“Sonofabitch,” Orpheus said from across the room. “Um, guys. We’ve got a problem. A big-ass problem.”
Somehow Isadora tore her gaze from Demetrius and looked toward Orpheus, who was standing at the doorway, peering down the long hall.
“What now?” Demetrius asked.
“Wave number two,” Orpheus said. He crossed the floor in quick strides, reached for his sword from the floor. “Only this time they’re not fucking around.”
“Skata.”
Isadora tensed in Demetrius’s arms. “What does that mean?”
“It means we need to haul ass out of here.” Demetrius looked down at her. “Can you walk?”
“No, but I can run.”
“Good girl.” Demetrius let go of her, dropped to Gryphon’s side, and slapped the guardian on the face. “No more dicking around, Gryphon. Wake up.”
Gryphon grunted and stirred.
Orpheus checked the door again, swore. “We don’t have time to run.” Then to Demetrius, “You’ll have to take them through the portal.”
Demetrius’s gaze shot to Orpheus’s as he pushed Gryphon up to sitting. “She can’t go to the human realm.”
“It’s either that or die, smart guy. Gryphon’s not strong enough to flash out of here and you’re not leaving him behind, so make a choice. We’ve got seconds here. I can hold them off until you get through the portal, but that’s it.”
Fear leaped in Isadora’s chest. She twisted to Orpheus. “You’re coming with us.”
He flicked her a look as he pulled on his black cloak, stained with blood and gore. “Would love to, Isa, but someone’s got to be the man around here.”
“Wait. You don’t have to do this.”
“Careful, Isa. I’ll start to think you really do care.”
“Orpheus—”
He turned to her before she could touch him and the humor left his features, stopping her feet. His eyes flickered green before returning to their normal gray color. Isadora stiffened when she saw the daemon in him shimmer forward and retreat.
“I can hold my own,” he said. “You know that.”
She did know that. She was the only one who knew his secret. Not even Gryphon knew that his brother was part daemon. He was right. He could take down just about anything that came at him, but he wasn’t invincible. And somewhere in the back of her mind she realized she’d foreseen this moment long ago. “Orpheus—”
“Go, Isa,” he said, softer. “You managed to save me; now do it for my brother. Get Gryphon home. I can hold them off long enough for all of you to get through. This time I need your help.”
She swallowed hard. Out in the hall, footsteps pounded and mixed with screams and shouts and cries of war.
Isadora took a step back. And another.
“Go!” Orpheus shouted. His eyes flashed again before jerking from her toward the doorway, which was suddenly filled with a horde of witches, all seething and hissing and bearing weapons like nothing Isadora had seen before.
Fear surged. Isadora turned and ran as Orpheus dropped down for attack.
Demetrius brought his hands together in front of him. “Run!”
The portal fractured and opened, illuminating the room in a burst of light so bright it blinded Isadora. She dropped her hand to block the glare, dug her bare feet into the slippery floor, and pushed off as hard as she could. Weapons clashed behind her. Screams and shouts resounded. Terror plagued her as she thought of Orpheus left here alone. But when she reached Demetrius and Gryphon, she didn’t hesitate. She sprinted through the opening toward salvation. And prayed somehow it would find them all.
***
“D?”
Behind Demetrius the portal popped and sizzled in a band of brilliant light that shimmered over the dark clearing. With one arm wrapped around Gryphon’s waist, the other holding the guardian’s arm at his shoulder to support his weight, dread welled in the bottom of Demetrius’s chest. “Yeah?”
“Tell me I’m hallucinating,” Gryphon muttered.
Dozens of glowing green eyes peered their way.
“Neither of us is that lucky.”
“Mother…” Gryphon winced in pain. “The portal didn’t improve our situation.”
No shit. As the daemons in the field turned and headed their way, exit strategies raced through Demetrius’s mind. A descendant of Perseus, the great hero who’d defeated Medusa, Gryphon had the power of paralysis, but he rarely used it. Not only was his power unpredictable, but using it drained him of strength and left him blind until the weakness passed. The Argonauts didn’t like him to call up his power unless they were in dire straits, and though that’s exactly what this was, in his current state there was no way Gryphon could freeze-frame their enemies without possibly killing himself in the process. That left battling their way out of this mess, which didn’t look all that promising from where Demetrius was standing.
