Forgotten in Darkness (17 page)

“A what?” The mixture of hate and surprise on Kiersted’s face conveyed much about his relationship with his stepsister.

“It is what enabled her to execute that swan dive and survive.” He waved at the window.

“There’s nothing special about her. Maybe it has to do with the daemon encounter.”

“She is very important to me, and now our top priority. Are Zimeri’s men tracking her?”

“Yes, sir. I expect to hear from them soon. She can’t go far.” Kiersted removed his smart phone from his inside suit jacket pocket and scrolled the screen. “Nothing yet.”

“Did anyone else speak with her while she was here?”

“She was in the waiting room with that kid.”

“The magus candidate? Cy? Bring him in here.”

Several minutes later, Kiersted pushed Cy in front of Terek.

Terek rose from his chair and sauntered around the wooden desk. “Hello, Cy. What did you and Shay McGinnis speak about?”

“Who?” Cy stared blankly, but Terek didn’t miss a glimmer of something that passed through the kid’s eyes. Recognition? Or evasion? Exhilaration clamped in his gut. Finally, he was about to get somewhere with the runt.

“The woman who waited with you for a few minutes. Alone.”

“What happened to her?” Cy glanced at the broken window. “Did you kill her? Did you toss her out?”

“She jumped out the window.”

“She jumped? Is she dead, then?”

“She has a
bochnori.
”

Cy’s lips twitched in the corner as if he was about to smile. But he resumed his blank expression. “A what?”

Gotcha.
Terek smiled. “Play ignorant, if you like.” Terek rolled his watch to glance at its face. “In a little bit we will have a chat, and you are going to give me the information I seek.”

“I’ve told you before, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Terek switched to ancient Egyptian. “But you do know. I am certain of this because you are no longer concerned if she may be on her way to see Osiris. As you well know, a
bochnori
would do anything to save its master
.
I think the gods have reincarnated her, and granted her something extra this time.”
How fascinating.

Chapter Fourteen

Shay’s brain ordered her body to make a break for it, or at least let loose a scream to draw attention, but she stood there, dazed and staring. It wasn’t them. It was the throw-your-panties-off-gorgeous bad boy from her hotel room.

My God, this guy was a brick shithouse oozing don’t-screw-with-me vibes. And didn’t that just make her knees weak. She was so not a swooning type of girl.

Despite the warmth of the day, he wore a knee-length black leather jacket. No doubt, he was armed out the wazoo beneath it.

He subjected her to a scrutinizing once-over. A swirling black substance in his irises mesmerized her. She hadn’t noticed that last night.

What was this guy? Definitely not completely human. A month ago, she would’ve rationalized the sludgy black substance obscuring the real color of his irises into normalcy and remain in complete denial of anything amiss.

She wondered if this guy might just be the real deal—one of those mythical, sorcerer-like immortals obligated to fight daemons for all eternity. A Scimitar Magus. Shouldn’t he be a good guy? A hero figure? Why then did her intuition demand immediate evasion? For some reason, her gut equated this guy with death, but not random death. Hers.

His gaze locked onto her blood-soaked jeans. Air hissed between his teeth. “What happened?”

“I had a little accident.”

“Who did that to you?” His tone implied she had but to mention a name and he’d annihilate the being. He moved forward like a predator—slow and deliberate.

His glower suggested he was but a hair trigger away from exploding. She reversed. In an effort to halt his unhurried forward progress, she rushed out, “It was my fault.”

He halted. “You decided to mutilate yourself while fleeing those Hashishins.” He tossed her a skeptical glare. “I do not believe that to be truth.”

“How do I know you’re not one of them?”

He snorted. “Do I look like a coward that relies on dark magik and enjoys summoning daemons?”

Shay shrugged. She backed up another step when he moved closer. The sink dug into her back.

He rotated his inner wrists and held them up for her inspection. “Do you see any slashes? That is what those Hashishins use to power their spells.”

She sidestepped the sink and backed up another step.

He held up his hands palm open and took one step back. His tone softened. “I am not here to hurt you.”

Shay’s mind for some reason added
right now
to his sentence. She frowned, confused, and wondered where that had come from. “But you are after me for some other reason.”

