Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (61 page)

“What risk? That someone will sense how I feel about you? That my heart will be vulnerable?” With a laugh, she shook her head. “My shields are nothing to anyone we have to worry about. Isn’t
that
true?”

“Yes.” And perhaps Michael was the only one she needed to worry about. Her beautiful melody sang through him, a balm to his pain but fuel to his fire.
Make her mine.
Ravenous for a taste, his thumb smoothed over her smiling mouth before he released her and turned to Anaria again. “I need you to help me find a cure.”

He spoke to her in the Old Language—Michael had been thoughtless before, but he wouldn’t be now, and Lilith’s words still echoed in his head. He wouldn’t give Andromeda false hope.

Anaria’s gaze softened. “I know of none, brother.”

“Then create one. I will try anything.”

With a heavy sigh, his sister nodded. “There are a few things we might attempt. We cannot create a new soul for you, but perhaps we can make a new body to match your song. We won’t have much time, however.”

And they had to defeat Lucifer first. But it didn’t matter.

“It will be enough time,” he said.

“You would have to be an infant and child again.”

A new body . . . a new mind. “Would I be myself?”

“Mostly. You would have to grow and relearn.”

Trepidation skipped through him. His hunger for Andromeda and his need to protect her were soul deep. They would not change. But it had taken eight thousand years to become the man he was now. He
would
wait that long for Andromeda. Perhaps she would, too.

But he didn’t want to wait. He would just have to learn much faster, next time.

He had little other choice.

“Michael,” Khavi said softly.

He heard the warning in her voice and didn’t know if she was cautioning him against Anaria’s plan or alerting him to Belial’s approach. If the first, he wouldn’t be cautious. He’d take any risk. If the second, he already knew that the demon was coming. Belial’s mind created a burning hum against his shields.

Around them, Anaria’s army had been in the process of returning to the camp. Now, in the sky and on the ground, humans and halflings turned to look, shielding their eyes against Belial’s brilliant glow.

At his side, Andromeda pushed closer, averting her face. “Angels look like that, too?”

“Yes and no. Only physically.” Six wings, features that were neither masculine nor feminine, skin that was both dark and light—as if always illuminated by an impossibly large source, yet at the same time always shadowed by it. “And not so bright. Or not bright in the same way.”

She tilted her head back to give him a narrow look. “That’s not helpful.”

Michael had to laugh. “I can’t describe the difference. Except that he resembles an angel, but he is not one. It is partially how he looks—but primarily what he makes me feel when I look at him.”

“What does he make you feel?”

“Nothing,” Michael said. Belial didn’t affect him at all. “He is just a powerful demon who can shape-shift into an angel’s form.”

Andromeda turned her head to look, squinted again. “And who can make your eyes water.”

Michael’s eyes didn’t. The soldiers around them stepped back, making more room for the demon as Belial landed with a cadre of four sentinels behind him. Anaria stepped forward to greet him, the bronze of her skin washed pale by his light.

Her smile was just as bright. “Father. You did well, slaying the dragon so quickly.”

Michael would have let the dragon consume more demons first. And Belial could not have killed it with such speed without Michael’s sword.

Belial did not carry it now. Perhaps for the best. Though he’d once hoarded many treasures, Michael hadn’t felt possessive toward any object in millennia. That sword was the exception. His chest tightened with fury whenever he saw it in Belial’s grip, and the impulse to challenge the demon for it burned hot.

But Michael didn’t
need
the sword. Irena’s spear sufficed. So even though the weapon was his, Michael wouldn’t take the risk of battling Belial for it. Especially not while Belial wielded that sword. A weapon was not worth dying for.

Only people were.

Holding the most important one at his side, he glanced at Khavi. Thin amusement curled her lips, concealing the anger and hatred he knew she felt toward the demon who’d murdered her husband. Whatever goal she was working toward, Khavi must have wanted it badly enough to delay her revenge, or Belial would have already been dead.

Now, she apparently took pleasure in watching Anaria and the demon each attempt to gain the upper hand against the other. Anaria had already won the initial point by speaking first and offering a gracious compliment.

