Dominic. Elizabeth Amber
belly was not yet rounded, but even with a world of distance between them, his instincts quickly informed him that she did house another man’s seed within her womb—seed planted there only last night.
On the heels of that realization, another struck him with the impact of a giant fist. He staggered back from the mirror, his accusing gaze flying to his companion.
“Yes,” the Facilitator affirmed, refusing to meet his eyes. “She’s with child.”
A heartbeat of silence passed. Then another and another.
“Not just any child, though, is it?” Dominic inquired with soft menace.
His right hand vibrated as if the evil that dwelled in its palm had been agitated by his suspicions. He raised the hand between himself and the other man and carefully flexed it within its silver-threaded glove.
The Facilitator shifted uncomfortably. Darting a glance at the glove, he subtly distanced himself from it.
The Acolytes began to hum. Nervously they cupped their long-fingered hands together, catching the rays of the moon overhead in their palms—an act believed to ward off demons.
Dominic’s lip curled, cruelly voluptuous. His lashes lowered to shadow the slits of his eyes. And for just a moment he savored the latent power that made others—even these influential beings—fear him.
“As you…” The Facilitator cleared his throat in a rare display of uneasiness. “As you’ve no doubt guessed, the child will be a Chosen One. Your successor.”
A chill crawled up Dominic’s spine. He stared at the Facilitator, thunderstruck.
“This can come as no surprise,” the Facilitator rambled on. “You were aware your replacement would be selected one day.”
Yes, he’d known. But he’d been too engrossed in the never-ending hunting and killing that comprised his nightly routine to dwell on the matter. This news had taken him completely off guard. Did it imply that his death was imminent?
“Now, then, you have four weeks,” the Facilitator informed him crisply. “With the coming of another Moonful, it will be imperative that you mate her in order to endow her child’s powers. Four weeks. Is it time enough to find her husband and secure an invitation to his world?”
Dominic nodded slowly, his fascinated gaze returning to the mirror where it resettled on the woman. On the delicate blush of her cheek. On the inviting slope of her shoulder.
On her flat belly.
Like his own mother, she would have no inkling she was to bear a Chosen One. Wouldn’t be informed of her child’s destiny until Dominic’s eventual death.
His own predecessor had been unknown to him, for the demonhand—quite literally a hand that held demons—didn’t pass to a successor through bloodlines. It selected its hosts seemingly at random, one after another. Only once in a generation was a single child given the power—the curse—that had been bestowed upon Dominic as a boy. A mirrored palm.
“Excellent.” The Facilitator nodded to his two companions.
Snap!
At the sharp sound, the woman’s image wavered as if it were a reflection on the surface of a pond that had been abruptly disturbed. Then it shrank to a pin light. And then she was gone.
The distant, tranquil scene had evoked a peculiar fascination in Dominic, and he found himself strangely sorry to see it go. His own world was in constant turmoil. Perhaps this woman’s son might be the one to ultimately bring peace. Something Dominic had failed to do despite his dedication.
The two Acolytes extended their right hands to the Facilitator and then to one another. Palms came together in the traditional way that served as both greeting and farewell.
“As the moon reflects the sun,” their three voices droned in harmony, signifying that this meeting was at an end.
No one offered such a gesture or valediction to Dominic, nor did he expect it. No one ever touched him voluntarily. Not once they realized what he was.
Without another word, he turned and made his way outside. Soon his boots were striking the nine marble steps in front of the temple with determined, resigned thuds. The votaries scurried from his path, dropping their brooms and falling over themselves in their efforts to avoid him. Though he disguised himself from the rest of the world, members of his own sect recognized him for what he was.
The fact that they so obviously spurned him—they whom he protected with his very life—might have destroyed another man. Fortunately he’d been hardened to such scorn long ago. But with the coming of this new child, he was reminded that his time as protector would one day draw to an end.
At any moment, he could be demolished by demons—like the statue that had stood for centuries before this temple, the remains of which now crunched under his boots. Then, like the statue, he would simply be swept away. In favor of the next Chosen One.
Until such time he would continue to be a repository of evil. One of a kind. The most valuable, dependable, and vicious weapon his people possessed.
And like any well-honed weapon, his thoughts now trained themselves on reaching their assigned target, the woman in the mirror. The woman whose unborn son would someday wear the glove.
His right hand clenched tight. When it uncurled, the single, fingerless glove he wore seemed to melt away, revealing a mirrored palm instead of flesh. He closed and reopened his fingers again and the slick mirror that shielded a cache of terrible evil disappeared from view as well.
He raised the disguised hand in a brief salute to a soldier he passed and received an easy wave in return. Pausing a mile or so later, he assisted a farmer in righting a wagon with a load that had slid askew and threatened to topple it. Afterward he was heartily thanked. The man even went so far as to attempt to shake the camouflaged hand, a gesture Dominic evaded.
Satisfied that it appeared to everyone save himself that he was an ordinary Satyr, he made his way toward the region just this side of the interworld gate.
His features remained undisguised. But he’d bespelled them as usual in such a way as to leave a vague impression that none who saw him would later be able to recall. So that no portrait or depiction of him could ever be created and given over to hands that would do him harm.
Within two hours, he’d located the regiment fighting closest to the gate. Within three, he’d traded his pants and jacket of black leather for their gray woolen uniform.
At sundown, he met the woman’s husband, and within the week the man was indebted to him for saving his life.
By the time Moonful neared, his new acquaintance was half besotted with him.
Though his new comrade rarely spoke of his wife, Dominic continued to carry within him the image of the tranquil scene he’d viewed in the obsidian mirror.
Emma.
She’d roused something in him he’d thought long destroyed. Something he’d pushed deep within himself where his enemies couldn’t exploit it.
A longing.
Though he knew such an emotion weakened him, the desire to view her face and her body in the flesh and to hear her voice increased by the hour. With each kill—with each battle he undertook—his anticipation of the night he would at last touch her clean, soft sweetness grew ever stronger.
She had no idea what was coming.
2
Satyr Estate in Tuscany, Italy
Earth World, 1837
“Damned beasts.”
It was Carlo.
Emma had been listening for his arrival. She’d monitored his forward progress by the staccato sound of his sneezes. He was allergic to Lyon’s panthers.
They’d