"I killed two already, and I haven't seen the rest." She wiped her bloody hands on her gown, the crimson stains stark against the virgin white.
Again, the sight was somehow more erotic than having her splayed out on his bed. A delicate-looking beauty, lethal and courageous. A warrior princess. She seemed impressed by him, as well, her gaze sliding over him with lusty heat.
"Good aim," she told him.
Turning away before she saw the evidence of his arousal, he scanned their surroundings. The Hunters had chosen their hideaway wisely and fortified it well. There were multiple rooms and hallways, the muddy walls supported with timbers. There was a table in back, piled high with cans of food and twigs for fire.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Anya bend down in front of the prisoners, who were cowering on the floor, probably afraid the avenging angel would hurt them, too. "Don't worry," she said soothingly. "I'm all about bad guy destruction. You have nothing to fear from me. We're going to get you out of here."
Such gentleness. Even Lucien was charmed.
From down one of the hallways, he heard a grunt, a thump, followed by a piercing bellow of pain. A split second later, the other hallway erupted with human screamsscreams that were quickly cut off. Lucien jumped in front of Anya, prepared to battle if anyone emerged.
Then Paris stalked from one of the rooms, face cut and bruised, and Lucien relaxed. "My two are dead," the warrior said proudly, if a bit weakly.
Amun strode from the other side, blood splattered on his cheeks. He didn't speakhe never spokebut he did nod. His targets were defeated, as well.
Strider and Gideon were behind him and both were grinning. "I nailed three," Strider said, and Lucien noticed he was limping. "Took a blade to the thigh, but victory is ours."
"I failed," Gideon said arrogantly.
"Guess the caves are interconnected," Paris said. Lines of strain now bracketed his too-perfect face. The fight must have drained the last of his strength. Usually he'd had one or two women by this time of dayneeded one or two women to sate his demonbut Promiscuity hadn't bedded a woman since the plane ride yesterday.
Anya stepped from the prisoners to Lucien's side, drawing every eye to her. All three men sucked in areverent? aroused? surprised?breath.
"Why the hell is she here?" Strider demanded. "And why would a minor goddess fight Hun"
"Hey! I'm not minor!" Anya said with a stomp of her foot.
Lucien wasn't given a chance to reply. Death tugged at him insistently, almost painfully, its need to collect the souls stronger than usual. Death was also whining inside his head, conflicted, because it wanted to remain next to pretty Anya almost as much as it needed to act.
What power did she wield over the being? How did she wield it?
"I'll return," he said. He allowed himself to be pulled completely from the physical world and into the spiritual. He could have left his body behind, but didn't want the warriors to have to worry about guarding it. His friends, and even Anya, faded from his line of vision.
He saw only the Hunters, lying on the ground, each bloody and lifeless. Inside the nearly-dead bodies, their spirits writhed, waiting for him.
"Anya," he called. He did not like leaving her alone with the other warriors. No telling what they would try to doespecially Paris.
She didn't appear. She had followed him to this realm before, he knew she had, for he had felt her. Why not now? She can take care of herself. You've seen the proof of that.
Hurry! Lucien wasn't responsible for every soul on earth. Many were actually allowed to remain, roaming the land, invisible. He thought he would go mad if he spent his every waking hour in this realm, doing nothing but traveling from earth to hell or earth to heaven. It was burden enough to be responsible for those whose final resting place had already been determined.
He always felt, deep inside, where he was supposed to escort the souls. Sometimes he even saw the final moments of the person's life, whether those moments were layered with sickening cruelty or unerring kindness.
Lucien sighed, studied his targets. There was a black aura around each of them, revealing the corruptness of their natures. These men would soon burn in the eternal fires. He wasn't surprised. While some Hunters actually made it into heaven, he'd known these would not. They were too fanatical and had indiscriminately tortured innocents for answers.
"Is this the peace you always longed for?" Lucien floated his ghostly self to the first body. Opening his hand and stretching his fingers, he reached inside the Hunter's chest. When he felt an ice-cold block, he snapped his fingers closed.
