Ari stroked her hair again and bit back a sarcastic comment about swine flu symptoms mimicking demon possession; even
he
knew it wasn’t the right moment to be a smart-ass, and especially not when Jules didn’t understand her predicament.
Mason cleared his throat. “Uh, Aristos?” he said, changing lanes on the expressway. “We should talk, probably. After a while?”
“About me,” Jules finished. “I’m quite aware that you don’t believe I’m to be trusted.”
To his credit, Mason gave her a kind look over his shoulder. “No, but I do think you’re in trouble.”
She sank into her seat. Then, straightening to a dignified posture, she addressed Mason. “Sir, unfortunately, you are correct. I believe that I’m in a very great deal of trouble.”
Mason nodded after a moment. “Yeah, well,” he said, meeting Ari’s gaze in the rearview, “maybe I can help.”
Eros paced the length of the Spartans’ drive, overwrought that he’d lost contact with Layla for the past hour. Everything had changed the moment he’d observed Aristos and Juliana in the parking lot of the restaurant. From that moment, the gaming table had tilted, the stakes entirely altered.
Because their love was one of the purest forms he’d ever encountered between any coupled pair of young lovers. They’d even invoked his name, playing at the idea of being “Eros” and . . . and
her
. He pressed his eyes shut, as always refusing to even think her name. To allow its musical sound into his head. But that love, what he’d shared with her once, so long ago—he saw it reflected in Juliana and Aristos’s passion.
His chest swelled at the exchange he’d witnessed, a pure example of the love Eros brought to the world, and yet . . . he was meant to bring about that couple’s destruction. It was only by
his
hand that Layla had joined with Juliana; by
his
power that she’d been resurrected at all.
But not to create the rare, enthralling love he’d seen displayed so exquisitely between Aristos and Juliana.
No, he had used his power to create destruction. To sow heartbreak and suffering.
His stomach gave a terrible spasm, and he grasped the rail, struggling not to lose his evening meal. His actions, his participation in Ares’ plan, all were an act against his own divine purpose. He was literally, perhaps by his father’s intended will, destroying himself. That realization had been confirmed when he’d watched Aristos and Mason in that same lot, the discord between them.
This was the mission he’d agreed to, certainly, when he’d made the alliance with his father. But now, watching events unfold, he reconsidered whether his actions weren’t too much at odds with his own gift.
And then there was the matter of Layla herself. . . .
He’d found her in the desert, the place where all female Djinn were locked—unless someone was given authority to free them, or possessed it by virtue of his or her god’s power.
One glance into the reflective waters of his pool and he’d instantly perceived her to be the most effective, cruelest form of destruction against the Spartans and the Shades. He’d seen everything in that brief glimpse, the truth of what she would be capable of, the profound division she could create among them. And once a team was split apart, it lacked real power.
“I can give you Mason Angel,” he’d told her simply, and those violet-red eyes had glowed, illuminating the desert night.
Then she’d calmed a bit, had become focused with ferocious intensity. “Can you make him want me?”
Eros had known that, perhaps with the right aim of his arrow, yes, he could bring about that unlikely outcome. “I can cause anyone to love or lust for another. That is my gift,” he’d answered, knowing then that he would wait to see the unfolding of events. He was thankful that he had.
Layla had seemed most aroused by his offer. “May I kill? Destroy as I see fit?”
“You are to use your own erotic abilities,” he’d answered evenly. “That is the way you will infiltrate their cadre.”
The way she’d stared, that craven lust in her eyes, continued to unnerve him even now.
And yet there was little Eros could do to stop the unfolding plan: Juliana and Layla were already bound as tightly as any lover’s knot. Even if he’d wanted to extricate them, it would mean final, lasting death for Juliana, not that she wasn’t headed toward that fate, anyway, and most expeditiously.
But then he had a thought. There was one who could help, one who had always loved and cared for him, even in the face of his father’s neglectful disdain. And she, too, had her reasons for supporting the Spartans. In fact, it was only a matter of time until she returned to this compound once again.
