Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (69 page)

Eyes glowing with hellfire, his dreadful gaze swept over the waiting Guardians and vampires. Though he must have scented them, Lucifer didn’t glance into the soup of crushed demons filling the pit below. They’d failed. Their loss would be nothing to him.

“Hello, Father!” Lilith called across the distance. “It’s so lovely to see you again! Especially since visiting you became so difficult after you lost your wager with Michael and were forced to close the Gates. All because you believed one little lie, like a gullible fool.”

Lucifer’s rage spit into Michael’s mind like a poisonous dart. But Michael didn’t fear the wrath; he feared the hatred that oozed into his heart like thick yellow pus. He could feel it infecting him, felt the impulse to turn to Khavi and strike her down.

Trying to purge the hatred, he hummed Andromeda’s song, filling his mind and his voice with what he loved. Khavi began to sing of Hell beside him.

They could not sing everyone’s song. Through the ranks, the others were valiantly fighting it—then crying out as the infection spread, looking at each other with hate-filled eyes, fingers tight on their weapons.

But Lilith was laughing. “Awwww. Look at your eyes glow. Are you mad, Daddy? I bet you want to kill me. But you can’t, because you’re bound by the Rules. What kind of rebel are you? I wonder. You rebelled against Heaven, but you don’t even have the courage to strike down one human. You’re still a slave to the Rules that were dictated from Above.”

The hate grew stronger. Panic swelled through the vampires. Irena screamed, holding her head. The Guardians’ line broke as individuals moved away from each other, as if afraid they would attack each other if they were too close.

Suddenly deeming Lilith too insignificant to listen any longer, Lucifer’s focus slid past her. A smile twisted his lips. Michael followed his gaze.

Lucifer was looking at Andromeda.

Michael stiffened. Rage erupted through him, obliterating his fear. His heartbeat evened out. Everything within him condensed to one thought, one purpose.

Destroy Lucifer. Protect Andromeda.

“Kill them all,” Lucifer said and waved his demons forward.

A clear psychic song rang out. Strong, stubborn, beautiful. The crystalline echo of the hum in his throat.

Joy followed, warm and bright, washing away the fear and hate. In the moment when every sentinel stilled and looked across the ranks toward her, Michael signed to Jacob.

Now.

Sheets of lightning ripped through the demons. Michael teleported behind Lucifer.

The demon whipped around. His blade crashed against Michael’s, blocking his strike. Michael’s sword didn’t break.

His body did.

Agony ripped down his arms, his bones shattering with the force of Lucifer’s blow—and instantly repaired with his Gift while Khavi attacked. Michael healed her arms even as he swung his blade again.

And again. Every blow excruciating, as Lucifer parried each strike they made, though they teleported around him, coming in from a different angle each time, faster and faster. Lucifer blocked every swing of their blades.

Through the haze of pain and purpose, he sensed the Guardians falling around him to the rhythm of each blow. Not struck down by demons—the sentinels were falling, too.

Rattled out of the sky by the percussive waves from their battle.

As one, he and Khavi changed strategy—no longer just attempting to strike Lucifer down, but driving him back, away from the portal, out over the water and away from their friends.

They just had to hold him at bay long enough to tease out a weakness. Lucifer had not been pained by a single blow from their swords. Their combined strength was barely equal to his. They had to either find an advantage or force him into a mistake.

And they both had to stay alive long enough to find it. Fighting alone, they’d have been dead already.

Colin’s mind pressed against Michael’s shields. He didn’t dare open them to see the image . . . and he already knew what it would be.

A dragon was coming.

The joy from Andromeda’s Gift vanished. Her psychic song went silent.

Michael couldn’t even take an instant to look back.

*   *   *

Joy blaring through her mind, Taylor swung her sword through a demon’s neck. Her blade embedded in the ground beneath and she had to yank it free, searching the sky for another sentinel to shoot down. Almost all of the demons who’d come through the portal with Lucifer were dead.

A
thud
pounded through her chest and drew her gaze to Michael and Khavi, out over the water with Lucifer. Away from the Guardians and vampires, as if protecting them from that terrifying hatred.

