Once she was latched in he eyed her with a peculiar expression.

“Did you think I was going to hit you?” he asked her, breaking eye contact briefly to check the road.

“No. No, of course not,” Faith said hastily. She fidgeted nervously with the belt strap.

She was lying. Leo could see that. And she was painfully bad at lying too, he noted. But he let it go. He wasn’t out to get to know her better. They had a job to do. He would see this thing through because he owed Jackson at least that much. Whether he was the Jackson he’d loved like a brother or…or something else, he needed to do this for him. Him and Docia.

He tried not to think about Docia. He didn’t want to examine that closely. No more than he wanted to examine the Night Angel that closely. Turning to watch the road, Leo frowned and made himself pay attention to his surroundings.

Faith was a strong woman, he reasoned with himself. There was absolutely no reason to think she would be abused in any way. He stole a glance at her, doing a quick perusal of her delicate whiteness. He had seen no marks on her, no telltale warning signs. No. He must be mistaken and reading too much into it. Hell, he probably would have flinched too if a man of his caliber had practically shoved a fist under his nose.

“Tell me something,” he said after a minute. “Is there anything else your people can do besides read script and the other things I’ve already seen?”

“It all falls under the same categories, more or less. Why do you ask?”

“You mentioned not being strong in this form. Did you mean just the fact that you can’t use your power?”

“Oh. The sun leaches away our strength along with our pigmentation. Our reflexes slow down. Even our thinking becomes weary. If I stay out in the sun, I will eventually lose the ability to see script, and, like I said, I can’t do anything else I’m used to doing.”

“I see. So in essence it makes you human.”

“It makes us less than what we are,” she said in a combination of sternness and irritability. “Would you want to be exposed to a condition that made you feel alien to yourself and robbed you of your skills and healthful condition? For instance like now. You’ve been injured and it’s slowing you down. Do you mind it or do you find it frustrating?”

“How do you know—?” Leo cut off the demand when he realized he already knew the answer. It was all he could do to keep himself from grabbing her, shaking her and demanding she mind her own goddamn business.

“Your anger speaks for you,” she said. “I will take that for your answer.” She reached down to the floorboards of the truck, where the scarf had slipped away to. Her lashes fell to half-mast as she seemed to focus on it for a second. “The Djynn is closer now. I can feel the connection to her nik growing stronger. With any luck she will feel us coming and will hopefully think we are Docia and Ram and will find a way to meet us. Otherwise, we might have to wait until night to track her down.”

Leo’s hands clenched on the steering wheel for a moment, and Faith could tell he was angry. She could also tell he didn’t want anything to do with her. Which was fine, she told herself, because she didn’t want anything to do with him either. He was an obnoxious and dangerous individual. With all the anger he was keeping contained within him added to the aggressive skill he had just displayed, it made him a powder keg. He was able to hold back during this last altercation, but would that hold true in the future? He was clearly fraying at the edges. It was only a matter of time before he lost all cohesion and started reacting irrationally to things. Not unless he got some sort of help, be it a doctor or a friend.

“May I ask you something?” she asked.

“No way to stop you, really,” he said, his hands tightening once again on the steering wheel.

“You are willing to do this thing, this task that could be very dangerous, but you hold a great deal of distrust for the Bodywalker Pharaoh. I am curious as to what your motivation is. There are so many words evoked whenever you think of him, that I find it very confusing.”

“A very good reason why you should mind your own business,” he said caustically.

“Perhaps you are right. But since I have asked the question, perhaps you might answer.”

“I’m not particularly inclined to,” he said.

“Very well,” she said, settling back and contenting herself with the wild-looking scenery, all its varied browns and russets broken up by the odd green patch of cacti.

To her surprise he huffed a breath out his nose and said with obvious reluctance, “I don’t trust that thing inside of him. How do I know any of the Jackson I know has survived the possession of him? If he’s usurped the Jackson I know…I want to know. I want to know so I can do the right thing by my friend.”

“I don’t understand. The right thing?”

He paused for a long minute and she saw the fiercely bright scrawl of a word on his light.

“Because if that thing inside Jackson has destroyed the soul of my best friend, I’m going to do everything in my power to kill the fucker.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Marissa and the Bodywalker inside her, Hatshepsut, were grieving. She touched Jackson’s face, squeezed his hand tightly within her own. Hatshepsut had loved Menes for lifetimes, since they had first met in Hatshepsut’s first host. By then Menes had been reborn twice already and was very familiar with the nature of the Ether and the way to live in harmony with a host after the Blending. It had been long before the Templars had separated from the Politic. Long before the Bodywalkers had even had enough cohesive numbers to organize a working government.

They had known from their first touch that there was something powerful between them. They had known they would be together from that moment until the day they experienced the actual death, if such a thing were ever possible.

But these last few incarnations had been so painfully short, the war robbing them of the time they craved to spend with one another. In her last incarnation Hatshepsut had only lived a week before Odjit had caught her exposed and slaughtered her. One week. And that had been a cruel and painful death, Odjit truly showing the color of her nature as she had tortured Hatshepsut and her innocent host. It had been a horrible way for that innocent to die and that was why, although she had craved Menes with all of her heart and soul, she had not wanted to be reborn. Reborn to what? To another painful death? To a time much too brief? For her ability to put physical hands on her beloved to be robbed from her far too quickly again? And what of the innocent soul she would share her body with? How could she willingly put that soul in the line of fire?

