Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (68 page)

“I will.”

She’d only been gone a moment when Michael appeared in front of Taylor wearing his armor, eyes obsidian and black wings arching high over his head.

Without a word, his firm mouth captured hers and he kissed her, long and hard. Her heart full, Taylor clung to him, then made herself draw back.

His lips lingered against hers. “Be safe,” he said softly.

I love you, Andromeda Taylor.

“I love you, too,” she whispered. “Be careful.”

Michael nodded, then vanished. He reappeared among the Guardians hovering in the sky, with Khavi beside him.

When Taylor lowered her gaze again, she found Savi staring at her, mouth hanging open.

“Really, Andy? You? Him?” Her friend waved a wild hand toward Michael. “And not a single word about it to
me
?”

Widening her eyes, hoping she looked totally innocent, Taylor said, “What? You were really busy being kidnapped by demons and getting your house blown up.”

“And that stopped you from sending a text? ‘Hey, Savi. Your house exploded and I’m banging the Doyen. Kthxbai.’”

Taylor was grinning too hard to respond.
Banging the Doyen.
Yes, she absolutely was.

“Savitri,” Colin called softly.

Taylor’s heart thumped. Savi’s smile faded.

The final stage of the ritual had begun. She hugged Savi hard, then watched her sprint back to the second line, where Colin stood with his swords ready. He bent his head to kiss her before a ripple moved under Savi’s skin and her body seemed to explode into her hellhound form.

Only one head. Still really freaking big.

Jake shouted for everyone to be prepared, and suddenly there were a lot of kisses going around, a lot of nervous murmurs behind her. Even though almost everyone was shielded, Taylor could sense the flood of fear leaking through, sour and sharp.

Taylor looked up into the sky. Michael glanced down, held her gaze.

This probably wasn’t the best moment to admit that she was terrified. But she had time for a text.

We’re pretty freaked back here. Can you sing courage at us or something? Like you did in my head at the beach?

Quickly, she pressed send, then realized Michael might not even have his phone on him.

Maybe he hadn’t. But he’d been watching her, so he held it now. She saw him glance down at the message.

Her phone vibrated a second later.
If there’s one thing I’m certain of, Andromeda, it’s that you all have more than enough of your own.

Which sounded like he wouldn’t sing anything, but by the time she finished reading the message a hush was falling over the assembled vampires and Guardians and humans, and Michael hovered in front of the mirrored wall, his eyes no longer obsidian, but glowing a warm amber.

And he wouldn’t need to sing a note, Taylor thought. Just looking at him filled her with so much hope—an ancient warrior in battle-roughened armor, his powerful body framed by dark wings. When he spoke, his voice carried across the shipyards, but the beautiful harmony was quiet, as if he were standing next to Taylor instead of fifty yards away.

“Within minutes, a portal will open to the Chaos realm, and Lucifer and his demons will invade our home. Be prepared for Lucifer to fill your hearts with hate and fear. You will want to turn against your fellow warriors, your friends, your loved ones—and against yourselves. His power is great, as is his strength. Because of that, he believes we all will break before him . . . and he is dead wrong.” Michael paused, and when he spoke again, his voice swelled and deepened. “For eight thousand years, I have walked among you. There is no pain, no terror, no hate that I have not witnessed humanity endure. There is no horror that Lucifer can dream of that you and your fathers and mothers have not already faced and defeated,
and you did not break
. Tonight you have demonstrated humanity’s strength and courage again, simply by coming here to face him now. It doesn’t matter why you fight. To protect yourselves. To protect those you love. To protect your freedom or your homes or your money. Whatever your reason, you are here despite your fear. That is something Lucifer could never do. If for one moment Lucifer could conceive that he might be beaten, if he felt a moment of fear, he would flee this place and cower on his throne. But you have come despite the risk and proved yourselves stronger than he could ever be. And because of your courage, because of your strength, Lucifer will soon find himself in a position that he could never conceive—because he
will
be beaten.”

A chorus of agreement sounded from the Guardians overhead. Encouraging murmurs rose from behind her, growing stronger as Michael continued.

“Lucifer believes we will fall before him.” His voice rose over the din and he lifted his sword high. “But we will
not
fall!”

Around Taylor, shouts rang out and steel rattled as swords were drawn and raised into the air. Up ahead, Sir Pup tipped back his three heads and howled.

“We will
not
fail!” Certainty and purpose boomed through Michael’s voice. His blade burst into flames.
“And we will send Lucifer and his demons straight back to Hell!”

Cheers erupted from the vampires behind her, from the Guardians overhead. Shouting, stamping.

Taylor laughed and shouted and stamped along with them. “Thank you,” she said, knowing he would hear her even through the noise. “That was just what we needed. And I suppose saying that we’re sending him back to Heaven doesn’t have the same ring.”

His gaze caught hers and he grinned. Behind him, the mirrored wall seemed to shiver. A hush fell over the assembled warriors again—and though fear remained, it wasn’t the same overpowering flood, but coupled with fierce determination.

Forming her wings, Taylor rose up a few feet—just high enough that the vampires could see her.

“Be ready to fire!” she called out. “You don’t have to wait for a signal. If any demon makes it past that line of Guardians, bring him down and finish him with your blades!”

When she dropped to the ground, she saw that Michael had joined the Guardians again. He faced the wall with his sword in one hand . . . his phone in the other.

A moment later, his message popped up on her screen.

No words. Just a small, round face.

*   *   *

Andromeda’s startled burst of laughter rang out just as the fabric between the two realms shifted, dilating open and revealing the frozen sky on the opposite side.

Michael hoped that her laugh was the first sound Lucifer heard. The demon had arranged Joseph Preston’s death to stab the same knife through Andromeda’s heart—and it had. Yet she had endured.

