Dark Time by Dakota Banks

Author:Dakota Banks [Banks, Dakota]
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

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here were four messages on her phone when she got home, the first from Randy. She begged off on the late-afternoon lunch, saying that she’d met a hot guy at the spa, some chauffeur waiting to pick up his employer. The next two were from Jake. He’d had Interpol look into SkyDevice employees who’d died in August or September. There weren’t any, and he wanted to know why not.

The third message was from a friend of hers, archaeologist Manco Serrano. They’d met at a symposium in Lima, and she’d conveyed her interest in unusual artifacts that raised questions about their origins. It was an intensely personal quest of hers, something that might mean she could avoid the whole Rabishu-plaything business if she died before atoning for all the lives she’d taken.

Years ago, she had deceived Rabishu into revealing the location of the Tablet of the Overlord, an object all of the demons knew how to locate. She convinced him that Anu might have hidden one of the diamond shards in the same area. It was a plausible idea, since no one would think to look for it there. He agreed to have her search for it and gave her the location. After a suitable period, she told him she’d checked and there was no diamond shard there. She hadn’t even made the effort, but she’d filed away the location of the tablet.

In truth, when she was Ageless, she had searched for the shards halfheartedly or not at all, because she had no interest in helping Rabishu in his attempt to become all-powerful.

Since she’d left the demon’s service, Maliha had intensified her search. Her plans were vague at first—maybe something to blackmail Rabishu with—but settled into a goal as much a part of her as the carving of the scale on her body. She wanted that lens not just to keep Rabishu or one of his brothers from finding it, but for her own use. Maliha intended to get rid of the demons by wielding the Tablet of the Overlord against them. With each one she vanquished, a portion of the misery the human race suffered would be gone.

What would Earth be like without war, suffering, and disease? Did they serve an essential purpose in giving humans something to strive for in their elimination? Or were they the ball and chain around the ankle of the human race, preventing the achievement of its fullest potential? Lord Nergal may have left those demons behind on a whim. If he’d taken his servants with him, life could have been very different for humans.

She had a network of archaeologists looking, in a casual manner, for artifacts that just didn’t fit into the location or time period they were working on. She reinforced their interest in staying in touch with her by making them into characters in her novels. They were as thrilled as kids on a roller coaster when they spotted their names. She got an image of a whole squadron of academics hunched

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