Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (23 page)

Using his Gift that way made Drifter bleed from his eyes and ears, but he would have healed. Brandt wouldn’t.

“It is not,” Michael said. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” Charlie wiped her cheeks. “You’ve still got something in your throat?”

“Yes.”

Taylor frowned. Michael had hesitated before responding. Not much. Just enough for Taylor to notice—and to make her wonder.

And right now, a little distraction for Charlie wouldn’t hurt. “What do you mean, something in his throat?”

Charlie glanced at Michael, who gave a nod. She shrugged. “It’s his voice. It’s been different since he came back. But I can’t . . . I guess the only way to explain it is that, usually, it sounds
full
. Like a bunch of orchestras playing different songs, but somehow those songs all harmonize. But ever since he came back, it’s like one of those songs is missing.” Her eyes narrowed a little as she gazed up at him. “Or actually, it’s more like that missing orchestra has been replaced by a big speaker playing a recording. The sound is there, but it’s not as robust as the others.”

Taylor had no idea what Charlie was talking about, but her eyes had cleared a bit and her voice wasn’t as tight with grief. “Do you recognize the song that’s missing?”

“No. It’s like a psychic scent, but I always have trouble holding his voice in my head, so I can’t grab on to it long enough to mimic it.” Pausing, she looked from Michael to Taylor. “Are you just trying to keep the video from me?”

“Yes.” Taylor didn’t want to watch it, either. She knew how it would end—with Brandt’s neck broken and his throat torn out. But discrepancies between what they saw on the video and what they might find while examining his body could give her a lead. “You’re his friend, so perhaps you think you need to be strong for him and witness it. But there are some things you don’t need to see happen to your friends, and this probably isn’t how he would like to be remembered by those who cared for him.”

Charlie took a deep breath, seemed to think about it before nodding. “Okay. Drifter said you might have questions for me, though.”

“I do. Jake, do you have a cropped photo of the suspect?”

“Right here.”

While Charlie studied the vampire’s picture, Taylor glanced up at Michael, found him staring down at her. His eyes were fully obsidian. He was apparently feeling deeply about something, but his face offered no clues to which emotion. She arched her brows in question, then quickly looked away when his gaze fell to her mouth.

Jesus. He needed to stop doing that. It put all kinds of stupid ideas into her head.

“I don’t know this guy,” Charlie said. “But I’m sure he’s not part of the Seattle community. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

“Telling us where he’s
not
from helps us, too. Jake’s got everyone looking, so I’m sure we’ll have an ID soon.” Taylor took the photo, vanished it into her hammerspace for her own reference. “How close were you to Mark?”

“Not close enough to text each other every day or anything, but when he was in town, we went out for drinks or he came to see me at the theater.”

“Did you talk about the Guardians? Vampires?”

“Both. That’s pretty much all we ever talked about. I think because . . . well, I don’t know anything about politics. He doesn’t know anything about running a theater. But I was the only person he could talk with about vampires and Guardians. So that’s what we did.”

Considering how her own friendship with Savi began, Taylor understood that perfectly. “What was his attitude when he spoke of them? I’ve heard that he shot you once. That he thought you were evil.”

“He did. He went crazy for about a half hour, right after he found out that a vampire had killed his dad and that a nephil had possessed his dad’s body. But after that . . . ?” She lifted her shoulders, spread her hands. “As far as I could tell, he accepted that vampires are just like people. Some good, some bad. He hated demons, though. Especially Sammael, but that’s because Mark was still hung up on Jane.”

Jane, who knew what Sammael really was but believed his pretty lies because they made her happy. Taylor thought that wasn’t the blindness of love, but more like willful self-deceit.

But she wouldn’t tell Jane’s sister that. “And Guardians?”

“He didn’t like some of the secrecy around Special Investigations, but he understood it. And with Guardians themselves, he seemed okay, right?” She glanced up at Drifter, then over to Jake. “You guys have both been around when he’s visited, and his shields are pretty thin. I didn’t hear anything negative.”

Drifter nodded. “She’s right on there. If he was harboring any animosity toward us, then he was awful good at concealing it.”

“Yep,” Jake said.

