Marek placed a gentle hand on Cal’s shoulder. “She’s been dead a long time, Cal. It’s possible the wraith saw her when she was grown, long before we were sent to the mortal world. He might have managed to slip into the Underworld before.”
“No.” Keras spoke that word in a calm tone but it seemed to crack like lightning, shaking the room. He lifted his head and looked at Cal. “I don’t think it was a memory belonging to the wraith. I think it belonged to the necromancer.”
“Eli took his blood?” Daimon didn’t want to believe that.
“Maybe. It wasn’t Eli. It was someone else’s memory.” Keras scrubbed a hand over his face, sat up and leaned back, sagging against the wall as his hands fell into his lap. “It was real though.”
“You think it was recent?” Daimon flicked a glance at Cal, keeping an eye on him.
His youngest brother stared straight ahead and looked as if he was struggling, his eyes wide and unfocused. Daimon had his hands full with keeping Esher on the rails. He wasn’t sure he could handle both Esher and Cal going off them.
“I’m not sure.” Keras pushed forwards and took hold of Cal’s shoulders and Cal looked at him. “We will find her.”
Cal nodded, the movement jerky. When he didn’t stop nodding, Keras kneaded his shoulders.
“Don’t think about it for now,” Keras murmured, fatigue laced with concern in his deep voice. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
Cal shook his head this time. “No. I want to know these things.”
He might want to know them, but he was having trouble handling them without passing out. His brother’s affliction had been slowly improving over the past few weeks, since they had dealt with the necromancer and Cal had discovered that Calindria’s soul was still out there, giving him a chance to save it and guide it to the Elysian Fields where she could rest.
He had managed to remember some things about what had happened to him and Calindria all those centuries ago without passing out.
“That’s not good.” Marek’s bass voice rolling over the room had everyone looking at him, and then in the direction of his gaze.
Black blood trickled from Eli’s nose and ears.
The wraith stilled.
Rubbed his fingers over his lip and brought it away, staring at the blood.
He smiled and then coughed, spraying more blood across the floor. It rolled down his chin and coated his teeth as he looked at Keras.
“This isn’t over,” Eli calmly said and coughed again, sending more vile black blood oozing down his chin. His violet eyes brightened dangerously as he stared hard at Keras, his voice dropping to a hiss. “I am not the last.”
The wraith lurched forwards, vomiting blood, his entire body shaking so hard he rattled the cage as he clawed at the bars on the floor of it, hands slipping around in the oily black liquid.
“Cass!” Daimon leaped over Cal and shoved past Marek, hitting the doorway of the building as quickly as he could. “Need a healing spell.”
Cass twisted away from Mari, Megan and Ares. Her eyes widened and she hurried to him.
“Godsdammit, Keras!” Ares boomed and rushed after her.
Daimon looked back at Eli.
Too late.
The daemon lay in a pool of his own blood, his eyes fixed on nothing.
He was gone.
Esher roared and grabbed the cage, shaking it hard, as if that would revive the dead daemon. Aiko tried to calm him, clinging to his arm and speaking to him in Japanese, fear and panic written across her face as she kept her eyes locked on Esher’s profile.
Ares levelled a black look on Keras, accusation in it that had Keras lifting his green gaze to him. Keras’s eyes darkened, a warning in them to his second in command, one that was apparently enough to have Ares backing down. Ares huffed and scrubbed a hand over his tawny hair, mussing it as his fiery gaze shifted to the dead daemon.
“Damn it,” he muttered, echoing the feeling Daimon had as he looked at the wraith.
Keras had pushed too far and now their shot at getting valuable information from the daemon was gone. It wasn’t like Keras to be so impatient. He looked back at his brother, trying to figure out what was wrong with him recently. Keras refused to meet his gaze, pushed to his feet and strode out into the waning night.
The wraith’s final words rang in Daimon’s mind.
They knew there were others on the enemy’s side, but it still felt like an ominous announcement.
The Erinyes were still alive, and if the two females had their way and got their hands on Cass, Esher would probably get his wish too—Eli would be alive again, reanimated by the enemy and Cass’s dark magic.
Daimon fixed his senses on her as she came to stand beside him, needing to know that she was safe.
He would keep her that way.
He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
Esher stiffened, locking up tight.
“What’s wrong?” Daimon went to him and hovered his hand over his brother’s back.
Esher didn’t take his eyes off the daemon. Didn’t move a muscle.
“Penitence,” Esher whispered.
Nemesis was summoning him for punishment. Daimon couldn’t imagine what kind of torment he would receive as retribution for all the rules he had broken. Esher wouldn’t be strong enough to survive it, not without losing himself to his other side again.
“I’ll go,” Daimon said.
And stepped before Esher could stop him.
Chapter 31
Daimon landed beneath a dim shaft of light, surrounded by infinite darkness. He peered through the weak light, hating the way it stole his vision, making it hard to see into the
