Demon Marked (36 page)

Ash didn't know what the woman saw. She didn't care. “The frozen field isn't part of my plan.” It emerged as a hiss. “Only seeing Madelyn dead. Being with Nicholas. And making a fuckload of money.”

Khavi tilted her head, looked at Ash through those blank obsidian eyes. “But Nicholas will soon be dead.”

“What?”
Oh, God.
The room spun. Someone caught her arm, steadied her. Taylor, Ash recognized. “How? When?”

“Soon, as I said. I have seen it, and he is still young.”

Ash pushed away, headed for the door. “Then I have to—”

“He will call,” Khavi said. “He will need help.”

No.
No, he wouldn't. The ground seemed to steady. Ash shook her head. “He won't risk me like that.”

“But I see him call. It is very clear to me. And that call
must
be answered.”

“No,” Ash repeated. “He wouldn't.”

“Yes.” Khavi paused, and another short, powerful wave swept through Ash's mind. “He will die . . . and yet your feelings will never fade. You will love him for the rest of your life. Are you sure that's what you want to live for?”

A horror of a future. Still better than losing Nicholas
and
an eternity in the frozen field. Both were unimaginable—and never could she choose them both. Unable to speak, Ash only shook her head, continued to the door.

“Ash,” Lilith said softly behind her. “Save the naked traipse through the warehouse for a special occasion. I don't think this qualifies.”

No. It didn't. Feeling suddenly old, broken, Ash formed her clothes and slipped out of the room, straight into a hallway filled with Guardians and their stares. Sympathy, horror, and resentment seemed to fill each one.

Ash kept her mental blocks strong, and kept on going.

Jesus.
Taylor waited for the door to close before swinging around. “What the fuck was that? ‘You'll love him for the rest of your life'?”

“What?” Khavi frowned at her. “I did not say her life would be very long. I hope it is not.”

“God.
We don't do this.
” Taylor looked at Lilith. When Ash had left, her eyes had been glowing red, but the flat stare Lilith leveled at Khavi looked twice as demonic. “Do we? Is this what we are now, that we sacrifice one life to save another?”

“That's what Guardians have
always
been,” Khavi said. “Sacrificing our lives to save another's is how we become Guardians.”

That wasn't the same at all. But Khavi had a way of twisting things about that made Taylor wonder, “Are you saying Ash will become one if she sacrifices herself like this?”

“No,” Lilith said, and Taylor couldn't remember hearing such cold anger from the woman before. Usually, the former demon hid it behind a razor-sharp smile and a tongue that could slice to the bone. “It would be the same situation as Rachel's: She
should
become a Guardian, but the field would claim her first.”

“She never becomes a Guardian,” Khavi confirmed. “There is no door leading in that direction.”

Fuck. Taylor pushed her hands into her hair, tried to search her mind for any sign of Michael. Was he
hearing
this? What would he think of this?

No, screw that. She didn't need to feel his reaction. She
knew
what it would be.

“He wouldn't want this,” she said. “He wouldn't want us to guilt or coerce someone into sacrificing herself for him, especially a woman who should have been a Guardian, and who's literally been through Hell and torture, just because she sacrificed herself to save someone's
life
. And he sure as hell wouldn't want us to give that woman
nothing
at all to live for, to tear her heart out and then say, ‘But hey, now that your life is total shit, you can save someone else and make your pathetic soul worth something.' That's what a demon would do.”

“Yes,” Khavi agreed. “He believes that free will should always be respected, and life protected. But he also knows that there are times when we must be more demon than man, and do what is necessary. Is that not what you did, Lilith, when you brought her here? Did you not tear her apart, so that she would willingly agree to come . . . and all because there were more lives at stake than hers?”

“Now there is only Michael's,” Lilith said.

“Only Michael's?” Khavi laughed. “Oh, you lie. You know you do. You do not even see the darkness coming as I do, but you know that having Michael here would save many, many more lives than a halfling who can't even fly.”

Jesus Christ. And who would be first? “Is St. Croix really going to die?”

“Yes,” Khavi answered her, before looking to Lilith again. “If you want to help her, let her speak to him. Let the call go through to her. And maybe everything will change.”

Change. A new door opening. Taylor latched on to that, tried to hope. “How would it change?”

“I cannot see what I—”

“What you don't fucking know. Yeah, I know.” Taylor gritted her teeth and glanced at Lilith, who seemed to be making up her mind about something. Her mouth had firmed, and her gaze had slid toward the door, as if considering an object that lay beyond it. “What do you think about all this?”

“I think that certain people have a way of twisting things—and that to save St. Croix, Ash might
willingly
break her bargain with Madelyn and end up in the frozen field.” She started for the door, Sir Pup at her heels. “So I think I'm going to tell her everything I know about how to get around breaking one.”

Good. Damn good. Lilith had survived two thousand years of service to Lucifer without landing in the frozen field. If anyone had tips for the poor girl, it was her. Then Khavi murmured, “Good,” and it took everything within Taylor not to rush after Lilith and bring her back.

Because maybe that was just what Khavi wanted.

