"You never knew when to shut your mouth, Cajun." His voice was a guttural demonic growl.
"What are you?"
Ash looked down at his blue hands that were marbled by silver. His gaze was hazy now from the fire that swirled in his irises and pupils.
Closing his eyes, he shoved his emotions aside and returned to his human form. How he wished he could erase Nick's memory, but Nick was one of those one in a trillion people who were immune to Ash's mind manipulation. It was what had made them friends.
Unfortunately, Nick wasn't immune to Ash's god powers, and that was what had made them enemies.
"For your own sake, Nick. Stay away from me and never say Simi's name in my presence again."
Nick gave an evil laugh. "One day, Ash, I'm going to find a way to kill you for what you've done to the people I love."
"Don't threaten me, boy. You don't have those powers."
"It's not a threat," he said, his eyes burning. "It's a promise."
Ash growled low in his throat as he pushed his way through the frozen people.
"Keep walking, Ash. But remember when you feel my hand delivering the death blow to you that you're the reason I'm here."
Ash paused and turned toward him. "No, Nick. You're just another mistake Artemis has made that will cause me nothing but misery."
Nick grabbed a bottle from the table beside him and flung it at Ash.
Ash splintered the glass bottle before it reached him. The pieces hung silently in the air for a full ten seconds before they fell to the floor as harmless dust.
Turning on his heel, he headed for the door intent on putting as much physical distance between them as possible.
He was so intent, in fact, that he failed to notice the one person in the corner who wasn't frozen. The one person who had witnessed the entire encounter.
As the room returned to normal and Nick went back toward the bar, the woman in a dark wig smiled evilly.
Now this was something they could definitely use...
Satara flashed herself straight into Kalosis. For once, Stryker wasn't in the hall or "war room," as it had once been aptly called. In fact, the vast room was oddly empty, with his throne sitting alone on the dais.
The unexpected silence was eerie.
All of the Daimons who normally gathered here must be in their own homes, which lined the dark streets outside in this realm where sunshine was eternally banished.
Atlantean legend once claimed that this was the palace of Misos, the Atlantean god of death and violence. Archon, the peaceful king of the gods, created this realm to control Misos and keep him prisoner, along with all of his minions who preyed on both the Atlantean people and mankind.
Stryker's black throne of carved dragons, skulls, and crossbones had been fashioned by Thasos (the Atlantean personification of death) for Misos himself while he ruled over all the damned who were sent to Kalosis to be punished. Ultimately, Archon had even sent his queen, Apollymi, to this realm to be held so long as her natural son lived.
After her beloved son had died, Apollymi had left her prison in this realm and destroyed all of the Atlantean pantheon-just as the Fates had prophesied. And as she made her way across Greece, bent on destroying the entire world, somehow the Greek gods had found a way to return her to her prison in Kalosis.
No one knew how they'd done it and not once, in all this time, had any of them breathed a word of it.
But it wasn't long after her new incarceration began that Apollymi had mentally reached out of this prison and summoned Stryker to her so that she could teach him how to take human souls and save his people.
That had been a hell of a day...
And Satara was grateful her brother had lived, because through him, she had a shot of ending her enslavement as a handmaiden to Artemis once and for all. That was if she could find the missing bastard to tell him her news.
Knowing her time was extremely finite, she rushed through the rooms of the palace, looking for him.
Oddly enough, she found him where she least expected... his bedroom.