“Hang on, Kalona. There’s an ambulance coming.”

His amber eyes opened and he focused on Marx. “Tell Aphrodite she was right.” He had to force the words, and the effort made him cough and moan.

“Save it. Tell her yourself. Just stay with me. I’ll get you to the hospital.”

“No hospital. Take me to Thanatos.” Then he closed his eyes and didn’t speak again.

Marx kept talking to him, though, and kept pressure on the wound, even as Kalona’s blood pooled around them in an ever-widening tide.

The ambulance finally got there. The EMTs who got out looked confused and afraid, hesitant to approach.

“What the fuck is your problem? Get him on the gurney!” Marx exploded on them.

“Detective, he’s too big. He won’t fit on the gurney,” said one of the EMTs.

“We’ll lift him with you, Detective.” Marx looked up to see young Officer Carter and a dozen or so uniforms.

Marx nodded a grim thank-you. “Get the gurney out of the back. We’re gonna put him in there, and then we’re taking the bus.” Not giving the EMTs a choice, he said to Carter, “Let’s get him in there. On three, lift him.”

The officers circled Kalona and lifted him, leaving broken pieces of his wings in the blood pool. Kalona didn’t make a sound as they slid him into the back of the ambulance. Marx would’ve thought he was dead had he not climbed in beside him and saw that his heart was still pumping fresh blood from the terrible wound. Marx ripped open HemCon pads, pressing them against Kalona’s chest while he shouted through the open window at Carter, who had taken the driver’s seat. “Get us to the Council Oak Tree, stat!”

Neferet

“Up, children! Lift me so that I may witness my plan come to fruition!” The threads of Darkness swarmed to her, swirling, lifting her high enough that she could see over the balcony to the street below while being careful to keep her far enough away from the edge not to be singed.

“How magnificent! He landed perfectly in the center of the street. Almost in the same spot from which he so recently and arrogantly mocked me, disrespected me, and stole my favorite servant from me. Well, my children, he will not do that again. No man will ever betray me again.” The girl Judson and Tony had baited Kalona with was sobbing hysterically, still collapsed where the two men had dropped her. Neferet sighed and motioned for her children to lower her. “You are safe now,” she told the crying girl. “What I did was to keep all of us protected. Kalona was my enemy, thus he was also yours. You should rejoice in my victory.”

The girl wiped at her eyes with trembling hands, but she was unable to stop crying. “Kylee!” Neferet called, and the servant hurried from inside the penthouse to her. “They simply cannot grasp the fact that what I do is to protect us all. Get rid of them. Immediately. They’re giving me a headache. Judson will help you.”

“Would you have us throw them off the balcony together?” Judson asked.

“No, no, no! There is no need to waste them. Just escort them back to their rooms.”

“Yes, Goddess,” Judson and Kylee intoned together before Judson dragged the hysterical girl from the balcony and herded the remainder of the weeping mortals from her penthouse.

“There. That is so much better,” she said as blissful silence returned to her domain. She addressed the chef who had been standing there, obediently waiting for her next command. “Tony, you may return to the kitchen. In celebration of my victory, I’d like cake. Chocolate cake with night-blooming jasmine flowers decorating it. Can you do that for me?”

“It will be as you command, Goddess,” he said woodenly. Neferet smiled. Tony’s possession had definitely improved his personality.

Still smiling, Neferet strolled leisurely back to the little bistro table to retrieve her glass of wine, and then frowned in annoyance. She’d forgotten that in her haste to shoot Kalona she’d broken the goblet. “Kylee is never here when I need her,” she said and sighed. She considered commanding one of her children to bring her a new goblet. “If only you had opposable thumbs,” she muttered, more to herself than the snake-things that were never far from her. Neferet stood, and the atmosphere of the balcony utterly changed.

The balmy wind turned frigid. The scent of the spring thunderstorm was lost in the reek of a grave. Her children swarmed to her, coiling around her body fretfully.

“You have nothing about which to worry,” she told them. Neferet moved gracefully to the middle of her balcony. Straight and proud, she waited for him to materialize.

The White Bull took form before her. She shivered as his massive body solidified. His opal horns were wet at their tips, touched ever so slightly with the scarlet of fresh blood. His coat was luminous in the predawn light. Each spike of lightning that speared the sky glistened across him. White was too simple a description for his magnificence. The longer Neferet gazed at him, the more iridescent colors she saw within him—and the more she longed to stroke him.

“My lord,” she said, curtsying ever so slightly to him. “Welcome to my Temple.”

Thank you, my heartless one. I have been watching. His voice rumbled through her mind, putting to shame the power of the impending thunderstorm. You have surprised me—twice since last we met.

“I am so glad to hear it, my lord.” Neferet moved closer to him. She reached one slender finger out and touched it to the point of a razor-tipped horn. Delicately, she took her finger into her mouth and tasted the blood. “Vampyre, old vampyre. Very old and powerful. So that is what has been keeping you from me, though I cannot believe this ancient vampyre gave himself to you as freely as do I.”

The bull’s laughter echoed around them. The Scots never give themselves easily. Though when I pluck them from the Isle of Skye, they are especially succulent and worth the effort.

Neferet showed no outward sign of the inward shock his words made her feel. She smiled and dipped her finger once more in the blood. “The Isle of Skye,” she began contemplatively, pausing to lick her finger. “If you have been hunting on Sgiach’s island, it must mean that the balance of Light and Darkness is truly shifting.”

You are as wise as you are heartless—and surprising. He licked the soft flesh inside her arm.

Neferet shivered in pleasure. “Thank you, my lord. And that is twice you have mentioned surprise. Tell me, what have I done that is worthy of your divine notice?”

The first time was at the church. I have long wondered whether you would truly embrace your nature as you embrace your immortality. Watching you do both in such a spectacular display of carnage impressed even me.

Neferet smiled seductively. “You flatter me.”

You surprise me, and so I enjoy flattering you.

“And the second of the surprises?” she coaxed when he seemed more interested in tasting her skin than continuing to flatter her.

You know very well that the second just happened.

“Kalona’s death.” Neferet said the words reverently, as if praying to herself. “I haven’t enjoyed anything so much … well, so much since last I worshipped you.”

Ah, now you flatter me, my heartless one.

“Always, my lord. I choose to always flatter you,” Neferet said.

Would you truly choose to always worship me? The voice inside her head intensified so that it was on the edge of causing her pain.

“What is it you propose?” she asked, stroking his muscular neck and enjoying the frigid feel of his coat.

I can take you from this cage in which they have imprisoned you. You could roam all of the realms with me. I would call you Consort, as you once desired.

“A tempting proposition, my lord,” Neferet said, dipping her finger in the blood on his horn again and buying time as she tasted it. Why should I be Consort when I have already proclaimed myself Goddess? Why should I be bound to serving a god when I am immortal? “Might I have time to consider?”