But this was the end for Lucifer.

Colin’s mind pressed against his shields. Michael had a glimpse of sixty demons diving in formation toward the portal before they burst through, eyes burning crimson and weapons held high.

A sheet of electricity slashed through the air, melting steel armor and frying demon flesh. Dozens convulsed and fell, but there were more to slay. Michael jumped into the fray on a crack of thunder, his sword aflame and slicing through armor and bone as if through water. Below him, the yawning pit slammed closed and open again, crushing stunned demons to pulp.

He teleported back to the line of waiting Guardians. Khavi appeared beside him an instant later, blood spattering her face and coating her spear.

“He will send more through the next time!” she called out.

They were already coming. Snarling wyrmwolves spilled out of the portal like rabid rats, some falling, others leaping across the chasm and hitting Alice’s webs. Razored silk as strong as steel shredded their flesh as they wriggled through. Their howls pierced the rumble of thunder and were swallowed beneath the chitinous skitter of spiders moving in for the kill.

Then more demons dove through, a formation of two by two and a hundred deep. Jacob’s lightning stunned the first thirty-two as they breached the realm. Michael jumped in at the end of the electric flare, taking the right side of the portal while Khavi took the left. His sword slashed up and down, again and again, slicking through the demons’ necks above and below as they flew past him. As if recognizing the death ahead, a few demons at the tail of the attack veered wildly out of formation. They burst through the portal beyond the reach of his sword or Khavi’s spear—eight demons escaping their blades. Michael teleported in pursuit, slashing, slashing, crimson torsos and heads falling to the pit below. Three, then four dead. Khavi took the others, letting the final one fly into Alice’s web—stuck for an instant, before the spiders tore it apart.

He returned to the Guardian line, where Irena sent him an irritated glance.

“You will leave some for us, I hope?”

Even as Michael laughed, he shook his head. Irena would have more than she wanted before long.

Another swarm of wyrmwolves leapt through, falling and slamming into the web. The strands at the bottom began to break under the impact, more of the creatures disappearing into the mass of huddled spiders. Five hundred, a thousand—most of them halted by the pit and the spiders but some squirming through the spiders and bursting past them. The ground opened beneath the paws of one, pulling him down beneath the crushing dirt and stone. Colin raced to meet another, swords scything through the wyrmwolf’s neck. Sir Pup caught three, his enormous heads tilting back to devour them while they still yipped and howled. After tearing another apart, Savi tossed the remains to Sir Pup.

More demons began their dive. A wider formation. Six by six—from one edge of the portal to the other.

He and Khavi would not be able to slay them all this time.

Electricity sheared the air in front of the portal. Michael jumped in, slaying dozens as they flew through. Impenetrable darkness covered the eyes of the demons that managed to pass Michael, blinding them. Nicholas’s Gift brushed across the back of Michael’s neck, cold fingers of fear, followed by the almost-imperceptible touch of Radha’s power. Near the web, a demon began screaming, slashing his weapon at nothing. Another stabbed his own chest.

The clash of swords sounded above—Irena was getting her wish.

Only a second passed before the next barrage of wyrmwolves and demons. Lucifer was sending them more quickly now and soon demons would be breaking through the lines. Tension gripped Michael’s chest. He wouldn’t be able to watch over Andromeda every moment.

When lightning struck the newest formation, Michael glanced back. Eyes steadily sweeping the sky, Andromeda stood with her feet braced at the front of the crowd of vampires, her gun clasped between her hands and her wings folded.

Beside him, Khavi said, “Lucifer will be coming through soon.”

And expect to lead his demons into triumph. Except for a narrow window through the portal, Lucifer couldn’t see through to this side as easily as the Guardians did with Colin and Savi watching the mirrors. He would expect to find a slaughter; he wouldn’t expect that his demons had been the ones to fall.

A new formation breached the realm. Michael jumped in again, until demon blood ran over the hilt of his sword and down his arms. Pim’s healing Gift flared here and there. No one dead yet, only injuries. Gunfire sounded from the third line. Andromeda’s ranks, shooting the demons that made it past the Guardians. Teleporting away from the portal to allow Jacob another lightning strike, Michael looked back as Andromeda fired into the air, as a demon fell and vampires converged to cut off its head.

The barrage of demons stopped. Colin’s mind pressed urgently against his shields. Michael let the image through.

Lucifer was descending toward the portal with a dragon sword in his grip.

Michael’s heart began to pound. Closing his eyes for a brief second, he battled the fear.

He and Khavi
would
defeat the demon.

They had to. And they
could
. Khavi was certain that Lucifer had burned through some of his power tearing open the frozen field. Lucifer would still be stronger than either of them—but together, they had a chance.

Tense and silent, Khavi waited beside him, her spear aflame and her heart racing as quickly as his. Michael looked to Lucifer’s sword again.

“Block every strike,” he reminded her. “I can’t heal wounds from that weapon.”

She nodded tightly.

On the ground, Lilith and Hugh shot upward atop a pillar of earth, high enough to be seen over the spiders. Michael did not like making them so easy a target, but Lilith had been right to insist on this course.

Lilith could enrage anyone, especially Lucifer. And the demon became more careless when enraged.

Jacob looked to him as Lucifer neared the portal. Michael signaled for him to wait. For a long second, all was quiet but for the clacking of the spiders’ segmented legs and the thunderous beat of three thousand hearts.

Lucifer emerged on enormous wings and flanked by two hundred sentinels.

Once again, he’d taken the form given to the demons. Hooves, horns. Crimson scales covered his form, but they weren’t like dragon scales. A demon’s were penetrable, even without Michael’s sword.