No, Gryphon was wrong. Demetrius would take fifty witches over a pack of daemons any day.
Moonlight cascaded over their seven-foot-tall bodies, over their catlike faces, doglike ears, and horns that looked like something off a rabid goat. He glanced sideways to where Isadora was standing still as death, staring out at what now faced them.
His adrenaline surged. No way he could open the portal again and send her and Gryphon back to Argolea. Not with those daemons so close. If even one got through…
They didn’t have time. He unhooked Gryphon’s arm from around his shoulder. Pushed the guardian toward Isadora. Gryphon stumbled, but Isadora was right there to catch him. “Get back. Both of you.”
“Demet—” Isadora started.
He unstrapped the knife at his thigh and pushed the handle into Isadora’s small hands. It wasn’t much of a weapon against hell’s monsters, but it was better than nothing, and hopefully it’d give them a chance. A slight chance.
Sonofabitch. He’d thought they were fucked before? This topped that by a mile.
The black mist swirled and deepened, condensed in his chest. He whipped the parazonium from its scabbard and turned to face the coming doom. The daemons were now in a full-out charge, headed right for them. “Run, already!”
There was no time to look and see if Gryphon and Isadora had listened. The first daemon flew through the air, blade swinging, claws thrashing. Demetrius’s parazonium made contact with the daemon’s sword, the vibration of the hit ricocheting down his arm. Five, maybe six, he could handle on his own. But not the forty or so that were out here. And wasn’t it just his dumbass luck that he hadn’t paid attention to where he was opening the portal in the human realm, had simply opened it to the last place he’d come from. Which had been days ago, at the half-breed colony, when he’d been here with the other Argonauts helping to fend off a daemon attack.
A scream rang out. He stabbed the daemon in the chest and pulled his blade from the unholy’s body as he whirled around. Gryphon and Isadora were thirty feet from him, flanked by two massive daemons. In a daze he watched one daemon swipe out with razor-sharp claws, saw Gryphon go down. Isadora stepped closer to Gryphon’s body, wielded the knife like a pro, and though he was momentarily shocked by her courage and skill, he knew that wouldn’t keep the beasts back for long. The three daemons making a beeline for her didn’t look like they cared about her bravado or the puny weapon she held in her hand.
Demetrius’s chest pounded, his throat closed. He’d never reach her in time. His mind tumbled with options, but when the daemon smacked the knife out of her hand and her body spun from the blow, he didn’t even think.
The magick that was as much a part of him as his eyes and hair and teeth, but which he denied at every turn, gathered in his hands. A chant rose in his mind, circled, and swirled until the words poured from his tongue without encouragement.
“Earth, wind, water, fire, grant to me your growing power.” He felt the force push through his hands, zing out his fingertips. Imagined his arm shooting across the distance and his hand wrapping around the daemon’s t
hroat. Sensations rippled through him. The instant he felt contact, he clamped down and yanked.
The daemon lost its footing. Jerked back ten feet before it slammed into the ground. Isadora scrambled to her feet. The daemon jumped up with murder in its green eyes as it searched for whoever had grabbed him.
He homed in on Demetrius and charged. Demetrius had just enough time to brace himself. He darted a look toward Isadora and the remaining daemons closing in tight. The daemon launched just as Demetrius swung out. His parazonium caught the beast across the chest, tore into its thick flesh. Demetrius swiveled out from under its weight.
“Isadora! Run!”
Blood spurted over him as the daemon hit the ground and rolled. From the corner of his eye Demetrius saw Isadora sprinting toward the trees. But the monster was up again, charging, blocking his view of her, teeth bared, fangs unsheathed, eyes a blinding glow in its grotesque head.
