Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (58 page)

Because he had no body to go back to. His was too damaged to hold a life.

Her fist clenched around the thread, she rocked forward and pulled Joe closer against her chest, sobbing. “Help me, Michael. Please. Help me.”

Warm and strong, his arms came around her. Offering the only help he could.

Comfort.

Then holding her back when despair became rage and she screamed, screamed because her friend was gone and she could see the fuckers who’d done it. His arms tightened when she tried to rise.

She fought him, screaming again. “I’m sending them all to Hell.”

“No.”

“I don’t care if I Fall!”

“I know.” Grief roughened his voice. “But they’re humans. They committed a crime against a human. It’s for humans to decide what punishment they will have. If you judge them now, Andromeda, you would never forgive yourself.”

She didn’t care about that, either. Her hate like a cold fire around her heart, she watched the red threads wind through the souls of the four handcuffed murderers. They were regarding her with horror, as if she was somehow worse than what they were.

So much red. “You’re all going to Hell,” she told them. “Each one of you. And you’ll burn and burn.”

“Not long enough.” The cage of Michael’s arms eased open, offering comfort again instead of holding her back. “Rosalia, take Charlie and Deacon to headquarters. Ethan, the demons’ bodies. Not a single drop of any other blood can remain. I’ve already vanished the dragon blood.”

Rosalia nodded, and as the darkness gathered around her, Michael added quietly, “Tell them the portal to Chaos has been created on this side.”

And they’d used Taylor’s friend to do it. Heart a solid ache, she looked down at Joe’s wrinkled face. More tears dripped onto his cheeks, his soul still clutched in her hand.

Beside her, Michael’s voice dropped into darkness, the echo from the abyss. A phone appeared in his palm. “This is your choice, Andromeda. Call the police and bring them here, so that justice might be done. But if you prefer their deaths, I will kill them for you.”

Taylor
did
want their deaths. But only a part of her did.

Because that wasn’t who she was. It wasn’t who Joe had been. And she wouldn’t ask Michael to be something that he wasn’t, either.

She took the phone.

*   *   *

She held on to Joe’s thread while they gave their statements. It wasn’t even much of a lie. Agent Ethan McCabe had been working with Joe on a case regarding unsolved murders. Recently, they’d become aware that several people connected to the case had vanished, and they suspected that it was connected to the murder of Mark Brandt in Seattle. Taylor had discovered that Joe was missing when she’d gone to visit him, and she and her friend Michael Smith had tracked him down, using Michael’s dog to follow the scent.

And Joe’s murderers were babbling about angels and vampires as they were taken away, which made their statement much easier to believe.

The detectives who interviewed Taylor were from a different station, not the one where she and Joe had worked, but he’d still been one of theirs. She had been, too. When her former captain arrived on the scene, she expected another “I knew you’d pull him down with you” speech, but he only spoke of grief and sympathy and anger.

Taylor couldn’t manage any of those anymore. Her hand still clenched in a fist, she stared into nothing as they took her blood-soaked clothes for evidence. She walked out wearing a sweatsuit with the same SFPD logo that she’d worn most of her life.

Michael waited for her in the clothes they’d given him, too. And though he’d broken her heart, she took the hand he offered and let him pull her in close, his arms around her.

She struggled not to start crying again. “I have to go tell my mom.”

And she couldn’t show up bawling. She needed to be the strong one now. To give her mom someone to hold on to.

But even though Taylor’s tears didn’t fall, her mom knew anyway. She took one look at Taylor and dropped into a chair, her eyes going blank, and Taylor remembered that her mother had done the same when they’d come to tell her about her dad. Her mother hadn’t cried then. She didn’t now.

“I tried to hold on to him,” Taylor told her and opened her Gift. Joy cascaded through her heart, but she was struggling not to cry again, sinking to her knees in front of her mom’s chair. “I caught his soul but I couldn’t put it back in him. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t—”

She couldn’t do this. Harsh sobbing breaths ripped up from her gut, and she felt her mom’s hand in her hair, but Taylor wasn’t going to cry.

Swallowing hard, she tried again. “I still have it. I still feel it. I wish you could, too. There’s so much joy there.”

Holding her gaze, her mother smoothed her hand down Taylor’s cheek. “Are you keeping him here?”

“I don’t know.” Her tears spilled again. “But I can’t let him go.”

“Oh, baby.”

Gently, her mom pushed her fingers open. The joy vanished, and only pain was left.

She dropped her head to her mother’s lap and cried.

