19

Rose was completely healed. There was not a wound on her. But it wasn’t just that. Rose wasn’t just in perfect health. She was positively glowing.

“What did the demons give you?” I asked her.

A smile of pure happiness spread across her lips. “Immortality. Just as you at the Legion drink from the gods’ Nectar, we have a nectar of our own.”

Harker cursed under his breath. I guessed he’d heard of this demon nectar.

“This was the price of your life?” I said to Rose, waving my hand around to indicate this shady operation. “The demons told you they would cure your cancer if you helped them?”

Rose laughed like I’d said the funniest thing in the world. “It was not the demons who came to me. I went to them. This was my idea.”

She actually looked proud of herself.

“I was never one to take death lying down,” she continued. “Never one to play the victim, to let things happen to me. In that way, we are a lot alike, Leda. You would have done the same.”

“No,” I said, the denial immediate. “You are killing people.”

“I am freeing them from the tyranny and meaningless rules that have broken them. Some refused, blinded by their devotion to a broken system. They were polluting the positive energy of our new order, so they had to be dealt with. But most people embraced the change.” Rose indicated the two couples. “Look at them. Forlorn, suffering, without hope. I am giving them hope and new life. I founded this house. At first, it was about curing me, but now it’s grown into so much more. We are free here.”

“No, you’re not,” I told her. “You’ve just traded one master for another. You are nothing but a pawn in this game of gods and demons. The demons are using you to build their army. Why can’t you see that?”

“I am free to choose. This was my plan. My idea.”

I shook my head. There was just no getting through to her. She’d buried herself inside a mountain of denial so high that she couldn’t even see the truth anymore.

“It was a foolish plan,” Harker told her. “The gods always find out.”

“You foolish, mindless soldier.” She looked at him with more pity than malice. “You were all running around helplessly, confused. You’re so stuck on your devotion to your gods that you couldn’t even fathom anyone would move against them. And ignorant you would have remained.” She shot me an irked look. “If not for you, Leda. How did you know I was still alive?”

“Ivy’s bracelet. The charm has the same symbol as on your shop’s door.”

She sighed. “My dear daughter. I never expected her to join the Legion.”

“She was trying to save you.”

“And she would have been too late. I wouldn’t have survived the first month. But it was a noble gesture.” She favored me with a kind smile. She actually seemed to like me. “Noble like you, dear. And what you’re doing for your brother.”

Harker looked at me.

A ghost of a smile kissed her lips. “You haven’t told him? Or Nero? The two boys who fought over you.”

I glowered at her. “You know an awful lot about what’s going on at the Legion.”

“Ivy wrote to me. She told me stories. We’ve always been close.”

“She will be heartbroken when she realizes she doesn’t know you at all.”

“You care about her. Good. She will need a friend in the hard days to come.”

Rose waved to her army of vampires, and they attacked Harker. Every step, every punch and slash, led him further from me. The vampires were breaking us apart. But they weren’t even attacking me. They were concentrating all their attention on him. He was holding them off, but there were just so many of them. I drew my gun to help him.

“Stop,” Rose said. “If you die, you will never find your brother. No one will.”

I paused, torn between two impossible decisions. Harker made the choice for me. He lifted his fist into the air, expelling a wave of psychic magic that shot the vampires to the far edges of the room.

“I sent you to the Legion for a reason,” she told me. “Don’t squander your chance to save your brother.”

“You were working with her?” Shock washed across Harker’s face—shock and betrayal.

“Of course not. My mom knows her,” I told him “We went to her for…for some help finding my brother. We found her bleeding on the floor. She was dying.” A realization hit me, dropping like a cold, hard rock into the pit of my stomach. “A dark angel didn’t attack you,” I said to Rose.

“Oh, he attacked me all right. Those wounds weren’t fake.”

“But it was staged. So, you…you could get me to join the Legion.” I frowned. “You said it was the only way to save Zane.”

“And it is.”

“Through Ghost’s Whisper,” muttered Harker. “That is why you joined the Legion.”

There was no point in denying it. “Yes.”

He was quiet for a moment, reflective—even as the vampires stuck to the walls struggled against his psychic grip. He flicked his hand, and all of them simultaneously burst into flames. Wow, he really was powerful.

“You are noble,” he finally said to me. “I know you will do the right thing.”

