Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (39 page)

Faster. Twelve and thirteen, and his second almost gone. Faster, the twenty-first and twenty-second demons only just realizing the fury heading toward them, heads tipping back so that he stabbed through their foreheads instead of the top of their skulls, and when the last was done the first was just beginning to fall.

A full second had passed.

Michael teleported back to the entrance, into the hole he’d already made. Above, twenty-five demon bodies slammed into the guards hovering below them.

Then Guardians were all around him, teleporting into the chaos. Charlie screamed against Ethan’s wrist, her mind catching hold of Lucifer’s song as Ethan’s Gift touched the shielding spell. Blood burst from Ethan’s eyes and nose and ears. Convulsing, his hand slipped from Jacob’s shoulder.

Michael caught Ethan and Charlie as electricity lit the corridor in a blinding flash. A blast of heat followed the flames erupting from Alejandro’s hands, burning wings to a useless char. Demons rained from above, brains leaking and wings burning and shocked unconscious. Impenetrable darkness wrapped the heads of the demons, blinding them. Behind him, Rosalia and Irena made short work with their blades. Below, Alice’s razored webs sliced through wings and flesh. She tossed nets into the corridor, catching a demon flying upward in sticky strands as strong as steel. Khavi teleported from demon to demon as Michael had, stabbing through wings and skulls and letting them fall.

Gently, Michael wrapped his healing Gift around Ethan’s mind and slipped through Charlie’s open shields. Agony and horror overwhelmed her own song, so beautifully clear and strong.

Michael added his voice to hers, buoying the melody that was Charlie’s. He found Lucifer’s song winding around her notes and separated them for her, filling in the parts she couldn’t grasp and sing. With his voice and his mind, he sang Lucifer’s back to her, the festering hate a putrid hiss that rolled like pus across his tongue. She poured the song through Ethan’s blood, through his Gift.

Like a key, their resonance fit the lock in the shield, the spell made from Lucifer’s blood. Michael teleported them through, into the chamber. Sudden quiet surrounded them—the only sound was the beat of their hearts, and the hearts of the helpless demons eviscerated and strung open by the spider threads.

Michael wiped the blood from the symbols carved into the marble entrance. A kick flung the door wide. The clash of steel and screams from the battle outside poured in. Khavi shouted for the Guardians to enter the chamber, and Michael teleported across the room before the first syllable passed her lips. Dropping his shields, he reached for the nearest glowing strand.

Hatred flooded his mind—

Lucifer was coming, turn and fight

—but he forced himself to take a full second to look all around the other chamber, his rage rising, his hate, he would kill them all, kill them, tear their flesh from their bones and consume them.

Destroy them.

He raised his shields and let go, teleported back to the entrance as Rosalia and Irena slithered through, slow and weak.
Pale worms.
The women eyed each other, teeth bared, fingers tight on their weapons as they made a wide circle around Michael.

Lucifer was closer, closer.

Jacob teleported in with Alejandro and Alice, their expressions filled with fury, their minds screaming their hate and distrust.

All so weak. Crush them now.

Michael would not. They were his friends. And this was not him.

Andromeda’s song rose from the back of his throat, no longer a hum, louder, purging Lucifer from his mind. Only Khavi remained outside. Michael sliced open his thumb and used his own blood to touch the symbols at the door: Silence. Surround. Lock.

He hesitated before the last. Khavi glanced at him, her face stricken as the rushing darkness closed in, her mind shrieking hate and hopelessness.

“Leave me!”
I will kill you.

Let him kill me, instead.

Never. Michael teleported, shoving the spear against her throat and catching her in an embrace that crushed her arms against her sides. He jumped back. The final drop of blood over the last symbol activated the shielding spell, locking the darkness outside but the hate was still here, crawling through their minds.

Khavi’s blood ran over the point of the spear, her mind writhing. If she succumbed to Lucifer’s poison, Khavi could kill everyone in this chamber—and she had fewer emotional ties with the other Guardians to restrain her.

