“Wow,” Lore said, as Idess moved to him and took his good hand in hers. “You’re good.”
“I see a lot of this,” Eidolon said wryly. “Usually on Wraith. You ready?”
“Yeah.” Gazing up at her, Lore squeezed her hand. “Yeah, I am.”
Something in her chest lurched. Lore usually suffered alone and didn’t rely on anyone, and he probably preferred it that way. But he was taking strength and comfort from her.
Eidolon’s dermoire lit up, and when Eidolon was done, he wiped away the blood.
Idess sank down next to Lore just as the doctor’s pager went off. He checked it, cursed soundly.
“What is it?” Lore asked.
“Wargs,” he said. “There are two incoming via ambulance, and three coming through the Harrowgate.” Eidolon closed his eyes and blew out a long breath. “This makes eight in a matter of days. We have an epidemic on our hands.” He opened his eyes and gave Lore a look that chilled Idess to the bone. “Does Sin have any healing abilities at all? Any reversal powers?”
“No, why?” But Idess had a feeling she knew, and she saw in Lore’s face that he did, too. “Oh, God. Sin. She started it, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Lore cursed. “We can’t catch a break around here, can we?”
Eidolon adjusted his stethoscope around his neck. “I’d like to say that this is unusual, but the last couple of years have been nothing but chaos. And it’s only going to get worse if we can’t get rid of Roag and his merry band of ghosts.”
Stupid bastard! You can’t get rid of me. You made me!
Idess wrenched her head around to the doorway, where Roag was lurking, hood shoved back to reveal a hideous, deformed face. His skin was a mass of dark scar tissue stretched tight over bone that was, in places, visible. Insanity gleamed in his dead eyes.
“Actually,” Idess said quietly, “I think I can do something about that.”
You can help me? Please. This curse… it is agony you can’t comprehend. I did nothing to deserve it.
“You hired your brother to kill his own brothers,” she said to him. “Your brothers.”
“Ah… Idess?” Lore’s voice came from behind her, but she held up her hand to stop both him and Eidolon.
“Did you hear me, Roag? You wanted your own brothers dead.”
Because they burned me alive! He tore off his cloak, and she nearly gasped at the shriveled, twisted wreck that was his body. And now I hurt. I starve. I thirst. Nothing relieves me. Please, help me. His lips peeled back in the most evil grin she’d ever seen. Slaughter my brothers and their families so their blood runs like a river through the streets. Gut them. Rend their limbs from their bodies and their eyes from their sockets!
His laughter pierced her like a lance carved of ice. “You want help? Really?” She grabbed Roag by the arm. Though he wasn’t solid to her, his energy clung to her like static electricity. “I can put you out of your misery. Absolutely. I don’t have the power to destroy souls, but I know someone who does.”
She dragged him out of the hospital and into the parking lot. Dimly, she heard Lore and Eidolon calling her name, but she kept going. Her brother had torn this family apart, and she couldn’t do anything about that, but she certainly could do something about this.
Inhaling deeply, Idess flashed to the realm where her father resided, where only his children and his griminions were allowed. She appeared on the steps of an ancient Greek temple, a great ebony building flanked by black pillars and set amongst other black structures. Once, she’d run her hand over a wall, only to have it come away covered with a sootlike substance. Where her hand had been, dirty white marble peeked through the oily grit.
The massive buildings and pillars and statues had once been pristine white. Now they groaned under the weight of taint and corruption. The entire realm was a giant replica of Athens, but in the dark. Athens, in her nightmares.
Still maintaining a grip on Roag, whose struggles were mere whispers against her skin, she climbed the steps and entered through the double doors big enough to allow King Kong passage. Inside, polished ebony floors stretched endlessly. Grim, dark statues of demons and humans in pain lined the walls, and in the center of the great room, a fountain ran red into a dark pool at the base.
She dragged Roag down a mazelike corridor, making dozens of lefts and rights, and finally, two of her brothers, one of whom she vaguely recognized, opened the huge iron door at the end.
Idess was nearly blinded by the bright lights blasting through the opening. The entire realm was set in a back-drop of gloom, but Azagoth liked his color, and, she noted with a wince, he apparently liked his Beatles music.