I didn’t even know what the right thing was. I was doing the selfish thing. Zane was my brother, and I loved him and wanted to see him again, so I was going to save him.

“You used me.” I glared at Rose. “You wanted me to join the Legion, so I could lead you to Zane. But why? Dark angels took my brother. The demons already have him.”

“No,” Rose said, that single word a ray of hope in the dark room. “That was someone else.”

Had Sheriff Wilder’s daughter only thought she’d seen dark angels that night? Had fear and the darkness of night forced her mind to fill in the gaps? Or had someone cast an illusion with magic, someone who didn’t want us to know who’d really taken Zane?

“But if the demons don’t have Zane, then who does?” I muttered to myself.

“That is something I trust you will find out,” Rose said.

A second wave of vampires streamed in through the open doors, surrounding us. Harker drew his sword and charged at them. His magic must have been running too low to repeat the spontaneous combustion trick again. Ignoring Rose’s warnings, I jumped into the fray to help him. I shot one of them before he could shoot Harker, then threw another one aside so I could move back-to-back with him.

“I see you’ve made your decision.” Rose’s words dripped with disappointment.

“Yeah, I guess I really have,” I told her.

Harker and I fought off the vampires together, our movements coordinated, as though we’d practiced this a million times before. Except I hadn’t. In fact, I’d never fought this well before, but I could feel him feeding me a little of his magic, of his experience—giving me a little nudge to bring me through the movements like a dancer leading his partner. And we were magnificent.

Until the Legion came.

As our own soldiers poured through the doors, engaging the never-ending stream of Rose’s vampires, that strand between me and Harker snapped.

“This was supposed to be between us. You promised you wouldn’t tell the Legion,” I said, the sting of his betrayal burning my throat.

“Are you really going to be angry about this now?” He shot another vampire. “Right now, they are saving our lives. You can be mad at me later.”

He was right, but I was too upset with him to admit it. And too busy to argue with him. I had to stay alive. Rose was right about one thing: if I died, I couldn’t save my brother.

So I fought and killed the vampires. Red stained my vision, a combination of blood and anger and that old enemy fear. I didn’t slow, and I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing. If I stopped, I was dead. The vampires were too fast. Worse yet, the realization of what I was doing—the people I was killing—would cripple me in such a way that not even supernatural speed could make up for it.

Caught in this daze of crimson, I was vaguely aware of Harker beside me, hacking through vampires left and right. Their bodies were piling up everywhere, falling in my path. Bile rose in my throat at the sheer scale of death around me.

Harker broke through the line of vampires, making a run for Rose as she tried to escape. She didn’t make it far. He lifted his sword, and in one swift stroke, he cut clear through her neck. Her head thumped to the ground, her body tumbling down a moment later. I froze, paralyzed. Rose was dead. Ivy would be crushed.

That moment of distraction cost me. A vampire grabbed hold of my arm, yanking me toward him as he bit down hard on my neck. Pain bubbled up from the mark his fangs had torn into my flesh. I kicked him in the knee, then hurled him at the wall.

I looked for my next target, but a rush of dizziness made me stumble. Something hot and wet was gushing down my neck. I lifted my hand to my throat to find it torn open and slick with my own blood. That same blood sprinkled down from me, splattering the floor. But I couldn’t give up now. The vampires had us outnumbered. Where were they all coming from? I considered reaching into my jacket for a roll of gauze and trying to bandage up my wound, but a solid thump to my head from a nearby vampire reminded me that I didn’t have time for that shit. I’d just have to fight bloody.

My mind was too stubborn to give up, but my body was failing. My vision blurred, my steps swayed. Hands caught me before I hit the ground. I blinked, looking up into Harker’s face.

“Leda, gods,” he gasped, his eyes widening. “What happened to you?”

I tried to steady myself, to stand on my own two feet, but he held on like I was one step away from falling to pieces. I was too numb to know if he was right. I could hear the clash of steel and the crunch of bones. The fight was still going on, and I should have been in it.

“I’m fine,” I insisted, pushing against his stubborn hold. “Let me go.”

“You can’t fight, Leda. Not in this state.”

I blinked several times in quick succession, trying to clear my vision. But darkness was falling, consciousness slipping. I felt a warm pulse of magic encase me like a blanket, and then I passed out.