And, Jesus, now she was beginning to sound like St. Croix. Fucking insanity. How the hell had she gotten into all of this? She'd jumped in front of a bullet for Joe, yeah, but that should have just made her a Guardian. Not a woman with an ancient half-demon in her brain and his blood written all over hers.

What the hell did that even mean?

“How is this any different than me?” she asked Khavi. “I signed up to be a Guardian, but not the rest of this, but I'm doing what I can. And Ash, Rachel made all of her choices for her, but now that she's thrown into this, she's trying to make the best of it, doing what she can to help—and even as a demon, she's a decent woman who hasn't hurt a single fucking person. Now she's being asked to kill herself? Is this the next step for me, too?”

“No. If you killed yourself, it would not free him from the frozen field. It would mean that even if he did get out, he couldn't leave Hell. Not without his body.”

“That's not what I meant, and you know it!”

“Why do you even ask? If it were possible to free him, would you exchange your life for his?”

It wouldn't be possible. “He wouldn't let me. He'd do everything he could to stop me—even if it meant preventing my free will.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it.” Khavi's smile was thin and sharp. “But since it is not even possible, the question of whether you'd sacrifice your life for his hardly matters. Does it?”

God. Taylor didn't know. She didn't know anything anymore. Except for one thing:

“None of this matters, because Ash isn't willing to do it.”

“No, she isn't.” Khavi's eyes deepened to black. “But only because she hasn't been pushed to her limit yet.”

 

A halfling demon who could make her own clothes and carry everything she owned in a cache didn't need to pack, so Ash simply waited in her room, plotting, contemplating the best time to go.

The knock at her door told her she'd be waiting a little longer.

She opened it to find Lilith, who swept into the room with Sir Pup. No bigger than a dorm room, Ash had never bothered to decorate or add anything to the place, and only one chair had been placed next to a small desk.

Apparently, Lilith wasn't there to sit, anyway. She stopped in the middle of the room. “So?”

“So, what?” Ash settled back into her chair, the seat still warm from her waiting-to-go vigil.

“Don't fuck with me,” Lilith warned.

All right. It probably wasn't hard to guess what Ash had been plotting. “Where is he?”

“I don't know, precisely. Last I knew, he was headed to New York. I don't know if he's there.”

“I'm going to him.”

“I can't let you.”

“But will you
stop
me?”

Lilith's eyes narrowed. “Clever. That was the right question. So there's hope for you.”

All Ash cared about was whether there was hope for Nicholas. “I want to take that call. Do you think he will place one?”

Her gut still said he wouldn't. But if he were hurt, dying—would he be in his right mind? Would he reach out to her? How could she
not
answer?

“He probably will,” Lilith said. “Khavi's not always precise, but she's usually right.
But
she also has an agenda.”

“Getting me into the frozen field.”

“Yes.”

Fuck her. And Ash couldn't sit any longer. She paced to the end of the empty room, back. “Do you know what I hate? What I really, really
hate
?”

Lilith's brows rose. “Short brown hair?”

God. Blond again. And Ash didn't care. “This.” She gestured to the tattoos on her face. “And that shit downstairs. I'm so fucking tired of being the
sacrifice
to a fucking Gate, a goddamn frozen field. That there's barely any use in
doing
anything. No, it's what will be done
to
me. Oh, Ash, let's carve some symbols into you. Oh, Ash, you'll help us if you
die
.”

Lilith didn't answer, only watched her with unreadable eyes. Ash stopped pacing, tried to get her temper under control.

With a deep breath, she said, “And it's not even death. It's torture, forever. And I will
not
go through it again. I'd prefer to let Madelyn have me. At least then, I really do just die.”

“Actually, the preferable choice would be to live. At least, it would be preferable to me.”

Yes. Yes, to her, too. Ash nodded. “That, too.”

“Then listen. The Guardians are proof that the universe likes to reward those who sacrifice themselves for others—but I've never been interested in that martyr bullshit. I don't think you are, either.”

“No.”

“So the rest of us, we have to get that reward some other way. Me, I lied, cheated, and killed my way into it. I had the same fucking impossible choice to make: the frozen field, or Hugh's life. And instead of choosing either of those, I fucked up Lucifer's agreement with a horde of nosferatu, cut off his lieutenant's head, and lied so well that Lucifer lost a wager to Michael and released me from my bargain. I paid for it in blood, and so did Hugh—and I'd have paid more if I had to. But I'd be damned before I let that price be our lives or my soul in that field.”

“So that's what a demon would do,” Ash said softly.

“Only one of us so far. But I survived.” Lilith pointed to the chair. “So sit back down. We'll talk. And when we're done, if I'm satisfied, I'll let them patch that call through to you.”

Ash's heart pounded. “What about Madelyn?”

“It occurred to me on the way to your room that Khavi didn't mention one rather important thing happening in your future.”

Oh, God. She'd missed that, too. “Being sacrificed to open a Gate,” Ash realized.

“If that screwed up her plans to sacrifice you for Michael, she'd probably be doing something to stop it, don't you think?”

“I would if I were her,” Ash said.

Lilith smiled thinly. “Me, too.”