Ram looked at him with a calm, assessing gaze then turned back to Jackson. “You aren’t yet used to your new host body,” he said. “Your power is used without control and focus because your host needs training.”

“The host has a name, pendejo,” Leo snapped.

Ram looked at Leo again, that infuriating contemplative look in his gold colored eyes. Seriously? Leo thought. The guy looks like a Navy SEAL Ken doll. Blond hair, gold eyes, and an ouroboros tattoo on his tanned forearm.

How the f**k does something that can’t walk in daylight manage to get a tan?

“It is merely a reference, ‘your host’ is used much in the way ‘your brother’ or ‘your sister’ would be used. But if it makes you uncomfortable I will keep it to proper names.” He turned back to Jackson. “Jackson can call on the power you have to react to things emotionally. He doesn’t have your mental discipline.”

“Jackson probably has more discipline in his little finger than the two of you together,” Leo scoffed. “He’s a cop. He confronts the possibility of death every time he makes a traffic stop. He faced down a meth head tweaking so bad that he shot down his K-9 partner and yet Jackson proceeded to shoot the fucker in the kneecap and the hand. Do you have any idea what it takes to remain calm enough to make those two shots that quickly? Do you know what it took for him to not kill the bastard? Outside of Docia and me, that dog meant everything to him. So don’t sit there and act like he’s some kind of unruly child knocking around in there getting in your way.”

“That wasn’t what I meant in the least,” Ram said softly. “I know he has discipline. I know he is capable of a great deal of self-control and has the ability to act decisively in dire circumstances. But he trained with that firearm day after day after day and learned how to use it to the best of its ability. If we did not train him with this weapon that has the potential to level a city block, that would be the irresponsible thing to do.”

Well, shit.

“Anyway,” Ram tried again to address his superior, “we need to practice and there’s no better place.” He indicated the wide, flat wasteland that stretched out beyond the cultivated landscaping of their property. The house stood alone, a single road leading in to it and miles of land in every direction. Even sitting on the porch you had the sensation of sitting in an oasis at the center of a vast desert. “Nothing but the coyotes to see us.”

“All right. When would you like to start?”

“Next eve. Marissa is settling into herself now. Hatshepsut and she are Blending well together. She seems genuinely happy.”

Three male heads turned to look at the woman in the garden. She was literally playing in the dirt, making little mountains of rich black topsoil from a gutted bag of it. She was smiling, clearly enjoying herself. Leo frowned. He couldn’t say he knew Marissa Anderson well, but from what he’d gathered she was as uptight, polished, and sophisticated as any psychiatrist could be. She probably would have died first before being seen in jeans and bare feet, like she was right then.

Oh. Hey.

He wasn’t really amused when he realized that was exactly what she had done. Died. Or just about. He was a little fuzzy on the hard details of how exactly one became a Bodywalker, and frankly he wasn’t all that interested. It wouldn’t change the way he felt. It wouldn’t bring comfort.

“I’m out of here,” Leo said, derision in every syllable of his words. He pushed between the two men and went inside the house.

Ram watched the other man Jackson considered his closest friend leave, and waited until the door shut behind him before saying, “He’s going to be a problem.”

“You’re wrong,” Jackson countered. “He’s going to be difficult, but he wouldn’t do anything to endanger me or Docia.”

“I’m keeping a guard on Kamenwati twenty-four hours a day, but it’s not safe to have the two of them in the same house.”

“I don’t see how we have much of a choice,” Jackson said with a frown. “Leo is nowhere near ready to leave, no matter what he says, and Kamen needs to be under our close control. He may have used Leo as an olive branch to get to us, but that doesn’t mean I trust his motives entirely.”

“Nor do I,” Ram agreed. “Let’s make sure you’re at full strength and skill first. Docia needs training as well. And Marissa makes three. I’m the only one whose been Blended with my host for more than a month. Frankly that makes us far weaker and far more vulnerable than I would like. Especially in light of this new danger Kamenwati says we are facing. If he is to be believed at all.”

“Agreed. Do you disbelieve him?” Jackson asked.

“No. Unfortunately I do not.”

“It would take something quite radical to make Kamenwati switch allegiance away from Odjit after so many lifetimes of being her first general. I often wondered if they were lovers, connected together like Hatshepsut and I. I suppose this absolves me of that notion.”

“I never thought I would see the day when he would leave her side in order to join us on ours,” Ram said.

“I did.”

Ram raised a brow. His short laugh was obviously incredulous.

“Truly, I did,” Jackson assured him. “There was always something…feverish to the way he sought his battles with us. And I don’t mean feverish in the way that Odjit was, high with the fever of fanaticism. There was a part of that aspect, but I always thought it was to different ends. Odjit was like any bewitching cult leader, alluring and promising the true path…spouting that we, the enemy, were the reason why we would be kept from the light of the sun, should Amun ever rise again. But in the end she was simply hungry for power, as so many people are. But for Kamen…” Jackson tapped a thoughtful finger against the wood of the chair arm. “Kamen was seeking something. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But I always thought that if I could just get him in a room, face-to-face, that he might listen to a voice of reason.”

“Then you thought more of him than I did. The only reason he is here is because this thing he has awakened has him terrified. The enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of thing.”

