"Oh," Amanda said, her eyes wide. "That's a big, bad thing. Glad she stopped him."
"So were the rest of the pantheon. But still, Apollo wanted vengeance. He banished the Apollites from the sun so that he would never again have to see one of them and be reminded of their treachery. Since they had made it appear as if a wild beast had killed Ryssa, he gave them animal characteristics. Fangs, honed senses-"
"What about their strength and speed?"
"They already had that, along with psychic abilities that Apollo couldn't take from them."
Amanda frowned at that. "I thought gods could do anything they wanted to. Isn't that the point of being a god?"
"Not always. They have laws and such they abide by, same as us. But in the case of psychic powers, once that channel is opened, it can never be closed. That's why Apollo didn't take his gift of foresight from Cassandra when she spurned him, but rather made it so that no one would believe her prophecies."
"Ah, that makes sense." Amanda took a drink of her Coke. "Okay, so the Apollites are psychic and strong, and can't come into contact with sunlight. What about drinking blood? Do they do that or not?"
"Yes, they drink blood, but only if it comes from another Apollite. In fact, because of Apollo's curse, they have to feed from each other every few days or they die."
"Ew," she said, wrinkling her nose. "That's nasty." She shivered at the thought of having to live that way. "Some of them do drink from humans, right?"
Julian hedged a bit. "Not exactly. If they turn Daimon, they will drain the blood from humans, but it's not the blood they're after so much as the human soul."
She arched a brow as a tingle went down her spine. Kyrian hadn't been joking about that aspect of them. Great. "Why do they need to steal our souls?"
"Apollites only live thrice nine years. On their twenty-seventh birthday, they die a very slow and painful death in which their bodies literally disintegrate into dust over a twenty-four-hour period."
This time she cringed visibly at the thought. "How horrible. I guess the moral of this story is not to tick off the god of plagues."
"Yeah," Julian said grimly. "To avoid their fate, most Apollites kill themselves the day before their birthday. Others decide to go Daimon. As Daimons they cheat their sentence by taking human souls into their bodies. So long as they maintain the soul, they can live. But the problem is the human soul can't live in an Apollite body and it starts to die almost as soon as they take it. As a result, the Daimons are forced to continue preying on humans every few weeks to sustain themselves."
Amanda couldn't imagine how horrible it must be for the people killed by the Apollites-to lose both their life and their soul. "What happens to the souls that die?"
"They're lost forever. That's why we have Dark-Hunters. Their job is to try and find the Daimons and free the souls before they expire."
"And they volunteer for this?"
"No, rather they're drafted."
Her frown deepened. "Drafted how?"
Julian took another drink of tea. His gaze fell to the floor and she saw a strange light in his eyes as if he were remembering something out of his own past. Something painful.
"When someone suffers a horrible injustice," he said, his tone low, "their soul makes a scream so loud that it resonates through the halls of Olympus. When Artemis hears it, she goes to the one who cried out and offers them a bargain. For a single Act of Vengeance against those who wronged them, they will swear allegiance to her and fight in her army against the Daimon predators."
Amanda breathed deeply as all the information swam in her head. "How do you know all this?"
Julian looked up and his gaze scorched her with its vivid intensity. "Because my soul made that sound the day my children died."
She swallowed at the hatred and pain she saw in his eyes. It was so raw, she hurt for him. "Did Artemis come to you and offer you the bargain?"
"Yes, and I refused her."
"Why?"
He looked away. "I needed vengeance against another god and I knew she couldn't allow that."
Amanda knew the story of Julian's entrapment inside the book all too well. But what interested her more was Kyrian. "Kyrian traded his soul for vengeance against his wife, didn't he?"
He nodded. "But don't judge him too harshly."
"I'm not," she said honestly. She didn't know what Kyrian had been through, but until she did, there was no way she would hold his decision over his head.