*   *   *

Taylor didn’t have any more tears. She was empty. Numb as Michael and other Guardians were in and out of the apartment over the next few hours. More cops came to visit—no questions, just those people she and Joe had worked with, and who wanted to pay their respects. Mary Gallagher came to sit with Jason when exhaustion and grief and a sedative carried her mom to sleep. And when Michael returned again, wearing his suit, Taylor knew that it was time to go.

She stepped into his arms and they spun into a darkened office. She didn’t need to ask where they were. The sounds within the building were as familiar as her own voice. A police station.

“They are questioning the four from the warehouse,” Michael told her. “Captain Jorgenson has invited you to watch. Lilith, too.”

A professional courtesy. A personal courtesy, too. She hadn’t expected it from Jorgenson. “Even though we’ve been disavowed?”

“That was never mentioned.”

Probably because Jorgenson and other cops had dealt with Lilith often enough that it wouldn’t occur to them to think SI wasn’t a legit agency now. “Good.”

But when she started for the door, Michael didn’t come with her. She turned and saw that he’d formed his armor instead, his black wings arching up to the ceiling.

The sadness she’d seen in his expression so many times in the past few days was deeper now, deeper than the shadows in his obsidian eyes.

A fist lodged in her throat, punching away the numbness. “What is this?”

“The sentinels created the portal.” Though quiet, the harmony of his voice was rough. “If Lucifer breaks through the frozen field in Hell, we won’t be able to prevent him from coming through to Earth. I need to stop him.”

“By joining Anaria’s army?”

“Yes.”

Fear gripped her chest. “But you said Lucifer was too powerful to defeat now.”

His face bleak, Michael nodded. “I have to try.”

Because he was Michael. The big damn hero.

And she’d never have fallen in love with him if he’d ever given any other response. “Will you be coming back?”

“If he breaks through to Chaos, I’ll return to fight him when he comes through the portal. But if we stop him in Hell, I won’t be returning.”

She stared at him. So this was it. He’d said he was leaving. And she’d told him to go. Now she couldn’t believe that this was the end.

Her breath shuddered. “I would say that I can’t bear to lose you now, too. But I never really had you.”

A tortured sound ripped from his chest. Michael crossed the room, caught her face in his hands. “I am yours, Andromeda. I will
always
be yours.”

His mouth lowered to hers, his kiss sweet and the hum in his throat singing a broken good-bye. And although she didn’t have any more inside her, though her eyes were dry, tears dripped over her cheeks.

Then he lifted his head and was gone.

It just didn’t make sense.

Taylor stood in the darkened observation room, watching through the one-way mirror as detectives questioned Dennis Parkins. Captain Jorgenson stood on her left, and the assistant district attorney next to him. A few other cops behind her. On her right, Lilith looked on with narrowed eyes and flattened lips as Parkins described how the angel had brought Joe’s coffee cup to him to drug before returning it to the bathroom. All of them killers, but Parkins had been the one to steal Joe’s chance to fight back.

Only Patricia Johnson had lawyered up. And Parkins’s story was the same as Benjamin Nguyen’s and Jeffrey Green’s had been. A few of the details were different, but it was all basically the same.

Visited first by Mark Brandt, who’d told them that the murderer of their loved ones would never be punished because of a conspiracy to cover up vampirism. And the investigator from Special Investigations coming around to ask them about the murders hadn’t just been covering them up—Joseph Preston had killed their loved ones in order to earn the right to become a vampire himself, and the only reason he kept returning wasn’t to solve the case, but to bask in their pain.

Then the angels had shown up after Brandt’s death, asking them if they wanted to see justice done.

No matter the pain and grief and anger, not everyone would want to take revenge through murder. Taylor thought that most people wouldn’t. But the demons just needed one person to carry out Joe’s sacrifice, so they’d found the most susceptible and worked on them—killing their family members, feeding them lies. Taylor couldn’t imagine how many thousands of people they must have studied and considered before choosing those few who would actually do it. But obviously the demons had chosen well.

They’d only needed one, but they’d gotten four.

And Taylor didn’t need Lilith to tell her what lay behind it all: Lucifer. Because opening the portal wasn’t enough. Not when there were so many souls to damn and innocent people to kill and revenge to take on Joe for laughing.

Revenge on Taylor, too, when killing Joe ripped out her heart.

She hadn’t known that she’d had so many hearts to break. But apparently a multitude beat in her chest. Maybe she should have done a better job to protect them.

But not if protecting her heart meant that she would have missed a single second with Joe. Not even if losing him hurt a million times as much. She wouldn’t trade any part of her friendship to spare herself the pain now.