Chapter 31
J
ules wandered about the guest bedroom, trying to sort through her myriad, disturbing thoughts. What should she tell Aristos about Layla? He deserved an explanation, but would he be harmed if she shared any of the facts she’d learned? So many years apart, all that time spent searching for him, waiting, hoping—she refused to let Layla take him from her. She’d die again before she allowed him to be harmed at all.
As for Ari, he was much quieter than usual. He’d sprawled on the bed, his long legs stretched out, leaning against the headboard.
“I think you should sit down,” he said, patting the spot beside him. His expression was dour, but he didn’t seem furious. More . . . troubled. A feeling she certainly understood at the moment.
She sat on the edge of the mattress and removed first one boot, then the other. “I thought maybe you were still angry with me.”
“I’m upset because . . .” He looked away. “We’ve got a problem, Juliana. A big one. I’m just not sure how much
you
know. You remember anything from the restaurant?”
The memories were murky, muddled, but she was certain of one thing. She had a demon inside of her, one that apparently planned to kill Ari if she revealed details about its presence.
She buried her face in both hands, fighting tears. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she gasped.
He sat up a little taller, reaching for her. “Baby, I don’t think it’s
me
we need to worry about.”
“I think,” she said slowly, “what we need . . . is a priest.”
His black eyebrows cranked down over his eyes. “So you know about the demon.”
As if in answer to his statement, her stomach seized tight, the muscles rippling with wrenching spasms of pain. “She doesn’t . . . I can’t tell you. Can’t admit . . .” The pain stabbed even harder; her breath left her lungs.
Ari sprang to her side, trying to hold her, but she shook him off. “Don’t! Get away from me. . . . Don’t you see? She’ll . . .”
Hurt you
. The words were there, on her tongue, but no matter how hard she worked her mouth, they wouldn’t come out.
She pointed at her throat, gasping for air, but only a rasping sound came forth. Ari struggled to hold her, and she sagged against him, still rendered mute.
“Just breathe,” Ari instructed. “In and out, one breath at a time. That demon’s not in charge. You are.”
She nodded, rubbing the column of her throat, desperately wanting to communicate with Ari—to explain why she feared revealing anything more about Layla.
“Now,” Ari murmured after a moment, apparently believing her soothed, “tell me what you know about the demon.”
She’ll hurt you!
She screamed the thought in her mind, still clinging to Ari. And then she recalled one very wonderful fact.
She’d once taught Ari sign language so he could communicate with her young brother, Edward. The two of them had been so close, and Ari had worked diligently to become proficient with his signing skills, even though the method had been unpopular at the time.
Working her fingers quickly, she signed, “She will hurt you. If I tell more.” She gave him a hopeless, pleading glance. “I did not know what she was. I believed her an angel.”
Ari’s eyes grew wide as he watched her fingers fly, and then a furious, protective expression filled his face. He cursed in Greek and then signed back to her. “Demons are angels, love. Fallen, dark ones. I eat them for lunch.”
A knock came on the door, and Emma called out from the other side. “Can we come in?”
Ari slung an arm around Juliana, propping them both against the headboard. Using a friendly, upbeat tone that he surely didn’t feel, he called out, “Okay, Witches of East-wick, get your butts on in here.”
“They’re not
witches
,” Jules scolded, cutting a look at him as the door opened slowly. “They’re Daughters.”
Sophie, Emma, and Shay entered the room, and Ari grinned at them. “We heard Juliana wasn’t feeling so hot,” Sophie said, then, getting a look at Jules’s flushed face, added, “Or, yeah, I guess
too
hot is more like it.”
“The Crab Shack was a bust, huh?” Shay asked, her blue eyes riveted on Juliana.
“Geez Louise, girl!” Sophie said, bounding onto the end of the bed with a little hop. The whole mattress shook from the impact. “Your head isn’t fixin’ to do a three-sixty or anything, is it? I might be a healer, but I’m not sure even I could help with that.”
Emma waved dismissively. “Ignore her,” she said, flopping down beside Sophie on the end of the bed.
Shay strode to Ari’s side. “Mace is waiting on you. He and Nik are in the great room looking at some more of the Shades’ lore. Something that Mace brought with him from the house.”