She glanced toward the portal again as shouts rose through the air. More demons coming through. Not in the same tight formations as they had been, but haphazard and scattered, as if fleeing from something behind them.

Oh, God.

Taylor realized what they must be fleeing just as Colin’s image slapped through her open mind. Orange scales. Giant body. Not as big as the one in Hell—Taylor didn’t think that dragon would have even fit through the portal—but big enough to be terrifying.

And even though she wouldn’t be fighting it, Taylor wanted both hands free for this.

She let go of her threads, slapped closed her psychic shields. Lucifer’s hate was still there, but not as strong. The demon lord was either too far away or too distracted to affect them as much as he initially had.

Above her, Alejandro and Irena broke away from the Guardians’ line. Jake appeared beside them. Alejandro and Jake would use their Gifts to divert the dragon’s fire and herd it away from the city, while Irena attempted to get close enough to rip through its hide with her knife. Three of the strongest, most powerful Guardians.

When the dragon burst through, they suddenly each looked incredibly small.

Screams rose around her. Taylor shouted for the vampires to hold their lines, her voice lost in the dragon’s deafening roar. Fire belched from its gaping maw, melting the steel poles holding Alice’s web. Baby spiders popped like ticks as the flames spewed across their backs, toward the second line of defense—Colin and Savi, Lilith and Hugh. So many others.

Taylor screamed for them to run, then Alejandro’s Gift seemed to suck the air from her lungs. The flames jetted upward, catching a demon that had slipped past the Guardians’ line and flaring out against the sky.

Mouth agape, Taylor stared where the demon had been. Nothing. Completely vaporized.

She glanced back as lightning forked around the dragon, driving it away from the portal. It screeched, enormous wings flapping, buffeting the air into a wind powerful enough to force Taylor back a step.

Jake took Irena’s hand and they teleported after it. Alejandro followed, blood pouring from his ears and eyes and nose. They headed south out over the bay.

She glanced north as another
thud
pounded through her chest. Still fighting Lucifer.

But she couldn’t stand here and gape at Michael or the dragon. Her gaze flew back to the portal, where more demons were spilling through. Wiping her sweaty hands, Taylor quickly replaced the clip in her pistol. With Jake, Irena, and Alejandro fighting the dragon, more demons would likely break through the lines.

A terrible reptilian scream and a flare of heat from the south drew a quick glance. Jake had managed to drop Irena onto the dragon’s back.

Irena needed to get to the heart to stop it. Apparently, she meant to hack her way there from the top.

The clash of swords brought Taylor’s attention back to the Guardians’ line. On the right side, Pim was healing Mariko’s severed arm while Selah guarded them with her sword. Closer, Drifter slashed through a demon’s neck just as another sped past, yards beneath him. She heard his curse as he swung at it and missed, but he didn’t go after it.

That was Taylor’s job. Taking careful aim, she blew the fucker out of the sky.

The bullet ripped through the demon’s shoulder, the venom instantly paralyzing it. Wings flapping and spinning, it plummeted into the cleared area between the second and third lines. Calling in her sword, Taylor sped toward it. The venom wore off in some demons more quickly than others—and she wasn’t conflicted anymore about slaying helpless demons.

With a single blow, she hacked through its head. Too fast. She aimed again, and properly severed its neck.

“Taylor!”

She glanced up as Selah dove toward her, Pim at her side. God, what had happened? Had someone in her line been hurt?

Except . . . Selah wouldn’t be
flying
toward her. The woman could teleport.

Oh, fuck.
Sudden fear burst her Gift open. All bright threads.

Instinctively Taylor called in her gun again but they were on her, a demon’s foot snapping the pistol from her grip. Her face slammed into the ground. Blood filled her mouth, and she wildly tried to grab, tried to yank any threads, but a taloned hand gripped her throat and another pinned her wrists behind her back in an unbreakable grip.

Screaming, Taylor fought. She couldn’t die now. Not now.

Then the demon behind her said Lucifer’s name and lifted her up, and she knew it was going to be worse than death. Because Lucifer knew that Michael loved her.

And just killing Michael would never be enough.

