As a particularly harsh scream sounded behind them, they both turned. Eden's eyes widened in relief and… truly… fear and horror as she took in the sight of Darius standing in amongst a litter of decapitated bodies.
“What the…?” her cousin breathed behind her and for once she heard actual dread in his voice.
Darius' face was expressionless, covered in streaks of blood, his black eyes dark and unreachable.
“Here,” he said to her and Eden blinked fast as a sword suddenly soared through the air towards her.
But just as she reached for it, a familiar arm darted out in front of her and caught it.
Noah.
Eyes wide, she took in his haggered appeared, the exhaustion from the drug still dragging in his eyes. There was blood and gore splattered over his chest and face, and a sadness in his eyes that made her heart stop.
“Mhairi's gone,” he whispered, stepping past her and pointing the sword at Teagan. “She got me out but one of his thugs killed her.” He slanted a gaze at her. “You don't have to do this. I can do it for you. With pleasure.”
“What do you mean the old bitch is dead?!” Teagan spat, his eyes flaring as they washed over Eden. “You should be changing! Why the hell aren't you changing?”
“Because,” Darius omniscient voice echoed behind them, “you read the scripture wrong. All of the immediate bloodline must die in order to reverse Eden's transition.” As relief poured through her, Teagan launched at them.
“Noah!” she shouted, stepping back and giving him the go-ahead.
At the change in Noah's demeanour – Eden could see it took everything he had to pull his energy together to face her cousin - wariness entered Teagan's grey eyes and he stepped back, readying himself. Noah nodded at him, his silent words telling him that this was how it was always going to end between them. Teagan's jaw clenched as it did when he disagreed with someone, a creature blinded by his obsession.
Teagan slid back from Noah's swings but Noah kept on him, cutting the sword through the air near her cousin's flesh until he had him backed into a corner. At one last attempt to save himself, Teagan threw his body at Noah. Noah dropped to the floor and Teagan stumbled past him, coming up to turn to face him and finding the edge of his blade instead. Relief washed over Eden, perhaps even some satisfaction. But as she'd come to realise only moments before, there was no pleasure.
Teagan's headless body had barely hit the floor before Noah dropped to the ground, the sword clattering out of his hands. Eden hurried over to him, falling to her knees before him, cradling his face in her trembling hands. “You're OK?” she whispered.
He nodded, his eyes washing over her face. “I couldn't save her.” Blinking back tears at the thought Mhairi's demise and the awful task that lay before her of informing Tobe and her parents, Eden shook her head. “Don't. Not your fault.” His bitter smile told her he felt differently.
Choking on tears Eden stood to her feet, dragging Noah to his and holding on to him. She turned to face the ancient Ankh who stood hovering over Cyrus and Val's unconscious forms, a carnage of gory, bloody, pulpy, grisly unreality all around them. Limbs and heads and inside and entrails spilled across the floor and walls and Eden found herself swallowing back vomit. She focused her eyes on the warrior who had created the carnage, desperate to get the imagery out of her head. “We better get out of here. The Tribunal might be on their way.”
Darius actually nodded in agreement. “I suspect you might be right. I will help you get Cyrus and Valeria out of here before I leave.”
She nodded, unsure of how to speak to this man, this… whatever he was… “I'd appreciate it.
Could you… we need to return Mhairi's body to her family.” Darius nodded. “I will take care of it, rest assured.”
As they hefted Cyrus and Valeria up off the floor in the foyer Eden could tell even Noah was shocked by the scene. He met Eden's eyes with a hollowness she'd never seen before. She shook her head, too afraid of Darius to make a comment.
“There,” Darius huffed, throwing Cyrus none too gently into the back seat with Val. “Will you two be alright from here without me?”
“Um…”
The ancient warrior jerked a hand back to the house. “I have a little cleaning up to do.” He winked at her. He actually frickin' winked at her!
“Sure,” Eden agreed quickly, helping Noah into the passenger seat. “I can take it from here.” Gravel shot up and cracked against Cyrus' paintwork as Eden sped out of the driveway but she didn't give a rat's ass. At this point, she wasn't sure who she was more afraid of. The Tribunal.
Or Cyrus' best friend.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Recovery Time
A confident knock on the lounge door lifted the three of them out of the silent fog they had been sharing. “Come in,” Cyrus commanded, jerking Eden to attention.
She sat curled up on one of the couches, Val at the other end, Cyrus sitting up at the mini-bar with a glass of untouched scotch. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours and for once in her life Eden hadn't wanted to be alone to deal with it. Val and Cyrus may not have been the most talkative people on the planet but sitting with them in silence beat sitting alone in silence. The intrusion of two of Cyrus' security men, two Warriors of Neith, awoke her with a jolt, her brain unfuzzing and focusing on the two men who strode towards Cyrus with purpose. The older of the men reached Cyrus first, his black jeans and sweater reminding her of the garb Noah favoured.
Thinking of Noah brought on a maelstrom of angst she just didn't want to deal with at the moment.
