“Don’t try and boss me around! You can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do!” Then, before he could argue she seemed to rethink what he had said. “Dark magic?” She lifted the pretty necklace and looked at it, swallowing audibly. “How do you know that?”

“You canna get it off can you?” he retorted.

“Oh. Yes. There is that. But that seems harmless enough.”

“For what we see of it. Who knows what’s happening behind scenes? ’Tis verra dangerous, Kat lass, and make no mistake about it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She retrieved his plate and moved over to the sink. He could see her working things over in her mind. He could only hope she didn’t ask something he wasn’t able to answer.

“So how many days has it been since you were last in contact with your touchstone?”

And there it was. The one question he really didn’t want to answer. Partly because he didn’t want to face up to it, and partly because he didn’t want to pile more worries on to her. Especially since the most urgent concern was currently around her pretty little neck.

The slave, born of the infinite Nightwalkers, will set free the power within. The one that harnesses Adoma’s Amulet will have such power as to make a god weep.

What the hell did that mean exactly? And if he was supposed to be the one to harness the power of the thing, then why was it trapped on her body?

“Oh, doona worry,” he lied to her again. “I have more than enough time tae get back tae my touchstone. Doona worry about that.”

“Well, of course I’m going to worry about it. I don’t want you to turn permanently to stone. And before it looked like you were having trouble controlling it …”

He was having trouble controlling it. It was actually taking a conscious effort not to turn to stone, whereas before it had been an effortless thing. Usually it was like breathing … an automatic ability he paid little attention to. But now, if it got much worse he was going to be afraid to go to sleep, afraid that the unconscious state would allow for him to turn unwittingly. Maybe he was making a mountain out of the symptom, but he had never been away from his touchstone for this long before and he had no idea what it would do and when it would do it. It was a sickening feeling to know that you weren’t in control of yourself or your destiny. True, none of them were to any extent, but this was bringing that sharply into focus. For all of his three hundred years, he still wasn’t ready yet to die. He was needed. Jackson and Marissa needed him there to protect them even more than ever before. There was a demented god out there, reborn in Panahasi’s mistress’s body, that was hell bent on destroying them all and he needed to be there to put himself between them and it. That was the way he should die. In battle. With wings spread wide and a weapon in his hands. A sword, to be exact. It was his preferred method of dealing with Templar bastards like Panahasi. It was pretty fucking impossible to recover from having your head lopped off.

No. He would not die by turning slowly to stone. He simply refused to.

“I think I’m going tae have a lie down,” he said, realizing that the more effort he expended doing other things the more likely he was burning precious energy away. But what he had noticed was that the more he ate the easier it was to keep flesh form.

“I think that’s a good idea. Did you have enough to eat?” She looked skeptical, clearly already having learned that he was a bottomless pit as far as food was concerned. “Do all Gargoyles eat this much?”

“Some more than others,” he said with one of those easy grins. “We have high metabolisms. The more we do the more we have to replenish our food stores.”

“I can see why that would be.” She eyed his massive stature. “Go rest. I’ll come check your bandages in a minute.”

He nodded and moved back into the bedroom.

For Katrina it was a lot to digest. She felt as though her brain was buzzing with information. It was so hard to believe there was this whole world right beyond her reach that she never knew of. A world that, like her, was subject to the vicious whims of the sun. She didn’t exactly know how to feel about that. About any of this. The one thing she was taking away from it though was that time for Ahnvil was clearly running short. It was going to take days for them to get out of there. The end of the storm and then waiting for the roads to clear would probably take the better part of a week. Just how long was too long?

She didn’t want to find out.

The big guy was starting to grow on her.

Odjit, also known as the imp god Apep, looked down at the dead body of Moribundi with a frown of consternation.

“Well, now I wonder how this happened. This is so unfair! If anyone is going to kill someone it’s going to be me! A perfect opportunity has been completely wasted. I’m sure I could have made an example out of him in some way.” She/He sighed deeply. “Oh well, there’s nothing to be done about it I suppose. Let’s hang his body outside the gate and pretend he did something terribly wrong to offend me.” Apep glared at the only two other people in the room. Panahasi and some girl whose name Apep couldn’t care less about remembering. “You realize this means death if rumors were to somehow abound otherwise.”

“Yes, Mistress,” they both said quickly, the young girl literally shaking from fear. It was just the kind of reaction Apep loved to see in his little minions. Apep gave his slightly rounded belly a pat, a strange sort of comfort to the sensation that he had not expected. Ever since he had been reborn into this strange and delightful woman’s body he had been enjoying the differences from being male to being female. And now, now that his new female body was impregnated by that poor, unsuspecting Night Angel, it was even more strange and delightful, even more enjoyable.

The Night Angel had been powerful and strong, and his seed was just as strong. But he had not been strong enough to keep Apep from taking that seed by force. He should be very grateful that he had left him alive afterward. After all, it might have been bad luck to kill the father of his child. He was a god so he knew better than to tempt the fates. Even gods were subject to the whims of fate.

“I will do as my mistress asks,” Panahasi said with great deference. Today was one of those days where the groveling of his minions delighted him to no end. There were days of course when nothing could mollify him and, strangely enough as his pregnancy progressed there seemed to be more of those than usual, but this was not one of those days.