Darkness Hunts (Dark Angels 4)

“It means that not only will you carry the threads of your father’s heritage, you will also carry mine.”

Was “thread” the Aedh word for DNA? Is that what she was going to do—insert her DNA into mine? What the hell would that do to me? Make me more Aedh? Make me more like them?

“Yes,” she said. “And no.”

“Well, that fucking answers the question, doesn’t it?”

She didn’t react to the anger in the statement. No surprise there, I guess. “You will become more fully Aedh than you currently are, and your skills will therefore be stronger, but it will not affect your overall humanity.”

The way she said “humanity” made it all too clear that she meant “emotion,” and that was a huge relief. As much as I’d enjoyed being with Lucian, I didn’t want to be like him emotionally. Hell, the only thing he seemed passionate about—aside from sex—was revenge.

“But won’t my father sense such an insertion?” I was his daughter, after all, and he could trace my whereabouts thanks to that fact. Surely that same connection would inform him that something had been altered within me.

“Your father cares as much for the human part of your nature as any Aedh ever does. As long as that is retained—however minor it might be—he will not notice the change.” The tone was still smug, and yet oddly kind. Like a parent talking to an obtuse child.

I guess if she intended to weave her DNA through mine she technically could be considered a parent.

“But he can read my thoughts as easily as you lot. It’s illogical to think he won’t know.”

“Which is why you will not remember exactly what we have done,” she replied. “In fact, we bet your life on this.”

Fuck, they were going to alter my memories. Then the rest of her words sank in and my gut began to churn even harder. “What do you mean, you’re betting my life on it?”

“Hieu will not risk our regaining control of the keys, so if he does notice the insertion, he will kill you.”

Maybe. Maybe not. After all, my father seemed overly determined to get the keys for his own nefarious reasons, and I was his only way of doing that when he had no physical form here on earth.

But then, what did I really know about the man who was my parent? He’d been one of the Raziq, had worked with them to create the keys. They surely had more of an insight to his character than I did.

“How will this insertion help you capture my father?”

“As you have noted, your father has always been one step ahead of us. Now that he knows of the device, he will work on a way to mute it.”

“Yes. And?”

“By threading my DNA through your lesser being, I will be aware of your movements, no matter where you are. If the device within your heart becomes subdued, I will still be able to find you.”

I stared at the energy of the Raziq, and felt ice crawl through me. There was more to this than that. It would do more than that.

“If the keys were so damn important, how the hell did you lose them in the first place?”

“We did not expect treachery.”

I snorted. “More the fool you, then. Treachery comes with any attempt at power.”

“The keys were meant to end our servitude to the portals by closing them permanently. They were not a means of power.”

The person who had control of the keys had control over the gates to heaven and hell—how could that not be considered a means of power? Hell, maybe that was the real reason Hunter wanted the keys. It wasn’t about the high council using hell as their own private prison—a stupid idea if ever I’d heard one—but rather yet another means of Hunter solidifying her power base.

“Can I remind you that it’s the reapers who have been guarding the gates? The priests who were actually supposed to guard them died out long ago.” Or rather, had died out or become Raziq.

“Just because we no longer serve or guard the portals does not mean we are free from them.”

Another statement that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

God, I thought, dropping my head onto my hands. Why in hell didn’t someone wake me? Surely this couldn’t be happening. Surely it couldn’t be real.

But it was. And it was a nightmare from which there was no escape. I very much suspected that not even death would help me. After all, beings who could unravel the threads of humanity could command a being to life as easily as they could kill.