Angels of Darkness (42 page)

The play of darkness and light was wrong. Cloud-diffused sunlight cast a faint, long shadow of the school building over the parking lot, but the long edge didn't match the straight lines of the roof. Marc looked up.

No one. But now he saw the depression in the snow at the roof's edge, as if someone had recently crouched there. Perhaps he'd heard the snow crunch—and even as he watched, the depression deepened slightly, as if shifting beneath someone's weight.

As if someone was
still
crouching there. Tricky as demons were, they didn't possess any powers of invisibility, and Marc only knew of one person who could project such a powerful illusion.

Though that person was also a Guardian, his tension didn't ease. Of the few people in the world who might seek him out, Radha was the last woman he expected to see.

Of course, he wasn't
seeing
her yet.

“Your shadow,” he said quietly.

A frozen puff of air betrayed her exasperated huff of breath. When he'd known her, Radha had been frustrated by any holes in her illusions, had constantly striven for perfection. Apparently those small mistakes still irritated her.

Marc knew that if he turned to look now, those shadows would appear exactly as they should. He continued to watch the roof instead. “And you breathed. If I wanted to shoot your head, I'd know exactly where to aim.”

“Now you're just rubbing it in,” she said, and the illusion concealing her dropped away, revealing her narrowed brown eyes, her wry smile.

He
should
have looked the other way. He should have given himself that break. But it would have only been delaying the inevitable punch to his chest, the sensation of staggering while standing in place. It didn't matter when he saw her, or how often—which
wasn't
often. A few minutes every few years. Never speaking with her, only hearing the lilt in her voice from afar, a lilt that bespoke of English learned over two centuries ago and half a world away.

But she was here now, rising from her crouch at the edge of the roof. Thick black hair tumbled to her waist. The long, curling strands and a few wisps of orange silk formed a scanty covering for her breasts. Scarves knotted at her left hip flirted with her inner thighs, hinting at but never revealing anything other than smooth expanses of skin that she'd dyed indigo.

Behind her, white feathered wings arched over her head. She must have still been concealing herself from everyone else. Even apathetic kids would stop and stare at an almost-nude blue woman with wings standing atop a school building.

He couldn't stop staring, either. Couldn't stop remembering that he'd once unwrapped those scarves. That he'd buried his hands in that impossibly thick hair before burying himself in her body.

She'd left without a word the next day. When he'd tried to discover why, the door he'd knocked on remained closed. The note he'd sent returned unopened.

He hadn't tried again. He'd been young, and damn stupid in those days, but her message had been unmistakable: Leave me alone.

So he had. And afterward, he'd realized that Radha hadn't been the woman who'd gotten away, but the one who should have never been his in the first place. Friends, yes. During those early years of training in Caelum, she'd been a companion he valued and trusted, until he'd given in to lust that he never should have felt. That had been the end. A friendship ruined, and Marc had never been certain whether he'd been blessed for simply having known her or cursed for having lost her.

But he'd done his best to put his feelings away after she'd put him aside, and Radha hadn't spoken to him in almost a hundred and forty years.

Yet now she sought him? Not without reason—and that reason likely had nothing to do with him or one awkward sexual experience when he'd been an overeager virgin.

Spreading her wings, Radha stepped from the roof. She gently glided to his side and landed soundlessly. God, she hadn't been this close to him in so long. He'd almost forgotten how small she was, the top of her head only reaching his shoulder, a waist small enough to span with his hands.

A thin gold chain circled her bare belly instead, with a ruby pendant filling her navel. More gold ringed her slim fingers, and the tip of her right forefinger was capped in a sharp gold claw.

Her gaze lifted to his. Flecks of gold lightened the brown of her eyes, outshining the rows of gold loops in her ears, the small diamond stud piercing her nose.

“Hello, Marc.”

“Radha.” Putting her aside had also taught him to put everything else away, to focus. “Has something happened?”

“To whom?”

“To anyone that would explain why you're here. Do you have news from Caelum?”

Bad news, probably. It seemed that the only news from Caelum of late had been of that kind, beginning a little over a decade ago when thousands of Guardian warriors had chosen to ascend to the afterlife, leaving far too few of them left to fight demons. Half of the remaining Guardians had been killed by the bloodthirsty nosferatu, and a year later, one of their only remaining healers had been slain after a vampire betrayed another Guardian. To save them all—to save everyone on Earth—the most powerful Guardian, their leader, had sacrificed himself and had been trapped in Hell. There had been victories along the way, too, but nothing seemed to make up for the loss of so many . . . and the bad news just kept on coming.

The last time he'd seen Radha had been a week before, during a gathering in Caelum when they'd all finally seen the crumbling ruin the realm had become in their leader's absence—temples shattered, every dome and spire nothing more than piles of marble rubble. Radha had stood on the opposite side of a broken courtyard, weeping as she'd taken in the devastation.

So different from the first time he'd ever seen her, in another courtyard in another part of the once-beautiful, shining city. Ten years after his transformation, he'd stumbled across a public orgy. The realm was all white marble and the Guardians were of every color—but Radha had been the only blue, and she'd been the first in the mass of bodies that he'd truly seen. Once he had, he couldn't tear his eyes away. With a man's head between her thighs and while kissing another woman's belly, Radha had looked over and spotted Marc watching from the edge of the courtyard. Her gaze had met his, she'd smiled—and crooked her finger.

It had taken all of Marc's strength to walk away. Though many Guardians pursue pleasure, that wasn't a route he planned to take. He'd decided to become a celibate warrior, one of God's chosen, as seemed to befit his transformation and honor the gift of life he'd been given.

So he'd left. He hadn't expected that a curious Radha would follow him—or that she'd so easily accept that he didn't want sex from her.