So Belial would have to offer an even greater declaration. “It is a triumphant day for every denizen of Hell. The assistance of your army was welcome.”

Though I would not have needed the help
echoed beneath it.
I am pleased you have stepped into your proper role as the issue of my flesh.

“Lucifer fled before us,” Anaria agreed. “It was his only choice; he could not have defeated us.”

“He could not withstand our combined might.”
For there is nothing so powerful as the belief that drives my armies, nothing as strong as their belief in me.

Michael sighed. Lucifer could have killed them all. The only reason he hadn’t was because the demon lord wanted them alive to see the world burn—and because it would be far more satisfying to Lucifer when he returned to Hell and stole Belial and Anaria’s supposed victory away.

Belial’s golden gaze fell on Michael before sliding down to Andromeda, who had averted her face again and was attempting to watch the conversation with her hand cupped beside her eye, shielding her from the worst of the shine.

“Your Guardians were also much help. We should lay aside our differences and create an alliance that extends to Caelum as well. An alliance united against Lucifer.”

Under my leadership, we will crush him.

Anaria nodded and looked to Michael. “The Guardians should ally themselves with us.”

For a moment, Michael agreed. But only for a moment. For now, they were aligned to fight a common enemy—but the Guardians would never have another goal in common with either Anaria or Belial.

But he said nothing. There was no point in arguing. Neither Anaria nor Belial would hear him.

“Caelum and Hell, united.” Belial’s voice swelled. “And when our enemy is vanquished, I would lead you all back to Grace.”

If it is possible for humans to attain such glory.

Khavi closed her eyes. Michael felt the same. He could not tolerate this for much longer.

His sister smiled. “The Guardians will help you find that path as well.”

“I can show it to you,” Andromeda said beside him—then stiffened.

Compelled by Anaria’s voice, by a few careless words.

Andromeda’s heart began to pound. Wary, Michael tore his gaze from her dismayed expression. Belial’s lip curled in amused disdain—but Anaria’s eyes widened.

“That was truth,” she said. “That was
truth
. Tell us how.”

Andromeda shook wildly against him. Fighting the compulsion, but the answer broke from her anyway. “It’s my Gift.”

Michael gathered her tighter. A single move from Belial, and he would teleport. Beside him, Khavi angled herself between Andromeda and the demon. Her own Gift rushed out, searching for the possible outcomes. A sharp note of frustration told him what she’d seen: nothing.

He didn’t know what would come of this, either. But he needed Anaria to heal him, and his sister would never relent until she was told.

“How is it done?” Anaria repeated.

“She sees that the demons’ souls are tied to Heaven,” Khavi said. “When they are slain, that is where they return.”

“It is a lie,” Belial said.
A human cannot have knowledge of Heaven.

“It is truth,” Anaria responded fiercely, certainty hardening her voice. “So show us how it is done, young Guardian. Would you deny millions of demons a return to Grace?”

Trembling, Andromeda looked up at him. Michael didn’t have an answer to give.

Except for one—the answer he would always give. “It is your choice,” Michael said softly, and he called in the dragon spear to his free hand. “We can leave here or you can show them. I will protect you either way.”

“Show us,”
Anaria said.

No choice. Compelled, her Gift opened, and Andromeda’s crystalline melody joined the warmer song from her lowered shields. Her hand closed around the air in front of her chest.

Heaven’s song rang through Hell.

Silence fell, except for the rustle of leathery wings and the pounding of hearts and the shifting of sand as millions of demons turned to listen. One of Belial’s sentinels dropped to its knees—a thud that became a thunderous roar across the realm, a rolling drumbeat beneath Michael’s feet. Tears burst from halflings and humans.

Followed by a wailing lament from millions of voices when Andromeda let go.

“It is just as Gabriel sang.” Shining a bright white, Anaria’s eyes glistened. “Father. You have your way home. You only need enough faith to do it.”

Belial had no faith. They would argue each other into oblivion. Unwilling to subject Andromeda to another careless word, Michael anchored to Alice at the edge of the battlefield—but he could not leave yet.

“Come with us,” Michael said to Khavi.

