The Dark-Hunters, page 129
“Enough time for what?”
“Don’t worry about it. Enter my cabin and tell Astrid who you are. She’ll be coming out of hiding with another woman. Be kind to the little one, she belongs to Ash.”
“What little one?”
“You’ll see.”
“In three hours?” Jess repeated.
“Yeah.”
Jess paused for a few seconds. “What about you, Eskimo?”
“What about me?”
“You’re not doing something stupid, are you?”
“No. I’m doing something smart.” Zarek hung up.
He tossed the phone into his backpack and pulled out his cigarettes and lighter. He lit up a cigarette while he waited and sat in the frigid cold missing his coat.
But as he thought of the coat, his thoughts turned to Astrid and he warmed up considerably.
How he wished he could have made love to her one more time.
Felt her skin on his. Her breath on his face. Her hands running over his flesh.
He’d never known anything or anyone like her, but then, she was a nymph after all. Wholly unlike anyone else in all the universe.
He still couldn’t believe the way he felt about her.
How was she able to soothe the pain in him that he had thought would never cease.
Strange how she took his thoughts away from the past. Away from everything.
No wonder Talon had been willing to die for Sunshine.
It made total sense to him now.
But Zarek didn’t want to die for Astrid. He wanted to live for her. He wanted to spend the rest of his immortality by her side.
He couldn’t.
Looking up at the mountains around him, he thought of Olympus. Astrid’s home.
Mortals couldn’t live there and gods didn’t live on earth.
It was hopeless between them.
And he was pragmatic enough to know it. There was no starry-eyed side of him to think for one minute anything could unite them. Any optimism he’d ever felt had been kicked out of him before he was old enough to shave.
Still, he couldn’t stop the part of him that ached with loss. The part of him that screamed out soul deep for Astrid to stay with him.
“Damn you, Fates. Damn all of you.”
But then, they had. Long, long ago.
He heard the rumble of a snowmachine’s engine approaching.
Zarek didn’t move until it drew near and stopped. He sat sideways on his seat with his legs stretched out before him, his ankles crossed. His arms folded over his chest, he waited patiently for the rider to dismount.
Thanatos pulled his helmet off and eyed him as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You really are here.”
Zarek inclined his head and offered the creature a cold, sinister smirk. “Hair of the dog, baby. Sooner or later, we all dance with the devil. Tonight, it’s your turn.”
Thanatos narrowed his eyes. “You are an arrogant bastard.”
Zarek dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it out underneath his boot heel. He laughed bitterly as he pushed himself away from his snowmachine.
“No, not an arrogant bastard. I’m nothing but a piece of shit who touched a star.” He pulled both Glocks out from his shoulder holsters. “Now I’m the son of a bitch who’s going to put you out of your misery.”
Zarek opened fire.
He didn’t expect it to work and he was right.
It did nothing more than make Thanatos stumble back. And make Zarek feel a little better.
He ejected the clips into the snow, reloaded and fired again.
Thanatos laughed. “You can’t kill me with a gun.”
“I know, but it’s fun as hell just shooting you.” And with any luck, it might weaken Thanatos enough to where Zarek could stand some chance of killing him.
It was all he had.
When he’d spent his last round, he threw his weapons at Thanatos and followed it up with two grenades.
None of it worked.
It barely made Thanatos pause.
Growling, Zarek rushed him.
They fell to the ground fighting. Zarek kicked and punched with everything he had.
Thanatos was getting bloodier, but then, so was he.
“You can’t kill me, Dark-Hunter.”
“If you bleed, you can die.”
Thanatos shook his head. “That’s only a myth humans tell each other to feel better.”
Zarek kicked him back and unsheathed his retractable sword. He pressed the button in the hilt, extending it out to its full five-foot length. “Dark-Hunters are myths too but if you cut our heads off, we die. What about you? Can you reattach your head?”
He saw panic flicker in the Daimon’s eyes.
“I didn’t think so.” Zarek arced the blade up.
Thanatos ducked and twirled away from him. He pulled a large, ornamental dagger from his belt.
Zarek’s sword skills were a bit rusty, but as they fought, his memory came back to him.
Oh, yeah, he remembered well how to skewer things.
He cut Thanatos across the chest. The Daimon hissed and stumbled back.
“You look afraid, Thanatos.”
He curled his lips. “I fear nothing, least of all you.”
Thanatos attacked him before he could pull back. He caught Zarek’s sword arm and twisted it. Zarek hissed as pain sliced through him.
But that was nothing compared to the stab wound Thanatos delivered to his left arm.
He cursed.
His arm numb, Zarek couldn’t hold on to the sword.
Thanatos knocked him to the ground.
He put his knee on Zarek’s spine and pulled his hair until his neck was exposed.
Zarek tried to buck him off, but there was nothing he could do except wait for Thanatos to cut his head off.
The dagger’s blade cut into his neck.
Zarek held his breath, afraid to move lest he help the blade slice his throat.
Just as the blade cut into his neck, a blast of light flared across the snow, hitting Thanatos and knocking him back.
Zarek collapsed facedown in the snow.