Her bond with Michael would hold her for now. Not long. She fought to push away. In another moment, she would teleport and he would lose her.

Jaw set, he squeezed tighter. Bones shattered in her arms, her ribs. For an instant, her pain overwhelmed the hate.

“Purge him,” Michael ordered. “Sing what you are, what you love.”

Her head fell back and she sang—her own song, followed by a poignant melody of remorse and acceptance.

Marble shuddered beneath his feet. Lucifer hovered a few feet away, his eyes shining crimson light across Khavi’s face. The door still open, but shielded. The demon couldn’t come through. His psyche couldn’t affect theirs.

Michael healed Khavi’s arms. “Help me with the others. We need to jump as soon as possible.”

Irena had already begun purging in her own way—stabbing repeatedly through the heart of a demon strung on the web, her hatred bright and burning, not Lucifer’s infected sickness. Michael sang her fierce song, then Jacob’s, before the young Guardian could lose his struggle with the hatred ringing through his mind. Khavi’s voice caught Alice’s song, danced it around Jacob’s, before moving on to Alejandro’s. Michael slipped through Rosalia’s mind, her dark Gift leaving her open, the night wrapping her in a protective shield. Then Ethan, who had taken the brunt of Lucifer’s corruption before—but his eyes were clear now, and he held Charlie against him. The vampire hadn’t needed to be purged with her own song; she’d done that in her way, too, her eyes shimmering with tears as she listened to their voices.

A few seconds of singing—but they’d been lucky.

Michael’s gaze locked with Lucifer’s. He couldn’t feel the demon’s power through the shield, but he could see it. Behind Lucifer, the remaining demons had turned on each other. If the Guardians had been exposed much longer, they might have done the same, despite love and friendship.

Jacob teleported to Michael’s side. He stared through the shield at Lucifer, his hands shaking. “Holy shit.”

“Yes.”

Lucifer spoke. The shielding spell silenced his voice, but the movement of his mouth exposed sharp teeth and fangs. Jacob fell back a step. Only Michael’s determination not to let Lucifer see his fear prevented him from doing the same. In appearance, the demon looked as he always had. The largest of all the demons, but that meant little. Any demon could shape-shift to the same size if Lucifer wouldn’t have killed them for it.

Yet Michael had never looked upon another demon only to see his own destruction. Even through the protection of the spell, Lucifer’s immense power screamed at him with every beat of his wings, every movement of the demon’s lips, the glow from his crimson eyes.

Jacob’s voice dropped to a whisper, as if a loud noise might unleash the demon upon them. “What did he say?”

Michael didn’t know. But it wasn’t difficult to guess. “Look behind him.”

The demons no longer fought each other. Now they stabbed their own eyes, cut out their own tongues, tore their blades through their own stomachs.

They’d failed Lucifer. Now they would pay—and this was only the beginning.

“Jesus flippin’ Christ.” Jacob’s voice had strengthened again. Turning his back to the entrance, he moved against the wall, out of Lucifer’s sight. A rocket launcher appeared in his hand. He lifted it to his shoulder. “Can I try to shoot him? He’s right there.”

And the shield didn’t prevent objects from exiting the chamber, only entering. A fine idea, but for one thing. “Lucifer would catch the missile and vanish it into his cache to use against us later.”

“For real?”

“I would.”

“Then what about leaving something behind the shield when we go? He wouldn’t be able to get through and get his hands on it before it blew.”

Michael glanced at him. Young, brash, and impulsive, Jacob also had one of the best minds for tactics and strategy that he’d ever known.

He also carried more weapons than any Guardian that Michael had ever known.

“What do you have?”

“An SADM. It’s a suitcase nuke. Low yield.”

A nuclear device. It wouldn’t damage the marble surrounding the chamber. That stone was as indestructible as Caelum’s. But the weapon could vaporize everything inside and blast through the door.

“Set it up.” Michael wouldn’t ask where Jacob had stolen it from. He glanced over his shoulder. “Is everyone prepared? We’ll be teleporting directly to the other chamber.”

