Odjit couldn’t help the little shiver that walked her spine. She had seen a man poisoned heavily by the stuff. The agony within him had been so excruciating that she had felt as though she could feel it with him. But Menes had taken such a large amount that there had been no time for pain to take root. Death came swiftly and fiercely with such overdoses.

She saw no sense or nobility in his cowardly escape from the mortal world. But regardless, Odjit knew his weakness and she planned to exploit it to the fullest extent.

And at the same time, she would retrieve the power she needed.

She lifted her drumming fingers in the air and snapped them, the sound echoing hard in the vacant, vaulted ceilings of the old abandoned church they were using as a temporary headquarters. Immediately, a young Templar acolyte appeared in the doorway. He stayed there, his head and eyes tilted downward in respect to her. Though she had summoned him, he knew he was not to approach her until she gave him permission.

“Fetch me Kamenwati,” she instructed.

“Your pardon, mistress, but …” When the servile creature hesitated, she knew it was because he was afraid of angering her. It made her smile a little.

Toying with the spineless little fool, she barked out, “Well? Are you going to speak or just stand there blithering all day, wasting my time? Do you consider my time so worthless that I should spend it watching you trip over your tongue?”

“No, m-mistress,” he stammered, color darkening the tips of his ears. “Master Kamen has been called to the rectory to settle a small matter of—”

Before he could finish, his mistress was brushing past him, her hand pushing at his chest to force him back a step, allowing her to move through the doorway.

Kamen was frowning darkly at the two squabbling acolytes before him. He had been called to negotiate a truce between them, and frankly, the dustup surprised him. Everyone knew that Odjit had no patience for arguing or power plays among her people. And everyone feared the reprisals if they behaved otherwise. After all, in Odjit’s mind there should be no power plays. She was the most powerful, and there was an end to it. Nothing else mattered, no one else was significant. As far as he was concerned, no one should dare think they were better than anyone else, because such thoughts of grandeur, she knew, could easily lead to other speculations that might one day force her to defend herself against a problem. There was no room for graspers in the hierarchy of the Templars.

That didn’t mean it didn’t exist. It just meant it was normally not seen.

“I rose to acolyte long before this … this reptile,” one acolyte said contemptuously as he gestured toward the other man. “He should cede to my authority! Instead he disrespects me!”

The other acolyte seemed unconcerned by the accusation. He was leaning back against a wall with an air of relaxed ease, as though none of this mattered to him. It was exactly how the first man, Sheymun, should be acting. Albeit with a touch less obvious arrogance.

“Why shouldn’t I disrespect a fool?” Lashtehp queried. “I have no more patience for a fool than our divine mistress would.”

“How dare you!” Sheymun spluttered.

“Gentlemen, I have yet to understand what this issue is about,” Kamen said wearily, his finger pressing at a tense muscle in his neck.

“It’s simple. He ordered me to fill lamps with oil, as if I were some kind of novitiate. I have more important things to do in service to our beloved mistress,” Lashtehp said.

“That you do.”

Every spine in the group stiffened as the voice of that beloved mistress resonated into the room. Kamenwati turned to look over his shoulder, watching her as she glided into the room. She was elegantly clothed and coiffed, as she always was. Far from the jeans and T-shirt type, she never allowed herself to be seen by her followers if she was anything less than spectacular in appearance. It wasn’t that she was vain so much as it was her style and her wisdom in knowing that if she wanted to be perceived as a precious and valuable being, she had to appear to be exactly that.

She was tall this time around. Close to six feet, he estimated. But far more stunning than her height was the fiery brilliance of her red hair and the often cold depths of her nearly colorless blue eyes. He had never seen such a fair shade of blue. Or such fair skin. It was such a departure, really, from the originals she usually chose. Often she chose strong black females or an exotic one. But in all cases she chose a sexually charged body with voluptuous curves and mouthwatering sensuality. Kamen knew she did nothing by accident, and that choice was just as specific as the rest of them. The thinking, he knew, was that love and lust often went hand in hand with her male followers. With the females it was envy and awe, and no little amount of inadequacy, she wished to engender.

Kamen felt more than a little of that lust as she walked toward them with that leisurely, swinging gait. It was almost flirtatious. Playful. But he knew her too well. He knew that what lurked in her eyes was nothing so friendly or forgiving.

“Lash, were you not asked to retrieve something very important for me?” she asked, placing distinct emphasis on the “very.”

“Yes, mistress. I apologize. Your acolyte has waylaid me from my purpose.” He gestured to the other acolyte with an upward-facing palm.

“I see.”

Sheymun’s complexion paled as the blood drained from his face. As long as it had been the more even-tempered Kamen managing the argument, he had not been afraid to bluster and throw his weight around. But now … now he knew there was nothing he could do to win this argument.

Arguments among Odjit’s disciples never had victors.

She turned slightly, her cold, light eyes picking Sheymun apart in a single look of disdainful assessment. When she smiled, no one was fooled by its false warmth, no matter how beautiful it made her appear to be.

“So,” she said as she moved closer to Sheymun, reaching out to brush her fingers over his shoulder, as if clearing it of a speck of dust. “You feel you have seniority over Lashtehp?”

“I— I …” He swallowed to try to control the stammer. “I only meant to say that I have far more experience since I have been your acolyte far longer than he has. The lamps were burning low, mistress, and I know how much you crave brightness and light.”

It was true. Kamen sometimes thought she was absently trying to surround herself with a sense of the sun she could not otherwise touch. She demanded light and warmth on a constant, unwavering basis. When someone failed to see to it seamlessly, heads tended to roll. Kamen had to admire the acolyte for his attempt at manipulating the situation to his advantage by making it appear he had only had her best interests at heart.

