She still thought it odd that the dead could feel pain. They weren’t supposed to. Yet another way Nergal corrupted the peace that should have been the start of a new beginning.
Glancing around, she noticed the dense gray was less thick as she moved forward. “Mormo?” she whispered, her words muffled by the soup of nothingness growing heavier with each step.
A hand yanked her forward.
She shrieked, worried a demon had found her.
“You are so freakin’ slow.” Rolf had her by the hand and dragged her forward.
“I thought he told you to stay behind.”
Rolf snorted. “Yeah, right.”
They parted the shadows to see Khent in the middle of a ring of other Khents. Beyond them, a horde of demons sat around a giant Nergal on a throne made of skulls, bones, and awfulness.
“Man, I gotta get a chair like that.” Rolf whistled.
Khent glanced over at him while another Khent ripped his head off.
Val stared in shock, because they for sure weren’t all the same.
“Is that Khent? But wait. What are those…?”
“That lying sack of crap,” Mormo growled, appearing right beside them. “Iknewhe was holding out on me.”
“Huh?” Why did Mormo seem to direct that at the Khent killing everything around him?
The one with a set of black wings flaming from his back?
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
Rolf had always sensedthat his Night Bloode brothers were much more than the average vampire. Hecate would want the best, but the sneaky witch goddess wouldn’t get the best if she out and out demanded the vampire tribes hand them over.
Thus she convinced Varu’s father to lend him out, getting the strigoi away from possibly taking over his father’s position as patriarch. Which he’d done anyway before leaving all the strigoi behind.
She’d managed to get Duncan, the best intelligence gatherer Rolf had ever seen, fast and lethal and smart, from the revenants overseas.
Orion had the power of gods in his body. Kraft had the power of wolves with a rage that might do Fenrir proud. And Khent…that glorious bastard.
Those wings went beyond reaper power into something death-tastic. Rolf could taste the energy in the air, and it wasn’t from Nergal or the cute little human liar next to him. Just whatwasKhent, anyway?
“Is he some kind of death god?” he asked Mormo, who seemed beyond annoyed.
Rolf bit back a chuckle, pleased that his Sons of Osiris bro still had it in him to aggravate everyone. But so classy, he did it without trying.
“Why is he fighting himself?” Val asked, her eyes wide as she watched Khent bring the pain. “Is this some kind of existential test of self or something?”
“Or something,” Mormo muttered and waved a hand, knocking back the demons and ghosts drawing closer.
That got Nergal’s attention. As expected, his gaze centered on Val and stayed there.
“Actually, the copies of Khent are galla demons,” Rolf told her, sensing as much. “They typically leave Irkalla to drag hapless humans down here forever. A bunch of major dickheads, you ask me.”
“We didn’t ask you, draugr,” one of the galla said before getting its ass handed to it when Khent punched it so hard it blasted through the lower part of Nergal’s throne.
“Ha, whatever.” Rolf held up his hand then gave himself a high-five.
