Page 64 of Legacy of Chaos

She nodded. “I’ll head over to the engine room right away.”

Chapter 14

“That’s a big pile of body parts.”

Blade looked over at his cousin and DART spec ops teammate, Mace, and snorted. “I don’t know why you insist on piling up all the demons we kill. They disintegrate.”

“Dude. This is a holy place. It’s rude to leave greasy stains all over.”

Scotty rolled her eyes at Mace. “You’re so weird.”

Totally agreed. Mace had some odd quirks. “He’s just like his dad,” Blade said in a low voice so only Scotty could hear.

She laughed. “Which one?”

“You know which one.” Lore, the male who’d raised Mace, was a pretty level, down-to-earth dad. But Mace’s biological father, Wraith, was an adventurous, impulsive son of a bitch who had always been everyone’s favorite uncle. Blade glanced over at Scotty’s sister, Aleka. “You done?”

Aleka blew out a frustrated breath as she looked between the map in her hand and the rough, earthen chamber walls. “Hardly. There has to be a vessel here somewhere. Harvester’s blood didn’t just disappear.”

Scotty eyed the structure over their heads: the floor of the mosque above them. Most didn’t know there were several passageways and chambers below, where Aleka was convinced the blood of the angel Harvester had flowed after the blood rain event a few weeks ago.

“Thank you for helping out, by the way,” Aleka continued. “When I asked Kynan to borrow Scotty, I didn’t expect him to send all of you.”

“We’re a package deal,” Scotty said. “You need security? You get us all.”

It was true. Blade, Mace, and Scotty had been inseparable since childhood, and they worked so well together that, when they joined the Demon Activity Response Team, Kynan had built an entire special forces department around them. Mace and Blade’s aunt Tayla managed the twelve-person department, and while most of the others worked interchangeably as teams, Scotty, Blade, and Mace rarely went anywhere without one another.

“I didn’t need security,” Aleka said crisply. “I can take care of myself.” She glanced at all the dead demons. “Usually.”

Yeah, as the daughter of the Horseman known as War, Aleka was a capable fighter. She was not as capable as her younger sister, but then, unlike Scotty, Aleka had dedicated her life to research, not combat.

“So,” Mace said, crossing his arms over his broad chest, his weapons harness whispering against his black T-shirt, “what happened between you and Sabre?”

Blade winced. Mace truly was incapable of tact.

“Nothing.” Aleka ran her finger over a seam in the stone wall. “Subject closed.”

“But you guys left Limos’s party together,” Mace said, referring to the get-together the day Harvester’s blood rained down on just two places on Earth: here at the Temple Mount, and at the party. “And then we got home, and Sabre was drowning his sorrows and grumpy as hell.”

She rounded on Mace, her long, red hair a few shades lighter than Scotty’s, stirring the dusty air. Anger made her green eyes glow, and for a moment, Blade thought Mace was aboutto feel the burn of Aleka’s summoned fire sword. Blade had experienced it only once, years ago, while sparring under Ares’ tutelage. His ribs still ached sometimes. Charred bone took a long time to heal, and not even his uncle Eidolon could facilitate the process beyond a certain point.

“He was drowning his sorrows?” Aleka’s lips turned up into a dark smile. “Good. Now, drop it and follow me,” she said, heading down a narrow passage marked by layers of dust and cracked mosaics.

Blade fell in behind the others, taking up the rear, his eyes peeled for signs of danger. “Hey, if we—”

He missed a step as a wave of…something…washed over him. The feeling was subtle but powerful, strange yet familiar. A sensation he hadn’t experienced in years.

My brother.

A spear of awareness shot into his very soul, and suddenly, Stryke was with him again, the way Rade and Crux were. The way Chaos used to be.

“Stryke,” he whispered hoarsely, his emotions so out of whack he couldn’t focus on walking, breathing, or even standing. He sagged against a pillar and did his damnedest to stay upright.

“Blade?” Mace’s steadying hand came down on his biceps. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I don’t know. I can…I can feel Stryke.”

“What?” Scotty was there too, concern putting a frown on her glossy lips. She rarely wore lipstick, preferring the shiny clear stuff. “He reestablished the connection?”

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