Immortal Rider_ Lords of Deliverance Series_ - Larissa Ione [59]
“We’ve already been working with them,” Than said.
“Yes,” Ares agreed, “but we’ve played it close to the vest. At this point, we have little to lose by sharing whatever information we have.”
There was a tense silence as Thanatos met each of their gazes. “Do what you think is best,” he finally said, but he shot Ares and Limos looks that said clearly, But my privacy is my own.
It wasn’t as if Thanatos’s secrets would be important to The Aegis in the long run anyway. His agimortus didn’t need to be found or guarded. Thanatos could protect it by himself.
Now that the sharing thing had been settled, she turned back to Arik. “So, back to my agimortus. Legend has it that it’s about the size of a sake cup, made of ivory or bone, and engraved with a set of scales. It was made by an enslaved demon race, the Isfets, who used it as a unit of measure. One Isfet used the cup to secure his freedom and a life in the human realm, but the cost was his sister’s life. He had to drink her blood from the cup, which granted him immortality and human form. When his clan found him, they took him back to Sheoul and hid the cup so he could no longer keep it with him… thus, losing his immortality. Over time, the demons died and the cup was forgotten. There are hundreds of theories about where the cup is hidden, but we’ve checked them all out.”
She paused, waiting for Arik to ask more questions, but he was motionless, not even looking at her. “Arik?”
Arik’s gaze was fixed on the forest. “There’s something out there.”
“I don’t see anything.” Ares might not see anything, but he armored up nonetheless.
“I don’t either.” Arik’s stance widened, his shoulders squaring, and a chill shot up Limos’s spine at the battle-ready posture. When he made a protective gesture for her to get behind him, she actually obeyed. As if she couldn’t take care of herself. Oddly, she got warm fuzzies from the idea that he was trying to protect her. “I feel it.”
“What do you feel?” she asked.
“Evil,” Arik whispered. “I feel… evil.”
Hellfire throbbed through Arik’s veins, a searing, screaming warning that evil was within striking distance. The foreign sensation drilled into him, and he moved forward with an almost desperate need to destroy whatever was threatening him and Limos.
Thanatos and Ares were on their own. Which was an idiotic thought, since Limos was fully capable of taking care of herself as well.
Behind him, he heard the unmistakable clatter of armor snapping into place, followed by the hiss of steel clearing leather housings.
Oh, good, and here Arik was with no weapon.
The bushes rustled, and even as Arik opened his mouth to let out a warning, mastiff-sized, four-legged demons burst out of the foliage. Khnives.
Limos shouted something about Pestilence’s spies and buried her blade in one of the khnives’ chests.
Arik wheeled out of the way of the first one, its snapping teeth grazing his arm. Rolling, he grabbed a thick tree branch and nailed the second khnive in the throat, sending the skinless, opossum-like creature slamming into a tree trunk.
“Human!” Ares tossed a dagger, and Arik caught it, spinning in time to jam the blade into a beast’s brain with an upward stroke under its jaw.
Waves of evil buffeted him like a windstorm, growing more powerful as dozens of the demons came at them. The things had long, sharp claws and razor teeth between powerful jaws, but where their deadly abilities lay was in their numbers. Within seconds, Arik and the Horsemen were overwhelmed.
All around them, blood dripped off leaves, streamed down tree trunks, and turned the crystal pool red. Than had unleashed his souls, and the godawful shrieks of the attacking shadows joined the chorus of screams and growls from the dying demons.
Three demons leaped simultaneously, but as Arik slashed at one, another hit him from the side, knocking the