“But—”
“Tell you what,” he said, cutting her off. “You can give it back to me once you’re free of this life.”
The fierce glint in Sin’s eyes said she’d never be free of it, something Lore had to have noticed, but his expression didn’t waver. He held the weapon out, and after a moment, Sin took it.
“Thank you.” Sin cleared her throat of the emotional hitch in it, and suddenly, she was the carefree, breezy assassin again. “You’re the best brother ever.”
“Speaking of brothers,” he said, in a very big-brother tone, “you need to see Eidolon right away.”
“So do I,” Idess said. “Now that I’m back, I can play full-time ghost exterminator after all.”
Lore laughed. “He wants me to play with his dead patients.”
“Are you going to?” Sin asked, and there was an underlying concern in her voice that Idess didn’t understand.
“Sin—”
“It’s okay.” She offered a shaky smile. “I want you to work there. Get to know them.” She slid the dagger into her belt with a firm shove. “Now, I have a business to run. See ya.”
Idess wrapped her arm around Lore’s waist, and melted into him when he tugged her close. “Will she be all right?”
“Yeah,” he breathed as Sin left the room. “She’s a survivor.”
Idess couldn’t help but wonder if that was truly enough. She’d been a survivor for two thousand years, but all that meant was that she’d existed. Now, as she hugged Lore to her, she knew that she was living.
Twenty-seven
Sin tapped on Eidolon’s office door, even though it was open. Scowling, he looked up from a stack of paperwork, but his severe expression softened when he saw her.
“Sin. Come in.”
She hesitated. All the trouble she’d caused, piled on top of the fact that Eidolon was one of the most intimidating males she’d ever met, made her a little insecure, when she’d never been that way. Ever.
He was just so… different. Lore, Shade, and Wraith radiated danger with varying degrees of humor and moodiness. She’d been around danger all her life and could deal with it. Was comfortable with it. But with Eidolon it was impossible to tell where his thoughts were, and it seemed like the calmer he got, the angrier he was. Plus, he had a logical, intelligent side she couldn’t relate to at all.
Nope, chaos and street-smarts were what guided her.
He said nothing when she didn’t enter right away, merely sat there with that shuttered expression and eyes that revealed nothing. Finally, she walked over to his desk.
“Have you learned anything?”
“About why you’re a… what is it called… Smurfette? Or about the plague?”
“Plague,” she said softly. She didn’t give a crap about the reasons behind her existence. She was alive, and that was all that mattered.
“I’ve got nothing,” Eidolon admitted. “Your blood hasn’t revealed any clues. And this disease is like nothing I’ve ever seen. This is a hellfuck of Sheoulic proportions.”
Oh, goodie, she’d caused a hellfuck of a plague. Lore always said that when she did something, she did it well. She’d worn his words like a badge of honor, but she just couldn’t find the pride in what she’d done this time.
“Usually everyone I infect develops something unique… no one dies from the same thing. Have the wargs you’ve seen had different symptoms?”
Eidolon leaned back in his chair. “Everything has been identical to the first victim, from the signs and symptoms, to the way their capillaries dissolved, leading to internal bleeding and ultimately, cardiac arrest. Whatever you did to the first warg has been passed to the wargs he came into contact with, though the mode of transmission is still unknown.”
She frowned. “Conall came into contact with him, so why hasn’t he gotten sick?”
“I’m guessing his vampire half is giving him immunity or resistance.”
“Maybe there’s something in his blood that can help create a vaccine?”
A small smile tipped up one corner of Eidolon’s mouth. “You’re wasting your talents as an assassin. You should be working here.”
That was a joke and a half. “I kill, brother. That’s where my talents lie.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said, in a voice that dripped with moral superiority and judgment.
“You don’t know anything about me or my situation,” she snapped. “So don’t you dare tell me what doesn’t have to be.”
Though his expression didn’t give anything away, he tapped his fingers wildly on his desktop. “You’re overreacting a little—”