*   *   *

Halfway across the bay, Lucifer hacked off Khavi’s right arm above the elbow. Michael couldn’t heal it, only grit his teeth and take the next two blows while she teleported beneath the falling limb and grabbed her spear from the grip of her useless hand. Then she was beside him again, her balance altered and striking with her left arm instead of her right, but just as quick and strong, and squirting her blood into the demon’s eyes in an attempt to blind him.

She’d always been the first among the grigori to try out a new weapon, but blood from her stump didn’t help them much.

Michael caught a glimpse of her wild grin while teleporting around Lucifer, then the sound of Andromeda’s Gift rang clearly through his mind—panic and horror chiming like shattered glass through the beautiful notes. Then realization slipped through her song, and a sudden warning.

She was coming closer.

Terror gripped his heart. He didn’t dare turn his back on Lucifer but he teleported beyond the demon’s reach. Khavi jumped in beside him as he glanced toward the sound.

A sentinel had Andromeda. Flying toward them with its talons digging into her throat, locking her arms behind her back. Eyes glowing fiercely blue with rage, she met his gaze.

Quickly, he looked at Lucifer again. The demon hadn’t advanced on his and Khavi’s position. Instead he waited. Smiling.

So this would be how Lucifer intended for it to end. Not at the point of a sword, but with Michael’s heart torn from his chest. Lucifer would not even have to touch him. He’d rendered Michael helpless, as he had in the frozen field. And anything that happened to Andromeda would destroy him.

The sentinel brought her closer to Lucifer. Not within arm’s reach—but even teleporting, Michael couldn’t be certain he could get to her before Lucifer did.

“Don’t hurt her,” Michael said. A warning now. But he’d beg if necessary.

“That will be up to you.”

A bargain, then. He glanced at Khavi, wrapping a bandage around the stump of her arm. Preparing to fight again. Would there be a trade? His life for Andromeda’s. If so, Khavi would protect her and get her away from here.

Michael nodded. “What are your terms?”

If Andromeda would be freed and unharmed, he would accept them.

She struggled in the sentinel’s grip, her psychic song pealing a denial. She knew that he would offer his life.

To the south, a dragon roared. Behind him, worry and horror projected from several Guardians’ minds as they realized that Lucifer had Andromeda. That worry sharpened when Colin’s psyche pressed an image against his shields.

Another dragon was coming. And Irena had not yet killed hers, though it would not be long until she did. But it might be
too
long. Jacob had teleported Alejandro back to the portal to divert the fire, but they didn’t have the weapons to destroy it.

Eyes gleaming, Lucifer said, “Teleport with Andromeda—and only Andromeda—to Caelum within the next thirty seconds, and remain there for twenty-four hours. If you do this, she will live.”

But Michael would have to let the world burn. He would have to let Khavi die. He would have to let his friends die. Millions of people in this city, including Andromeda’s mother and brother, and billions more across the world in danger when more dragons came through. In twenty-four hours, Lucifer would devastate the world.

And Michael would do it.

He looked at Andromeda, her eyes wide, trying to speak past the grip on her throat. Desperately trying to tell him to reject the bargain. Because if he did, that would destroy her, too. She would never forgive him.

Either way, he would lose her. If he took Lucifer’s bargain, she would be alive—but Michael would know the agony of losing her heart.

It was the perfect bargain to destroy him.

So Lucifer did know something of love. And he apparently knew everything about Michael.

But he didn’t know
anything
about Andromeda.

Her teeth dug into her bottom lip in that way she had when she was concentrating on something she couldn’t see—as if she were twisting threads around her fingers, trapped behind her back.

“I
would
destroy the world to save the woman I love,” Michael said, looking to Lucifer again. “But I think she’d rather save herself.”

And that was one of the many reasons he loved her.

Andromeda grinned. Joy burst from her psychic song, and she yanked.

The sentinel behind her dropped dead, wings stopping, body falling—and pulling her with him.

Michael teleported, intercepting Lucifer when the infuriated demon dove for Andromeda. The demon’s strike against his blade shattered his bones. He fell away from the demon’s fury, but this was what they’d needed. Lucifer, enraged. He’d be careless.

He and Khavi
would
find a weakness. She bore the next blow, and Michael dared a quick glance below.