Dark Bites (Dream-Hunter #1)(65)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Satara smiled at him. “It’s too soon, Nick. I know. You go home now and rest. When you’re ready to have your mother back, bring Marissa to us.”

He nodded before he turned back and did what she said.

Satara narrowed her eyes as Nick vanished from sight. He was being rather willful, but they could still control him. He needed their blood to live, and so long as they had him tied down, there was nothing he could do to escape.

At least nothing that didn’t involve him begging Acheron for help, and that was the last thing Nick would do, thanks to her and her half-truths about Acheron and his powers.

“You know I can’t bring his mother back.” Kratos said.

She scoffed at him. “Of course not. We get Marissa, and both he and his mother can roast in their hell for all I care. But you are another matter. I want you in his dreams, every night, working on him. He has enough anger to feed you well, my Skotos. Play on that anger. Build it higher until he’s willing to do anything to free his mother and kill Acheron.”

She saw the hesitation in Kratos’s eyes.

She curled her lip. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re going to be a wuss, too. I’m sick to death of weak men around me.”

He grabbed her and shoved her against the wall. “I’m not weak, Satara. You’d do well to remember that.”

She tsked at him. “For a god with no emotions, you seem rather testy.”

He released her. “I’m siphoning off you and your hatred. Even in this realm, it’s pungent.”

“Leave my hatred alone. I don’t want it diminished. Remember, Dream-Hunter, I’m a god, too. Fuck with me and I’ll bring down the wrath of Zeus on you.”

He scoffed at her. “You’re only a demigod, and a servant at that.”

“But dear old Grandpa Zeus will take an audience with me and then he’ll take your head. Are you willing to chance that?”

He took a step back and gave her a look that let her know she should be on guard while sleeping in the future.

“Just do your part, Kratos, and I’ll do mine. The Oneroi don’t monitor the dreams of Daimons. You help me keep Nick turned against Acheron and I will give you a playground unimagined by your brethren.”

Kratos swallowed at her promise. Three weeks ago, he’d been one of the Oneroi. A servant of the gods who protected humans and immortals while they slept. Then Satara had summoned him in her dreams and had turned him Skoti. She’d seduced him with her body and made him crave emotions like a drug. Now he couldn’t stand the emptiness of his existence. He only wanted to feel, and he was willing to do anything to keep his newfound emotions.

She was right. His kind didn’t prey on Daimons, and if they were half as enticing as her then he would have a banquet at his fingertips.

And all he had to do was feed the Dark-Hunter’s anger and grief. Simple.

“It’s a deal, Satara. You give me what I need and I’ll give you what you want.”

She smiled. What she wanted was simple. Nick Gautier’s loyalty and the baby Marissa. With those two things, she could bring down both the Greek and the Atlantean pantheons.

Then she would be a god and she would make Apollymi look weak.

And Nick, Acheron, and Kratos would be her eternal slaves, as would all of mankind.

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

1

From humble beginnings come great things.

Zeke Jacobson rolled his eyes as he read the strip of paper he’d just fished out of his broken fortune cookie. “Well, you can’t get more humble than me,” he muttered as the phone rang.

His stomach clenching in dread of the latest complaint, he picked up the receiver and glanced around his pale gray cube walls. This drab soul-sucking hellhole was where he spent an average of fifty hours a week in absolute effing misery. There were times when he swore he could hear his life ticking away with every swipe of the second hand on the Transformers clock his sister had given him years ago.

Optimus Prime stared at him from his perch next to Zeke’s gloomy gray monitor, mocking him with a childhood memory of how he’d thought his life would be once he was a grown-up.

This was definitely not his dream.

He sighed and reached for his vat of Tums. “Good afternoon. Taylor Transportation. Claims Division. Zeke speaking. How may I help you?” The worst part of the job? He sometimes heard those words even in his sleep.

The irate woman on the other end laid into him over the fact he’d rejected her dubious claim that their delivery truck had mowed down her mailbox and kept going. If she’d spoken to the driver the way she was speaking to him, she was lucky the driver hadn’t mowed her down first.

Her voice held that high-pitched nasal quality that went down a man’s spine like a shredder. “You’re a pathetic idiot if you don’t believe your driver did that.”

Zeke didn’t speak as she continued shrieking at him.

And for the glorious honor of being bitched at constantly, and the esteemed title of Claims Investigator, he’d given up five years of his life as he went to college, worked three shitty jobs, created a debt his great-grandkids would curse him over, and got the holy honor of MBA. More Bullshit Allowed. Unlike his more intelligent counterparts, he’d actually studied and had graduated with honors, thinking he’d have a bright future…

Yeah, this was his life and he hated every minute of it.

Well, not every, single minute. But enough that he dreaded what more wondrous developments the future would hold.

Where oh where is that Pink Power Ranger babe who was supposed to kidnap me and make me part of her merry band?

When he’d dreamed of his future, never once had he seen himself sitting in a cube ten hours a day having people yell at him, while he glibly took it for fear of losing his gargantuan thirty-thou-a-year salary.

The highlights of his life? Drinking beer and playing basketball on the weekends with his friends.

Damn, the woman’s right. I am a pathetic idiot.

“Are you even listening to me?” she droned.

“Yes, ma’am. I understand what you’re saying. But there’s no evidence that our driver did that. I have a sworn statement from him that he didn’t hit the mailbox.”

“Fuck you, you stupid bastard!”

“Yes, ma’am. You have a good day, too.”

She slammed the phone down hard enough for it to ring in his ear.

