The Darkening Read Online Free PDF Page B

"Hello?"
    "Darius!" The familiar voice of his brother boomed on the other end of the line. "I'll be damned. It's good to hear your voice."
    "Adrian." He sounded just as Darius remembered him. "How the hell are you?"
    'As well as can be under the circumstances," he said, his voice tinged with regret. "We thought when the Calling was interrupted there was no hope of reaching you. But I'm glad you're here. Things are not looking good."
    "I would have been here sooner, but I ran into problems on my end."
    "Problems?" There was worry in Adrian's tone.
    "Nothing I couldn't handle," Darius assured him, not wanting to go into details at the moment.
    "Glad to hear it. Now if this lead of Kalen being in Scotland pans out, there'll be three of us."
    "Kalen's in Scotland?" After being alone for so long, he relished the idea of seeing his brothers again.
    "We don't know for certain," Adrian continued. "There's a witch in the Highlands who contacted Amber just recently-a Christine Lachlan. She's pursuing a lead-we'll see what happens."
    "And Hunter?"
    Darius heard Adrian hesitate. "I thought he might still be in Ravenscroft with you."
    "Still? Adrian, none of the brothers have been in Ravenscroft since the last time we were Called to Earth."
    "What?" Adrian sounded surprised.
    "I've been there alone these past seven hundred years." He couldn't help sounding a little bitter, but the last thing he wanted to do was get into an argument with Adrian. "What about Tain? Is he here too?"
    Adrian didn't answer, and Darius could practically hear him struggling for the right words.
    "Adrian, what's going on here?" he demanded.
    His brother sighed heavily. "There's a demon-an ancient one, judging from his strength and powerwho's determined to take over the world by destroying all living magic."
    It was a familiar enough story. It seemed that dark forces were forever trying to rule the world-although there wouldn't be much of a world to rule if all living magic were destroyed. He didn't bother to ask if Adrian knew which demon it was; if he did, he would have already bound it by invoking the demon's name.
    `And Thin?" Darius asked.
    Adrian took a deep breath."He's helping the demon."
    There was silence while Darius tried to decide if he'd heard correctly. "What?" he finally asked. "I thought.. ." He stopped. He wasn't sure what he'd thought had happened to his youngest brother. "I don't understand."
    "You remember the last battle? Where we were Called to defeat the Unseelie Host? That last onslaught of Unseelies was just a diversion to get me away from Tain. I found out that after the battle he'd gone off with a woman, but it turned out to be a demon in female form. Though I spent centuries looking for him, I couldn't find him-until now."
    Darius shook his head. "There must be some mistake. Tain would never team up with a demonespecially to destroy the world."
    He heard Adrian take a deep breath. "I saw him, Darius. I saw him and I talked with him. Over the centuries, the demon kept him chained and tortured him horribly. Once the demon had him beaten and bleeding, he would shift to female form and heal him with sex. After seven hundred years of that treatment, Tain's mind snapped."
    Darius was almost numb with the shock and horror of what his little brother must have suffered. Thin had always been the gentlest of the brothers, never as strong-willed as the rest of them. That he should have suffered so wasn't right. Darius clenched his free hand into a fist, consumed with rage. "What's the plan?"
    "Come to Seattle," Adrian told him. "I'm gathering forces, but I'm bound by Isis not to hunt for Thin until we're all together. Next time we face the demon and Tain, I want to make sure we have all the living magic at our command that we can."
    "How do I get there?" Darius asked, casting a quick glace at Lexi.
    "You're going to fly on a plane. While we've been talking, Amber's been online getting you a ticket. Hang on a second while I see what she's found."
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