But he had. God, how he had. The following year was one of torment and bliss, spending hours of each day with a woman who fascinated him in every possible way, who'd quickly become closer to him than any friend he'd had as human or Guardian, and who he wanted so desperately. A year of constant trial, every moment a test, reminding himself that a Guardian who fought demons had to learn to resist temptation, and that a celibate warrior would never touch her.

Then he had. He'd failed the first test he'd given himself, and he'd paid for it with the end of their friendship.

He'd dedicated himself to his training after that, determined not to fail again. One hundred and forty years, he'd kept his eyes open, his mouth shut, and done his job.

But lately that hadn't been enough, and it seemed as if the Guardians were on the losing side, as if everything was crumbling, ending. The week before, when he'd looked across the ruined courtyard and witnessed her tears and devastation, he'd wished things were different. He'd wished they were still friends enough that he could hold her, that he could say something to make her happy—because God knew, the way things were going, he might not have another chance.

Her friends Rosalia and Mariko had been there instead. Women who, in their own way, shone as brightly as Radha did.

She hadn't needed him, so he'd remained where he was. It was easy enough. For a good portion of his life, he'd done nothing but stay in one place. He didn't do it so much lately, but whenever he saw Radha, he seemed to recall the skill effortlessly.

“Oh, I see. You think that someone else has died or is trapped in Hell or that Caelum has been swallowed by the sea.” Smiling slightly, Radha shook her head. A darker blue than her skin, her lips glistened as if she'd slicked gloss over them. Nothing fragranced, of course. Nothing that might give her presence away to a demon, nothing that would give her an odor to conceal. “No one has been hurt, and nothing has happened. I am taking a holiday.”

Bullshit. “In southern Illinois?”

“Oh, you say that as if there is nothing to be done or seen here. You cannot convince me of that, not when this area has been part of your territory for five decades and you have been living here happily for all of it.”

Marc wouldn't have said
happily
. He'd had a job. He'd done it. “For a vacation, the Midwest doesn't have anything like your territory does.”

Nothing at all like the beaches of Southeast Asia or the mountains of Nepal—or the cities in between.

“That is why I am here. It is not the same at all.” Her gaze swept the parking lot. “Look at them. Each with their own vehicle, well fed, clothed.”

“If you're hoping to escape to a place without any poverty, it won't be here.” And Riverbend was well off, compared to other nearby towns. No open sewers, maybe, but plenty of people were having a rough time.

And desperation of any sort made a demon's job easier.

“That is not what I'm trying to say.” With a hint of censure in her voice, she looked to him again. “I have sensed more happiness from those living in slums than I do at this school. Why is that?”

Radha had been a Guardian longer than Marc had—and long enough to know very well why this town felt like this. Was she trying to deflect his questions about this vacation nonsense? He knew she wasn't here for the demon.

“What's going on, Radha? Are you in trouble?”

“If I was, would I need to come to you?”

No, and that was the damn point. He couldn't figure out why she'd come. As a warrior with half a century more experience than Marc, her skills probably exceeded his. With her ability to create illusions, she possessed one of the most powerful Gifts of any Guardian. Marc's own Gift allowed him to haul dirt and stone around, but unless she'd lost something in the mud, there was little he could do that she couldn't do herself.

Not that he'd send her packing. “I hope you know that if you did come to me, I'd do whatever I could to help.”

Her lips flattened. She looked away from him before she replied, “Is that so? Thanks so much.”

Her doubt struck like a slap. What the hell? Marc stared at her profile, at the sudden rigidity of her posture. She truly didn't know that? Didn't
believe
it?

Did she think he harbored ill will toward her for leaving
one hundred and forty years
ago? What kind of men did she know that held a grudge so long? Hell, he hadn't held a grudge at all. He'd understood that he simply hadn't been what she'd needed—and damn him if he didn't agree with her. He sure as hell hadn't expected her to seek him out now.

He could only think of one reason for it: another Guardian had told Radha that there'd been a threat to his life. Whatever her feelings toward him, whatever doubts, she was a Guardian first.

“Did Khavi use her Gift and foresee something happening to me? Something that you need to stop?”

“No.”

“She had a vision of something happening to you, then.”

Radha slanted him a sideways glance. “Marc.”

He knew that look, that tone. It meant
Don't say stupid things
. When they'd been friends, she'd given him that look rather often.

They weren't friends now, yet she'd still come. With no threat behind it, that left one possibility: she was running from something. Maybe not something dangerous, not something she could fight, but something that had sent her to the least likely place anyone would come looking. Hiding, for some reason.

He'd help her hide, then. If whatever she was running from caught up to her, he'd protect her, give her anything she needed. He'd watch over her until she left again.

“All right,” he said. “You're on vacation.”

He expected a dazzling grin in response, the one Radha always gave when she got her way. He only got a long, considering look followed by a slow nod, and that hit him harder than her doubt had.

What the hell had he done that laughing, dancing, singing Radha responded to him with such wary reserve?

A familiar pattern of footsteps from inside the school prevented him from asking. He gestured toward the door and said quietly, “Tell me what you sense from these four girls.”

Guardians couldn't read thoughts, only detect emotions—and only if the person didn't possess strong psychic shields. Most humans didn't, because they weren't aware of a need to block any mental probes.

These girls had strong enough shields that he couldn't sense anything from them. With enough force, he could break through those shields, but that would bring the demon's attention to the girls, too.

They came through the door, each with a cell phone in hand and a backpack slung over one shoulder. He knew their names by now: Jessica and Lynn in the front, Miklia and Ines in the back. As far as he could tell, Jessica was the leader, but maybe just because she owned the car they all rode in. Focused on their cell phone screens, only Miklia glanced up as she passed Marc. She looked quickly away—but not back at her phone. For a long second, her gaze found Radha, before the girl finally dismissed them both.