The spirit realized it was captured and began struggling as Lucien tugged it from the corpse. Their eyes met, and Lucien knew his were glowing with blue-brown fire.
"No," it screamed. "No. Let me stay here."
The man's sins suddenly flickered through the demon's awareness and in turn through Lucien's. As the man had already proven, he had considered himself above the law, slaying anyone who got in his waymen, women, childrenall in the name of a better world.
Bastard.
Maintaining a strong grip on the protesting spirit, he flashed to the entrance of hell. Not Hadesthat gloomy underworld was reserved for those who did not deserve either the tortures of hell or the glories of heaven. This man deserved the flames. Though the gates to the fire pit were closed, Lucien could feel the intense heat radiating, could hear the symphony of tormented screams inside, the demonic laughter. The jeers. The stifling scent of sulfur permeated the entire area, enough to make a man gag.
He'd brought Maddox here every night for thousands of years, hating himself all the while, wishing there were something he could do to ease his friend's anguish but knowing there was nothing. Until Anya. As she liked to remind him, she had saved them.
"Please!" the spirit cried. "I'm sorry for"
"Save your pleas," he said flatly. Over the centuries, he'd heard every desperate bargain imaginable. Nothing swayed him.
What will you do if Anya begs you? What then?
Suddenly Lucien wanted to vomit, to rail, to kill at the thought of bringing such a lovely creature here. Whatever her crime, he doubted she deserved to burn, the flesh melting and peeling from her luscious body only to regenerate and melt again.
Perhaps when she died, she would be allowed in heaven.
He could pray, at least.
"Please," the Hunter's spirit screamed as two thick boulders opened up above the pit. Orange-gold flames shot out, crackling and snapping, the smell of sulfur stronger as it blended with the odors of burned hair and rotting tissue.
The spirit's struggles intensified.
When Lucien saw demonic, scaly arms reach through the flames, when he heard the taunting become eager giggles, he tossed the spirit in. The scaly arms caught it and jerked it downward. There was a scream so filled with pain it was deafening, and then the boulders closed.
He didn't know what kept the demons inside, only that something did. Something that had not been able to hold the demon he now housed, which was why it had not been returned to hell after it escapedthanks to youPandora's box.
If you hadn't opened the box, you might never have met Anya. And that would have been best, he told himself, despite the sudden flare of rightness that came with knowing her. He wouldn't have been commanded to hurt her.
He repeated the journey with every slain Hunter, and when he was finished, he opened his eyes to find himself back in the physical realm. The cave walls closed in around him, dark and bleak. There was silence, but he wasn't sure the quiet was any better than the screams of the Underworld. His mind wanted to fill every second of it with thoughts of Anya.
She'd obsessed him.
And she was gone, he noticed. Disappointment filled him.
Having realized what was happening, his men had continued about their business and had patched up the innocents. Or maybe Anya had done it before she left. Where had she gone?
"I don't understand," Paris said to one of the beaten humans. "For what?"
"Artifacts," the old man said through swollen lips. "Priceless, godly, powerful. Each will lead the bearer closer to Pandora's box, helping him to finally procure it."
Pandora's box. Words guaranteed to engage his complete attention. Lucien joined the group. "How will the artifacts help us find the box?"
Amun stood off to the side, watching, but turned his head when Lucien spoke. Strider flicked him a glance, muttering, "Nice to have you back."
"The woman?"
"Still here," Gideon replied, which meant she had indeed left.
He moved beside Amun and waited for someone to explain.
"Just up and disappeared, right after you," Strider said. "Why does she keep showing up?"
Lucien didn't answer, for he didn't know what truly drove Anya. I missed you, she'd said. Had she really? He just didn't know. She was as mysterious as she was beautiful. "Who are these men and how will those artifacts help us find the box?"
Strider shrugged at the abrupt subject change. "They are mortals who've devoted their lives to the study of mythology. And I don't know."
"Can we go home?" the younger man asked. His brown eyes were watery. "Please."
"Soon," Lucien promised gently. "We just need to know what you told the Hunters."
"Hunters?" both asked in unison.
