Demon Forged (15 page)

And doing a damn good job of taking Joe along with her. Jesus, they’d been assigned to
crowd control
. . . and a woman had died on their watch.

Just screwed, all around. But she was going to make damn sure her partner didn’t go down with her.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know how the hell to do that. With a sick feeling in her gut, she finished up the call and stopped at the top of the stairs. The Guardian pulled her through the roof door again, and she blinked at the bright sun.

Irena glanced at her. She’d probably listened in on the conversation. Only God knew what the Guardian saw in her face—or how much of her emotions she could read.

“What is San Francisco General?”

“A hospital.”

Irena frowned. “Do you and your partner know the congressman is a demon?”

Well, if she hadn’t known he was a demon, she would now. Not that it mattered; someone was dead, and someone else had to be held accountable for it—demon or not. “Yes. But we still have a job to do. Questions to ask.”

“Yes. Of course.” Irena’s brows drew together, and Taylor had the feeling she’d either said something the Guardian thought was incredibly stupid, or they’d been talking about two different things. God. She could never figure these people out.

“So are you going to take this one?”

Irena looked baffled. “Me?”

“Not
you
you. Special Investigations.” Taylor flapped her hands like little wings. “The Guardians.”

Her expression changed—into scorn, maybe. Then frustration. She looked out over the roof and said quietly, “I don’t know.”

Alejandro shed the appearance of a federal agent the moment he entered the Special Investigations warehouse; he couldn’t shed the frustration of spending four futile hours at the hospital so easily. He and Detective Preston had learned next to nothing from Rael—and once the FBI had arrived, he’d listened in on a repeat of next-to-nothing.

According to Preston, Taylor and Irena hadn’t found much more.

Beside him, Drusilla shifted into her own shape and un-clipped her hospital badge from her lab coat. Frustration twisted in her psychic scent, as well, but Alejandro didn’t think hers had anything to do with the little information they’d gotten, or even that the safeguards SI had prepared in the event a Guardian or vampire was severely wounded in public had been implemented to cover up a demon’s injuries. No, he thought Dru’s frustration came from being in a hospital full of people that she simply couldn’t help. In that, Dru was much like Irena: Neither woman could tolerate a situation where they couldn’t do anything.

Alejandro had to admit he could not tolerate it, either—the difference was, he’d look for another option. In all fairness, Dru’s Gift didn’t give her one; she couldn’t heal natural diseases or human-caused injuries. But Irena was just too damned stubborn to see—let alone consider—alternatives.

He passed through security and into the corridor leading to the central hub, and halted midstride when he heard Irena’s shout from the direction of the gymnasium, followed by Castleford’s voice giving instructions and calls of encouragement from the novices.

Shaking off his surprise, he continued on to the hub. He hadn’t expected Irena to remain in the city after taking her leave of Taylor. And he hadn’t expected her to return
here
. But he’d forgotten about the vampire upstairs—she must be waiting for Deacon to awaken; sunset wasn’t far off.

Irena’s battle cry rang out—a sound that Alejandro had only heard her use during practice. A second later, Pim crashed through the doors and smashed into the opposite wall. The plaster collapsed around her body. The novice’s arm twisted at an unnatural angle, the bone piercing the skin below her elbow.

Drusilla gave a gasp of dismay and started forward.

Irena stepped through the doors and crouched in front of the novice. “It was well done until you lost your balance. You shouldn’t startle so easily.” Her gaze fell from the novice’s pinched features to her arm. “If you heal that, we will try again.”

Drusilla reached Pim’s side. Unlike Michael, Dru couldn’t heal from a distance, but as soon as her hand touched the novice’s skin, the warm roll of her healing Gift ran over Alejandro’s psyche. The novice’s flesh mended instantly.

Irena looked up at the healer with a feral smile. Drusilla’s jaw set. Neither of them spoke.

In the silence, Hugh came out of the gymnasium. He slipped his hands into his pants pockets and leaned a shoulder against the broken door frame. Two more novices—Becca and Randall—peeked around him.

Irena looked at Pim. “Why did you not heal it before she did?”

“Healing takes concentration. And I couldn’t.” She swallowed and darted a nervous look at Drusilla.

Afraid, Alejandro thought, that Dru would be disappointed.

“Because it hurt,” Irena said flatly.

“Yes.”

“
Could
you have healed it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Dru stood. “She’s studying anatomy now. Practical application will come later.”

“Practical application? What is that?” Irena snorted. “She needs practice.”

“We don’t see so many injuries that she
can
practice, Irena. It’s not like practicing with a weapon, when you can just pick up a sword. We have to wait until someone needs us.”

“Then we’ll practice now.” Irena spread her fingers. “Cut off one, Pim. Then heal it.”

Gasping, Pim looked up at Dru, who shrugged. A dagger appeared in Irena’s grip and she extended the handle toward the novice. Pim took it with shaking fingers.

She stared at Irena’s hand, then swallowed. “I can’t.”

“You just attacked me with your sword in there.” Irena jerked her head back toward the gymnasium.

“That was different. I knew I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“You could have.”

“But not on purpose.” Pim looked at Irena’s fingers again. “Not like this.”

Alejandro read the frustration on Irena’s face. She didn’t understand that. Practice among Guardians hurt. They almost always drew blood, caused injury—and none of it was by accident. To prepare to fight demons, novices
had
to go for blood. They only held back from a death blow.

“And this is how you will become a healer? By watching and never doing?”

“She
is
a healer,” Dru said. “It does her credit that she can’t cold-bloodedly chop off your fingers.”