Taylor looked to Charlie again. “So you don’t think he would make a video exposing us?”

“No. If you asked about his dad, then yes. That was what the senator had been trying to do when he was killed. But not Mark. Maybe
especially
because his dad wanted to.” Her brows drew in, and she chewed on her lip for a second. “That’s the other thing Mark talked about, now and again. That book that came out about his dad. It mentioned other men, too, and was just vague enough that Mark felt he was implicated by association. He said it had already screwed his career.”

And a demon had permanently screwed it. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“About six weeks ago. We met at Cole’s for drinks. Well, I didn’t drink. But you know.”

“Did you notice anything unusual? Did he mention meeting anyone new, anyone hanging around?”

“No. He asked me how Jane was doing, because he always does. He asked me how I was doing. He was kind of down, but that wasn’t really unusual. And he brought himself out of it by the time I had to go.”

“Anything since then? Any plans for another drink?”

“No. Mark said that he expected it would be summer before we met up again.”

But they wouldn’t. Taylor saw the realization hit her, the renewed grief.

“All right. I think that’s it for now. And listen, Charlie—” When moisture pooled in the vampire’s eyes, Taylor reached out, gripped her cool hand, and offered a comforting squeeze. “We believe that Mark held out against a demon’s manipulation—and probably a vampire’s threats—for several weeks. If you can’t help wondering what happened to him on that video, remember this: He was strong, he fought, and he didn’t give up. He didn’t break. He beat them. That was why they killed him. Because they played their games, but he won.”

Heavy tears slipping over her cheeks again, Charlie nodded. “I will. Thank you.”

Charlie could thank her when she found the fuckers. God, this never got easier. Taylor watched as Drifter wrapped his arms around the vampire and tenderly drew her in to let her cry against his chest. She glanced up. Michael was looking at her again, eyes still obsidian.

Or maybe he’d never looked away.

She made herself focus. “Will you give Jake the cameras from the scene? Jake, can you ask someone to get the pictures loaded onto a computer for us to look at later?”

“Can do,” Jake said.

And she needed to examine the body after they were done with the video. But there was something else . . .

What?

Maybe because he’d been staring at her face, Michael didn’t miss her wracking her brain. “What bothers you?”

“Something’s nagging at me.” She’d seen something or heard something that might matter, but until she remembered what it was, she couldn’t know whether it did. But she could feel it lurking in the back of her brain, a loose connection waiting to happen. “When we’re done here, I want to go back to his house. Retrace our steps. I missed something.”

Michael nodded. “We’ll re—”

He vanished in the middle of the word. Taylor blinked.

A hush fell around her as Guardians quieted. Faint emotions brushed against her shields, originating from a strong mind but weakened by distance. A taste of anger, grief, fear. Taylor knew that mind. She recognized the psychic scent even as other Guardians spoke it: Lilith.

Rage shattered against her shields, icy shards that stabbed through her brain. Taylor gasped and stumbled. She knew that mind, too.

Michael.

She leapt for Jake, caught his hand, and held on. He jumped and she spun into a hell of splintered wood, melting portraits, and the stench of burning silk. Savi’s parlor. Heat blasted her face, tightening her skin.

Jake jumped again and she was outside, her knees crashing into the paved driveway next to Lilith’s feet. Jake vanished.

Michael appeared in front of her, Maggie Wren in his arms. He set her down. The butler bent over and puked.

Michael disappeared again. Back into the house, Taylor realized. She struggled to stand, horror crashing into disbelief as she took it in. The front of the mansion was gone. A ragged hole in the roof gaped open as if a bomb had exploded inside. Everything burned.

A monster burst from the flames shooting from the roof. Her gun popping into her hand, Taylor aimed—and stopped herself an instant before Lilith’s foot lashed out, knocking the weapon from her grip.

Not a monster. Sir Pup.

In his giant three-headed form and his eyes blazing with hellfire, he jumped down to the driveway. In one bound, he landed in front of Lilith and dropped two bloody lumps to the ground.

Oh, God.

Two left hands, neatly severed at the wrists. A man’s and a woman’s, tanned skin and dark, platinum rings circling their third fingers.