She wouldn’t have traded Michael, either.

And his leaving just didn’t make sense.

Leaving to fight Lucifer, to stop the portal from opening—
that
made sense. But he’d been planning to leave before that. And what was his reason? He wanted to live his own life.

That made zero fucking sense. Being a Guardian
was
his life. And that shit about learning all he could? He’d already been doing that.

And what he’d done to her was cruel. That wasn’t Michael. He
could
be cruel. She’d seen up-close evidence of that. But he didn’t
choose
to be cruel.

She believed he hadn’t intended to hurt her—and she believed that Michael hadn’t thought she would fall in love with him. After all, only a few days earlier she’d been ready to shoot him in the head. She’d told him that loving him was unthinkable and that she didn’t want him to love her, either.

But Michael wasn’t an idiot. He’d known people for eight thousand years. He’d watched her, studied her. He
knew
her.

So why hadn’t he seen how she felt? Because that didn’t make sense, either.

Or maybe she was just desperately trying to think of any reason to believe he wasn’t a cruel bastard. To believe that she hadn’t been completely deluded, like Charlie’s sister.

But it wouldn’t stop nagging at her. Through the numbness of watching Parkins describe why and how he’d murdered her friend, her brain wouldn’t stop.

Because Michael had never promised anything like a future. That would have been really cruel. If he’d
wanted
to hurt her, he’d have made a thousand promises. But he’d only said that he was hers.

And he’d said things like
I don’t have enough time. There isn’t enough time.

Her heart clenched. Michael knew that a battle with Lucifer was coming up. He had to know he might die in the process. Just like any warrior.

Knowing that could make anyone do stupid things. Like Joe, terrified of a tumor and calling her a quitter. Except where Joe had lashed out, Michael had sworn never to hurt her. So maybe his stupid thing had been believing that he
wouldn’t
hurt her.

But that still didn’t make sense. Because Michael had said he was leaving regardless of the outcome with Lucifer. And a battle wasn’t something he had to protect her from. Every Guardian knew that death was a possibility on the job. Against Lucifer, the chances might be higher, but it was a risk they all took, and that wasn’t something he’d have to conceal from her with a lie about leaving and living his own life. Because that
had
been a lie. She was sure of it.

So what
certain
thing might happen to make Michael lie to her like that? Why would he believe that leaving would hurt less than—

Oh, God.

She stared through the one-way, a ball of pain and dread rolling up in her stomach. After talking to the Larsons, Taylor had told him that she’d prefer to think someone was alive and missing rather than dead. But if not death in battle, then what the hell could make Michael think he would be dead soon?

That didn’t make sense, either. Because a tumor might take down a human, but not a Guardian. Maybe there was something else, though. Some bargain, maybe.

Except Michael also couldn’t bear to die. She knew he’d rather break a bargain and risk the frozen field again.

She couldn’t imagine anything else that might kill him. Not Michael.

And maybe she was reaching. Making crazy jumps. She needed to follow the evidence, not make assumptions.

So what were things he’d done that didn’t fit his pattern? Not just unexpected, like asking if he could come to her bed. But things that didn’t fit.

Like the symbols on his back. Those weren’t weird. He’d done that before.

But what
didn’t
fit was that he’d evaded her questions about them. He’d talked about healing from them, but not what their purpose was. He
always
answered her questions. Even when they were personal and painful, like when she’d asked about his mother. Or when the answers were difficult, like when she’d asked him the right way to use her Gift. He’d been completely open about the dragon in his soul and a murder he’d committed in his past and about how it had taken him five thousand years just to realize that slavery was bad. He’d never hidden anything from her.

Except that when the scars on his back had bled, he’d said he was fine.

And when she’d asked him if he was all right, even though she could
see
the sadness weighing him down, he’d said he was fine.

And that there wasn’t enough time.

In the interrogation room, the detectives were finishing up. One signaled through the glass, and the ADA went out to meet him in the hall. Jorgenson patted Taylor’s shoulder and said a few words that she nodded at, but didn’t really hear.

Then he left her alone with Lilith and the terrible certainty that Michael was dying. She didn’t know
how
—but it was the one thing that made sense.

The other woman faced her. “It all sounds pretty cut-and-dried. Even with Guardians charging in, wings and vampires . . . the cops have them. They’ve got prints on the knife. Confessions. They might end up in the psychiatric ward, but they’ll be put away.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Taylor. We all liked him.”

Throat tight, she nodded.