"The men who imprisoned you."
"Bastards," the younger man gritted out. "You plan to kill us after we tell you?"
"No," Strider said with a laugh. "Please. Look at you, then look at me. I don't do puny targets."
The old man gulped. Opened his mouth.
"Don't," the son said.
"It's okay. I'll tell them." The older human drew a heavy breath past his cut and bleeding lips. "According to ancient lore, there are four artifacts. The All-seeing Eye, the Cloak of Invisibility, the Cage of Compulsion and the Paring Rod."
Two rang a distant bell, delighting him. Two were unfamiliar, puzzling him. Mostly the irony of the situation disgusted him. If these humans were correct, they knew more about the world he'd once inhabited than he, a former soldier to the gods, did. "Tell me about them. Please."
With fear in his eyes, the man continued, "Some legends say that all four belonged to Cronussome say each belonged to a different Titan. Most accounts agree that when Zeus defeated Cronus, heZeusscattered them throughout the world to prevent the former god king from using them again, if he ever managed to escape his prison. For it had been prophesied that the Titans would ultimately destroy the Greeks forevermore."
Why hadn't Zeus killed Cronus to begin with, then, rather than imprison him? For that matter, why hadn't Cronus killed Zeus after his escape? Why choose imprisonment? Gods. He might never understand them, Lucien thought, even were he to devote years to studying them as these mortals had done. "What else do you know about the four artifacts?"
The younger man shrugged, taking over the story. "The All-seeing Eye provides glimpses into the otherworld, illuminating the right path. The Cloak shields the wearer from prying eyes. The Rod may part the ocean, though that is widely disputed, and the Cage enslaves whoever is locked inside. Like we said earlier, all four are needed to find and win the box, or so the legend goes, but we don't know why."
"And where are these artifacts now?" Paris rushed out. All of the warriors crowded around the men in anticipation of their reply.
The old man sighed even as he inched backward, as if fearing the warriors would erupt with his next words. "Again, we don't know." He laughed, the sound bitter. "We've been looking for them a long time and never found any indication they truly existed."
"That's why those bastards brought us here," the younger one added. "To help them hunt for clues."
"Had they found anything?" Lucien asked.
"No." The younger man shook his head. "And they were more frustrated by the day. They have men everywhere, all over the world, searching. Much as I might wish otherwise, I seriously doubt there's anything to find. If there were, we would have found it by now."
He had known the Hunters were everywhere, but he hadn't been aware of the artifacts. It was his fault, really. For so long, he'd purposely cut himself off from the world, content to live quietly in his fortress, the heavens a distant if bitter memory. Never again.
Cronus had to want the items back. Desperately. Perhaps Lucien could use that to his advantage. He made a mental note to visit Sabin and the warriors in Rome so he could alert them. "That is all you know?" he asked the men.
Both nodded warily.
"We are grateful for this information. Let's get you home now," he said, curling his fingers around each of their wrists.
"Our house is in Athens," the younger man said in a trembling voice dripping with hope. "We live together, and we can find our own way."
Tears of relief streamed down the old man's cheeks. "Thank you. Are youone of them? The immortals? You disappeared earlier."
"Give me the address," Lucien said, pretending he hadn't heard the question. "I will take you there."
When the father told him, reverence blooming in his eyes, he flashed them.
Surprisingly, Anya was waiting in their house. She paced back and forth in the sparse but comfortable-looking living room. Not a flicker of emotion played over her features when she spied him.
"I'll wipe their memories," she said, her voice devoid of emotion, as well. "They'll recall nothing of the Hunters, nothing of the Lords."
Despite himself, Lucien was overjoyed to see her and grateful that she still planned to help him. However, he flashed back to the island without uttering a word. One word would have led to another and that word would have led to a pleakiss me, touch me, pleaseand then he would have challenged Cronus. I will not kill her. I'll kill you. Because, at that moment, Lucien did not care about the curses Cronus could heap upon him and his friends. He did not care that the god king could make them suffer for all eternity.
Without Anya, he was going to suffer anyway.