The Dark-Hunters (281 page)

She lunged at him only to run into what appeared to be an invisible wall that surrounded him. She struck out at it, but it didn’t budge.

“I can’t die, Danger,” he said ominously as he watched her from behind his force field. “But you can, and believe me when I say that dying as a Dark-Hunter seriously sucks.”

She slammed her hand against the invisible wall, curling her lip at him. “You’re asking me to betray my brethren for personal salvation? Forget it. Fuck you and Acheron.”

“No,” he said in a sincere tone as he shook his head. “I’m asking you to save them. If we can convince them to trust you and believe me, and accept that Kyros is lying, then they can go home and all of this will be nothing more than a bad dream.”

“And if we don’t?”

“They’re history.”

Disgusted with him, she pulled back. “You know, you could show a little more compassion when you say that. Don’t we mean anything to you? To Acheron?”

She felt a slight shift in the air, as if the wall were gone now. Alexion stared at her with those eerie green eyes.

“Acheron most definitely cares. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t be here now, and all of you would be dead already. He doesn’t need
me
to kill them. He can do it without breaking a sweat. Believe me, I gain no personal pleasure in the killing either. Likewise, I’m ambivalent as to who survives and who doesn’t. This isn’t a game to me. Nor is it the end of the world.”

She swallowed against the painful lump in her throat that had appeared at the thought of her friends dying. “They are all worth saving.
All
of them. You have no idea how hard it is to be one of us. We are created and then abandoned. Some of us go decades, even longer, without a single word from Acheron. None of us ever see Artemis again—”

He snorted evilly, interrupting her. “Count your blessings there.”

She paused at his rancor as Stryker’s words about Artemis’s death came back to her. “Artemis is still alive?”

“Oh, yeah. Believe me, she’s alive and well and in Acheron’s face daily.”

For some reason, that made her feel better—provided Alexion wasn’t lying. “Then she does care about us.”

“No,” he said bitterly. “She cares about Acheron. The rest of you are here so that she can control him. It’s why she continues to create new Dark-Hunters to replace those who go free. The day Acheron stops caring about the lot of you is the day Artemis will turn her back on you and most likely you’ll all drop. So don’t ever tell me that Acheron doesn’t give a damn about you, when I see the toll the lot of you take on him every day.”

His words hung in her mind. Could it be true?

Knowing Ash, it seemed a lot more plausible than him being a Daimon.

Well, sort of. But then again the Daimon theory was remarkably sound too.

If only she knew who to trust.

Alexion moved to stand just before her, so close that she could feel his breath falling against her cheek. “You have a decision to make, Danger. Are you going to help me save a few Dark-Hunters or do I kill them all now and go home?”

Chapter 6

Stryker sat in the dark library of his home in Kalosis—the Atlantean hell realm—with his second-in-command standing before his immaculate ebony desk, watching him. The surface of the desk was so shiny that it reflected the candlelight with an eerie glow that danced around them.

Sadness settled heavily in his heart as he remembered a time when it would have been his son, Urian, who was plotting with him this night.

Urian. The mere thought of his once beloved son was enough to cripple him. Urian’s loss still ate away inside him like a festering disease that nothing could cure.

And it was all because of Acheron that he had killed his beloved son. His heir. His heart. There was nothing left inside him now except hatred and a need for vengeance so profound that it made a mockery of the betrayals that caused humans to become Dark-Hunters.

He wanted Urian back. Nothing could appease the emptiness that his son’s death had left. Nothing could quell the vivid memory of the hurt and betrayed look in Urian’s eyes the instant Stryker had cut his throat.

Stryker ground his teeth as grief tore through him anew. How he wished he could take back that moment.

But it was done and he couldn’t live until he had made sure that Acheron knew this pain firsthand. That Acheron suffered out his eternity in bitter anguish. Something that was made more difficult by his need to make it all happen beneath Apollymi’s radar.

When you served a goddess, it was difficult to find time for personal revenge that she’d probably disapprove of. But Stryker would be unstoppable until everyone Acheron held dear lay permanently dead in their graves. Already he had caused the death of Nick Gautier and his mother, Cherise.