“I liked him when I first met him. No lie,” Lilith said when Taylor gave her a look. “I came in and fucked over your case, brought in that fake evidence. It was usually fun, lying. Screwing with you. But it wasn’t any fun when I did it to him. It was one of the few times I disliked what I did.”

“Well, the first thing he ever said about you was that you could kick my ass,” Taylor said. “So I think he liked you, too.”

Averting her face, Lilith looked through the one-way into the empty room. Not soft. But not completely hard, either. “Michael has gone to Hell. Did he tell you?”

“Yes. We said good-bye.” But it wouldn’t be forever. She called in a notepad from her hammerspace, sketched out the scars on his back. “Do you know these symbols?”

Lilith glanced at the page. “‘Good-bye’? Where did he say he was going after that?”

“He didn’t. Just that he was leaving as soon as he stopped Lucifer.” And now she remembered the look Lilith had given them when they’d returned from the beach.
You really think this is a good idea?
Taylor had assumed the other woman was just referring to having sex with her. But maybe Lilith had known another reason why it might have been a bad idea. “Was there something else he should have told me?”

With a shrug, Lilith shook her head. “I don’t know what these symbols are.”

“You’re lying. Why?”

“Why not?” A thin smile curved her mouth. “Do you really want truth from me?”

“No.” Taylor would discover it herself. But she was curious now. “One time. Absolute truth.”

Lilith gave her a long look before she agreed. “Once.”

And she might be lying about that, too. But Taylor decided to trust that the answer would be true. Once.

“If we were friends, and I said to you that some guy told me that he was mine, and then after I slept with him, he said it was over between us and that he never meant anything to happen—if despite that, I still believed he was mine, would you think I was delusional?”

Lilith’s lips pursed. “If we were friends, I would tell you that your delusion began when you first met him.” She paused. “Reality set in sometime after that.”

Yes, it had. “Do you know where Alice is?”

“Hell. You’ll find someone to teleport you there at headquarters.” Lilith gave the notepad another glance. “Don’t use your Gift. It’ll bring you too much attention.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sending you Below in the midst of a demon war. You won’t thank me for that.” The other woman gave her a flat stare. “Now I’m going to go cry in the corner because you don’t think we’re friends.”

Goddammit. “Don’t make me like you now.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same, Agent Taylor.”

*   *   *

The heaviness Taylor was carrying around in her chest weighed more than a heart should. Hurt piled on top of hurt—but now she had a purpose, and it kept her going when she arrived at headquarters and her friends’ sympathy and grief jumped on top of the pain.

She couldn’t sit around. She needed to be doing something. Some of the Guardians had gone to the warehouse to wait near the portal, just in case. Others were heading to Hell to help stop Lucifer.

Taylor couldn’t fight demons. But she could figure out what was going on with Michael.

Maybe she was just a delusional idiot. But something wasn’t sitting right, and she wasn’t looking at him with stars in her eyes. That illusion had been ripped away. She knew the man that he was now. The man she’d seen and known and who’d lived in her head for a year. That man wasn’t thoughtless. He wasn’t careless.

But he
had
been careless with Taylor, which told her that something was wrong. She feared she knew what it was.

Alice might be able to tell her the
how
.

Selah wasn’t at headquarters when Taylor arrived—the teleporter had been taking others to Hell. As soon as she showed up, wearing a swingy sundress and stinking of the realm, Taylor started toward her.

“I need to go, too.”

The other Guardian shook her head, blond hair tumbling over her shoulders in thick waves. Even after a jaunt to Hell, Selah appeared fresh and clean and perfect—like the angels that the demons had pretended to be when they’d been persuading four humans to kill Joe.

But although Selah could be as sweet as an angel, she was also like steel. “No novices,” she said.

“I’m not going to fight. I just need to talk to Alice.” Only a few people could read the symbols, and Taylor didn’t trust Khavi to tell her any more than Lilith had. “And I want to see them take Lucifer down. I want to see it for Joe.”

That wasn’t her only reason, but it wasn’t a lie. And Taylor couldn’t stop her voice from cracking over his name.

“Alice?” Clearly torn, Selah’s baby blues regarded her for a long second. Finally, she sighed. “I suppose it would be all right. Alice is away from the main action.”

“I thought she was going there to fight.”

Selah opened her mouth—then stopped, shaking her head. “It’s easier just to show you.”

*   *   *

The smell hit her first. The rotting sulfuric stench was easier to ignore when her stomach wasn’t already heaving from the teleportation. Eyes closed, Taylor clung to Selah and waited for the realm to stop spinning. A distant roar filled her ears, like the ocean crashing against a tornado full of subway trains.