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CHAPTER ONE

SABIN, KEEPER OF THE DEMON of Doubt, stood in the cataco, his hands soaked in his enee around hie he’d helped create

Torches flickered orange and gold, twining with shadows along the stone walls Walls that were now spattered with vivid red, dripping…pooling The sandy floor was thick like paste, wet and colored black Half an hour ago it had been honey brown, grains sparkling and scattering as they’d marched Now bodies littered every square inch of the s from themNine of his enemy had survived the attack They’d already been stripped of their weapons, hustled into a corner and bound with rope Most trembled in fear A few had their shoulders squared, their noses in the air, hatred in their eyes, refusing to back down even in defeat Damned admirable

Too bad that bravery had to be quashed

Brave men didn’t spill their secrets, and Sabin wanted their secrets

He was a warrior who did what needed to be done, when it needed to be done, noHe didn’t hesitate to ask his men to do the same, either With Hunters—mortals who’d decided he and his fellow Lords of the Underworldboys for the world’s evil—victory was the only thing thatthe war could his friends finally know peace Peace they deserved Peace he craved for them

Shallow, erratic rasps of breath filled Sabin’s ears His, his friends’, his eneth they possessed, each of theood versus evil, and evil had won Or rather, what these Hunters considered evil He and his brothers-by-circuht otherwise

Yeah, long ago they’d opened Pandora’s box, unleashing the demons from inside But they had been punished eternally, each warrior cursed by the gods to host one of those vile fiends inside himself Yeah, they’d once been slaves to their new, demonic halves, destructive and violent, killers without a conscience But they had control now, human in all the ways that mattered For the most part

Soht…did win…did destroy

Still We deserve to live, he thought Like everyone else, they suffered if their friends were hurt, read books, watched h, would never see it that way They were convinced the world would be a better place without the Lords A utopia, serene and perfect They believed every sin ever committed could be laid at a demon’s feet Maybe because they were dumb as shit Maybe because they hated their lives and were si them had become the most important mission of Sabin’s life His utopia was a life without them

Which hy he and the others had relinquished the comforts of their Budapest hoodsforsaken pyraypt for ancient artifacts that would lead to the recovery of Pandora’s box—the very thing Hunters planned to use to destroy them Finally, he and his friends had hit the jackpot

“A the soldier in a far, dark corner As usual, man blended perfectly with shadow Sabin rim shake of his head “You knohat to do”

A forward Silent, always silent, as if afraid the terrible secrets he’d gleaned over the centuries would spill frole word

Seeing the hulking warrior who’d ripped through their brethren like a knife through silk, the re Hunters took a collective step backward Even the brave ones Wise of them

Amun was tall, leanly raceful Purpose without grace would have made him seem normal, like any other soldier The coery usually found in predators used to bringing their prey home between their jaws

He reached the Hunters and stopped Scanned the thinned crowd Then shoved forward and grabbed the one in the center by the throat, lifting his flailed, his hands clutching Amun’s wrists as his skin blanched

“Let hi on his comrade’s waist “You’ve killed countless innocents, ruined so many lives already!”

Amun was unmoved They all were

“He’s a good man,” another cried “He doesn’t deserve to die Especially at the hands of such evil!”

Gideon, the blue-haired, kohl-eyed keeper of Lies, was at A the protestors away “Touch hiain, and I’ll kiss the hell out of you” He withdrew a pair of serrated knives, still bloody from his most recent clashes

Kiss equaled beat in Gideon’s upside-doorld Or was it kill? Sabin had lost track of Lies’s code

A ure out what exactly Gideon e stilled, wilting coround in a motionless heap

A while No one touched him Not even the Hunters They were too preoccupied with reviving their fallen cohort They didn’t know that it was too late, that his brain had been wiped, Amun the nener of all his deepest secrets Perhaps even his memories The warrior had never told Sabin hoorked, and Sabin had never asked