Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Rubbing at his chin, Knox asked, “How long would it have taken the incorporeal to reach such a level of strength that it could maintain a physical form of its own choosing for a short time?”
Dion was silent for a moment as he considered it. “Providing it was given a strong host to drain on being freed, I’d say it would have taken somewhere between four and six months. But only if the incorporeal was extremely powerful.”
“I have reason to believe that she did manage to free it.” Knox told him about the demon’s attempt to get near Asher and its attack on Knox. Dion actually paled, and Knox wondered if it was because he worried the incorporeal would kill him in revenge for holding it captive.
“Alethea couldn’t have freed it without help,” Dion insisted. “She simply wasn’t strong enough.”
“I don’t believe she had help. I believe she was the help. Someone else—most likely the last of the Horsemen—wanted the incorporeal and recruited her to aid him in obtaining it. Together, they then freed it and nurtured it back to full strength. Then he made a bargain with it.”
“But he said on the clip before killing her that she was in his way.”
“Maybe she didn’t like the bargain he made with the incorporeal. Maybe she hadn’t known he was the Horseman until right then. We can’t be sure why he killed her, but we can be certain that the incorporeal is free.”
Urgency in his manner, Dion slung the duplicate of his display case on the sofa. “If the incorporeal is gunning for you and your family, you need to find a way to have it banished back to hell or destroyed. It won’t stop until it’s done whatever it is that will free it. Only the flames of hell can destroy an incorporeal. And, despite the rumors, I don’t believe that’s an ability you possess. There would be no reason for you to hide it.” He swallowed. “I will do what I can to discover where Alethea spent her time running up to her death.”
Levi looked at Dion through narrowed eyes. “You fear the incorporeal will come for you, don’t you?” It wasn’t really a question; it was a confident statement. “Well, if I were kept in a museum for centuries, confined to a small case and gawked at by passersby, I’d certainly want vengeance on my captor.”
“You’ll need to be careful who you let on your island, especially if they’re human,” Knox advised Dion. “You wouldn’t know they were possessed by the incorporeal until it was much too late.”
Dion swallowed nervously, but he set his jaw in determination. “It will never reach me here. I wish you luck in dealing with it.”
Yeah, I’ll bet he does, Levi said to Knox. If it’s destroyed, he’s safe.
You can’t blame him for being so disturbed by the idea of the incorporeal coming for him, said Knox. They’re not forgiving creatures, and I would imagine they would be eager to make their captor pay for a very long time.
After Armand teleported Knox and the sentinels to Knox’s office within the Underground, the teleporter left the room. Knox sank into his leather chair behind his desk and brought Larkin up to speed on all that Dion had said. “Well, now we know for sure where Alethea got the incorporeal,” Knox added. “By all appearances, it does seem that she stole it right from under Dion’s nose.”
“For a minute, I did wonder if maybe he gave the incorporeal to her and then fed us a load of shit to cover his ass,” began Levi, “but he could have just denied ever owning an incorporeal—we would never have been able to prove that he had. He could have also denied that Alethea had spent a lot of time with him before her disappearance—again, we wouldn’t have been able to prove it was a lie on our part.”
Perched on the sofa near the window that overlooked the combat circle beneath them, Larkin spoke, “I agree that it’s unlikely he was in cahoots with Alethea. It seems extreme that he’d have gone to the trouble of having a replica of the display case made purely on the off-chance that our investigation would have led us to him.”
“We don’t know that it is a replica,” said Knox. “We never saw the original case. Only Jonas knows what it looks like. Dion could have shown us any damn case.”
Larkin bit her lip. “Shit, I never thought of that. I guess we could ask Jonas to describe the case he saw at Alethea’s home.”
“He won’t do us any favors,” said Knox. “He won’t even take my calls anymore. Despite that I can’t be sure the case truly was a replica, I’m no longer inclined to consider Dion a suspect. If he were the Horseman and needed Alethea’s help in freeing the incorporeal, it seems highly unlikely that he wouldn’t have given it to her. They could have just worked together in secret on his island.”