And then there was the grief. The grief the lover left behind would be blinded with. A grief so insurmountable that, in spite of how badly their people needed them, they could not see their way to living another hundred years before their mate could be returned to them. Last time she had been the first to go, but Menes’s grief had been so total that he and his host had preferred to take their own life rather than go on without her.

And now she was facing that same mourning, facing that same chasm of time without her soul mate. And as deeply well worn as Menes’s and Hatshepsut’s love was, the love between their hosts had been just as white hot and undeniable…but so new, so untried. And unlike their Bodywalker souls, Jackson’s and Marissa’s original souls would not be reborn in a hundred years. They might not be reborn at all…ever. As far as the Bodywalkers knew, they experienced the actual death.

This time…this time they hadn’t even had a week together. They were being wrenched apart, again, much too soon. The senselessness of it was more than they could bear. She could not stop the tears that ran from her, sometimes in great, painful sobs. She could not breathe…not without him.

She felt more than heard Docia enter the room. She wanted to scream at her to get out. Wanted to throw herself over his body and keep anyone from touching him. She had knelt there in that stupid garden and had simply watched while that savage thing had cut her lover down. And where had Ram and Docia been? The Templar soul inside of Docia, Tameri, had extraordinary power at her fingertips. Why had she done nothing to save him? How could they have simply watched?

Just as she had simply watched. Watched him put his life at risk in order to protect hers.

“Shh,” Docia said softly, reaching to rest comforting hands on Marissa’s shoulders. “We can’t give up hope.” But Marissa could hear the shaky doubt infecting the other woman’s voice. “We have to have faith in…well, Faith. You know as well as I do that the Night Angels are capable of extraordinary things.”

“I do understand that,” Marissa said quietly. “But I am afraid that nothing can fix this. What if…” She trailed off, unwilling to give her fears voice. Obviously she didn’t need to. Docia sighed shakily.

“I know.” It was all she could say. “I know.”

Apep frowned as he looked in the mirror, studying his new corporeal body for what had to be the thousandth time since he had been called into it. He always found being a female so much more complicated than being a male. The most confounding and superfluous parts of it being the br**sts and the uterus. He had very nice breasts, he admitted as he ran his hands over then, hefting the weight of them in his hands. As far as that went, he amended. But other than their aesthetic loveliness, they served him no purpose. It wasn’t as though he would suckle a child. And yes, that led him to think of the other troublesome item on his body. A uterus. How complex it was, how inconvenient it could be, to engage in carnal activities when there was always the risk of being infected with a child. It was really a thorough annoyance. Perhaps he should be content to engage in lustful relations with only other females. That would eradicate the threat of infection. Yes, he thought with satisfaction. That was an ideal plan.

Of course…there was something to be said for the idea of procreation. He could perhaps section off a part of his godly energy and imbue an infant with it. Then that infant would grow into a beautiful scion of himself, an ally of equal power.

Yes. There was something to be said for that indeed! In fact, the more he thought about it, the more curiously appealing the idea became. But he would have to choose a physical sire and that was no small feat. It couldn’t be just anyone. It would best suit his purposes if it were another being of power.

He turned and looked at Chatha for a thoughtful moment. Chatha was such a beautiful creature. Not his physical form. That was most certainly sub par in his eyes and therefore took him completely out of the equation. His aberration was called Down syndrome. A limiting factor indeed. No. As beautifully wicked, as scrumptiously perverse as Chatha was, a child of his must be sired by an ideal physical specimen.

Any one of the Nightwalkers would do, he decided. There were twelve breeds, each with their own strengths and limitations. Some more so than others. Their weaknesses could very well be inherited by their offspring.

Well, except for the Bodywalkers. Neither their power nor their weaknesses would convey. Like the one rattling around inside of him, the one called Odjit and the even more obscure human soul that had originated with this body, they were merely visitors to these bodies. The power was conveyed by the soul and if that soul were ripped away the power would go with it. There was no genetic alteration, they could not portion off their power and their souls like he could and put it into what would be a very human, mortal child.

But with part of his soul and power within him, Apep’s child would grow beyond its mortal shell, would be a demigod in his own right.

“But the inconvenience of pregnancy,” he whined aloud. “All that bulk and awkwardness. But I suppose it is a sacrifice that must be made in order to bring about a desired end. And yes, there is none more benevolently self-sacrificing than I.” Yes, this was turning out to be an excellent idea. But again…who to father such a child?

“A Djynn, perhaps?”

“Smoke, smoke. Weak, weak,” Chatha said with a shake of his head.

“Well, it’s better than a paralysis in the sunlight,” Apep argued. The Djynn breed had a weakness in the face of the sun just like any other did. They dissolved into smoke at the touch of sunlight.

“Wraiths,” Chatha offered with a giggle.

“Oh dear.” Apep shuddered. “No, that won’t do at all. Lycanthropes?”

Chatha turned to him with a face full of curiosity.

“What’s that?”

“You know, Lycanthropes. Come to think of it…my son no better than a lowly beast?” Apep scoffed. “Disgusting. And Shadowdwellers are out of the question. One touch of any light and poof!” He made a clouding gesture with his hands, then was distracted by the polish on his nails. Such a pretty lavender color. Yes. He rather liked these modern embellishments.