Demon Marked (37 page)

The waiting was endless. Ash tried to busy herself by looking through SI's budget, by buying up more of Nicholas's shares. Only a few hours had passed since Lilith had left her room, but the time already sat like a rock in her chest, weighing, weighing.

She wanted to go now. Wanted to leave these Guardians and their crumbling city and their shattered king behind, and just go. Wanted to hear Nicholas's voice, to find out where he was, whether he was all right. Wanted to find him, find and kill Madelyn, and do everything she'd planned—and now, save his life, too.

God.
What was going to happen to him?

Her phone's ring shot her heart up into her throat. Ash stared at the glowing screen in disbelief. Snatched it up.

“Hello? Nicholas?”

“Ash.” A novice's voice. “Lilith said to put him through if he called, and he's on the other line now. Do you want to take it?”

A choice to be made, now.

Fuck that.
There was no choice at all.

“Yes,” she said, and then—“Nicholas?”

“Don't hang up, love.”

“I won't. I—”
Oh, God.
He'd never called her “love.” And the accent was all wrong.

Now she couldn't hang up. But she could toss the phone away—

“Keep listening. Ah, there's my girl. I can almost hear your heart pounding. Been hiding from me, have you?”

Ash didn't answer. She didn't
have
to answer. Not unless told to.

What now?

“Don't move. Don't go anywhere. Don't alert anyone. Is anyone with you, within hearing distance? Answer me.”

“Yes.”

“Answer me
truthfully
.”

Panic caught at her throat, almost prevented any answer at all. But no. No. She had to be quick. She had to be clever. She couldn't lose her wits.

“I'm alone,” she said. “How did you find me?”

It didn't matter. Not really. But Ash needed to stall, needed to think.

“Well, love, it was the oddest thing. I saw you on TV, and so I flew to Duluth to see this Rachel, who was grieving her parents
so
deeply and putting their effects in order. And I thought: Oh, my poor little Ashmodei. Lucifer didn't rip out as much as he should have. But while I was standing there, I happened to overhear a
very
nice sheriff talking to one of the city police about a visit he'd had from two federal agents, who thought Steve Johnson might have been someone else. So I wondered, ‘What kind of federal agents go looking into such a cut-anddried case?' The answer seemed simple: Guardians
posing
as federal agents. So I started looking at Special Investigations. And since you're here, not in London where Rachel supposedly is, that's probably a good thing, too.”

“I see,” Ash said.

“Good. You do know what I did to your parents, don't you, love? Answer me truthfully.”

“Yes.”

“And how did you feel about that?”

Evade.
“I didn't remember them.”

“Oh, that's too bad. Well, my effort wasn't for nothing. They screamed so well. Your father tried to protect your mother and failed. It was so very lovely.”

The edge of the desk cracked under her hand. Beneath her, Ash's seat trembled with the force of the rage shaking her body. And she'd thought she'd hated being a puppet? It was
nothing
to the hate she felt now.

She hoped Madelyn told her to get up, to go to her. Ash's boomstick was in her cache, and
by God
she would use it.

“I don't suppose you know where Nicky is? Answer me truthfully.”

“He was in Montana a few months ago. I don't know for certain now where he is,” she said, managing the truth.
Might be heading toward New York
wasn't certain.

“Oh, that's too bad. A pity, but we can do this without him. Now, listen carefully to me. Shield your mind, so tight that no one can sense any emotion from you.”

God.
Fuck.
Why hadn't she thought of that? Every Guardian and vampire in the warehouse would have felt her terror, her rage, would have known something was wrong. Now they wouldn't.

“That done? Good. Now, at no time are you to attempt to kill or injure me, or encourage anyone else to do the same. Understand? Answer me.”

Ash dragged in a ragged breath between her teeth. “Yes.”

“All right. Now dump all of the weapons out of your cache. You will
not
collect any others, or vanish them back into your cache.”

Oh. A mistake. With relief, Ash set her shotgun on the floor.
Everyone
knew that she wouldn't go anywhere without her boomstick. The moment they checked her room, they'd know something was wrong.

But how long before they checked?

“Now, do exactly as I say. When I give you the order, leave the warehouse and walk directly to the café that you were at with the hellhound today. Do not tell anyone that you've spoken to me. You will not give any indication that something is wrong. If they ask, you will only tell them that you talked to Nicky, and now you are going for a walk, that you need to be alone, because you need to think. You will not ask anyone to accompany you, and you will discourage anyone who offers. You will not stop for any reason, you will not write any kind of message, you will simply leave. Do you understand? Answer me truthfully.”

“Yes.”

“You will be at the café in one minute. Hang up and go now.”

Ash cut off the call, stood up.
Think.
She'd leave the door open, but it was possible that no one would look into her room to see the boomstick until much later. Lilith
expected
her to leave SI after Nicholas's call, so she wouldn't believe that Ash was truly just going for a walk, but she'd also have no reason to think that Madelyn had been the reason Ash had left.

All right. Okay. Ash couldn't leave a message . . . but she could let everyone know that this was a
very
special occasion.

She vanished her clothes, walked out of her room. The low murmur of conversation died when she passed through the novices' common area. They stared at her in surprise, jaws dropped, eyes wide.

No one said anything until she'd almost reached the stairs. “Ash? You okay?”

“Fine,” she said. “I'm just taking a walk. I just finished talking to
Nicky
, and I need to think.”

“You want company?”

“No, thank you. I want to be alone.”

Down the stairs, her breasts bouncing at every step.
Come on, someone.
She needed to run into an older Guardian. Any older Guardian. Even now, the novices were buzzing between themselves about her strange behavior, a thread of unease in their voices, but they wouldn't act quickly enough.