Eyes obsidian, she spared him a glance. “Anaria and I will follow.”
I must see what happens. This is not what I planned.

Michael nodded. “If you need help, we will not be far.”
Just far enough.

He returned to Alice’s side—standing atop the rounded back of the dragon’s corpse, the abdomen of a monstrous spider blocking the sky overhead. The furnace of the dragon’s heart had not yet cooled, and the smooth scales sizzled faintly beneath his bare feet. Most of the Guardians had already returned to Earth. But nearby, a blood-spattered Irena hacked at the dragon’s hide with her angled knife, peeling gleaming scales away from the steaming flesh and piling them up beside her.

Michael had no words.

Irena saw his face and grinned. She waved one of the shield-sized scales at him before adding it to her pile. “They will make fine armor!”

They
would
. Impenetrable to any weapon but her spear and knife and his sword. Clever, resourceful. Michael could not have been more fortunate in his friends.

“Well done,” he said.

Andromeda stiffened beside him. She’d lifted her head. Steady, and staring out over the battlefield. He heard her throat work and the swollen note of bilious horror in her psychic song.

He followed her gaze. A swarm of wyrmrats had found the battlefield. Reptilian rodents squirmed through the fallen demons, gnawing away flesh. Eyes glowing, hellhounds skulked through the corpses, the larger beasts devouring bodies whole, and the puppies ripping them apart between the three heads. A cloud of bat-winged nychiptera swooped over the carnage, talons plucking bodies and unlucky wyrmrats and young hellhounds from the ground and carrying them into the sky, where other nychiptera fought over the pieces, bloodied shreds of flesh raining down.

“Ugh.” Andromeda closed her eyes, swallowed hard.

After a long second, she opened them. Her expression froze, and she followed one enormous segmented leg up . . . and up, where black hairs as long as telephone poles jabbed downward from a glossy black carapace.

Shuddering, she closed her eyes again. “I just can’t.”

Laughing, Michael pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It is fortunate that Irena has only one knife, or she would recruit you to skin a dragon.”

“I could do that. But the spiders—” Another involuntary shudder ripped through her. She glanced up at him. “I’m sorry if I screwed things up.”

He frowned. “When?”

“With Belial. And my Gift.”

Michael shook his head. Despite his sister’s eagerness to point out his thoughtless actions, she never recognized her own. “Anaria is careless with her voice.”

“What will happen now? Do you think Belial will actually do it?”

Destroy himself? “No.”

The demon wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his chance to sit on the throne. Michael looked across the battlefield, where the dense tower of demons was slowly dispersing. Belial’s light still shone near the base.

But that light was rising now—with Anaria by his side. Addressing their armies again.

Michael had not thought they would come to an agreement so quickly. Perhaps Khavi had influenced them.

But, no. Michael could see his friend where he’d left her, face tight with exasperation as she watched Anaria and Belial ascend. In the air, Anaria’s wings beat steadily, and only Belial’s brilliance shone brighter than her eyes.

“My demon kin!”

Anaria’s joyous call for attention took long seconds to reach them. As soon as it did, Irena and Alice looked up, their psychic songs responding with hope—then resentment as they recognized Anaria’s influence. At his side, Andromeda’s fingers tightened on his, her eyes narrowing as she peered across the distance.

Anaria’s next words reached them. “How many thousands of years have passed while you have been waiting for your return home? My kin, you are already bound to Heaven! All you require is faith. If you are a demon, strike yourself down, or help those who are too afraid—”

“Holy shit,” Andromeda whispered.

They saw the effect before the sound reached them. Pandemonium erupted as millions of demons turned their weapons on themselves—and on each other. Anaria’s mouth continued moving, but her voice was lost in the clash of steel and screams. The tower collapsed outward like the wave of a tsunami, demons living and dead tumbling down the sides in an expanding rush. Though invulnerable, humans and halflings turned to flee, trampling over each other in their desperation to escape the madness descending upon them.

With Khavi in the center of it.

He searched for her through the chaos on the ground and in the air. Had she teleported? With her mind shielded, he couldn’t anchor to her.