Born in Blood (The Sentinels #1)(72)

“I could call Molinari back and tell her to reschedule the interview for tomorrow,” he said roughly.

She tilted her head to the side, her glasses making it impossible to read her emotions.

“Tempting, but Fane will be returning in the morning,” she reminded him.

“All the more reason to enjoy our rare time alone.”

She paused, as if sifting through the various reasons for his sudden urgency to return to his apartment. Then, a slow, achingly sad smile curved her lips.

“We’ll have tonight,” she promised softly.

He gripped the wheel, ignoring the jackass behind him that was blaring his horn as the light turned green.

“You do realize I just volunteered to forget work?” he asked. “That’s a first for me.”

With an obvious effort she managed a teasing expression, leaning across the seat to stroke her lips along the line of his jaw.

“I’m very proud of you.”

He sucked in a deep breath, allowing the warm, apple scent of her to ease his strange sense of foreboding.

“How proud?”

“I’ll show you,” she whispered in his ear before settling back in her seat. “Later.”

With a growl, he stomped his foot on the gas pedal.

Later couldn’t get there fast enough.

Zak knew that his body was lying on the floor of the temple. In a distant part of his brain he could feel the hard pebbles that poked into his chest and the fine grains of dirt that drifted from the ceiling to land on his face.

He could even feel the blood that trickled from his wound to pool at the base of his skull.

His consciousness, however, was traveling through the darkness, heading deep beneath the ziggurat, as if lured by a siren’s call.

At last he came to a halt, the shadows shifting to reveal that he hovered in front of an ornate sarcophagus.

He studied the elaborate symbols etched onto the gilded wood, knowing without a doubt that they had been created just for him.

He could sense it in his very soul.

Just as he could sense a presence that filled the barren tomb.

With no corporal body, he could only use his thoughts to try and communicate.

“Who are you?”

“We are the beginning.”

The words vibrated in the air, the sound of a thousand voices seeming to pierce straight through him.

Beginning?

That told him nothing.

Was it supposed to be some sort of riddle, like those of the Sphinx?

He tried a new approach. “Where am I?”

“At the mouth of the underworld.”

Ah. That would explain why he’d been drawn to this place. The dead had always spoken to him.

But it didn’t explain why he was lying unconscious in the main temple with a gaping wound that was even now bleeding out.

“Why have you brought me here?”

“There is a story to be told.”

The glyphs on the sarcophagus began to shimmer. “Your story?”

“Our story.” The scent of death swirled through the air. “Watch.”

Even without his body, Zak felt a stab of wary fury as the glyphs began to pulse, as if they were coming alive.

“Magic,” he hissed.

“Do not interrupt.”

There was an impression of pain. Zak couldn’t be sure if he actually felt it or not, but he wasn’t willing to risk that there was serious damage being done to his physical body.

Smothering his gut-deep hatred of being given commands, he focused on the glyphs that continued to pulse, the shimmering beneath them throwing strange shapes on the smooth walls of the tomb.

Zak watched the flickering shapes for a confused minute, at last realizing they were beginning to solidify to form a three-dimensional image of an ancient village.

He continued to watch the unfolding pictures, realizing that the village was built around this temple. There was no mistaking the vivid indigo glaze on the brick facade or the particular pattern to the window lattices.

“Who are those people?” he asked, frowning as he watched a group of robed figures descend the long staircase from the ziggurat to mingle among a gathered crowd.

“Your ancestors,” the multitude of voices answered.

“Necromancers?”

“High-bloods.”

He considered the unfolding drama in silence, intrigued by the strange images even as his clinical brain warned this all could be nothing more than a result of his head trauma.

Or more likely, a trick.

For now he was willing to play the game.

“Is this where high-bloods came from?”

“Yes,” the voices confirmed. “We were blessed by the gods. Their powers gave us the right to rule this world.”

The images shifted. Suddenly the crowd wasn’t bowing in awe of the robed figures, but they were surrounding the temple, weapons held in their hands as they battled their way past the high-bloods trying to block the stairways.

“Not for long,” he murmured.

The air filled with an anger that would have crushed him if he’d been in his physical form.

“The people grew jealous of our blessings.”

Hmm. He didn’t doubt that humans could be fickle and jealous and ready to destroy what they didn’t understand. Even in these supposedly enlightened ages they remained petty little cowards.