His mouth twitched upwards and his gaze smoked. Her breath hitched and her nipples beaded against her shirt as her body prepared itself for what that smile promised.

Dakar watched as she pancaked herself against the wall. He may plan to kill her at some point in the future, but that didn’t mean he could ignore the need to protect her, and the surge of passion that ignited only for her. Every bit of nonessential blood in his body coalesced in his groin.

He tried to shake off the desire. That, he reminded himself, had to do with the curse. Bound to desire each other. Destined to hate. One must die.

It’s not real.
He thought it again. His body disregarded his brain and replayed naked memories.
Fuck. Do not forget who she is.
This woman had stabbed, shot, strangled, burned alive, decapitated, staked, drowned, and most recently poisoned him. He hadn’t been aware there was a potion that could kill a magus. Since it came from her hands with lethal intent, then for him, it was fatal. Would she attempt a repeat this time or something new?

But
…memory flashes swamped his brain. Naked. Pounding. Needing. Hell, this woman was the best sex ever. He amended that in his mind. She was the only sex possible—another screw-you aspect of their curse. That meant it had to be the best ever.

Yet, for some baffling reason she still had absolutely no memory of who he was. They had kissed and connected. Her memory should be unlocked. Instead, she reacted as if he was a random stranger who planned to ravish her in a stinky public lavatory.

His
bochnori
alerted him Hashishins lurked nearby. No time for sorting out the conundrum of her amnesia. “We but waste time here. They approach, and we must depart.”

She moved left and slammed into the wall as he stalked close. He scooped her into his arms.

She squirmed, fighting for freedom. Pain bit into his neck. He cursed when he realized she’d bitten him.

He resorted to throwing her over his shoulder. She responded by beating his back.

“Stop,” he ordered, “You are coming with me this time. It is not safe here.” He pushed out of the back door of the coffeehouse into an alley. Immediately, the zinging of the small throwing knives typical of Hashishins surrounded them. Her struggles ceased.

A left-to-right glance calculated at least ten Hashishins flanked both sides of the alley. He pulled out the lighter Khyan had gifted him and flicked it on. With a laugh, he controlled the flames, funneling them to hit the men barreling toward them. He heard the hiss of several knives before screams filled the air when fire took all of them from this life into the Middle Realm.

Dakar ran for the church across the street, entering on the heels of an elderly couple arguing over the architectural style of the building.

His
bochnori
signaled more Hashishins lurked in the area.
Seichim
allowed him to feel their filthy dark auras nearby.

How public were they willing to make their fight in order to kidnap Shay? More important to consider was why they were they so interested in her. Maybe Djoser had recognized her.
Damn.
How could she be so stupid as to waltz into his domain?

He rolled Shay from his shoulder into his arms and pulled her body into his chest to hide her bloody leg. Silently, he prayed she would stay quiet. A mammoth tattooed man with memorably streaky hair carrying a bloodied woman wasn’t going to remain incognito for long. With his luck, a bystander had probably already called local law enforcement.

He darted along the back of the church toward the door labeled
Offices
and pushed through a swinging door that entered into a parlor room. He lowered Shay as gently as possible onto a Spartan sofa.

She butt-scooted to the farthest end of the sofa the second he released her. With a moan, she gripped her side.

“What ails you?” he asked.

“Burns.” She placed her hand around a small knife that was embedded to the hilt in her side. In a shocked tone she said, “They got me.”

Without word of warning, Dakar gripped the knife and pulled it out, tossing it aside.

“Owww!”

He lifted her shirt, but she pushed his hand away. Impatiently, he said, “I need to view the damage.”

“Fine.”

As soon as he got a clear view and dabbed away some of the blood, a
bochnori
moved to encircle the wound that spurted blood.

Dakar jerked his hand away from her. “Where did you get that?” Only his family had that privilege. She wasn’t technically family since they were never together long enough to marry. The fact she had a moving mark was proof the gods were mucking around in his life. Would the
bochnori
let him touch her?

Shay glanced down. “You know what it is? It was on me when I woke up in the hospital in Cartagena. Really weird. It somehow enabled me to jump out of a third story window to escape Terek Nadir. I landed on my feet like a superhero.”