Isadora screamed again. A loud crack resounded through the chill night air seconds before the daemon slammed into Demetrius, knocking him to the ground. His head hit hard, stars fired off behind his eyes, but panic over what he couldn’t see happening only yards away had him swinging out again and again with his blade.
He couldn’t make headway. Didn’t have enough time to focus and draw on his magick. The creature knocked the blade from his hand. Metal pinged against rock as his parazonium clanked across the ground. The beast reared back, blood-coated claws seconds from annihilation.
“Stop!”
The daemon above hesitated. His gruesome head swiveled toward Gryphon and Isadora and the daemon who’d shouted the order.
Demetrius looked too. Ten or more daemons had gathered around Isadora, blocking his view. The daemon kneeling on the ground nodded toward the beast that still had Demetrius pinned. “Bring him.”
The daemon curled its claws into Demetrius’s shirt and yanked. “Get up, asswipe.”
Demetrius staggered, caught his balance, stumbled again as he was dragged across the ground. The daemon threw him to the dirt near the others.
Pain seared every inch of his body, but he pushed up on his hands, searched through the sea of tree-trunk legs and arms for Isadora. Sweat and blood rolled into his eyes, but he barely cared.
Isadora’s face was bruised, her arms limp, her head tipped to the side. Blood trickled down her temple. More dried blood caked her short blond hair and matted the side of her head. One foot was twisted at an odd angle, and her chest neither rose nor fell.
No. Oh, skata, no…
The daemon who’d summoned him stepped in Demetrius’s line of sight, blocking his view. He wrapped his meaty hands in the front of Demetrius’s shirt and jerked him to his feet. Demetrius didn’t fight back, didn’t try to defend himself. All he saw was the image of Isadora lying dead on the ground.
The daemon’s glowing eyes roamed Demetrius’s face, and that black mist brewed in Demetrius’s chest with every passing second. Two hundred and eighteen years of life had come down to this. To making one monumentally fucked-up mistake that had just toasted all three of them and sent Isadora straight into Hades’s clutches for good. “Just kill me, you fucking prick.”
The daemon’s lips curled back in a grisly smile to reveal stained, pointed teeth. “And risk the wrath of Atalanta? I don’t think so.”
The daemon set Demetrius on his feet, but instead of the blinding pain from claws or teeth or blade, what came was a pat on his back as if they were old friends. The daemon turned to face the others. “What we have there, my comrades, is of royal blood. And lucky for all of you I realized this before you killed her.”
Demetrius’s gaze snapped to Isadora. She wasn’t dead? Hope erupted in his chest.
“Atalanta has been waiting for her,” the daemon went on. “What a lucky twist of fate that we are the ones who will bring her to our queen.” He turned and looked Demetrius’s way. “And she will be most pleased you are the one who brought her to us.”
That hope fizzled and died. Trepidation coursed through Demetrius as the leader’s chest swelled with pride. More daemons gathered to see what was happening. Murmurs and throaty whispers rose up in the night to circle the field like a malicious, pulsing halo of evil.
The leader of the pack held his arms out wide. “Warriors, pay homage to this Argonaut who will change the tides of our war. For Atalanta’s son has succeeded in his duties. Your brother has finally brought us our prize.”
Chapter 5
Orpheus felt like he’d been run over by a semitruck. The skin on his hands and forearms was fried from all the acidic witch blood. His shoulder hurt like a bitch where he’d taken a blast of Apophis’s energy. And he had enough nicks and cuts from claws and swords everywhere else to last him into the next millennium.
Man, the Argonauts owed him big-time. As he flashed to Delia’s tent city in the low hills of the Aegis Mountains, he corrected himself. Isadora fucking owed him.
And this time he planned to hold firm to his word and make sure she paid up.
Delia rushed out of the pavilion just as he lowered the invisibility cloak’s hood. She grasped his forearm, her fingers digging in deep to his already-seared skin.
He winced as pain shot into his arm and tried to pull away. But the witch had a death grip and her wide-eyed expression put him on instant alert. One look around and he realized the Argonauts weren’t here, where’d they’d planned to reconnoiter after rescuing Isadora.
