The Darkest Touch. Gena Showalter

near him, they would be nailed in the cross fire.

      No one seemed to catch his urgency.

      Whatever. He hadn’t signed on as their custodian. If they wouldn’t listen, they deserved what they got.

      Cameron eased beside Winter, offering her a bowl of forage stew. The two were siblings, maybe even twins. Both had the same lavender eyes rimmed with silver, the same bronzed skin and hair.

      “This little clearing has the best cold spring in the entire forest,” Cameron said, “and daddy needs his happy bath times.” He picked up the tattoo gun he’d created with metal parts he’d found lying on the ground and continued inking a currently indistinguishable picture on his wrist. Apparently he had a compulsion—obsession—to chronicle each of his imprisonments in his flesh. “We’re not leaving.”

      “Then you’ll soon experience the joys of self-combustion.” It was as simple as that.

      Irish perched on a horizontal tree stump, busy carving a branch into an arrow. He wasn’t as civilized in appearance as his friends. Two horns stretched from the crown of his head. Dark, straight-as-a-board hair hung to his waist, multiple razors woven into the strands. He had sharp cheekbones. Black, mysterious eyes. Hands permanently clawed. And while—for the most part—he had the top half of a man, he had the bottom half of a goat. Fur and hooves.

      He was part satyr, part something else, and sensing Torin’s scrutiny, he glanced up. “Fack aff,” he said in his Isle-rich brogue. Hence the nickname. Real name—Puck something. Or maybe Puke something. Hard to tell when you couldn’t care less.

      Torin shrugged. “Like I said, it’s your funeral. Enjoy it. Or not.” He dropped to his knees in front of his backpack and emptied his pockets. When he’d thrown Keeley to the ground, he’d frisked her and stolen—he frowned as he looked over the only item she’d carried—a hunk of bloody, scarred skin.

      Well, why not? Hotpants McCuddlesworth was just the type to carry a souvenir of someone’s torture. Except, as Torin’s mind returned to the topple of the dungeon, the dust clearing, he remembered the wound on Keeley’s arm, a mess of crimson-soaked muscle. As if a hunk of skin had just been cut away.

      He considered the scars more closely. Thousands of tiny orange flecks sparkled inside the tissue.

      He frowned as he ran his thumb over the flesh. It was overwarm, the heat unnatural. From...flames? Maybe. Probably. But why wasn’t the flesh melting? Only bits of brimstone could burn bodily tissue without actually—

      Brimstone. Of course. Sulfuric rocks with veins of lava running throughout, found deep in the earth, and—hell. The bottom dropped out of his stomach. This was meant to be a ward. The kind used to defeat the Curators.

      Was Keeley a Curator? A parasite? Or had she hoped to protect herself from one?

      If she was a Curator, she was one of the last of her kind—if not the last—and even more dangerous than he’d realized. Curators created invisible bonds with those around them, and like vampires, sucked them dry.

      The bond is broken, she’d shouted.

      Oh...damn. She was. She was a Curator.

      Disease shuddered.

      “Ever heard of the Curators?” he asked his unwanted guests.

      A sharp inhalation from each.

      “No,” Irish finally said, his tone dry. “We’re morons without a clue.”

      Will take that as a yes. “One of them just escaped from the prison, and while that’s bad enough, she’s determined to kill me.” Would have done so already if not for the Unspoken One.

      “Then you’re as good as dead, my friend.” Cameron never glanced up from his task. “Because I’m guessing Keeley is the Curator, and check it, that chick is loco in the noco. You get what I’m saying, my man? Her elevator only goes to floors F and U.”

      “Got it. Thanks.” Jackass. Torin could talk smack about her all he wanted. But apparently if anyone else did it he wanted to hollow out their liver and fill it with rocks.

      He busied himself, withdrawing the semiautomatic he’d packed, then the pieces of a long-range rifle.

      “I tangled with a Curator once.” Cameron finished off a...rain shower? Ocean of tears? “She was out to destroy my entire family, but she was a real wildcat in the sack. The crazy ones always are. That’s probably why they’re my favorite.” A pause. “Although, I once slept with a centaur who liked to—”

      “Don’t start with one of your stories.” Irish threw a stick at him. “Besides, they’re never yours. You collect them from other people.”

      Scowling, Cameron said, “And how do you know?”

      “Because the one you’re telling is mine, idiot.”

      “Who are you calling an idiot, half-wit?”

      “I’m not a half-wit, you fool.”

       Children.

      What else did Torin know about his new enemy?

      Curators were created before humans. Once spirits of light, they were tasked with the safekeeping of the earth, bound to it and its seasons. But everything changed when they betrayed their leader, the Most High, and mated with the fallen angels who’d attempted to usurp him as supreme ruler of the highest heavens. What the Curators hadn’t understood until too late? The fallen were cursed with eternal darkness of the soul, and that curse would soon spread among their race.

      Their offspring—like that of humans and fallen angels—were known as Nephilim...and even demons.

      Backtrack. Curators were spirits—without bodies. How Keeley had gotten one, he couldn’t fathom. But she had done it. Otherwise she couldn’t have been imprisoned or thrown those rocks at him. Or ended up underneath him when he’d pushed her out of harm’s way...

      Not going there. He’d harden—again.

      He needed brimstone. But as scorching hot as the rocks were, there was no way he could carry one to Keeley, hold her down and rub it against her. And, anyway, he didn’t like the thought of scarring all that flawless skin. The simpler solution was to scar himself. Wards worked both ways, after all.

      He sheathed the handgun at his waist and swiped the tattoo equipment from Cameron. “Gonna borrow this. Hope you don’t mind.”

      The warrior gave a spot-on impersonation of Chuck Norris. He once made a Happy Meal cry. He strangled an enemy with a cordless phone. He destroyed the periodic table because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

       But I’m worse.

      Torin’s smile was a cold invitation to hell as he removed his gloves. “You’re welcome to try to reclaim your stuff, but you’ll walk away with a hacking cough and an inability to ever touch another living creature without starting a plague. Totally up to you.”

      Silence.

       That’s what I thought.

      He carefully unhooked the motor, then tinkered with it to give it more juice. He found a thick steel pipe, and with a few more parts, created a makeshift jackhammer to crack through layer after layer of hard earth. Sweat poured from him, but it was a good sweat. From honest labor. Missed this.

      When the motor died, he used his hands. His companions never issued even a token offer to help, just continued eating their stew. Fine. They wouldn’t share in the reward. And rewarded he was.

      Two feet down...four...six...eight, making sure to leave grooves along the wall so that he could climb out, he discovered a small patch of brimstone. The quarter-sized rocks were exactly as he remembered, black with gold cracks throughout, and hot, close proximity causing him to blister.

      He climbed