Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 715(@200wpm)___ 572(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Silke sank to the floor and put her pounding head in her hands. She felt sick. She always did after a particularly difficult battle with a demon. Part of her reaction was because she often shared their mind, felt the pain they suffered with no letup from the hideous experiments Lilith conducted on them. Lilith thought nothing of sentencing them to gruesome punishments and then forgot where they were for months or years on end. Silke couldn’t help the compassion she felt for the creatures, even though they were wholly evil and she had no choice but to destroy them. That didn’t mean she didn’t feel empathy.
“Are you going to be all right? I want to heal Raik as soon as possible. We’re going to lose the night if I don’t move on this,” Tora cautioned.
Silke lifted her head. “I’m good. Be careful.”
“I always am.” Tora shed her ego, let go of all sense of self to become pure light and energy in the way of her people. It was how they healed wounds from the inside out. She entered Raik’s body and began her slow, careful inspection.
Silke guarded Tora’s body. With her spirit absent, Tora’s body was vulnerable to attack. For some reason, when she should have felt satisfied and relieved, anxiety gripped Silke. The ominous foreshadowing remained in her mind.
Tora had wrapped the room in weaves of protection. Silke had known Tora her entire life. She knew Tora was a powerful, dangerous woman and very skilled in her protections as well as fighting ability. She’d had to become proficient, as no other Carpathians were near them. If a vampire stumbled across their village, there was only Tora to protect them. Eventually, Silke learned to aid her.
She glanced out the window into the dark sky. Clouds drifted across the moon, but they seemed natural to her. No spies looking down in an effort to find the two of them—slayer and guardian of the gate. She turned back to face the room. Whatever was making her uneasy was close. Had she missed one of the serpent’s offspring? Was it hiding? Waiting for an unwary host?
Silke went very still, allowing her mind to expand, to seek the taint of demon. She inspected every corner of the room, the ceiling, the floor, the furniture, the fireplace. Nothing. Still, she knew she was right, she had missed something. Her attention returned time and again to Raik. Tora was pure spirit. Silke didn’t know enough about how she survived as light and energy when inside another being. She’d been healed by Tora on many occasions. She’d felt her moving inside her, the heat, the soothing relief as Tora closed wounds she’d endured during battle or pushed wiggling parasites from her bloodstream that a vampire had injected into her when his teeth had torn her open.
Frowning, she paced, walking off the nervous energy while she waited. She hadn’t asked Tora what kind of danger she could be in if another being such as the demon was still in a host while Tora healed the man. She should have asked. She couldn’t reach out to Tora and distract her.
Tora finally emerged, pale and exhausted. Without hesitation, Silke extended her wrist to her friend. She knew Tora needed blood to recover, and she’d given her blood so many times she didn’t think anything of it.
The uneasiness in her magnified, not lessened. Something was terribly wrong. Raik is still tainted. Silke was certain. I missed something.
Tora’s frown was in her mind, as she took the blood she needed for her recovery. Once she was stronger, she walked carefully around the fisherman. He sat on the floor, hands pressed to his head, rocking back and forth and moaning.
“You drove the demon from him,” Tora said. “Could there have been a second one we missed? I went through his body to heal him from the inside out. I was very meticulous, worried that one of the serpent’s offspring had gone unnoticed. I found nothing.”
Silke couldn’t imagine Tora missing anything when she was healing someone. This was too important. She had taken her time, careful to inspect every muscle and organ, his blood and bones.
“I do not feel the threat,” Tora admitted. “Just your uneasiness. You have never been wrong when it comes to demons. The merest trace does not escape you. If you are feeling taint, there must still be a demon close.”
Close. Silke turned the word over and over in her mind. From the time she was a child, she had been very sensitive to the slightest taint of demon. She trusted her instincts. She trusted her radar. Her warning system blared at her. She once again searched the room. There were many tiny cracks where a tadpole might be hidden, but she reexamined the walls and furniture, the fireplace and floor, even the ceiling, inch by inch. It took her a long time, but she didn’t rush her inspection, no matter that she was losing the night. Tora and Silke wanted to be gone before villagers might see them. And Tora always left before dawn.