“Like a what?” He shook his head to shake off the question. “Who is Terek Nadir?”

“Head honcho at the Sanctum. Leader of the Hashishins.”

“You mean Djoser?”

“No. Calls himself Terek Nadir. Real freaky guy. I mean his eyes…they went all black.”

“He’s a daemon possessing a human body. Fortune may have smiled upon you today. You can thank your
bochnori
for that.”

“A daemon? They can possess? Was that thing you fought in Cartagena a daemon?”

“Yes. One of the gods must be watching over you to have escaped a daemon twice. They are deadly. Djoser, in particular.”

“What did you just do with that flame thing? You have a flamethrower hiding in your back pocket? What kind of idiot plays with a flamethrower?” She shifted and winced. “At least you got better clothes this time. No more pirate shirt.”

Dakar didn’t answer. He leaned close to scrutinize the tattoo, careful not to touch her. It blinked at him in the shape of the falcon. Ever so subtly it nodded its head as if agreeable to him assisting her.

Her face blanched. He recognized the signs of impending unconsciousness. She may have a
bochnori
for protection, but she didn’t have the regenerative ability of a magus.

“Do not fall asleep,” he requested softly.

“I’ll try. But…so light-headed.”

He bunched the corner of her shirt over the hole and wiped blood away for closer look. The purple darkening of the skin around the wound suggested the blade had been poisoned. He put her hand on top of the bunched up shirt and ordered, “Our time is limited before they will be upon us. Hold pressure on the wound. We must slow the bleeding.”

The newest Hashishin poisons were probably capable of faster fatality on humans than the last time he’d been here. But would they work on her? Was their curse in effect yet? His heart beat painfully fast and sweat trickled down his back.
You can’t die…not until you remember me!

How he wished Dr. Kira had tagged along for this trip. He shot a quick prayer to the gods, entreating they lock Shaiani to this world until he could get her to the healer, even though he doubted they cared for him beyond their entertainment.

Dakar yanked the cell phone from his coat pocket. He hit a few buttons and cursed, frustrated he couldn’t get the sequence right. He barely remembered what the cantankerous Javen had instructed when introducing him to the device. Eventually he keyed in the right string of numbers, and put the phone to his ear. He gave his location to Khyan.

As he leaned in to check the wound one more time, his shirt gaped open. She placed her fingers against the stylized scimitar blades inked on his chest.

“Where’d you get that tattoo?” She startled him by lifting the untucked hem of his T-shirt to look at his ribs and sighed as if relieved.

Dakar eyed her suspiciously. How could she recognize the Scimitar emblem, but not know it?

Come on. Remember me,
he thought loudly to her.

Nothing. He held back a frustrated string of curses that might terrify her.

She had to be his Shaiani. This close he wanted to remove her shirt. To look if her tattoo was there. The
shenu
just below her right breast.

Shay pulled out a pendant dangling from her neck, and turned the emblem for his inspection. In its dead center was an exact copy of the symbol on his chest.

A magus pendant?

Denial roared in his mind. That pendant signaled she already belonged to another magus. She was taken, soul-bound to another and off-limits. Five magi gave this symbolic necklace. He and his brother were not in that group.

In an icy tone, he snarled, “To whom do you belong?”
Whom do I need to kill?

“I don’t belong to anyone. Not anymore. Who are you? What’s going on? Why were you fighting that daemon-thing in Cartagena before it nearly killed me?” She moaned and grabbed her side.

“Did your magus die? How have you survived?”

“Magus? Whoa…think I’m delirious from blood loss—that’s what my Ph.D. is about. You probably didn’t even say
magus,
did you?”

“Who gifted you the pendant?”

“Feel dizzy.” She didn’t answer his question as she fell back against a throw pillow.

Gently, he brushed the hair from her eyes. “Stay awake,
sesen
. You shall make it through this.”

She glanced up at him, disoriented. “
Sesen
? As in lotus flower?”

“Yes. You speak Egyptian?” he asked distractedly as he wiped blood away from the wound on her side to look at it again. The purpled area had tripled since last inspection, and a band of skin directly around the knife entry had darkened to black. Bad sign. Lethal poison. For once, he hoped her protected from death by their curse. Only his strike could take her from this world.