Valynda nodded. “That’s what Thorn promised me. A brand-new body as a woman, once more. I pray he’s not lying. I would love to be human again.” She closed her eyes and smiled. “To have a real human body!”
“And Janice?” Cameron asked. “Did you earn your freedom already?” Unlike the others, she didn’t bear the Deadman’s mark on her wrist.
Janice shook her head as she gathered together her cards. “I be a little different from them, me lovey.” She pulled her shirt up to show a double bow mark on her hip. “I was not damned, per se. Me mistress be a Greek goddess, and me soul be held by her for all eternity, under an entirely different set of rules and conditions.”
What the blue devil? Cameron gaped at the last thing she’d expected to hear. Even among these preposterous tales. While her father, who had been enamored of the Classics, had taught her and Paden much about ancient Greeks and Romans and their beliefs, she’d never believed any of it to be real. “Come again?”
“I gave up me soul for vengeance over a wrong what was done to me and mine. Technically, I shouldn’t be here with the Deadmen, as it’s not really allowed for a Dark-Huntress to mingle with them.”
“Which tells you how dangerous our mission is that Acheron would allow her to live and work among our crew,” Valynda whispered. “Even the Dark-Hunters have a vested interest in our success.”
“The Dark-Hunters?”
“Be the term for what I am, Miss Jack. Acheron be me boss man.” Janice covered her mark. “Deadmen pursue demons who’ve escaped their prisons or who be preying on humanity and return them to their place of origin. Dark-Hunters are a band of warriors what hunt demons known as Daimons.”
“There’s a difference, then?”
“Oh, aye to that. Our demons be born of an ancient race, cursed by the Greek god Apollo.”
“Cursed why?”
“’Tis said their queen was once a beloved of Apollo’s and that she lost his favor, after her miscarriage of Apollo’s child, to a beautiful Greek princess who bore him a son. So jealous was she that the queen ordered her soldiers out to slaughter Apollo’s mistress and son, in the most brutal of ways. She wanted them ripped apart as if an animal had done it.”
Cameron cringed at the horror. No wonder the god had cursed them. She’d have wanted revenge herself had someone dared take the life of her child. But only on the ones who’d done it. She certainly wouldn’t have gone after other innocents over it.
As her mother had so often said, two wrongs never made a right. Especially in a tragedy of this magnitude.
Janice placed her cards aside. “To thwart his curse, some of them Apollites done learned to steal souls so that they could feed from them to elongate their own lives. But the problem is, when they do that, they destroy the soul forever. Our goal is to kill those Daimons and free the stolen souls so that they can restore themselves and go on to their eternal rest. If we fail, those souls vanish forever.”
Cameron crossed herself at what Janice described. “Was it Apollo who made the Dark-Hunters, too?”
Belle shook her head. “It was Apollo’s sister, Artemis, who used her own blood to create the first Dark-Hunter to hunt the Daimons and kill them. That original Dark-Hunter, Acheron, is now their leader, and he’s the one what trains them whenever Artemis makes a new Hunter.”
“That’s why Janny has fangs and we don’t … different Hunters, different abilities.” Sancha winked at Janice.
Cameron let out a nervous laugh, hoping that was a jest. Surely the woman didn’t really have fangs.
Did she?
“W-w-what?”
“’Tis true.” Janice opened her mouth to show off her unique dental features.
Holy mother of God!
Cameron shot off her bed to move closer to Belle, who laughed at her overreaction.
“There now, girl! No fear of our Janny. She only bites male posteriors.”
Janice grinned. “Truth be to that. And that I do with great relish. In particular, wouldn’t mind me a piece of a few of the ones what be sailing on this very ship, or me boss, Acheron. Oh, that one…” She sucked her breath in sharply between her teeth—or fangs, rather. “He’s got the finest backside what’s ever graced a man. If ever there be a one you want to sink teeth to…”
“And pray for lockjaw?” Cameron added, remembering what the prostitute had said to her earlier.
“Hear, hear,” Sancha laughed. “Wouldn’t mind a romp in the sheets with Acheron meself. Can you imagine the skills he must have after all these centuries?”
“Or Bane?” Belle said with a laugh. “I’d lay money he’s not one to be shy or timid. Rather, he’d no doubt set fire to the bed, what with his passions.”
Janice grinned wider. “Or our dear William or Kalder.”