She didn't meet anyone through security, just answered the same questions when the novice at the desk saw her.
Are you okay? Do you want me to call someone to go with you?

God, she wished.

Ash formed her clothes again just before stepping outside—no need to tip Madelyn off that someone might be quickly coming after her. And just before the door closed behind her, she heard a novice's voice—

“We need to let Lilith know.”

Yes.
Yes.

A minute had almost passed, but it only took her a second to run the three blocks to the café, already closed for the night. Her heart jumped into her throat. Nicholas sat at one of the darkened tables, but it was a poor version of Nicholas—handsome and slick, but not pared and hardened by his obsession; amused, but not burning with cold intensity. He'd crossed his legs at the ankles rather than his knee, tucked his legs beneath his chair. How strange. How strange and awful to see Madelyn in his shape.

“There you are, love, finally. We don't have all night, you know. We have places to fly.” Madelyn's eyes narrowed. “Can you fly? Answer me truthfully.”

“No.”

“After three years? But I suppose halflings cannot help being incompetent and weak. I'm only surprised you came out of your stupor at all.” She stood, uncoiling from the chair. “I will carry you, then, but there is to be no movement from you, no word spoken, no attempt to escape. You understand that you must obey me, no matter the order I give? Answer me truthfully.”

“Yes.”

“Let us see how well you understand.” A dagger appeared in Madelyn's hand. “Cut off your forefinger, and then give the blade back to me, handle first.”

Which forefinger? Make the cut at which knuckle?
Evade, delay.
But Ash couldn't evade everything . . . and she had no odor, not really, but the scent of her blood would leave a trail to follow.

So without question, she took the dagger, and cut.

 

“So you let her go?”

“I let her go,” Nicholas said, and it echoed through the hollow place in his chest. God. It
still
hurt to say, to think it. But he had let her go—
he'd had to
.

Leslie didn't immediately reply, and he could feel her studying his expression. Trying to read into him. Funny thing was, she didn't need to look that deep. He'd told her everything that had happened from the night he'd met Ash to the final day in the cabin, spilling his guts right out at her feet; the legs of her armchair might as well be swimming in them. But he waited, sitting on her couch, elbows braced on his knees and his hands clasped loosely in between.

Twenty years, they'd sat talking together like this. The salt-and-pepper in her hair had turned completely gray in that time. She'd moved offices, replacing drapes and soothing shadows with open blinds and pots of leafy flowers. Her two children had grown from gangly teens in a photo into a surgeon and an artist, now with children of their own. For twenty years, she's seen into him, understood him better than anyone.

Except for Ash.

She drew in a soft breath. “Nicholas, have you been reading the news at all in the past few months?”

“Every day.”

“Then you know that Rachel Boyle has been found. That she suffered some trauma, lost her memory, but has spent the past three years at Nightingale House—just as you say this demon Ash did. Have you spoken to Rachel at all?”

“No, because that's not her. Rachel's dead, and Ash is what's left of her.” And so much more. God, so much more than a woman stripped down to nothing. “The Rachel you've seen is a Guardian, drawing Madelyn out.”

“Have you spoken to the Guardians? Have they told you this?”

“No. But I know. She looks exactly the same, but she doesn't move like Ash does. She doesn't speak like Ash does. It's close, but it's not perfect.”

“I see,” she said.

Nicholas grinned. When she raised her brows to encourage him, he said, “I know what you're thinking.”

“Tell me.”

“That whatever ‘trauma' Rachel went through probably first occurred six years ago, the night that she and Madelyn disappeared. And that because I was with them, I probably suffered the same trauma—except that I repressed the events, and my mind created another scenario that seemed so real that I'm convinced that Madelyn shot Rachel, despite the lack of blood and other evidence. But now that Rachel has returned, I'm trying to fit the story from the news into the version that my mind has created. So I came up with Ash and all the rest.”

Leslie didn't confirm or deny it. “Do you think that explanation is so impossible?”

“Not impossible. It's just not what happened.”

“Nicholas, in our first session after you met the vampire who told you about the existence of demons, we discussed the possibility that you had constructed a mythology that not only eased your sense of guilt and responsibility for Rachel's disappearance, but one that also allowed for her return. A resurrection, of sorts.”

“Yes, but this ‘mythology' has never eased my guilt, and Rachel coming back never even occurred to me until I met the Guardians.
Bringing
her back was certainly never a goal. Only revenge was.”

“Now Rachel has returned, and your desire for revenge has shifted into a need to protect her.”

“To protect Ash,” he said. “Not Rachel.”

“Also, your mythology has deepened considerably,” she said. “Once, there were only vampires, demons, and eventually Guardians. But in the time since Rachel has returned, there are now halflings, spells, symbols, and sacrifices that open Gates to Hell. Do you not think it at all possible that this layering of your mythology has simply been a way for you to incorporate Rachel's return into a form that you can accept?”

“I'm sure that's not what happened,” he said, smiling. “And I know you hate it when I say that.”

“Refusing to consider a possibility does cut off avenues of exploration.” But though he recognized the faint exasperation at the corners of her eyes and mouth, she only said, “Let's continue then. You let her go two months ago. What have you been doing in the time between—when you were not canceling our weekly appointments, that is?”

Nicholas had to laugh. “I wondered when that would come in.”

“I was very gentle,” she said. “I did worry, though, especially when I saw the news about Rachel. You've never missed so many appointments in a row, and I assumed it wasn't a coincidence. Perhaps you can fill me in now.”

“I was hunting demons. Madelyn, primarily, but there have been others, too.”

“Other demons?” When he nodded, she asked, “You said that you had been wrong about Ash. How do you know these demons aren't like her?”