“Where are they?” he asked.
“They left.”
Left? Why, those ungrateful motherfu—
“They sensed one of their own open the portal.”
“I know. The big one opened it to get the princess away from Apophis.”
Delia shook her head, white hair flaring out all around her shoulders. And his last thread of patience snapped. He’d nearly gotten fried, had risked his own neck so Demetrius could get Gryphon and Isadora the hell out of there, and then they’d gone and ditched his ass so they could—
“It didn’t reopen.”
“What did you say?”
“I said the portal didn’t reopen. They didn’t come back through. Not here, not in Tiyrns.”
His brow wrinkled. “How can you—”
“Because I sense anytime the portal opens, anywhere in Argolea. How do you think I’m able to monitor our mobile portals?” Her hand tightened on his arm. “I sensed it open to the human realm, but not back again. Orpheus, I don’t have to tell you, as one of the Horae, it’s not safe for the princess to be in the human realm.”
No, it wasn’t safe for Isadora to be in the human realm, but that wasn’t what set off a tremor of unease deep in Orpheus’s gut. Thinking about Gryphon unable to stand on his own when Demetrius had taken him through was foremost in Orpheus’s mind.
He didn’t bother to answer Delia, simply closed his eyes and pictured the castle in Tiyrns, then flashed to the grand foyer.
The guards at the front door caught sight of him and hollered, surprised he’d flashed inside walls. Turning, he looked up the massive staircase to where Theron and a few of the other Argonauts were coming down.
Footsteps pounded across the marble floor. Theron waved a hand from above. “He’s with us.”
The leader of the Argonauts stopped at ground level, motioned Cerek over to take care of the flustered guards. Then he turned his attention on Orpheus. “Glad you made it back.”
Yeah, right. “What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell us.”
“We were overrun. Demetrius took the princess and Gryphon through the portal to get away. I stayed back to give them a chance.”
“How in Hades did you get out?”
Orpheus didn’t like the accusation. The guardian might command this ragtag group of warriors, but he didn’t hold a damn thing over Orpheus. “I have my ways.”
Theron studied Orpheus for a long beat, and in his eyes there was skepticism and distrust, the kind Orpheus was used to seeing. But not when he’d volunteer
ed to help. And definitely not when he’d nearly gotten zapped to smithereens as a result. This is what he got for being a fucking Good Samaritan.
He set his jaw, was just about to lay into Theron, when the guardian said, “They never made it back. What did they say to you before they left?”
Nothing that would help the Argonauts find them, that was sure. They could be anywhere. Except…“Gryphon was injured.”
“Where? How?”
“That piece of shit warlock hit him with some kind of energy. He could barely stand on his own. If they didn’t come back right away—”
“Skata.” Theron looked over his shoulder. “Zander, get Callia. We’re going to need her.”
As the blond guardian headed back up the stairs, Orpheus’s irritation with this whole fucked-up situation reached its limit. “Can’t you just track them with those fancy medallions you all wear?”
“The medallions work like a beacon, one way, and only if they’re pressed. Someone has to activate them for—”
Boots clomped on the floor above, and all heads turned to see what the ruckus was about. Seconds later Titus rounded the newel post and skipped stairs to reach them at the bottom. He was out of breath when he said, “I got it. Just came in.” He waved some kind of handheld gizmo. “Gryphon’s medal went off.”
“What about Demetrius’s?” Theron asked.
Titus shook his head. “Hasn’t been triggered. Theron, man. They’re at the half-breed colony.”
“Skata,” Theron muttered again.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that was the worst possible place to open the portal. The colony had recently been overrun by daemons, and the Misos—half human, half Argolean—were in the process of setting up new digs somewhere in Montana. If Demetrius had opened the portal there, odds were good they’d run into a shit storm of daemons, still running patrols and searching the area for stragglers. And with Gryphon injured, their chances of getting out alive diminished radically.
“Get Nick on the horn,” Theron said to Titus. “He’s still in Oregon rounding up his people and getting them moved over.”