The reactive magic was horrifically painful. It lashed at him, driving him back, pushing him away from the object he so desperately needed. He lunged forward against it, but still the force drove him back.

No! No! I cannot fail this!

He needed to succeed and he needed to do so quickly. The alarm screaming out of the room would bring others in mere moments. Using every last ounce of strength and will he possessed, he lunged forward once more, grabbed for his touchstone, and closed his fist around it.

The box toppled to the ground, the other touchstones within it scattering wildly. But he paid them no attention. He was turning into the push of the magic, letting it shove him violently out of the room. He plowed over two acolytes that had come running at the sound of the alarm. A third lifted a weapon, a gun, and fired at pointblank range into his chest, right over his beating heart, right below the brand that forever marked him. The stone of his skin deflected most of the bullet’s impact, but he felt and saw a chunk of it go flying. The pain was brilliant and fierce, but he paid it no mind. He’d felt worse. For now he focused on grabbing the acolyte, yanking him closer and smashing his hand, touchstone within, into the man’s skull. The man crumbled and he let him fall, discarding him like trash. As always he allowed no remorse to fill his mind. That would come later. In that moment he needed to fight, for his freedom and for the right to pay penance—for the new sins he was about to rack up as well as for the old.

Shaking that thought off, he made his way outdoors, the night cold and brisk and stunningly perfect as he spread his wings and launched himself into the air with three steady pumps of his wings.

He knew they would be on his heels, but he also knew he was free.

Free.

And no one would ever take that away from him again.

CHAPTER TWO

Present day

Captive.

Chained. Like a beast. Like … like an animal awaiting butchering. Awaiting those that would devour him.

Ahnvil wanted to scream, but he would give his captors no such pleasure. He moved and the sound of chains scraping over the cement floor of his prison instantly came to him. He was shackled at the ankles as well as the wrists and thrown behind a wall of steel bars for good measure. His prison was a basement of some sort that he could sense was fully underground.

The sound of conversation floated to him, and his ears pricked up. He moved forward as far as his manacles allowed and began to pace, as if agitated. It was what they had come to expect of him. The feeling of superiority this supposed knowledge gave them made them sloppy and, he hoped, would give him an advantage.

“I’ve got to show you this,” the Templar priest was saying in semi-hushed tones to his companion. He doubted there was even anyone to overhear them, but their desire to be secretive was telling and he was going to make sure to be very attentive … while not seeming to be so. Perhaps he would finally find out why they had bothered chaining him up and keeping him captive instead of simply killing him and striking a serious blow to their enemies who depended on his strength and abilities. Of course there was always the possibility they were going to let time do it for them …

“What is it?” the second Templar, a short, balding male, wanted to know. Seriously? Ahnvil thought dryly, Of all the humans he could choose to be reborn in, this is what he chose? It goes to show that some Bodywalkers are just smarter and stronger and better than others.

A Bodywalker was a body with two shared souls. One was the human that had been naturally born to it. The other soul was that of an ancient Egyptian, a powerful man or woman that could be reborn in the host body of the human, in effect sharing that body with the original soul. Only, these Bodywalkers, the Templars, did not share. They subjugated the innocent human soul … just as they had once subjugated him.

The Bodywalker he knew, the ones he was devoted to, the Politic, they were different. They cared for their human hosts, they Blended with them and respected them and shared their lives with them in harmony. The way it should be.

And since Bodywalkers could choose exactly whom they could be reborn into … it seemed ridiculous that this one had chosen such an inferior physical specimen.

As they came fully into range of his prison cell, he could see his captor: tall and handsome, if older, with salt-and-pepper hair and a deep dimple in his left cheek. This one had obviously chosen based on aesthetics.

“Oh my! Where did you get that?” Baldie asked with surprise when he caught sight of the captive in the cage.

“Not that,” Dimples said impatiently. “I’ll tell you why I’ve caught that in just a moment.”

“Oh. Well, what then?”

Dimples went to a drawer in a nearby worktable, a table that held any number of things, including all kinds of components for the spells the Templars worked. They were dark, vicious powers that ought not to be messed with. The same dark powers that had created him.

Dimples pulled a steel box from the drawer and opened it, the tremulous touch of his fingers revealing exactly how excited he was about what was inside the box. He reached in and withdrew a necklace, the pendant of which glinted sharply when the light from above struck it.

“What is it?” Baldie asked, snatching it out of his companion’s hands. Dimples immediately snatched it back, holding it again with reverence.

“It’s called Adoma’s Amulet,” he said breathily.

“Really?” Now Baldie had adopted Dimple’s reverent tone. “What does it do, Panahasi?”

“I have no idea,” Panahasi said.

Baldie frowned with consternation and impatience. “If you don’t know what it does, what’s so special about it?”

“What’s special is that I found it in Kamenwati’s belongings before his things were cleaned away!”

Their captive’s ears burned at the recognizable name. Kamenwati was the most powerful Templar priest ever known. He had been the right hand to the most powerful priestess, Odjit.

That is, until Kamen had defected to the other side. Ahnvil’s side.

Ironic, considering he was Ahnvil’s creator. His former master.

Baldie reacted accordingly. “Ohhh! And what makes you think it’s special, other than that?”

“Well, apparently Kamen had been researching it virulently. It was with tome upon tome, sitting on his desk. But the only thing he had found thus far was this passage.” Panahasi withdrew a small book from the box and flipped it open to a marked page. Ahnvil winced as he watched this, wondering how the book didn’t simply fall apart in Panahasi’s hands, given how obviously old it was. But neither of the Templars seemed to respect or even notice that. They were too busy trying hard to stand on the shoulders of another’s works, someone who was far and away more worthy of reaping the benefits of those works, if by way of his power alone … and even Ahnvil had to admit that, despite his own hostile reasons for despising Kamen.