He didn’t think anyone else would’ve recognized the hurt on Irena’s face. Cold-blooded was the very last thing she was. To her, this wasn’t about causing pain, but eventually being able to stay alive through it.

He stepped forward, but Irena looked at Pim again and said, “She is right; it does you credit. I would cut my own finger off if your Gift could heal self-inflicted wounds. I would ask Hugh if you could heal what a human does to me. I would ask Dru, but I know she will not.”

And Alejandro could not. Did Irena know that, or did she simply not consider asking him?

He started toward them. “Let her heal mine. Irena can cut off my—”

“No, Olek.
Je ne peux pas
.”

She couldn’t.
Alejandro stopped, holding on tightly to his shock. What could that mean? She’d inflicted damage easily enough during his training, and they had only grown apart—and antagonistic—since then. Good Christ, the one thing that had never occurred to him in four hundred years was that she might not be able to deliberately do him harm—even knowing that he would be quickly healed.

Even knowing that good would come of it.

Hope started in his chest, and he ruthlessly squashed that fragile flicker. He had lived two hundred years with that hope. If he believed Irena could be his future, then he was doomed never to move forward. For a moment, he hated her for giving him even a spark of hope with those words . . . and he hated himself for latching onto it so easily.

Irena didn’t look at him, but watched Pim’s face. “There aren’t enough of us. We are outnumbered by demons, nosferatu, and nephilim. One day, you’ll need to heal Drusilla or one of your friends, and you’ll need to heal more than their fingers. You
must
practice, and you might as well begin with me, who you care nothing about.”

Pim looked at Irena’s hands again, her fingers tightening around the dagger handle. After a tense moment, she shook her head. “I can’t. Not like this.”

Irena sighed. She had lost, Alejandro thought. She would not stop fighting, but in this battle, she had been overpowered.

“I will.” Becca stepped forward, then hesitated and looked back at Hugh. “If it’s okay.”

Castleford nodded, and when she turned her back to him his lips compressed, as if he were trying not to smile.

Becca’s nervousness crawled over Alejandro’s psyche like fire ants. She knelt, took the dagger, and placed the blade below the first knuckle of Irena’s index finger. Slowly, she began to draw the blade back and forth, wincing as the blood welled.

Irena didn’t flinch, didn’t change expression, but he saw the subtle way her weight rocked back on her heels.

“Becca!” Both Alejandro and Hugh barked her name. Dru said it in her sharp, quiet manner.

“Quickly, Becca,” Dru continued. “Do not
saw
your way through. Chop.”

Irena’s lips parted. The breath she sucked in trembled with her pained laughter. “Thank you.”

Irena vanished the blood as the novices returned to the gymnasium. At the end of the hall, Hugh and Alejandro signed to each other—so that the novices would not overhear them, Irena guessed.

She walked with Dru to the hub and did the same.

Pim was ready,
Irena signed. Dru had guided the novice through the healing, but Pim hadn’t needed guidance—she’d only needed the confidence that Dru’s presence had given her.
Yet you could not do what must be done. Is it because you are in love with her, or because she is with you?

Dru’s flush didn’t provide an answer. It could have been either—or both. If Dru didn’t return Pim’s feelings, she still might be sensitive to them. Combined with her natural inclination to heal rather than harm, such feelings would make the healer hesitate to practice with the novice. And if Dru loved Pim . . . it might be impossible to practice in the manner they needed to.

Dru sighed.
Before the Ascension, someone was always injured from practice or during assignments. Always. We didn’t have to chop at each other.

Dru laughed quietly.
He’s been trying.

But Dru was stubborn. Affectionately, Irena tugged at the healer’s blond hair, then rose up on her toes to kiss Dru’s forehead.

“Your feelings do you credit, too,” she said, and laughed aloud at Dru’s embarrassment.

Her laughter died when she saw Lilith come through security and into the hall beyond the offices. The other woman looked tired despite her brisk stride and the precise clip of her boots on the tile. As she walked, she pulled at the back of her hair, and the black coil at her nape unwound over her shoulder.

“Alejandro, Dru. We’ll debrief in my office.” She glanced at Irena. “You were with Taylor.”

“Yes.”

“Then I imagine her report isn’t accurate. If you fill in the details she left out, it’d be helpful.”

“I will.”

Lilith nodded. “I’ll be with you all in a minute.”

Irena supposed that was an order to wait for Lilith in her office, but she turned and watched her walk toward the gymnasium, instead. She passed Alejandro, went straight for Hugh.

“You didn’t swear. Was that difficult?” Hugh’s amused voice traveled down the long hallway.

Irena couldn’t see what Lilith signed to him, but Hugh laughed softly, shaking his head. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“I’ll fill you in on everything tonight, and we’ll decide how to go from there.” Lilith reached him, touched his arm, then his chest. She signed again, and whatever it was had Hugh studying her for a long moment before he pushed her back into the wall. Irena looked away as his mouth took Lilith’s.

Alejandro stopped beside her.
They surprise you,
he signed.

“Her,” Irena said. “Not him.”

“You surprise me, too.”

Had he expected her to tell the hellspawn no? She frowned at him. “A woman is dead, Olek.”

“Yes,” Lilith said. She walked away from Hugh, but held on to his hand until distance forced her to let go. Not looking so tired anymore—and well-kissed. “And we need to know if they shot at her husband because he’s a congressman, or because he’s a demon.”

Alejandro stepped back, allowing Lilith to pass between them. “If they knew he was a demon, they wouldn’t have shot him.”

“Unless they didn’t know a bullet wouldn’t hurt him.” Lilith pushed open the door to the office she and Hugh shared.