Ari shifted against the headboard. “Leonidas back yet?”
“Nope,” Emma said. “Nikos made some calls to gather the troops, but it’s going to be a little while still. The others are all out in the field still.”
“Here, baby,” Ari said, gently dislodging her from his arms. “The girls will hang with you for a bit. I gotta go powwow with Mason and Nik.”
She searched his face. “You know I’m not evil, Aristos. Please . . . tell me that you understand I’m not bad.”
He kissed her forehead, holding her close. “Darling, I know who you are. And what you are.”
She pulled back and used sign language. “But do you know what’s
inside
of me?”
He gave her a bittersweet smile and answered, “I’m still working on that one. I just need a little time.”
The only problem, Juliana knew, was that time was one luxury they couldn’t afford. Ari clearly saw the anxiety in her eyes. He bent down, pressing his lips against her forehead. “I’m going to protect you, sweetheart. I promise. Nothing’s going to keep us apart ever again.”
“I’ll keep fighting, too,” she whispered in his ear.
“Actually,” Shay volunteered as soon as Ari left the room. “I had an idea earlier. Something we Daughters can do to help. It’s one reason we came down here.”
Emma added, “We’re all ready to fight for you, Juliana.”
“Go on, absolutely,” Juliana said, bobbing her head. “Tell me what you have in mind, please.”
Shay deposited a drawing pad in the center of the bed, tapping a charcoal pencil against the blank page. “So,” she told Juliana, “we all have our unique gifts as Daughters, right? Several, sometimes. Mine is that I draw prophetically.”
“How does that ability work?” Juliana asked, as Shay began to move her pencil across the page.
“I get visions, scenes that I am compelled to draw—sometimes a trancelike state overtakes me. I’m sensing that there’s something related to your situation,” she said, the first lines of a balcony emerging on the page. “Something . . . crucial.”
Jules watched as Shay quickly sketched in more details; a set of French doors emerged, then a very recognizable pair of wings. Jules held her breath, knowing what might be coming next.
Shay tightened her hold on the charcoal pencil, releasing a slow, pained groan as she hesitated.
Emma reached for her cousin. “What is it? What’s wrong, Shayanna?”
Shay trembled slightly and then resumed drawing, her eyes assuming a glazed expression. Her hands flew across the page, nimbly outlining more details from that pivotal night . . . and roughing in the shadowy figure of a male. The male who’d been in the room!
In a distant voice Shay said, “He’s talking. This man in the room. He’s saying something. Don’t recognize the language . . . strange, foreign.” Shay closed her eyes and began chanting, repeating whatever she heard in an eerie monotone.
“What does this mean?” Sophie whispered, glancing among the rest of them with saucer-sized eyes. “Geez Louise . . . redux.”
Shay’s whole body swayed, back and forth, more of those alien words passing over her lips.
Juliana’s body began to vibrate, a kind of humming sensation starting in the middle of her belly. It was a demon language; she knew it based on how Layla was apparently reacting from within her own body.
This might be her only chance to find out what had happened the night of her death—and how it was possibly linked to the current situation with Layla.
Jules closed her own eyes, reaching deep inside to try to activate her own prophetic ability. Perhaps, just as she’d been able to track Ari that afternoon—the ability still alive in her—she might also be able to see the events Shay was conjuring.
She reached out her hands to Emma and Sophie. “We need to link,” she said. “Join our powers as Daughters. All of us tied together, to try to get additional information about what Shay’s channeling and seeing.”
The other women nodded, and they immediately formed a four-way circle, their hands clasped. As they did so, a powerful jolt of electricity rang through Juliana’s veins. Her vision changed, the room around her vanishing, time itself dissolving.
She was standing in her own bedroom in 1893.
All time had folded back, like tissue paper in a gift box, revealing that past moment as something real and alive. Vivid. Exactly as it had been.
Ari stood at those French doors, the midnight dark shadowing his form; the outline of his wings gleamed, illuminated by the gaslights below. She took a step, mesmerized, and a deep male voice came from behind her, chilling her. “I will destroy him.”