The Dark-Hunters (294 page)

She looked horrified. “Her
akri
makes her appear as human? That is the worst torture. My poor simi to be so abused!”

“Not really. Simi enjoys it.”

She covered her head with her hands as if she were in great pain. “What have you done to my simi?”

Alexion pulled one of her hands away and gave her a meaningful stare. “We have loved her as if she were the most precious thing ever born.”

Xirena appeared even more baffled. Two seconds later, she looked like a beautiful blond woman.

Except for one thing.

“Uh,” Danger said, pointing to the top of her head, “the horns need to go too.”

They vanished immediately.

Xirena moved to the mirror to look at herself. She jumped back and curled her lip. “I look like the Atlantean bitch-goddess.” She turned her hair black. “Better.”

Danger stared at her. “Is it just me or does she look a lot like Acheron now?”

“Don’t ask,” Alexion said. “Xirena, I take it you were sent here to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“Who sent you?”

She blew a strange-sounding raspberry. “The moron half-god Daimon, Strykerius. He said you were a servant, but you do not bear the mark of a servant on you. You bear the mark of royal family.”

Alexion was surprised by that. Acheron had never explained the sign to him except to say that he had to bear it in order to live. “Really?”

“Did you not know?” the demon asked.

He shook his head.

Xirena sighed. “Humans, even those who are no more, are stupid.”

He ignored her very Simi-like words. There was a lot more to her presence here and he wanted to understand it. “Why does Stryker want me dead?”

“I do not know. Does the reason matter? Dead is dead. Who cares why when what matters is avoiding it, yes?”

She had a really good point with that. “Why did you agree to kill me?”

Xirena drew herself up and gave him a harsh look. “I thought the cursed god had abused my sister. That he had harmed her or mistreated her. She was not old enough to be sent out. The bitch-goddess knew this and yet she took her from me, even while I fought her to keep my simi safe. My simi was barely more than an infant and unable to fend for herself. I have hated the goddess ever since for it.”

Danger held up her hand to get their attention. “Just out of curiosity, is Acheron the cursed god?”

Alexion cringed.

“Yes,” Xirena said before he could stop her.

“And the bitch-goddess?” Danger asked.

“Apollymi.”

Alexion told Xirena to stop in Charonte, but she didn’t listen.

“The Daimon queen?” Danger asked again.

“Daimon queen?” Xirena made a sound of complete contempt. “No. She is the Destroyer of all things. The bringer of plagues and pestilence. She is the force that will end the world for all time. She is the ultimate in power and destruction. Her will is divine law.”

Danger looked thrilled by that. “Oh, goodie. That’s just what I wanted to hear.”

“Relax,” Alexion told her. “Apollymi’s contained. She’s not going to destroy anything in the near future … I hope.”

Danger only heard part of that. The rest of her thoughts returned to what Xirena had said a few moments ago. “So Ash is a god and not a Dark-Hunter. Is that what you’ve been protecting?”

A tic worked in Alexion’s jaw.

“You might as well admit it. That’s what the demon said, and unless I’m stupid, which I’m not, he is a god.”

Alexion gave her a harsh, penetrating stare. “No one can ever know that about him. He’ll have a fit of titanic proportions, and trust me, a pissed-off god is not something to relish.”

Danger let out a long, exasperated breath. Suddenly everything was clear to her for the first time ever.

“You know, Ash as a Daimon made a lot of sense. But this … this explains everything, doesn’t it?”

He looked away from her. No wonder he was sworn to secrecy.

But why wouldn’t Ash tell them? What was the point of keeping that to himself?

And as her mind grappled with this new tidbit, she thought of what Alexion had told her about Ash and Artemis’s relationship. “That’s why Artemis needed us, huh? She can’t just command another god without some major leverage.”

“No, she can’t.”

She had to say that it sucked to be said leverage. Poor Acheron, to be controlled by them. It was a wonder he didn’t hate every one of them. But for them, he would be free. “So we are her pawns while she and Acheron play games with each other.”

“No,” Alexion said, his sincerity burning into her. “Acheron never uses human life as a pawn. Ever. He doesn’t find anything entertaining about playing with people.”

