Caress The Dark God [Scions of the Ankh 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read Online Free PDF Page B

mystery.”
    “Thank you.” Anubis smiled. The more he learned about Tessa, the more he liked her. “The storm looks like it has settled.”
    “I’ll get my purse.”
    “I’ll retrieve your food.” They nodded at one another, a little uncomfortably after what had recently transpired and so abruptly ended.
    On his way to the kitchen, Anubis couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that had come over him as Gale explained what was happening at the hospice. Something was wrong. It didn’t make sense for so many humans to fall ill and go comatose. He would have to examine them himself, and then he could tell if there was interference from travelers like him. And that kind of interference never ended well, for the travelers or the humans.
     
    * * * *
     
    “I appreciate the help, Tessa.” Anubis broke the silence in the car. Tessa was sitting as far away from him as the seat would allow. He glanced at her. “I thought you were hungry. You haven’t even touched the meal Anaise had packaged for you.”
    “It’s hard for me to retain an appetite when my mind is working overtime.”
    “You let your work consume you?”
    “I wouldn’t say consume.” Even in the darkness of the car, he could see her smile. “When something puzzles me it’s hard for me to concentrate on anything else. It’s just odd that so many people would get sick so quickly and die.”
    “I agree. Let us hope it is something that can be brought under control quickly.”
    “I wonder if this has spilled over into the States.”
    “That is definitely something we need to find out,” Anubis agreed. Cairo was a city visited by many tourists, and tourists went home. It was well within reason to think that this thing, whatever it was, could have already spread worldwide.
    As they pulled into the parking lot of his hospice, Anubis caught the faint scent of something vaguely familiar. He sniffed the air, concentrating, but the memory eluded him. Of course, the faint smell of death always surrounded him, but there was definitely something foreign mixed in with this scent. But then the thought nagged at him that it wasn’t foreign.
    “Is something wrong?” Tessa asked, gripping a plate of food in each hand. She looked around nervously and it was then he realized she could pick up on his emotions. That fact astounded him.
    He shook his head no, slowly, and wondered just how sensitive Tessa was. Though prone to falling under compulsions, she’d proven that she could shake them off. Now it seemed she could read his emotions. He motioned for her to follow him into the building. He planned on taking his time finding out everything about the beauty that he could, but right now he needed to get to bottom of what was behind the humans dying.
     
    * * * *
     
    “The first wave came last night,” Gale explained, placing files in his outstretched hands. A small, mousy woman, Gale was a giant when it came to efficiency. “They all have the same classic symptoms.” He indicated that she give some of the files to Tessa. “So far they all have been dying within three hours of arriving.”
    “Three hours?” Tessa asked incredulously.
    “Yes,” Gale answered, looking Tessa up and down. Anubis was well aware of Gale’s feelings towards him and he had repeatedly sent compulsions to turn her attentions elsewhere. One thing Anubis had found was that compulsions had no power over obsessions. So he simply ignored the woman’s fixation on him, since she really wasn’t hurting anyone.
    “They come in comatose, with fever, bleeding from the ears and eyes. Difficulty breathing, and this.” Gale took the opportunity to lean on Anubis and point out the picture of the skin lesions one of the patients. “They appear ten to fifteen minutes before death, right above the heart. It’s how we know when they’re about to die.”
    Anubis looked at the lesion and his gut dropped. They weren’t exactly lesions, but tags. “Gale, from now on, don quarantine scrubs.” He