Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (18 page)

“So, teleporting again?”

“Yes.” He glanced to the building’s edge. “Or we can jump.”

“I can’t fly yet.”

“It is only twelve floors. You won’t need to.”

Uh-huh. She walked to the edge and looked over. A wide alley lined with Dumpsters waited below. A lot of hard asphalt.

And a lot of windows on the way down. “Someone will see us.”

“Perhaps. But the moment they look outside and don’t see a body, they’ll assume they were mistaken.”

True. But still. She’d prefer to practice this one on softer ground first.

“If you are uncertain this time, I’ll hold you on the way down,” he said.

That decided her. She held out her hand. “Teleport.”

Into an empty office, where he ended up holding her anyway. As she swayed, the steel bands of his arms caught her up against his chest, and he looked down at her with his eyes glowing amber, just watching her as the room spun around him, his face the only thing in the world that was steady enough to focus on.

Well played, Michael.
Damn it.

His grin flashed when he set her feet to the ground, but he wisely said nothing. A directory near the elevator put them on the floor below the senator’s office. Taylor mulled over her approach as they rode up. If the senator and the staff had seen the video, anyone from Special Investigations might put their back up.

Flash the badge, then, and just give their names. Most people would assume FBI when she said
agent
.

A glass door opened to a carpeted reception area. A pair of flags stood in the corner, but not the flag from the video. Behind the oak desk, a woman smiled at them and gave the expected “Welcome to Senator Blackwell’s office. How may I help you?” lines. Sleek dark hair, cardigan over a pink chemise. Friendly and professional, but the tightness around her eyes and the nervousness in her psychic scent warned Taylor to start off easy.

She didn’t get a chance. The receptionist’s gaze flicked down to the badge Taylor had tucked into her waistband and landed on Michael. Her smile froze. Fear spiked through the nervousness. Her finger shot to an intercom button. “Senator? I think they’re here.”

Frowning, Taylor glanced back.
Ah.
Michael wasn’t playing Agent Smith. He was just a big scary Guardian in a suit. She raised her brows.

Too low for a human to hear, he said, “It wouldn’t have mattered. She was waiting for us.”

On the intercom, a woman’s voice replied, “Thank you, Janet. Please collect their identification and make a photocopy. I’ll be out shortly.”

Obediently, Taylor offered their ID. A door opened down a short hall. The woman who emerged didn’t project any fear when she looked at Michael, only anger, worry, and a hardening sense of determination. Tall and lean, and in incredible shape for sixty, she wore a tailored black pantsuit and blue blouse that gave the impression of modest good taste and power.

She held out her hand, gave Taylor’s a firm shake. “I’m Trina Blackwell. Janet, have you finished with their IDs? Thank you. Please come with me, agents.”

Most of the other offices were open and empty. No flags. Brandt’s name marked one door. Taylor took a detour inside and returned to the hallway a half second later. Michael’s mouth curved. Damn straight, she could do superspeed.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen anything useful.

Reading the photocopies as she walked, Blackwell led them into her office, gestured to the pair of club chairs facing her desk. Books filled a wall of shelves behind her seat. A large window offered a view of the glass-and-steel building across the street and let in warm sunlight that gleamed across the surface of an oval conference table piled high with bound ledgers.

A laptop sat at an angle to the senator’s chair, the lid closed. She set the copies of their identification on the desk and leaned back, her narrowed gaze moving from Taylor to Michael. “So. Special Agents Taylor and Smith of Special Investigations. You’re looking for Mark?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Taylor said. “We’re responding to a missing persons report. I understand that he has not been in to work today, though you expected him?”

“A missing persons report? Who filed that? You’ll tell me that it was an anonymous caller, is that correct?”

Okay, so no bullshit. “We have reason to believe his life may be in danger.”

“From whom?”

“That is what we’re trying to determine, ma’am. Where he’s been. Who he has seen. We would like to look through his appointment book and speak with your staff.”

The senator’s arched brows and pursed lips said they weren’t going to get it. Her fingers tapped the arm of her chair. “This morning I spoke to Senator Dennis Maddox, a member of the committee on Homeland Security. He told me that Special Investigations does not exist.”

