Page 59 of Rapture's Edge (Night Prowler 3)
“Nine.” She sounded as if she’d like to shove the blade through his spine even sooner.
“They’re a militant branch of the Church, trained assassins—”
“More assassins!”
“Who’ve been led since the Inquisition by an Ikati disguised as a human—”
“Eight.”
“Which was a very ingenious way, if you think about it, to use humans to kill their own kind without drawing attention to the real culprit—”
“To what end? For what reason?”
“Vengeance, Eliana. Vengeance.”
“Seven.” Her voice, hard as granite.
“Why do you think your father was so devoted to Horus? God of vengeance, god of war…ring a bell? He used humans as a spy network to gain information about the other colonies so he could overthrow them, all the while disguising himself as a devout disciple of the Church, a spiritual warrior against evil. Against human heretics and that nonhuman scourge, that abomination against God and nature…shifters.”
“Six, five, four—”
“I have proof,” he said abruptly, and he felt the knife at his back give a little jerk.
“What proof can a liar give?” Her voice was bitter.
“Written proof. Straight from the horse’s mouth.”
The point of the knife drew away. He sensed movement, and then from around his left shoulder, he saw it and caught his breath.
She was there, but only just, beginning to take shape against the darkness behind her with little crystalline sparkles of light like motes suspended in a sunbeam. Her face appeared first, ghostly pale, and then her body began to take form, a growing mass that gathered around a core of shifting particles, ethereal as smoke. From one heartbeat to the next she became fully realized—flesh and bone and clothing—and began to move, slowly, carefully, watching him with eyes intense and unblinking.
“Ana,” he breathed, “that’s incredible. That’s so beauti—”
She said, “Which horse?”
It wasn’t a knife she’d been holding, he saw now as she paused and stood just beyond arm’s length with the weapon held out, leveled at his heart. It was a sword. A short sword, elegant and curved with a bone hilt banded in silk cord and a tapered carbon steel blade. It looked vaguely Asian. And deadly.
He drew in a lungful of the cool cavern air and replied, “Your father’s. We have your father’s journal. You left it behind.”
He saw the way she faltered, just the tiniest furrow drawn between her arching dark brows before it was erased. Before she could respond, he said, “You’ll recognize the binding, you know his hand. It will answer all your questions.”
“Where is it?” she whispered, staring at him. “Give it to me.”
He shook his head, once, and slowly lowered his hands to his sides. “It’s not here. I’ll bring it tomorrow. I’ll bring it here—”
“No,” she insisted vehemently. “Not here. Somewhere else. Somewhere public.”
He studied her face. Drawn and pale, she looked suddenly terrified, but not of him. No, of something she was thinking. Of what she imagined inside that journal.
“The Eiffel Tower.”
Her brows flew up.
“Second-floor observation deck. Meet me there at sunset tomorrow. I’ll be alone.”
“I’ll know it if you’re not,” she warned. She still hadn’t lowered the sword. “I’ll know if it’s a trick.”
“I know,” he agreed softly. “I know you will. It’s not a trick.”