“No, no, no,” Simi said as she appeared in human form beside Zarek. “Akri said you can’t kill Zarek. Bad Thanatos.”
His body aching beyond belief, Zarek rolled over onto his back as Thanatos rose to his feet.
“What the hell are you?” Thanatos asked.
“Never you mind,” she said, kneeling beside Zarek. She touched the cut on his brow and looked at his bleeding arm and neck. “Oh, no, you hurt bad, Dark-Hunter. Simi very sorry. We thought you’d come back but then Astrid got worried and made me come seek you. You don’t look very good, though. You were much more attractive earlier.”
Thanatos stalked toward them.
Zarek forced himself up and helped her to her feet. “Simi, go before you get hurt.”
She snorted like a horse. “He can’t hurt me. No one can.”
Thanatos attacked with the dagger.
“See, watch.” Simi turned around and let Thanatos stab her in the chest.
He sank the dagger in up to the hilt, then jerked it free.
The demon’s eyes widened as she gasped in pain.
At first Zarek thought she might be playing until she staggered back. Tears were in her eyes as she looked up at Zarek in agonized disbelief.
“It’s not supposed to hurt,” she cried like a small child. “I’m invincible. Akri said so.”
His heart pounded.
Blood trickled from her lips.
Zarek kicked Thanatos back and picked Simi up in his arms. Even though his injured arm trembled from the agony of it, he ran with Simi toward his snowmachine.
Thanatos stood back, waiting.
He watched them leave and smiled. “That’s it, Zarek. Run back to your woman. Show me where you have her hidden.”
* * *
Artemis felt the shock wave go through her temple like an earthquake. Something let out an angry, baleful roar.
Her attendants looked up, their faces white.
Artemis sat up on her throne. If she didn’t know better she would think …
The door to her private chambers disintegrated. Pieces of it flew through the room as if propelled by a violent tornado.
Her women screamed and ran for the door that led outside, seeking shelter from the unexpected maelstrom. Artemis wanted to run, too, but her fear held her immobile.
It was extremely rare that she saw this side of Acheron.
She was too terrified of him to ever push him this far.
He floated out of her bedroom with his long black hair whipping around him. His eyes were blood-red, swirling like fire as his unnatural powers surged. His fangs were overgrown and large.
He was the very thing she feared most in the universe. In this state, he could kill her with nothing more than a passing thought.
She panicked. If she didn’t get him calmed down the other gods would feel his presence and there would be hell to pay for everyone.
Most of all for her.
She used her powers to mask his, hoping to disguise his abilities as her own. With any luck, the other gods would assume she was having her own tantrum.
“Acheron?”
He cursed at her in Atlantean and held her back with an invisible wall. She felt his agony. He was in excruciating pain, but she didn’t know why.
Everything in her temple whirled in the vortex of his powers and rage. The only thing still grounded were the two of them.
“Artemis? I have a problem.”
She flinched as she heard Astrid’s voice in her head. “Not now, Astrid. I have a situation here.”
“Let me guess, Acheron is angry?”
“I am past anger, Astrid.” His voice was low, deep, and evil sounding. Acheron’s bloody gaze pierced Artemis. “How is it Simi is wounded?”
Artemis’s fear tripled. “The demon’s hurt?”
“Simi’s dying.” Astrid and Acheron spoke simultaneously.
Artemis covered her mouth. She felt suddenly ill. Sick. Horrified and scared beyond belief.
If anything happened to his demon …
He would kill her.
Acheron used his powers to pull her roughly to him. “Where did Thanatos get one of my daggers, Artemis?”
A tremor of guilt went through her with that question. When she had created the first Thanatos seven thousand years ago, she had granted him weapons to slay the Dark-Hunters. At the time she had thought it divine justice that he use one of Acheron’s Atlantean daggers to kill them.
As soon as Acheron had realized a dagger was missing, he had gathered all his weapons together and destroyed them.
Now she understood why.
He’d done it to protect his demon.
“I didn’t know your dagger would hurt it.”
“Damn you, Artemis. You have taken everything from me. Everything!”
She felt his pain, his sorrow. She hated him for that. If she died tomorrow he wouldn’t care at all.
But for the demon, he wept.
Why wouldn’t he love and protect her like this?
“I’ll go get it for you, Acheron.”
Acheron stopped her from leaving his side. “Don’t you do anything, Artemis. I know you. You’re not to help or try to heal her in any way. You just pick her up and bring her right back here to me. Swear it on the River Styx.”
“I swear.”
He released her.
Artemis shimmered from her temple to where Astrid, Simi, and Zarek were hiding underground. The demon lay on the floor with Zarek and Astrid kneeling beside it.
“I want akri!” Simi sobbed. She was screaming and crying hysterically.
“Shh,” Zarek said, soothing her. He held a tourniquet over her wound. Both the tourniquet and his hand were covered in blood. “You have to calm down, Simi. You’re making it worse.”
“I want my daddy! Take me home, Astrid. I need to go home now.”
“I can’t, Simi. That power is taken from me until I deliver a verdict to my mother.”
“I want akri,” she wailed again. “I don’t want to die without him. I’m scared. Please, please take me home. I just want my daddy.”