“I was in the closed-door meeting with the senator when the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of Defense approved Special Investigations’ creation and funding.” Michael’s voice wasn’t flat anymore, but that deep, beautiful harmony. “Along with Mark Brandt’s father.”

As if drawn, the senator’s gaze went to his face and stayed there. Taylor couldn’t feel much from her—people who spent their lives watching their words and guarding their responses often had stronger shields—but wonder and speculation bled through. No real fear.

Taylor suspected that in her conversation with Maddox, more had been discussed than just Special Investigations. Perhaps the other senator had told her what he’d seen in that meeting. Michael’s wings, his great strength.

Blackwell shook her head. “Perhaps so, but as of this morning, you’ve been disavowed. I won’t answer your questions. You need to leave.”

Taylor sat forward. “We were just at his home, Senator. No one has lived there for some time, but he has been here at work for the past two weeks. Perhaps you noticed that he was not himself. That his personality had altered.”

Not a flicker on the senator’s face, but the sense of recognition in her psychic scent was confirmation enough. Recognition, then denial. “The recent accusations aimed at his father have upset him greatly, Agent Taylor. Of course he has not been completely himself.”

The two-and-a-half-year gap in recent history raised its ugly head. Taylor had no idea what she was talking about. But she could ask for details about the accusations later. Mark Brandt himself was more important now. “So that affected him?”

“It placed him under a great deal of stress. His father is not alive to defend himself, so Mark must bear the brunt of the speculation, and it has left a shadow on his own career.” Anger burned through her psychic scent; her face was impassive. “He’s a good man and an asset to my team. If he needs help, I will see that he gets it. But not from those whose purpose and authority are in question.”

Fine. No more dancing around. Taylor recognized a stone wall when she saw one. “Senator, we have seen the video. We don’t believe he made it.”

Her gaze sharpened. “You believe it was created under coercion? To what purpose?”

“To throw suspicion on the people who would help him. So that we’re given silence instead of information.”
As you have.
But Taylor let that hang there, unspoken. She stood. “Please consider filing a missing persons report, so that we are not the only ones looking for him.”

“I will do that.”

It wouldn’t be enough. Frustration dogging her every step, Taylor left the office, out to the elevators. She felt Michael’s hand settle on her lower back and shook her head.

“No teleporting yet. I need a minute to think before my brain starts spinning again.”

He nodded and stepped away. The elevator door closed. She pushed a button at random.

“What accusation was she talking about? Brandt’s father?”

“One of his former legal aides published a book last year. In it, she accuses him of forcing her to have sex with him and several other unnamed men. She suggests that other females in the office suffered the same.”

Jesus. “Did you read it?”

“Yes.”

And why not? She supposed it only took a minute for him to read anything. “Did she have evidence?”

“Yes. Recorded phone calls and e-mails. One video from a hidden camera in his office.”

A video? “Are you sure it wasn’t faked by a demon? After all, Mark Brandt helped the Guardians fake his dad’s death. Maybe they wanted to screw him over.”

“I wondered the same, so I watched it.” A hard, cold note flattened his voice. “They were human.”

What a disgusting pig Brandt’s father was, then. People could be worse than demons, sometimes. “I shouldn’t be surprised. The nephilim could only possess souls that were on their way to Hell, and something he’d done sent him there. I guess he deserved it.”

“Yes.”

She was glad Michael agreed, especially considering the way he’d tried to persuade her to give up his body in Hell. The elevator dinged and opened. No one got on. She jabbed another button. “You were damn quiet in there.”

Which wasn’t really new. But she was never sure if he was brooding or just keeping his thoughts to himself. Either way, he was often quiet.

Except with her. She doubted that he shared everything—but he spoke more than she’d ever heard him speak when others were in the same room. She wasn’t sure what to think of that.

She shouldn’t be thinking of anything but the case.

“I prefer to listen,” he said.

“So that you can hear threats coming?”

“Sometimes. But in the senator’s office, there was nothing more to ask.”