He sighed. “But Artemis isn’t so kind. She doesn’t understand humanity the way Acheron does.”

“How is it he’s so fortunate?”

“He lived as a human,” he said simply. “That’s the cursed part Xirena refers to. He was born as a human baby and he died brutally as a human man.”

That didn’t make sense to her. “But he’s a god.”

“A
cursed
god.”

“Why was he cursed?” Danger asked.

The veil fell over his face. “That is something best left undiscussed. He’ll be angry enough over this little bit having escaped. Let’s not tweak him any more, shall we?”

Xirena’s attention pricked up at that. “Is he an angry god, like the Destroyer?”

“No,” Alexion assured her, “he’s remarkably calm ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s that one percent, though, that’s a killer … literally.”

The demon nodded as she poked at the television. “Your warning is taken.”

“So what are we going to do with her?” Danger asked, indicating the demon with a tilt of her head.

“That’s a really good question and I have absolutely no answer for it. I’m completely open to suggestions of any sort.” Alexion sighed. What could they do with the demon? Simi had spent a lot of time around humans and she was still less than civilized.

Xirena …

He paused that thought as she shattered the television.

Xirena stared at it in horror. “Why did that break?”

“You can’t slam your fist into the screen,” he explained.

“Why not?” she asked in a voice that sounded eerily close to Simi’s.

“It breaks,” Danger answered.

“But why?”

Danger placed her hand against her temple as if she were beginning to feel a pain there. “Is this normal demon behavior?”

He nodded. “Just wait. This is very mild. It gets a whole lot worse.”

“Great. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Xirena picked up the remote to place it in her mouth. Alexion grabbed it away from her. “Plastic isn’t good for demons.”

Xirena glared at him. “How do you know?”

“It gives Simi a bellyache every time. Trust me. It’s just not a good Charonte snack.”

As Danger watched the demon explore the hotel room, a thought occurred to her. “You know, I think we can return to my house now.”

“How so?”

She tilted her head toward Xirena. “We have our own demon now, right?”

Alexion smiled as he understood her meaning. “If the other one is still there, she can wrangle him out.”

“Yep. Let’s check out of here and go on a demon hunt, shall we?”

*   *   *

The drive back to Tupelo was positively boring, except for when the demon discovered the radio. She almost caused Danger to wreck as she leaned over the front seat, playing with the stations.

With every new song, Xirena tried to sing the words, which she didn’t know.

Worse, she couldn’t sing on key at all.

Danger glanced over to Alexion who took it all in stride.

“Aren’t you going deaf?” she asked him.

He shook his head. “I’m used to it, though to be honest, Simi is at least on key most of the time. She lives to sing.”

After a while, the demon shrank in size and then lay down on the seat with her feet up in the air and her head hanging off the cushion, toward the floor board.

Danger frowned. “What’s she doing?”

“Resting. They sleep like that.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Simi props her feet up on the wall most nights. I have no idea why.”

“It’s comfortable,” Xirena said. “You should try it.”

And two seconds later, the demon was asleep.

Danger cringed at the horrendous sound of her snoring. “Don’t tell me Simi does that as well?”

“No, she’s louder.”

“And you tolerate her?”

“Considering she is the one thing Acheron loves most in this world, yes. I honestly think he would literally die if anything happened to her.”

“What about you?”

“I would kill or die to keep her safe.”

Danger smiled at that. “There aren’t many men in the world who would die for a demon.”

“That’s only because they don’t have one to love.”

Maybe, but it would take a special kind of man to look past the scaly weirdness of such a creature and be able to love it. “You must have been a good father.”

Sadness creased his brow an instant before he turned away from her to look out the window.

Danger mentally kicked herself for saying that out loud. “I’m sorry, Alexion, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” he said gently. “Simi tells me that all the time—whenever she’s not pissed at me for trying to teach her manners.” He gave a light laugh. “She says I’m the best ‘other’ daddy a demon ever had.”

Even so, she could tell that it bothered him. But then it bothered her too. She’d wanted children so much as a human that it still ached whenever she thought about it.