“Perhaps. But I suspect far more depth to him than just the shallow image of a man hiding in defeat. At the very least, we can take from this that he believes Odjit is truly gone from her body…or from any control of it. This god of bad mischief is in control of her now and that…I’m afraid that leaves us at a frightening disadvantage. At least we knew what to expect from Odjit. All we know about Apep comes from distant memories of vague stories of a long-dead version of our religious beliefs. This is going to take a great deal of research by minds far more attuned to this sort of thing than either of us.”

“And I suppose you have someone in mind.”

“As a matter of fact.” Jackson smiled with wicked arrogance and Ram answered with a smile of his own. The intent in that expression was everything Menes. There were just some things that never changed about Menes, no matter how many lifetimes and no matter who his host was, there was always going to be that smile of utter, casual confidence. “I was thinking of whistling up SingSing, your new Djynn friend.”

“SingSing?” Ram’s tone was every bit loaded with the disbelief and incredulousness he felt. “She’s an absolute child bouncing around in a Djynn’s costume. If you bring SingSing into this mix you’re asking for a can of crazy. And between you and me, nothing about her screamed scholar to me.”

“Perhaps not,” Jackson allowed with a nod. “But I’m willing to bet she knows quite a few other Djynn, some of whom might be thousands of years old, and who might know about things that took place thousands of years ago, if indeed she doesn’t know for herself.”

“Even if she did know it’d be like trying to get information out of a six-year-old,” Ram muttered.

“She’s lost her filter, no doubt. It’s a blessing of the very old and the very young. The young are too innocent to know better. The old no longer care what people think about what they say or do.”

“I suppose. Is she going to move in as well?” Not that they didn’t have more than a dozen bedroom suites packed into the enormous house, more than enough room to fit a small army in with them. But then Ram realized what Jackson was doing, and this time both brows swept up high. “You want her here. Her and whomever else you can get your hands on of power from the other Nightwalker races. Jesus, Jackson.” Ram ran an agitated hand through his hair. “Tell me you’re not thinking of inviting Wraiths.”

“I’m desperate, not stupid.” Both men shook off the sensation of fear that skirted them. It was understandable, considering the subject matter. All one needed was to look into those cold, dead white eyes and you just knew you were staring down something unholy. “The day I have to go to the Wraiths for help is the day I know we are in truly dire circumstances. A day I pray never happens.”

“As do I.” The thought had Ram frowning darkly.

“Such serious faces,” Docia tsked as she swept through the screen door. Ram’s serious face disappeared instantly as he smiled up at her.

“Very likely it was due to my missing you,” he said with obvious charm.

“Flirt,” she accused him. But she preened under the compliment. She was still new to the idea of being worshipped for every breath she took. It really used to irk Jackson the way his sister thought less highly of herself than he did, and it pleased him very much to see that changing. She had changed a great deal in the month or so since her Blending that they had spent separated.

There was a clicking sound, the sound of doggy nails on the flooring of the porch, and Sargent, formerly of the Saugerties Police Department’s K-9 unit, sat down at the heels of the woman he had followed out. Docia absently reached down to scrub at Sargent’s ears.

He really should have stuck to his guns and sent Sargent back to the SPD, Jackson thought with a frown. The dog had turned out to be every bit as fearless and loyal as his former K-9 partner, Chico, had been. If he was confessing truths, he had to admit that once Sargent had stopped goofing off, his training had gone far more quickly than was normal for a K-9. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Menes had something of a sixth sense when it came to animals. Jackson had been having a hard time getting Sargent to listen and behave himself, in spite of him having shown a great deal of affinity for both of those things as a pup. But once Menes had come on board Sargent had fallen over himself to listen and please his altered master. Jackson might have felt put out if not for the pleasure it gave him to have Sargent trained at long last.

But that didn’t change the fact that he had walked off with thousands of dollars’ worth of investment for the SPD, leaving them a K-9 unit short when they had only had two available to begin with. It wasn’t as though they could ring up the K-9 kennels and instantly have a replacement. That kind of training took time…and even the two expensive pups Jackson had sent them as a replacement wouldn’t be ready for work for over a year.

“Remind me to make a little donation to the SPD,” he said absently to no one in particular.

“How much? I’ll take care of it,” Ram said briskly.

“I need you doing other things besides bookkeeping.” Jackson frowned at him. “Do we have a bookkeeper?”

“Not on site, but there’s a soft-spoken little Bodywalker female named Nailah who does the heavy lifting where that’s concerned. But she’s not exactly a heavy-hitter power-wise so I don’t know if you’d want her where she might end up in the thick of things.”

“We all have our part to play,” Jackson said. “And our meek might surprise us one day. As it is—”

Jackson broke off and an expression Docia had never seen before washed over his face. He lurched up out of his chair, the awkwardness of the movement tipping the beer bottle out of his hand. It hit the deck and bounced, spinning as it did so, spewing its contents over Docia’s feet.

“Hey!” she cried out, dancing back away from the bottle although it had come to rest and the damage was already done.

She might have complained just then, but that unfathomable expression on Jackson’s face had turned to a mixture between outright fear and unmistakable courage rising up in the face of that fear.

“Docia, get inside,” he said, grabbing her arm, turning her around and pushing her roughly in that direction. “And take Sargent with you. Marissa!”

He bolted off the deck, clearing the stairs to the ground without touching a single one. By then Ram understood that something was wrong and he grabbed for Docia’s arm and stood up all in the same movement.