When Eden had returned to the mansion with a barely conscious Val and Cyrus and a very groggy Noah, Emma had gushed all over her, thanking her for returning them all safely. Alain hadn't said a word to her, just helped put Cyrus and Val to their beds. When she'd stood and explained to him what had happened, he hadn't responded. Instead he'd silently put an arm around Noah and half-carried his son to his room too. Emma had tried to apologise for her husband's behaviour but Eden had waved her off. Alain blamed her for Noah getting taken in the first place. The fact that the reclusive Darius of Mesopotamia had had to be called in to save their asses hadn't gone down well with him either, although he hadn't actually looked all that surprised by what she'd told him.
Eden on the other hand was still surprised. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd never get over what Darius had done in her parent's mansion. The carnage was the kind of imagery that didn't dissolve from the memory very quickly.
The last few days she'd kind of avoided Alain, which meant in turn avoiding Noah. She'd hung around Cyrus and Val as they slowly came too. They were stronger and older than Noah, so it hadn't taken them long to get back on their feet. Cyrus refused to discuss Darius so she was stuck with the terrifying mystery that was He. Darius had contacted Cyrus to let them know the mess had been cleaned up.
Without Noah, Eden was left alone in her grief, and found it more than difficult to pick up the phone to inform the Douglas' of Mhairi's death. Tobe had dropped the phone, refusing to speak to her, and Eden had burst into real tears for the first time in a long time. What made it worse was that Tobe didn't even know the extent of Eden's failure.
For a moment… just a moment… while Teagan had delivered his ultimatum and they'd seemed so impossibly outnumbered, Eden had considered giving herself and Mhairi over if it meant saving Noah. She couldn't even begin to comprehend that. Tobe would have killed her. Luckily, although no less unsettling, Eden hadn't had to make that decision. For a few days she grappled with what it meant. Being Ankh had become the sole core of her existence. Or so she'd thought. She'd actually been willing to give up the one thing that meant the world to her, to save Noah's life. On the one hand it made her want to run in the opposite direction from him, get as far away from such messy and overwhelming feelings as possible. And yet on the other, she couldn't bear the thought of never seeing him again. Pondering the complications of life and love ( you know the little stuff) was put on hold as Cyrus brought news of everyone back in Edinburgh. Tobe still wasn't speaking to her. She and the Douglas' were trying to work their way through their grief at the moment. Cyrus and Eden had both agreed that explaining to them about how their death meant Eden's reversal of fortune wasn't the best idea, so they kept that to themselves. Eden had argued with Cyrus for keeping the information to himself in the first place. She made him promise not to ever keep something so huge from her again and was relieved by the promise – Cyrus was too honourable to break it.
As for McLeish and Mary, things were still up in the air on that one. Now that they were back in the States and the whole Teagan mess was over, Cyrus was concentrating on hunting down Cosmina Arcos before she could hunt down Eden. For him, that was the priority. He had decided leaving McLeish to deal with his sister worked two-fold. It was one less thing for The Circle to worry about and it was also a gesture of respect towards McLeish. He already seemed to view the Ankh as overbearing, arrogant, elitist authority figures (and Eden wasn't saying there wasn't some truth in that); Cyrus reckoned letting him mete out his own punishment for his sister allowed him to see the more compromising side of The Circle, and thus lessened the chances of him betraying the Ankh in the future.
Eden guessed Cyrus was onto something with that but she would never fully trust the Scotsman.
He knew too much about her for someone who looked at her as if he wanted to kill her.
“Princeps,” the older Neith stopped before Cyrus with an air of authority. Eden sat up straighter as recognition dawned. Cyrus had introduced him when she'd first moved in. His name was Terrence Vincent and he was Cyrus' Head of Security. “We have news.” When his eyes flickered towards her, Eden's heart picked up a little. At their return to Weston, Cyrus had begun investigating a leak. There had to be a leak. Someone had told Teagan where to find her and the only people who knew where they'd gone, lived and worked under Cyrus' roof.
Sliding from his stool with cold rigidity, Cyrus glared at Terrence. “Who?” was all he demanded.
Nodding back at the young man behind him, Terrence replied, “Jack here discovered our rat. We had two men go on vacation at the same time. Roger Pike and Dwight Carey. Jack had already questioned Carey when he discovered him in the Control Room alone when he wasn't supposed to be so I let him investigate Jack while I investigated Pike and everyone else. Tell him what you found, Jack.”
Jack cleared his throat, stepping forward to speak with Cyrus. Eden was surprised when he began speaking. His eyes flitted back between her and her guardian, actually including her in the conversation, like she mattered. None of the Neith in Weston had done that so far. She studied him as he spoke, surprised by how confident he was for someone so young. He couldn't possibly be any older than twenty one. “I went to Carey's apartment and after tearing the place apart I found an address and meet time. The address was an old Warehouse in South Boston. We found Dwight's body. He bled out from a knife wound to the heart but he'd also had his soul sucked out of him.”
“Teagan.” Cyrus nodded, his eyes hard.