At the touch of the sun, Savi’s fingers began crumbling to ash. Taylor lurched forward but Hugh was already there, covering the hands with a shirt he must have ripped from his chest.

With a whimper, Sir Pup vanished the hands and glanced up at Lilith.

“Look again,” Lilith said hoarsely. “Please.”

Faster than Taylor could track, Sir Pup spun back toward the house. His enormous body crashed through the front door just as Jake appeared beside them again.

And Michael was still in there.

“I couldn’t find them,” Jake said, then grabbed Taylor’s wrist when she started forward. “Not a chance. He told me to get out. There’s no one alive in there.”

No one alive.
Taylor stared at the house, helplessness tearing a hole in her gut. Beside her, Maggie steadied and wiped her mouth, her psychic scent reeling with sick horror. Sir Pup ran across the porch and onto the driveway, shaking his heads.

Where was Michael? She could feel him, his psychic sweeps slamming against her shields in repeated blows. Still searching for Colin and Savi—or searching for the demons who’d killed them.

Then he was there in the driveway, a big four-poster bed beside him, the curtains in flames. He ripped them down and vanished the burning fabric. Pain and grief ripped through Taylor’s chest, locked her throat. Body-sized piles of vampire ash lay on the mattress. Two bloodied spots marred the sheets.

But . . . why hadn’t the blood turned to ash when the bodies had?

Even as she watched, one of the spots ashed in the sun. Savi’s blood. Colin’s would last longer. His body should have, too.

Lilith was frowning. “Is that where you found their hands? On the bed?”

The hellhound answered with three vigorous nods.

Taylor shook her head, still trying to catch up. “Why cut off their hands first?”

“It’s not Colin and Savi,” Michael said. “And I can’t sense them. Colin might have his shields up, but Savi would be sleeping.”

“So they are probably behind the shielding spell,” Hugh said.

“Yes.”

Jake nodded. “I’ll get Drifter and start the search,” he said and vanished.

Lilith looked to Sir Pup. “See if you can pick up a scent. A twenty-mile radius, to start.”

Not Colin and Savi.
The memory of those bloody hands still in her mind, Taylor didn’t dare believe it. Not yet. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Michael said, and hope lifted through her. “The demons must have expected the hands to burn before we arrived. We would have only found ash and their rings.”

“But we were only a few blocks away when it blew,” Hugh said, then he looked to Maggie. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I only heard Mr. Ames-Beaumont on the intercom. He asked me to bring a DVD up from the basement.” Maggie shook her head, her normally impassive expression a mask of stunned confusion. Taylor thought that her own expression probably looked the same. “That basically means, ‘Get down to the safe room and call the Guardians.’ But I didn’t have time to make the call. I barely had time to shut the door.”

“Then who are they?” Taylor gestured to the ash on the bed.

Scooping up a handful, Michael brought the ash to his nose. Taylor sucked in a sharp breath. His fingers were blistered and raw. The darkness of his suit had concealed the charring of the fabric, but now she saw the burns through to his skin. At the back of his neck. His feet.

The burns were healing even as she looked, but her stomach clenched up sick and tight. He’d vanished his shoes before going in. What kind of idiot got rid of his shoes before running through a fire? She wanted to yell at him.

She wanted to cry. Afraid that she might start doing exactly that, she clamped her jaw and waited.

“One is the vampire who killed Brandt,” he said.

Damn it. This wasn’t how she’d wanted to see justice served. And they still didn’t know who he was. “So the demon did have another use for him.”

“Yes.” He inhaled again, shook his head. “I don’t recognize the other. Female. Vampire. I can’t smell anything else.”

“We’ll have to figure it out later.” Lilith turned her head toward the approaching sirens. “Hugh and I will take care of this. Just find Colin and Savi—and, Taylor, don’t get distracted. Brandt and those videos are still your strongest leads to find whoever set this up. Wren, you go with them.”

Maggie nodded. “We need to bring Geoff, too.”

Colin’s nephew—and another possible target. “Has anyone checked on Katherine?”

“I’m sending Selah to London now.” Hugh looked up from his phone. “How long do we have?”

Lilith’s expression was bleak. “Without the Rules to protect them, every second is going to be too long. The demons will play with them first.”