrugged. "Not particularly, but I'd rather go down clubbing Kessar than from boredom."
Suddenly there were four dozen Kessars all around them.
Kat cursed as she realized she might have spoken too soon. This could get ugly-and given the number of Kessars present, that was putting it mildly-fast.
"Yo, Toto," she said to Sin, "I'm having a bad Matrix II flashback and hearing Mr. Anderson in my head from that guy who was the elf in Lord of the Rings."
Sin arched a brow. "Orlando Bloom?"
"No, the other one."
Without warning, Kessar started for her. Kat moved to attack him, but before he reached her, she was jerked out of the way.
All of a sudden, someone was shaking her. Hard.