There were only three others who meant anything to the Atlantean prince. The Charonte demon, Simi, who would be virtually impossible to kill—but then, where there was a will, there was always a way. The human child, Marissa Hunter, and Alexion.

He’d almost succeeded in capturing Marissa a few months back in New Orleans. Unfortunately, his attempt had failed, and for the time being Acheron’s guard was up where the child was concerned. Yet there would come a time when his guard would relax.

Then the child would be vulnerable again.

But when it came to Alexion …

Acheron thought his right hand could take care of himself. That pomposity was what would be both their undoing.

“Acheron a Daimon.” Trates laughed as he picked up the sfora that Stryker used so that he could watch those in the human realm.

The blond man before him, like all Daimons, was well over six feet tall, incredibly good-looking, and in the height of his youth. It was the curse of their ancient Apollite race that no one could live past their twenty-seventh birthday.

At the hour that marked their birth, they began to slowly, painfully disintegrate into dust. The only way to avoid that fate was to begin feeding on human souls. Whenever an Apollite decided to feed on souls rather than to die, he was termed a Daimon and cast out of the Apollite mainstream. Most Apollites feared Daimons as much as humans did, though he’d never understood why.

Very few Daimons ever preyed on their own.

It was after the conversion to Daimon status that the Dark-Hunters were sent in by Acheron to kill them and free the stolen souls before they died.

Pitiful wretch, he sided with the humans and not the Daimons. If Acheron were smart, he would have been on their side. But for some reason Stryker had never understood, Acheron sided with a race that would try to destroy him if they ever learned who and what he was.

What an idiot.

Trates rolled the sfora in a small circle over the polished desk. “I have to say,
akri,
that was a good one. The Dark-Hunters are truly too stupid to live.”

Stryker leaned back in his black leather chair as the corners of his lips lifted in memory of his lies. “I wish I could take credit for that one, but alas it was a Dark-Hunter who inspired that rumor somewhere around five or six hundred years ago.”

“Yes, but you were the one who invented the whole war between him and his supposed mother. I think Apollymi would be highly offended to learn that you dared to say she had birthed one of Artemis’s servants.”

The smile froze on Stryker’s face. Little did Trates know, that was exactly what he suspected. Although Apollymi refused to admit it, he had begun thinking she was Acheron’s mother the night Urian had died. Why else would Apollymi forbid him from killing Artemis’s servant?

Artemis held Acheron’s soul. Acheron was sworn to her service and spent all of his time fighting the very beings who served Apollymi. Given the Destroyer’s profound hatred of Artemis, it would seem only natural that they would be sent out to kill Artemis’s favorite boy toy.

And yet the only time one of Stryker’s Daimons had hurt Acheron, Apollymi had viciously gone after all of those responsible. Even now his people lived in fear of reawakening her wrath. Not that he blamed them. Apollymi, much like him, lived for brutality.

Of course, he had no real proof of his suspicion where Acheron was concerned. Not yet. But if he was right and Acheron was Apollymi’s lost son, then Stryker would have the power to finally destroy the ancient Atlantean goddess. With her gone, he would rule Kalosis and all the Daimons who made this realm their home.

He would have unrivaled power. There would be no one to stop him from enslaving the humans.

The world of man would be his …

He could already taste the sweetness of victory.

“Apollymi isn’t to learn of this,” Stryker said sternly to Trates. “I will tell her about the Dark-Hunter insurrection after they are all dead.”

Trates frowned. “Why wouldn’t you tell her now?”

He feigned nonchalance. “She has her mind on other matters. I think this should be a surprise for her, don’t you?”

His minion paled at the thought. “The goddess doesn’t like surprises. She was rather upset with us over the ‘surprise’ destruction in New Orleans.”

That was true enough. Stryker had sent in his Spathi Daimons and they had wrought terror for a few weeks, only to have Acheron save the pitiful humans in the end. Damn him. He’d cost Stryker many a good Daimon that night, including Desiderius. But it wasn’t the destruction that had made Apollymi angry, it’d been Desiderius’s attack on Acheron she reacted to.

