exaggerating about Ian’s teleporting skills. No wonder she and Bones hadn’t been able to keep or catch him.
“No great mystery as to where you were,” he replied. “Those sods,” a nod at the nearby bodies of two men with smoldering eye sockets, “were arguing about which of them would risk the rising sun to teleport down there and kill you. I stabbed their eyes out before they realized a vampire had teleported into their midst instead of one of their own kind. Almost too easy—”
“But how did you know I was in Mycenae?” I interrupted.
His turquoise gaze gleamed with emerald. “Think I didn’t know you’d flee the first chance you got? Didn’t expect the villa spell, but by then my tracker was already in place.”
I still felt like this couldn’t be real, but I began searching my jacket pockets for the tracker anyway.
He only winked. “If we were playing hot and cold, you’d be icy right now.”
“Then where is it?” I asked, still reeling.
“Don’t you have better things to fret about? Like, for instance, how two demons managed to ambush you so impressively?”
I already had a theory about that. “Dagon’s after the people I’m tracking. He must have seen the same video I did, that led me to this place. So, he sent two of his demons here to stake it out in case I showed up.”
Dagon must not want to face me himself yet. He must still be too weak, but that wouldn’t last. Someone as determined as Dagon would find ways to scrounge every bit of power he could. He obviously still held a grudge. Those demons hadn’t accidentally been carrying a weapon powerful enough to take down a tank when they came across me.
Ian grunted. “Right wanker this Dagon is.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered, a stab of memory causing me to push away from him.
“Careful,” Ian said when my preoccupation made me ignore the loose ground at my feet. I almost tripped, but I caught myself, then looked at the pile of rocks where the ancient wall used to form the cistern’s entrance.
These ruins had survived for several thousand years, but they weren’t the only priceless loss today. Four murdered people were still buried beneath this pile of rubble. Four innocent lives I might have saved if I’d been faster, smarter, stealthier . . . just more!
Now, all I could give them was the dignity of being found. I’d place an anonymous call to the Greek authorities later about them. It felt so inadequate, but aside from killing their murderer, I could do no more to help them.
To cover my lingering frustration and guilt over that, I kicked one of the demon corpses nearby. “That’s what you get for shooting at me with an anti-tank weapon,” I muttered. “Gods, I hate demons!”
“And I don’t fancy coppers, present company excluded,” Ian replied. “Place will be crawling with them soon since one of the detonations set off the museum’s alarm.”
Yes, I’d also heard the mechanical wail from the only modern building located within the ruins. Before I could reply, Ian vanished. He reappeared almost immediately, Silver tucked under one arm and my purse slung over his shoulder.
Then, he grabbed me and everything blurred again. When it stopped, a stunned glance revealed rows of tall stone columns from the Athenian goddess’s temple gleaming in the early light of dawn.
“Here we are,” Ian said, as if teleporting us over a hundred kilometers away, to the Parthenon, was nothing exceptional. Silver didn’t seem nonplussed by the swift, drastic change of location. When Ian let go of him, the Simargl scampered off to explore his new surroundings.
Then Ian smiled at me, enticing and oh-so dangerous to my still vulnerable heart. “Alone at last.”
Chapter 8
I backed out of his grasp. His smirk mocked the distance I put between us. Anger stifled the part of me that had been far too focused on how good his arms had felt around me.
“Don’t let your impressive new abilities go to your head,” I said in my coldest tone. I couldn’t let Ian know how he affected me. He’d only use it against me. “I might not be able to outrun you now that you can teleport, but there are many other ways I can still escape you.”
“All involving my intense pain, no doubt.” He sounded amused. “Tempting as that may be, you won’t need such measures. Earlier, you agreed to talk with me where the council couldn’t overhear us and Mencheres couldn’t interrupt us. This meets