“They tell you, before you start even basic training.”For the first time, Jake didn’t sound sarcastic or arrogant.Instead, his tone was soft, reflective, and he turned his hands palm-up, studying his fingers like they held a secret.“Then they keep telling you over and over, but it’s like the first time you get shot.You really don’t know until you get there.”
“You’ve beenshot?”Liv didn’t mean to sound so horrified.Why that should bother her with all the rest of this going on, she couldn’t quite say.
“Few times, yeah.Hehas human servants, too.Just because we turned doesn’t mean anything else would.”Another shiver passed through Jake.“Anyway, you get the mark, theliraicauterize it, and if it doesn’t kill you the whispers start.The mark makes you stronger, faster, probably smarter too—Erik and I argue about that sometimes.”His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, dryly.“But when you can see the shadows, they can see you.And so canhe.”
Liv’s throat ached, but not with smoke damage.A sarcastic, domineering douchebag she could handle—she could outright fight.But Jake now looked lost, a little hopeless, and incredibly…
Well, he looked lonely.
“The nightmares aren’t so bad,” he continued, still staring at his now-clean hands.His tone dropped even further, confidential and soft.“It’s the fucking whispers.You can’t be sure if it’s your own thoughts, or…his.That’s why we watch each other, all the time.”
“It sounds exhausting.”And terrifying.She didn’t want to add that, though—men reacted awfully to any intimation that they might be, of all things, scared.
Maybe it was the right thing to say, because he dropped his hands and gazed fixedly at her.“Yeah, well.A potential mutes them, and aliraican stop the whispers, permanently.It’s a kind of intense process.It, uh…” Was heblushing?It mixed uneasily with the bruising all over his face.“Well, you know, it kind of requires a…”
Liv waited, but he seemed to have vapor-locked.“What, it requires a virgin sacrifice or something?”
“Notvirgin.”His eyebrows rose meaningfully, and she got the message.
“Oh.Wow.Uh.”Oh, my God, how awkward.We just almost got killed by monsters and now this.“No wonder Ignatius didn’t want to explain.”
“Usually the olderliraiexplain to new ones, once they’re safe.It’s not even really sex, it’s just… Anyway, Father didn’t want to travel with you while the nights were still getting longer.”Jake stiffened; his head tilted.He looked a little like a dog hearing a familiar footstep, and his face changed a few millimeters.The cocky, self-assured mask slipped back on and his hands blurred, one reaching for the gun low on his left hip and the other suddenly holding the hilt of a short, wickedly curved knife with a strange, crystalline blade.All three guys carried a set of those, and they were definitelynotGinsu.“Get in the bathroom.”
“What?”But she was already moving, sliding off the now soot-stained bed.Her sneakers were oddly pristine—of course, this was the first time she’d worn them outside, and Jake had hauled her away from the wreck, carrying her like luggage.
That was happening a lot lately.Where was Erik, and the older man?The SUV had blown up, but?—
Oh, God.I’m not handling this very well at all.“Is it the monsters?”she whispered, edging for the bathroom door.
“Don’t know,” Jake answered just as softly, a sharp half-turn making his sliced jacket flutter.Now he faced the door, and there was no sign of indecision or insecurity.He looked, all things considered, fairly relaxed.“If it is, I’ll kill them, but I need you safe so get in the bathroom,please.If I can bottleneck them?—”
A fast, light series of taps on the room door echoed, and Liv jumped, her hand flying to her mouth to catch a tiny, wounded sound.There was a pause, then three distinct, deliberate knocks.Another pause, then two more.
“Great,” Jake muttered.He was suddenly at the door, the knife disappearing and the gun held low.He unlocked it and stepped back; the knob turned, and Liv’s knees were gelatin.She couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to.“Took you long enough.”
“Yeah, well.”The answer was a harsh growl.“Where is she?”
Wasn't Me
His chest hurt.Everythinghurt, and it took more energy than he liked to stay upright.Of course, killing twosarnaki—never mind that one of them had been almost shredded by Jake’s gunfire, little brother had a distinct gift for projectile mayhem—was an achievement.He should have been overjoyed.
Instead, Erik wanted to sleep for a week, and maybe for another afterward.He might even have tried to, if there wasn’t the prospect of dreaming.
And if there wasn’t aliraito save.
“Hello to you, too.”Jake beckoned him inside, glancing over Erik’s shoulder to check the hallway.There wasn’t much to see—a rundown motel was no fit place for alirai, but it was right over a tangle of water lines and jammed among high-waisted, frowning apartment buildings providing a variety of psychic cover.It was the sort of place that charged by the hour or the night, with a marked preference for the more profitable former.“You look like shit.”
“Truth in advertising, bro.”The instant Erik was fully in the room Jake slammed the door, and the shields—probably placed as soon as they reached this imperfectly safe harbor—folded back into place.
And there, clean and whole, twilight eyes huge and her rippling dark hair a wild mess, Liv stood near the bathroom.She was deadly pale, and for a moment Erik thought she might scream.Theoneirosat her breastbone was alive with deep coruscating colors; he hadn’t realized, inside the temple, just how much she hummed with invisible force.Every scrape, puncture, slash, and slice on him drank in that power, thepotential, and he understood more than ever why the spiders, the hellbeasts, the shadows, and the Mad God himself wanted that wine-bright, intoxicating drink.
Toconsumeit.
Erik didn’t realize he was bearing down on her until she flinched, throwing up one small, perfect hand as if to ward off a blow.His bloody, filthy boot-toes dug into cheap patterned nylon carpet, and Jake’s hand closed around Erik’s left arm.
“Easy, big brother.”His Younger sounded only mildly concerned, but the vibrating tension in his grasp said that if Erik shrugged him off and kept going, things would heat up in a hurry.“Let’s just all calm down, okay?”
“Hurt,” Erik rasped.“Is.She.Hurt?”