Irena frowned. “We’re not returning to headquarters?”

The original plan had changed. Michael projected the image of the chamber on Earth, of everything he’d seen while touching the spider threads.

The sentinels. The cage in the center of the chamber. The bloodied blades. And the two vampires—their friends.

Rage, pity, and horror answered him.

Charlie glanced from face to face. She’d have sensed the Guardians’ reactions, but couldn’t see what he’d projected. “What is it?”

“It’s better not to know.” Ethan drew her in against his side. “You close your eyes when we jump.”

“You’ll come in with Jacob after he’s set the weapon’s timer,” Michael said. “Irena and I will go first. After a full second, Khavi will bring Rosalia, Alejandro, and Alice.”

Irena’s eyes glowed a poisonous green as she stalked to his side. “I’m ready now.”

So was Michael. “We’ll jump in beside the cage. You can use the steel bars?”

“Yes.”

“There are seven demons.” He projected the image again. The sentinels might not be in the same locations as they had been a minute earlier, but their positions had not likely changed much. Not while they were having so much fun.

“I see them.” And though it obviously pained her, Irena asked, “Do we keep any alive to question?”

“No.” It wouldn’t do any good. They wouldn’t break.

And Michael would rather see them dead.

*   *   *

The cage had been for Savi, with thick steel bars strong enough to hold a young hellhound. One look at Colin told Michael what she’d witnessed through those bars the previous night.

But the demons only needed to imprison her while she was awake. Now her body was laid out on a slab in front of Colin’s chained form, her mind unconscious and unaware of what the demons were cutting from her. The demons weren’t seeking her pain, not now. While she slept, they wanted Colin to suffer, so the demons hadn’t taken his eyes when they’d taken the rest of his face.

Michael knew violence. In his life, he’d seen rivers of blood spilled—much of it drawn from his sword. Wielding a blade was more natural to him than breathing. He knew cruelty just as well, had witnessed unimaginable atrocities from humans and demons alike. He knew his own capacity for it. When necessary, he could tear apart a demon without pity or remorse. In turn, demons had visited cruelties upon him. Michael didn’t pity himself, either. He’d always been able to push the pain away, as if a cold shield lay across his heart. He’d never been touched by the violence done to him.

But even after eight thousand years, he couldn’t witness what demons did to humans and Guardians without being affected. The sight of Colin and Savi churned sick horror through his gut. Impotent rage tore at his throat.

Irena would stop their torture. Michael would heal their flesh. He didn’t know what might heal their hearts—if anything could.

Michael could only see the demons die for it.

He teleported next to the cage and dropped to his heels. Beside him, Irena touched the steel bars and opened her Gift.

Hatred and rage blasted from her mind in a burning shriek. The cage instantly collapsed on itself, forming a solid steel block. Seven spikes burst from its sides—one for each demon.

Steel shot across the chamber, deadly tentacles impaling heads, stabbing through hearts, then splitting into thin tendrils that ripped the demons apart in an explosion of blood and flesh. Six slain in less than a second.

The seventh dragged Savi up against his chest to use as a shield.

Irena froze the spike an inch from the demon’s hand. Crimson fingers wrapped around the sleeping vampire’s neck, talons digging into her throat. Behind them, Colin’s chains clanked as he lurched toward the demon, barbed shackles shredding flayed muscle. An iron collar stopped him short, like an animal yanked on a leash. The vampire’s raw scream tore past toothless gums and straight through Michael’s chest.

The demon backed up a step, toward the chamber door. The rage in Irena’s psychic song slowed and thickened. The long steel tentacle bulged. In another moment, she would send it shooting around Savi and impale the demon’s back—unless the demon turned and used Savi’s sleeping form as a shield again.

But there was another choice. A second had passed. The other Guardians had arrived.

And Andromeda would have loved to see this.

“Rosalia,” Michael said softly. “Wake her up.”