That was one of the nice things about being nocturnal—she didn’t come across children except in movies and on television. And even that hurt.

But not as much as seeing kids playing in real life, hearing their laugher.

What she wouldn’t give to hold her own child in her arms, just once. To be in a delivery room with her husband holding her hand as she cursed him for the pain of the life that was struggling to be born.

It really was all she had ever wanted.

She swallowed against the painful lump in her throat. Some things weren’t meant to be.

Love. Family …

They were gone from her future. But at least she had some semblance of life. Alexion didn’t even have that much. He was denied even more than she was and that made her hurt for him deep down inside her heart.

Danger turned onto her street. She didn’t speak as they neared her house, which looked just as it had when they’d fled. She pulled into the garage, but left the door open in case they had to make another hasty exit.

Alexion got out first, then paused. “Xirena?”

The demon snorted, then rolled to her side.

She exchanged an amused look with Alexion before he leaned into the car and gently shook her shoulder. “Xirena?”

“What?” the demon snapped.

“We’re here, and if you wish to meet Simi, I need you to come inside to make sure the other demon isn’t still here.”

She opened her eyes, which were no longer human in appearance. They were again that eerie yellow. “What demon?”

“The one that tried to kill me before you.”

She made a strange snorting noise. “He’s not here. Why do you think Strykerius sent me? Caradoc is a wuss.”

“Caradoc?”

“You know,” she said in that singsongy accent. “Big, ugly Charonte who smells bad. He was afraid to kill you because you spoke to him in Charonte. Like Xirena said … wuss demon.”

He finally understood her. “Ah, okay. Well, at any rate, we need to get you inside for the time being so that we can hide you.”

Huffing in aggravation, she got out of the car and followed him inside.

“So what’s our game plan?” Danger asked, as Xirena wandered through her living room.

“I want to find Kyros and talk to him.”

That didn’t make sense to her. Kyros had made his position more than clear. She shook her head at his suggestion.

Alexion was a serious glutton for punishment.

“Why?”

“I want to know why he called to warn me about Xirena. If he’d really wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have bothered.”

She saw the hopeful look in his face that said he believed Kyros had somehow been won over. She wasn’t so sure about that. “We could just call him back.”

“No. I want to see his face. I think he’s still salvageable.”

For his sake, she hoped so. “All right. What do we do with Xirena in the meantime?”

“Leave her here.”

She didn’t like the idea of that at all. “But what if another demon comes after you while we’re gone? She can’t help if she’s here.”

He took a deep breath as if he were considering it. “I don’t think they’d bother. Two have already failed. Why send another?”

“Persistence?”

He laughed at that.

Danger jumped as one of her expensive vases fell to the floor and shattered.

“Uh-oh,” Xirena said in a tone that reminded her of a child. “That was breakable too.”

“We can’t leave her here unattended,” she said to Alexion. “She’ll destroy my whole house.”

Suddenly, her vase reassembled itself and returned to her mantel.

Danger frowned at him.

He offered her a lopsided grin. “Xirena,” he said to the demon. “Do you know how to write?”

“Of course I do. I’m not one of them illiterate demons. What kind of Charonte do you think I am?”

“Good.” He said, ignoring her tirade. He looked back at Danger. “Could you get me a pad and pen or pencil?”

“Why?” Danger asked.

“Trust me.”

Not sure if she should, she went to comply while Alexion turned on her television without touching it.

She came back into the room to find the TV on QVC. The demon was parked in front of the set as if she’d found the Holy Grail. Her beautiful face reflected pure joy. Danger had never seen anything like it.

“What is Diamonique?” Xirena asked Alexion in an awed tone.

“Something I am sure you will love. And according to Simi, it’s really good and crunchy, and it’ll sharpen your fangs.” He took the pad from Danger and handed it to the demon. “Here. Write down anything you see that you want and—”

He broke off as a caller spoke on the television show.

“Hello!” the chipper singsongy voice said.

“Hi, Miss Simi,” the announcer said to the caller. “We’re so glad to have you back.”