Hanging it up, Zeke groaned before he put his head to his laminated desk and beat it against the cold, granite-looking finish. Maybe I’ll get a concussion…

The phone rang again.

He lifted his head to glare at Optimus Prime. It was only eleven in the morning. Was it too much to ask for one little brain aneurysm?

Just one.

His stomach churning, he picked the phone up and repeated his work litany.

“Am I speaking to Ezekiel Malachi Jacobson?”

Zeke cringed at the name his grandfather, a devout Baptist preacher, had cursed him, the only grandson, with at birth. God, how he hated hearing all that said at once. It was a name that had gotten his ass kicked on many an occasion at school. It had even caused one college roommate to move out of his dorm room before Zeke arrived.

Really, I’m not an escapee from Children of the Corn. I’ve only thought about mutilating me. Not others.

“That would be me.” God, don’t let this be someone I owe money to.

I did pay all my bills this month?

Right?

“My name is Robert West. I’m the attorney for your granduncle Michael Jacobson.”

Zeke scowled at the unfamiliar name. “Who?”

“He was your grandfather’s youngest brother.”

That was weird. He’d thought all of those relatives were long gone.

“I’m sad to say that your granduncle passed away a few weeks ago and named me as the executor of his will. Since he wasn’t married and didn’t have children, he’s left everything to you.”

Am I being punk’d? Like one of those Nigerian lottery e-mails?

“Left it to me? What about my sister?”

“He only named you, son.”

Oooo-kay… Zeke listened as the lawyer gave him more details about this mystery relative he’d never heard of before. Wow, and here he thought his life was insignificant.

Old Uncle What’s-his-face might be the only one to lead a more lonely and pathetic life than Zeke.

Yeah, this was what he needed. Confirmation of how awful his own future death would be.

And as the lawyer continued to talk, he was quite certain Optimus was laughing his Autobot ass off at this new form of hell that was being dumped on him.

2

“Can you imagine how lonely he must have been?”

Zeke paused at his sister Mary’s question. At five ten, she was only a couple of inches shorter than him. And like him, she had straight black hair and creepy topaz-colored eyes that their grandmother used to call the devil’s gold.

He indicated the brass bed behind her that was covered with an old-fashioned quilt. “Yeah. The lawyer said he died in his bed. Three days before anyone found the body.”

She jumped away from the footboard and scowled at him. “Ew! Thanks, Zeke. You’re such a sick bastard.”

“Apparently so, since that’s all anyone ever says to me.”

She ruffled his hair. “Oh, poor baby. We have to find you a better job one day.”

“Never happen, sis. I sold my soul to the devil for thirty thou a year.” Zeke glanced around the room that was litered with ancient artifacts from Egypt, Persia, and other cultures he could only guess at.

Mary wrinkled her nose at him. “What was it Grandpa used to say? You may pawn your soul to the devil, but the good Lord will always bail you out?”

“Something like that.”

She paused at the desk by the door before she picked something up to look at it. “What’s this?”

Zeke moved to peer over her shoulder. It was a round medallion with what appeared to be an angel and serpent fighting. There was some old-timey script that he couldn’t read. “Looks like one of those things from a horror movie that someone uses to summon a demon or something.”

She snorted. “Back, Manitou, back. Do you remember that old movie?”

“I remember you making me watch it then telling Mom it had a nak*d woman in it and getting my ass busted because of it.”

Mary gave him a sheepish grin. “Oh, never mind. Forget I said anything.” She handed him the medallion. “Maybe you should chant something over it.”

“O great Manitou, I want another life. Something completely different than this one.”

“Wouldn’t it be freaky if the two of us exchanged places? You’d have to go home to my house and make out with Duncan.”

Zeke covered his ears with his hands in mock horror. “Ah gah! Eye bleach. Don’t put that shit in my head. You’re my sister, for Pete’s sake. Now I’m going to have to beat your husband the next time I see him for defiling you.” He cringed. “I’d rather be at work.”

“Oh poo! You always overreact to everything.”

“So not true. Trust me. I live a life where people scream at me on an hourly basis, and take it without raising anything more than a jumbo-sized ulcer. The only thing that can make it larger is the cousin ulcer I get from the rampant stupidity on Facebook.”

She pressed the medallion to his chest. “One day, your life will change.”

“Yeah.” He took the medallion as she walked back toward the living room. “One day, I will also be in a pine box, six feet under.” He followed her out of the bedroom and had to admit their granduncle was a weird old man. “The lawyer said gramps here spent his younger years as an archaeologist and the last few decades as a total recluse.”

Mary nodded as she scanned the bookshelves and tables that were littered with even more artifacts. “It looks like he spent a lot of time bringing that stuff home. You could probably make a killing on eBay.”

Zeke didn’t really hear her as his attention was taken with an odd coin that was partially covered on the coffee table. Frowning, he walked over to it. Bright and shiny, it looked brand new and yet the markings on it appeared as ancient as everything else.

More than that, it actually felt warm to the touch. “What do you think this is?”

Mary shrugged. “More junk.”

Maybe. Then again, a strange sensation went over him. “You think any of this crap could be possessed?”

“No. I think you’re possessed of the spirit of creepiness. Put that down and let’s go get dinner. This place makes me depressed.”

Zeke nodded. He reached out to drop it, but couldn’t make himself let go. It was as if the coin somehow called out to him. Whispered to him.

And before he knew what he was doing, he put it in his pocket and followed Mary out to her car and then got into his.

3

You have been chosen…

Zeke looked up from his meatloaf sandwich in the cozy diner they’d found a few miles away to see Mary chowing down on her burger. “What did you say?”