Nothing that the senator would have answered, anyway. “Are we going to find Brandt alive?”

His eyes darkened, which gave her the answer before he did. “The video would not be enough for a demon.”

“It was enough to get us disavowed.”

“Yes. But that is an inconvenience, not damage. It is not enough.”

What would be? “Okay, then. Let’s check out his place in Seattle, then go and talk to Alejandro in D.C. We can see if he’s heard anything about being disavowed, because these badges aren’t worth shit if we have been. And that will be really damn inconvenient when we’re searching for him.”

And hopefully that inconvenience wouldn’t cost Mark Brandt his life.

*   *   *

She immediately knew that they were too late. Far below, cruisers sat in the driveway of a large house, lights flashing red and blue, flanked by an ambulance and unmarked police vehicles. Sharp like ice, Michael’s psychic sweep stabbed through her shields.

The world spun again and Michael cradled her against him. In his lap? She jerked away and her feet slid on steep shingles. They were on the roof, she realized. He’d crouched down so that no one in the driveway would see them.

Taylor hunkered down next to him, fighting the lingering dizziness. Rain splattered in heavy drops all around them. Why wasn’t she getting wet?

She’d figure that out later. “Did they say anything while I wobbled?”

Obsidian eyes met hers. “Throat torn out. Loss of blood.”

Vampire. Maybe nosferatu. It wouldn’t be the first time demons played nice with their enemies so that they could get around the Rules.

Damn it. “We need to get down there.”

His clothes instantly altered. An EMT’s uniform—just as he’d worn the first night she’d seen him. A public park, a young man ripped apart. Hugh had been the suspect then.

“Don’t talk to anyone,” she said, and when he glanced at her, she told him, “I knew there was something off about you the night Ian Rafferty was killed. Not just because I’d never seen you before, but because you talked to Hugh. So don’t give them any reason to look at you twice. We just need to know what happened to him.”

He nodded and disappeared. A cold drop splattered on her cheek, another down the back of her neck. Lips parting in surprise, Taylor touched her cheek, looked at her glistening finger.

He’d been vanishing the raindrops before they hit her. Protecting her, even from that.

The rain stopped again when he returned. Taylor didn’t mention it. She didn’t want to think about it.

“What did you see?”

“It was a vampire. The police are taking pictures.”

Damn it all again. Taylor clenched her teeth. She really didn’t like where this was heading—and what she’d soon be asking Michael to do.

Maybe she wouldn’t need to. “And you’re sure that it
is
Brandt, right? Not the demon wearing his face?”

Michael just looked at her.

All right, she admitted. Stupid question. Of course he would know the difference. Smell the difference. But it was always best to talk it out, to raise possibilities. Even stupid ones. “So a demon impersonated Brandt in the video. But a demon can’t kill a human, so he had a vampire do it.”

“Yes,” Michael said, his jaw like stone. That low, freezing hum that had terrified her before sounded beneath his reply. This time it didn’t scare her—and she recognized what it was.

Rage.

Her gaze searched his face. Not much different. His features just as hard as always, his eyes as black as night. “You must see people die all the time. This one is getting to you?”

“They
all
get to me, Andromeda.” Each word was a snap, the syllables of her name a sharp series of bites. His fists tightened against his thighs. His voice softened. “Some more than others. I accept that death must happen. But not always so pointlessly. Brandt has not just been robbed of his life, but also his future. He’s been robbed of the choice to die in his way. And for what purpose? To expose us.”

She could get behind that kind of rage. It pissed her off, too. People deserved better. They didn’t always get it—and she didn’t like accepting that, either.

He shook his head. “Do they not get to you?”

After being in her mind, he must know that they did. “Every one,” she said. “Which is why I spent my career trying to see murderers get what they deserve.”

“That is what I will do.”

“By slaying the demon?” Once, the idea of such justice had been repugnant to her. Why should Guardians decide whether demons lived or died? It wasn’t repugnant now. “What about the vampire?”

“Once, I would have slain him without question. That has changed in these past years.” He met her eyes. “And I would like to know why he did this, first.”