But Trates didn’t know that. Only Stryker knew the real source of Apollymi’s anger.

“Yes, but she’s calmed down and is now quite content again.”

Trates looked less than convinced as he returned the sfora to its gilded stand. “So what are your orders?”

“For now, we continue to play nice with the Dark-Hunters. Let them see our good side.”

“We have good sides?”

Stryker laughed. “No, but as you said, the Dark-Hunters are too stupid to see otherwise. They will believe our lies for now and allow some of our newer members to hone their skills.”

Trates nodded, then took a step back as if to leave.

“There is a new priority though.”

Trates paused to look back at him. “And that is?”

“Kill the Alexion.”

Trates looked startled by the order, but he quickly recovered himself. “How?”

A slow smile spread across Stryker’s face. “There are two ways. We can either make him kill himself or we let the Charontes do it.”

Neither method would be easy. And he could tell by Trates’s expression that his second-in-command was weighing both courses of action with equal trepidation.

“How do we get the Charontes to kill him?” Trates asked.

“That’s the tricky part, isn’t it?”

Stryker considered his options. Unless he could get Apollymi to cooperate with him by allowing one or two of her pets to leave the Atlantean hell realm that made up their home, there was no way to get them to the Alexion. That would be damn near impossible. The Destroyer seldom allowed her Charontes out of Kalosis.

Then again, there were some of the Charontes who held no love whatsoever for the goddess who controlled them. Some who might be willing to do his bidding for a chance to be free …

Trates didn’t even acknowledge that option. “How can you make someone kill himself?”

Stryker gave a short laugh at that. “Normally, you would have to destroy their will to live. Or give them a damn good reason to die.”

Trates looked even more confused. “What could make an Alexion want to die?”

“Kyriay ypochrosi,”
Stryker said, using the Atlantean term for “noble obligation.” “He is as soulless as the Dark-Hunters he protects. If you inject a strong soul into a Dark-Hunter, it will take him over, but if you inject a weak one…”

“He will hear it begging for mercy.”

Stryker nodded. That was the hardest part about turning Daimon and it was one of the reasons why they avoided weak souls. The constant whining for compassion was enough to drive even the strongest of them to madness.

But his people had a slight cushion; they still possessed their own souls that could silence the whine. Alexion and the Dark-Hunters didn’t. They had nothing inside to overcome and quell the invading soul.

Nothing to absorb the new life force.

The pathetic cries would incapacitate the Alexion, who would have no choice except to either kill himself to free the soul or condemn that soul to die.

If nothing else, it would be an interesting experiment.

Would the Alexion stand by and let the soul die or would he end his own life to save an innocent?

Chapter 7

Danger stood in the hallway of her house, watching Alexion who was in her kitchen. She’d excused herself to go to the bathroom—not that she had to go so much as she just needed a break from the intensity of his presence. And to be alone while she sorted through all the information he’d dumped on her.

She didn’t know what to believe and she hated that feeling of insecurity. All her life, she’d prided herself on being able to strip back the bull to see the truth.

But when it came to this …

She didn’t know who or what was right. From what she’d seen of Alexion, she didn’t doubt that he could kill her if he wanted to; that he could kill all of them. So far, he’d refrained from doing either, which added some credibility to his story that he was there to protect them.

Maybe.

Damn, I really hate indecision.

Should I run to warn the others or stay and keep an eye on him?

There was no easy answer.

Rubbing her hand across her face, she paused as Alexion picked up the large Hershey chocolate bar from her counter and sniffed it. He ran his hand over the edge of the brown wrapper as if he’d never seen one before. Then he traced the edges of the chocolate through the wrapper as if he enjoyed the tactile sensation of it.

Danger cocked her head, puzzled by his actions. She loved chocolate as much as the next person, but she’d never before molested a bar of it. Something about his caress reminded her of a lover’s touch and it made him seem strangely vulnerable.

Yeah … she was losing it.