Four full minutes had passed. Taylor couldn’t let herself think about what was taking them so long. She couldn’t think about it at all. Something had obviously detained them in Hell. But they’d be all right. They
had
to be all right. And she needed to get back to work.

She’d barely sat at her desk when a call came from Joe, and his familiar gruff voice sanded down the sharp edge of her anxiety.

He heard the worry anyway. “You all right, Andy?”

“I don’t know. Did Jake tell you where they were going when he came and got Drifter?”

“No. I was knocking on a door. But I figured something must be going down.”

“It is. All the way down to Hell. And we haven’t heard back yet.”

“You will. Just hang in there.”

She would. “Where are you?”

“Alabama. Let Jake and Drifter know I’m ready when they get back.”

“Okay.” But if he’d been knocking on a door only ten minutes earlier, the interview must not have lasted long. “Did you get anything from the family? Did they recognize Brandt’s killer?”

“Nothing yet. Johnson’s widow is off on vacation.”

Taylor scoured her memory for details from the files she’d read the night before. Decatur, Alabama. That was the first one murdered—a district attorney, Robert Johnson. “Are you heading over to his office to talk to the staff?”

“I’m still deciding.”

Because Joe had a worthless badge. That wasn’t something to flash at a DA’s office.

Taylor had to laugh. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking I’ll wait for Drifter to come back. If we get tossed in the can, he can bust us out.”

“Good plan. You’ll have to . . .” She trailed off. A dark Gift was pressing against her shields, and getting stronger as it approached. Taylor’s heart thumped. She knew that mind. Rosalia—who was supposed to be in Hell. “Hey, something just popped up. Can I call you back in a bit?”

“Do that.”

She rose from the desk. The nearest window looked south. Rosalia was coming from the east. She pushed through the closest office door. Sir Pup’s heads were up. Hugh was on his feet, and Lilith’s expression said the hellhound had already alerted them—but of course Sir Pup hadn’t said what it was.

Taylor glanced through the window, saw a streak of night across the sunlit sky. “Rosalia’s coming.”

And then she was there, stepping out of the swirling dark, stinking of Hell and demon blood—and something else. Vampire blood.

Oh, Jesus. Taylor
knew
those scents.

“We found Ames-Beaumont and Savi.”

But Rosalia’s soft announcement didn’t match her face. Those should be happy words. Instead, the Guardian’s warm brown eyes were glassed over, as if she held back tears.

Taylor’s throat constricted. “Alive?”

“Yes.”

Oh, God. Thank God.

Near the desk, Hugh’s rigid tension seemed to collapse under his own relief. “They were in Hell? How did Lucifer bring them there?”

“He didn’t. They were inside a mountain in the Sierra Nevada.”

And the stone would have blocked psychic sweeps just as well as the shielding spell could have. “Where are they now?”

Lilith’s mouth flattened. “And why aren’t we on our way there?”

“Because it’s best to take another minute.” Rosalia’s throat worked. “They’re still in the cavern. Michael was almost finished healing them when I left.”

Almost
finished? Sickness settled in Taylor’s gut. Usually it took less than a second. Bam! Healed.

How bad had it been?

“So you’ve warned us.” Though her face was stone, Lilith’s voice had thickened. “Now take us.”

Rosalia nodded. Her Gift opened. Darkness surrounded Taylor, thick and suffocating, as if she’d been dropped in a vat of black glue. The darkness hardened and stretched around her, pulling tight and carrying her along. Blinded, she groped for any anchor, but there was nothing to see, nothing to hear. The world spun.

Then the darkness snapped like a rubber band and Taylor stood in a large stone chamber.
God.
She drew a deep breath. Though not the same as the dizziness of teleporting, suddenly arriving in another location was just as disorienting.

She found her anchor when she saw Michael coming toward her. Her heart leapt with relief. Despite her worry, he’d made it out of Hell safely. Fresh blood stained his armor and wings. His eyes were obsidian, his jaw hard.

