Remy stared up at me in surprise.
The whispers grew loud for a moment, then vanished in the wind.
Twin anguished cries of pain drew my attention. I looked over and saw Nitocris and Uriel screaming in agony at the loss of the halo. The body of the priest shuddered with convulsions, then dropped to the ground, the gun dropping with him.
The queen released Zane and buried her head in her hands, shaking violently. “You dare to thwart me?” she hissed, raising her bloodred eyes to mine. “You have earned my undying vengeance.”
“Hey,” I protested weakly. “It wasn’t me who broke it.” I pointed at Remy. “She’s your girl.”
The queen hissed at me, revealing the largest set of fangs I’d ever seen, then gave an unholy scream. “This is not over!”
As I watched, black wings tore out of the flesh of her back and erupted in a wet coil of leathery flesh and sinew. They weren’t the beautiful, feathered fall that Zane had; her wings were monstrous, leathery creations that unfurled over her head. She flung Zane to the ground and launched herself into the air, followed by the mass exodus of her goons. Black wings filled the sky for a moment, blotting out the sun.
They left nothing behind but a flood of silk suit jackets and one lone vampire. Noah and Stan watched me from the sidelines, untying each other and rubbing their wrists.
I looked down at Remy, who still lay on the flagstones. “You okay, Remy?” I offered her my hand.
“Who?”
The voice that answered me was deep, masculine and hollow, and definitely
“Er … Remy?” My blood froze as I stared into her eyes. They were clear as glass, and I saw flashes of blue and red warring in them. “Are you okay?”
I watched her face contort for a moment, then her eyes swam blue. “Jackie?” Her voice was confused, and she took my hand as I helped her up.
“Is something wrong? You didn’t sound like yourself for a minute there.” Fear was clenching at my insides, but I forced my voice to remain casual.
“I’m only half me,” she said, extending her hands in front of her and staring at them as if she’d never seen them before. Her eyes flicked red as she felt her own breasts, then slapped her hands away. “Hey! Quit touching me!”
I glanced over at Noah with a puzzled look. “Do you know what is going on?”
Remy touched her hair, felt her breasts again, then gave me a frustrated look. “
“
“Joachim,” she said flatly. “The halo absorbed into my body when it broke. I’ve got his powers-and his mind- inside my own.” Her hand snaked up to touch her face, as if feeling out unfamiliar territory. Her mouth trembled a bit at the touch of her fingers.
“Oh lord,” I said, my hands covering my mouth in shock. “Are you okay?”
Remy snorted, forcing a grim smile. “As long as I don’t get the urge to watch football and scratch my crotch, I’ll be just fine.” She stomped across the temple boundaries and over to Stan’s side, dusting him off.
I shook my head, wondering. My guess was that Remy would explain later, when she’d had more time to adjust. For now, we had to get out of here.
But-rush to Zane? Rush to Noah? I eyed the two men for a heartbeat. Noah sat up in the sand, his hand pressed to his forehead as he looked around.
Zane was still crumpled in the sand.
Guilt warred with my anger and my concern for Zane. I raced to his side, lifting his cheek gently off the sand. Blood covered his neck from the gouges Nitocris had bitten into his flesh. She’d chewed on him like he was nothing to her, and the sight chilled me.
His face rolled toward mine and his sleepy eyes focused on my face, his hand reaching up to brush my cheek. “I’m cast out, Jackie. A renegade.”
“We’ll figure something out, Zane,” I said, the words sounding empty in my own mind. Guilt threaded through me. What was he going to do? A liar and a cheat he may be, but I couldn’t abandon him now. Not when he’d risked everything for me.
A sexy half smile touched his face and then he went limp in my arms. My pulse hammered for a moment as panic struck me, until I realized that he’d fallen into the day slumber of the vampires.
I clutched him close to me and watched the others scrambling about. With Uriel’s “possession” ended, his reinforcements seemed a bit lost. They milled around, chattering with each other in confusion. The priest sat nearby, hands on his head as if he had a migraine.
Remy held Stan to her chest, stroking his hair as he sobbed against her breast. I suspected their relationship wasn’t going to survive the trip home. Our world was a little too weird for the common Joe. Not to mention the fact that Remy looked irritated as hell that he was crying on her.
A shadow fell over me, and a hand touched my shoulder. I looked up into Noah’s face, the light haloing around his head with purity. He smiled down at me, a bit worse for the wear, but the same solid, dependable Noah that I could count on. “Are you all right, Jackie?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” I gave him a watery smile.
He chuckled, a familiar, heartwarming sound. “I’ll manage.”
I looked down at Zane in my arms, then up at Noah. “Noah, I …” Guilt coursed through me. While he’d been tortured by the vampires, I’d been fraternizing with one.
“Hush. Time enough for that later.” He kissed my brow. “We’ve had a rough week.”
“I’ll say,” I agreed, fighting the urge to laugh. With a hole in my middle, “rough week” was an understatement. “What now?”
He shrugged off his shirt and handed it to me. “Well,” he said as I put it on, concealing my wound, “right now I suggest we get out of the way of the tour group.” He gestured over his shoulder.
I looked and saw a line of tourists on the horizon, cameras in hand, staring down at us in shock.
Thinking fast, I pointed at Zane, cradled against me, and called, “Can I get a little help here? My boyfriend’s narcoleptic, and he’s having another episode. Anybody got a phone?”
Sixteen phones were immediately handed my way.
EPILOGUE
“I really do appreciate the offer, Remy, but I like having my own apartment,” I said into the phone. “It’s not anything you did, I just like being independent.”
“Come on, it’s the Joachim thing, isn’t it? Look, I told you that I wasn’t trying to watch you shower. He took over in a weak moment, and I didn’t know it was you in there.”
I snorted, flipping through my stack of mail as I cradled the phone against my cheek. A lot of bills had stacked up in the past few weeks, and I needed to go through what needed to be paid with the rest of my savings, and what didn’t. “Well, I can’t say that it wasn’t a little unnerving, but it’s not that.”
“None taken,” she said, ever cheerful. “Speaking of showers, do I hear it running in the background?”
“Could be.” I grinned and glanced at the bathroom door. Steam rose from underneath it, along with the sound of masculine humming. “You never know.”
“It’s seven a.m., so it could be either of your boy toys. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me which one it is?”
“Nope.”
“You have to make up your mind between the two of them sometime, babe,” she said, laughing. “Actually, you don’t-but I don’t imagine they like each other much.”
“You’d imagine right.” I heard the shower turn off and the whistling start. “Listen, I’d better go now, all