“You are so kind and thoughtful,” she told him in the softest of voices right before she bestowed a gentle kiss against his temple. Sheymun relaxed under the small gesture of affection. “But would it not be kinder to see to it peace was kept in my household at all times? You know how I dislike discord among my followers. It’s bad enough I have to deal with the dissension of the Politic, but now I have to face dissension under my own roof?”

The intensity of her displeasure was seeping into her voice now, and with it the return of tension in Sheymun’s body and fear in his eyes.

“P-please, mistress,” he said hastily. “You must consider I was only trying to see to your comfort.”

“Must I? Now you are telling me what I must do?” Her smile disappeared altogether, and the fire of her true fury leapt into her eyes. “You seek to give me commands? Perhaps you think you are Menes, now? You think, as he does, that you have the right to force your will upon mine?”

Sheymun tried to sputter out a protest … or perhaps a hasty apology. But in the next instant, his voice caught in his throat, his mouth gaping like a fish as sudden color rushed to shade his skin a bright pink … and then a more intense red. Odjit reached out to grab him by his chin just before blisters began to bubble up on his skin.

“No one will ever tell me what I must do,” she hissed at him softly.

Kamen was certain the man would have screamed if his blood weren’t suddenly boiling up into his throat. Steam began to rise from his body and the stench of cooking flesh filled the room. Sheymun collapsed at Odjit’s feet.

Odjit turned away without even a hint of hesitation, dusting her hands together briefly.

“There now. The argument is settled. Now, Lashtehp, please continue with the task I set for you.”

“But of course, divinity. I will retrieve what you want with all due haste.” The man smiled with a devilish sort of charm and bowed to his mistress with elegance and respect, if not the blithering devotion she received from most. That was perhaps why she sought him out as an aide so frequently. His capabilities as a tracker and hunter of Templar strays was another. Lashtehp never showed her anything but a gracious sort of devotion and dared to flirt with her when others were too terrified to do so. It catered to her femininity and the heart of the woman she longed to be but rarely had opportunity for. These were also the same reasons Kamen was so loyally nearest to her.

And it was why Kamen found himself wrestling with a fierce whip of jealousy. He took control of it quickly, however.

Odjit had far too much power over him already.

And with very good reason, he thought as he looked back at the bubbling mound of cooked flesh on the rectory floor.

Docia was taking a little bit of a personal inventory by the time Cleo came into the meditation room and found her a couple of hours later. She was trying to figure out if falling into the river had been the equivalent of falling down a sort of a rabbit hole, because while things were making a strange sort of sense, it all seemed far too fantastical to be real. After all, what did she have to go on, really? A near death experience and the rare sensation that some part of her was keeping a cooler head than she usually was capable of? Oh, and the word of Mr. Tall and Intense, who also happened to kiss like the devil hopped up on a lightning bolt.

Docia couldn’t stop touching her mouth, her fingers prodding her lips as if somehow that would help conjure an explanation as to how all that sensation and electricity had suddenly come to life against her plain, normal little lips. She had to be going stark, raving bonkers, she eventually concluded. Odds were she was still in a hospital somewhere, suffering from severe brain damage.

Oh dear. Maybe she was in a coma. That had to be it. All of this was just what happened to brain-damaged people in a coma. They started living these outrageous fantasy lives.…

Yep. That had to be it. How else to explain being kissed in such a way that she had felt as though someone had taken those defibrillating paddles and slammed them against her chest, yelling, “Clear!” and pumping fifty thousand gigajolts of power into her to get her heart going. And man, it had worked, because her heart had gone. Totally gone. As in leapt out of her chest, wiggled to some kind of German trance/techno music, and then somehow found its way back to its usual meek little rhythms.

What the hell? How the hell?

“Docia?”

Docia’s skeleton nearly leapt out of her body this time. She twisted around on the bench she had seated herself on to look up at Cleo. Seriously, were all of these people forty feet tall? If so, why would this supposedly great queen of all the Bodywalkers choose a body that barely reached five feet five?

“Jesus, Cleo, you scared the crap out of me!” She glared at the beautiful woman as much as she could while sitting and looking up at an Amazon. She had changed clothing, was wearing a gorgeous gown of deep velvety red that made her cerulean eyes seem to leap to life in her pretty face. Her hair, as black as night and straight as a pin, streaked down from a perfect center part, a pair of tiny braids at each temple the only exception as they pulled back and around like a thin braided crown circling her head. Even tinier strings of opalescent seed beads had been woven into those braids somehow, and now they made the braids look like a softly glowing halo.

“My apologies, my queen. I thought you might like to dress … we dress formally for dinner in the house.”

“Dress formally … ,” Docia echoed. “Well, I’m sorry to break it to ya, but when Tweedle Hot and Tweedle Hotter kidnapped me, they didn’t exactly let me pack a bag. And even if they had, I doubt my budget’s idea of a nice dress would even come close to …” She lifted a hand and indicated the breathtaking gown Cleo wore so perfectly. Of course, it was probably more the breathtaking body the gown was on that made it look so good. Docia tried to keep from touching her wounded head, but there was no hope for it. She felt like an ugly duckling in the shadow of the most magnificent swan ever.

Cleo smiled kindly at her. Docia would have read it as pity if not for the sparkle of mischief in her eyes.

“Come,” she said, reaching to scoop up Docia’s hands and pulling her to her feet. “You’ve had enough of the boring details of what it means to be host to a Body-walker. It’s far past time you get to learn about the fun stuff.”