Around them, four demons hung suspended from glowing threads—the spider silk woven through their skulls, their flesh. Their eyes were open and glowing crimson.

Aware of the Guardians. But those threads must have been holding them in place. If the demons had been a threat, someone would have already slain them. And
some
demon must have been slain here recently. Taylor could smell the blood. But there were only Irena and Alejandro, standing with Khavi as she tugged at one of the spider threads. No bodies. Aside from the suspended demons and the Guardians, nothing was in the chamber except a steel cube.

Rosalia’s Gift pushed outward—waking Savi up. Though Taylor didn’t see her friend, she sensed the vampire’s sudden awareness, the concern and horror that flickered through her shields. A harsh sob followed.

Taylor’s chest tightened. That had come from Colin.

Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted them huddled in the farthest corner of the cavern, darkened by Rosalia’s shadows. Both naked, and Colin holding Savi tight against him, his body curled around hers with his back to them. Agonized shudders wracked his emaciated form. Filled with hellfire, Savi’s eyes glowed like a hellhound’s. Murmuring “I’m all right, we’re all right,” she stroked Colin’s face, his hair.

With both hands. Michael had reattached the left. But the two fingers that had ashed in the sun were still missing. Her platinum ring sat at the base of a stump.

Oh, God. Eyes burning, Taylor looked away.

Hugh started toward the vampires. He stopped when Michael shook his head.

“He’ll rip you apart,” he said. “Colin allowed me to heal her, but he won’t let us close to her now.”

“They drained him,” Lilith said. Beside her, Sir Pup whimpered and licked her hand. “He needs blood.”

“Yes. But his need to protect her overrides his hunger.” The harmony of his voice roughened. “So we wait until he recognizes that they are safe and with friends. Until then, if he turns in this direction, look away from him.”

Her throat aching with tears, Taylor nodded. When emotion overwhelmed him, Colin’s beauty was terrifying. She’d seen it before, but she’d never seen him so shattered. She didn’t want to know what effect he’d have now.

She forced herself to speak. “Is that why the others left?”

Jake and Alice, Charlie and Drifter. Michael wouldn’t be here if they were still trapped in Hell. So they must have come and gone.

“Yes. And because there are some things friends shouldn’t have to see.” Michael’s gaze fell to Taylor’s, and the darkness of his eyes didn’t conceal the pain there. “But I am glad you are here now.”

Not just for Colin and Savi, she realized, and the thick lump in her throat almost choked her. There were things friends shouldn’t witness, but Michael had to witness this anyway.

She’d seen this torment in him before—and she’d seen it ease in the same way when he’d looked into her eyes. This wasn’t the frozen field. But if what the demons had done to Colin and Savi left Michael as vulnerable as his own torture had, then Taylor
never
wanted to know what had happened here before the Guardians rescued them.

And she couldn’t help Colin or Savi yet. But she could help Michael.

She stepped closer. His hands could crush stone, could rip flesh from bone, but he was gentle when she threaded her fingers through his. “I’m glad, too.”

*   *   *

Until Savi managed to soothe Colin, there wasn’t anything they could do for the vampires except give them privacy. Rosalia’s shadows concealed them in their corner, the thick darkness muffling their voices. But they were never far from Taylor’s thoughts, and the heavy constriction remained in her chest while Michael told them of the battle in Hell—which
had
only lasted seconds. The rest of the time had been recovery and healing.

But it was always like that. Guardian or cop. Sword or bullet. A pothole in the street or a cadre of demon sentinels. Pain came quickly. Everything else took time . . . if they were lucky enough to recover at all.

“Taylor!” Irena’s voice pulled her attention to the other Guardian, who stood with Alejandro and Khavi next to one of the suspended demons. “Let us see what happens when you yank. It should be easier this time.”

Yes. Her chest ached, but it wasn’t the same despair as when Colin and Savi had been missing—she didn’t fear dropping from joy to this pain. And though Taylor was reluctant to leave Michael’s side, she was glad for something to do.

