But I wanted my daughter to have her father.
Then what? No matter what you do, the Aetar will keep coming. They’ll send more soldiers, more sickness. Even if you save him now, Grant will never be safe. They’re too powerful, too elusive.
So, just give up, then? That couldn’t be the answer, either. Not with my daughter’s life on the line. Finding the one responsible for making the disease wouldn’t stop the Aetar, but it might lead to a cure. I had to start somewhere.
My appetite was gone, but I finished eating the sandwich. As soon as I took the last bite, Aaz placed another in my hands—only this one was stuffed with grilled salmon and avocado. I forced it down and drank the water the little demon gave me. Food helped. But I still had a fever, and my muscles ached.
My cell phone buzzed. Zee handed it back to me. “Hey.”
“Nothing,” Rex said immediately. “We haven’t seen anything.”
“Do you need more time?”
“No.” He sounded frustrated. “You’re right about us . . . we’re drawn to high-energy sources . . . and the Aetar are high-energy, even if we wouldn’t ever bother getting close to them. None of my kind has observed any Aetar.”
“That’s impossible. One of them possessed a dead Mahati and tried to kill my daughter.” Not to mention that Jack had told me he felt another on this world.
Rex went silent. I checked the phone to make sure he hadn’t hung up, and said, “Hello?”
“It’s started,” he said, in a dull voice. “We all knew it was just a matter of time. If the demon army didn’t kill this world, then it would be the Aetar.”
“Stop it,” I said. “Keep looking.”
“There’s nothing,” Rex snapped. “Not in Asia, not in South America, not in this country. I know, the world is a big place, but we would feel it. How do you think Blood Mama has kept tabs on your bloodline all these thousands of years? How come she always knows when shit’s about to hit the fan?”
I ignored that. “Have you tried Antarctica?”
“Fuck you,” he said. “I’ll call if anything changes.”
He hung up on me. I sagged against the tree and looked at Zee and the boys. I felt their dread—or maybe that was me.
“We can’t wait,” I said to them.
I struggled to my feet and walked through the woods to where the Mahati were being quarantined. No music, no soft chatter—a few small fires glowed in the camp, but I felt the absence of movement, a quiet that was heavy and full of dread.
I smelled the dying long before I saw them: a wet swamp of caustic, fetid blood that spread through the air in a deadly haze. The area had grown to accommodate more of the ill—at least another thirty adults and children—all sitting or lying still, curled up in balls with shallow wood pans by their heads to catch their vomit. Their sadness and fear was horrifying, heartbreaking.
Lord Ha’an stood amongst them, holding water to the mouth of a child who lay limp in his arms.
“I’m finding a cure,” I told him. “I don’t care what it takes.”
He didn’t even blink. “What do you need?”
I looked around, found Zee crouched by an adult who looked pretty damn dead—if the slack, open-eyed, too-still expression of frozen horror was any indication. The little demon gave me a reluctant nod.
“That body,” I said. “I need some of its blood.”
“Then take it,” he told me. “Now it is only flesh.”
I crouched beside Zee. Raw and Aaz hopped close, clutching their teddy bears. Dek and Mal were absolutely silent around my neck. All of them unhappy, looking at me with concern.
“Maxine,” Zee rasped. “Unwise act.”
“Do you know a better way? Anything faster?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“And you’re sure you can draw the disease from me? That it won’t kill my daughter?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, that time.
I pointed to the Mahati’s arm, and the little demon slashed it open with his claws. Dark blood oozed free. I took several deep breaths, trying to shut out the world and the other Mahati, who were suddenly watching. I tried not to look at the dead demon’s slack face and staring eyes. I tried not to be sick.
Do it fast, I told myself. Don’t think.
But I did. I looked down at my stomach, pressing out against my jeans. Little girl in there. My baby.
I was terrified of fucking her up. Our bloodline was like titanium when it came to having healthy babies, but the trauma of that almost miscarriage was still rich and alive in my mind. Probably it always would be. I could feel the tug in my gut, the heat of blood between my legs. The helplessness.