Zarek looked up as a shadow fell over them.
It was a face he hadn’t seen since the day he’d become a Dark-Hunter.
Artemis.
Her long auburn hair curled around her lithe, beautiful body. She wore a long, white dress and her green eyes glittered ominously in the dim light of the tunnel.
He held his breath, half-expecting her to kill him. No Dark-Hunter was ever allowed to be in the presence of a god.
Simi saw her and let out a terrible shriek. “Not her! The heifer goddess is going to kill me!”
“Shut up,” Artemis snapped. “Believe me, I’d love to see you dead but if you die, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
Artemis picked her up in spite of her struggles.
She looked at Astrid and Zarek. “Have you judged him yet?”
Before Astrid could answer, the trapdoor behind them burst open.
Zarek cursed as he saw Thanatos coming through it.
He turned to order Artemis to take Astrid with Simi, but she’d already vanished.
He, alone, had to protect her.
Damn Artemis for this!
“Run!” he shouted at Astrid. He urged her toward the trapdoor that led into his cabin.
“What’s happening?”
“Thanatos is here so unless you’ve got some god power that can kill him, run!”
“Where’s Artemis?”
“She vaporized.”
Astrid gave a disgusted look, then did as he said.
As Zarek helped her up, Thanatos reached them.
Zarek kicked him back.
“You’re not going to escape me, Dark-Hunter. But then, it’s not really you I’m after.”
His blood running cold at those words, Zarek glanced down to see Thanatos’s gaze locked on Astrid.
Thanatos licked his lips. “Vengeance is a dish best served cold.”
Once Astrid was clear of the basement, Zarek dropped back down the ladder and began to pummel Thanatos. “We’re in Alaska, dickhead. Here everything is cold.”
Zarek slammed him back into the wall, then made a dash for the trapdoor.
Once he was in the cabin, he shut and locked the trapdoor. Zarek slid the wood-burning stove over it, then reached inside to remove the mink and her kits. The mother bit the crap out of him, but he didn’t flinch.
As gently as he could, he put them in his backpack and rushed from the cabin.
Astrid was just outside his door.
“Zarek, is that you?”
He kissed her.
“That better be you.”
He snorted at that.
With no time to waste, he raced over to Thanatos’s snowmachine and ripped a hose from it. He led Astrid to his vehicle. “You have to get out of here, princess. My powers can’t contain him for long.”
“I can’t see to drive this thing.”
Zarek stared at her, memorizing her face. Memorizing the way she looked up under the moonlight that was spilling through the clouds.
She was beautiful, his star.
Unlike any in all the universe.
He heard Thanatos breaking free.
Then he did something he had never done before. It was a power Ash had shown him centuries before, but one he’d never had a use for.
Tonight he did.
He kissed her passionately.
Astrid felt the warmth of Zarek’s lips. As his tongue danced with hers, her eyes started to burn.
She pulled back from him, hissing, only to realize that she could see everything around her.
Her heart stopped.
Zarek stood in front of her, his eyes the pale, pale blue hers were whenever she lost her vision. His lips were swollen and bruised, one of his eyes was black and blue.
Dried blood was crusted around his nose and ear. His clothes were also torn and bloodied.
He had been beaten to a pulp and had never uttered a word to her about it.
She choked as she saw the blood that was still pouring down his arm from where Thanatos had stabbed him.
He handed her his backpack, then fumbled with the snowmachine until he had it started.
“Go, Astrid. Fairbanks is straight that way.” He pointed down a pathway through the woods. “Don’t stop until you get there.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Zarek!” she snapped. “I won’t leave you here to die.”
He offered her a sad smile as he cupped her face in his hands. “It’s okay, princess. I don’t mind dying for you.”
He kissed her lightly on the lips.
Thanatos burst through the cabin door.
“Get on the snowmachine, Zarek. Now!”
He shook his head. “It’s better this way, Astrid. If I’m dead he won’t have a reason to hurt you.”
Her heart shattered at his words. At the sacrifice he was willing to make for her.
She started to protest, but the snowmachine took off. She tried to brake it, but Zarek must have been using his powers to keep the gas on.
The last thing she saw was a blind Zarek turning around to face Thanatos.
* * *
Ash grabbed Simi from Artemis the instant she materialized in front of him.
He cradled his “baby” gently in his arms as he took her to Artemis’s bed.
“Akri!” Simi wailed, nuzzling against his chest. “The Simi is hurt. You told me I couldn’t get hurt.”
“I know, Sim, I know.” He held her close, half-afraid to pull back her makeshift bandage and see the damage done to her.
Her tears fell down her cheeks, making his own eyes well up. Out of habit, he started singing to her, an ancient Atlantean lullaby he used to sing to her when she was barely more than a hatchling.
She calmed a bit.
Ash wiped the tears from her cold cheeks, then pulled the cloth away.
His dagger had sliced through her, narrowly missing her heart, but the wound was clean and the blood flow had slowed. Thanks to Zarek, no doubt.
He owed the man more than he could ever repay.
Summoning his powers, Ash laid his hand over her wound and healed her injury.