Though normally, “something to do” didn’t include yanking a demon’s soul out of his body.

She looked up at it. Hundreds of spider threads ran from a single point on the stone ceiling to a single point on the floor, widening around the demon. Each taut thread was woven through the demon’s flesh and wings, but, unlike the demons in Hell, this one hadn’t been eviscerated with its guts and flesh laid open. Just a whole demon in its own form. Not male or female. Red scales instead of skin. Horns curled back from a broad forehead. Glowing threads wired its jaw shut, but she knew that sharp teeth and fangs lay behind its lips. Split hooves, and knees jointed like a goat’s hind legs. More spider silk held its leathery wings open wide, like an insect on display.

Her gaze fell to the spot where the threads disappeared into the floor. “So those go all the way to Hell?”

“No,” Khavi said. “Those are anchored in the stone. The threads through the ceiling cross the in-between and reach the chamber in Hell.”

Like a kid’s phone made out of tin cans and a string. But with demons as the cans and a string that could cross realms. “So Lucifer can’t see this side anymore.”

“That depends on whether the explosion in the other chamber destroyed the threads, and how quickly Lucifer can string up new demons and write the symbols again.”

Michael had said that Jake set off a bomb before he left, which would vaporize the demons in the chamber and break the shielding spell. So Lucifer could have gotten into the chamber again. But what would have been left?

“You don’t think a nuclear explosion would destroy the threads?”

In answer, Alejandro tapped the sharp edge of his sword against a taut string. A soft
clink
sounded. The thread didn’t break. “We can’t be certain. Irena’s knife can cut them. My sword does not—so perhaps a bomb wouldn’t, either.”

“But we’ll slay the demons on this side, so it won’t matter. Right? Lucifer won’t be able to make the connection.”

Khavi met her eyes. “Can
you
slay them?”

Could she? Taylor looked up at the demon again. It couldn’t defend itself. But there was nowhere on Earth it could be safely imprisoned, unless they put it in a steel box and tossed it into the ocean. Even then, the steel might eventually corrode and break open—and if it didn’t, that meant sentencing the demon to an eternity trapped in darkness. And teleporting the demon back to Hell meant leaving it to Lucifer’s mercy. Neither of those options was any better.

So, yes. It needed to be done.

“I can do it. But first, I want to know this.” She met the demon’s crimson eyes, and, keeping her shields high, she softened the mental blocks that kept out other people’s emotions. Savi’s devastation and worry pushed through, Colin’s despair and rage—and the demon’s hate, like a snake’s belly slithering across her mind. “Did you like watching what the other demons did to my friends?”

No response, except for Khavi’s quick laugh beside her.

“This demon has been in this chamber for thousands of years, Taylor,” she said. “It doesn’t understand English.”

“Then ask it in the demon language.”

“Why?”

Honestly? “So that I can feel better about doing this.”

“Then you already believe that the demon enjoyed it. Why do you need it to tell you?” Despite her amusement, the look that Khavi gave her reminded Taylor of how very old the other woman was, and how much those eyes had seen. “You must remember that any response the demon gives might be a lie. Perhaps it will weep—to make you doubt, to give you more pain when you slay it, or in hope that you will stay your hand.”

Irena nodded and said softly, “Either you are certain that slaying the demon is right, or you are not. And there is no shame in doubt. My certainty is born from hatred, and from my many years of fighting them. You don’t possess either of those.”

No, she didn’t. And that would be a nice excuse to make. Then she could sit back and let someone else slay them.

If she doubted whether it was
right
to slay them, however, then standing aside while the Guardians killed the demons would be wrong. Yet she felt no conflict there. Demons only existed to harm humans; they were a malevolent cancer that needed to be eradicated. Given half a chance, this one would kill her, her friends, and every other person it met. If Taylor hadn’t absolutely believed that, she would fight to stop the Guardians from killing a single demon. So that wasn’t the problem. She just didn’t like doing it so coldly. She’d rather have anger or hatred driving her.