Stone Cold Lover

by Christine Warren

  The two of them landed in unison, the solid thunk of their feet hitting the earth the sweetest sound Fil could imagine. Their wings kicked up a small storm of dirt and dried leaves, and even away from the action Fil had to squint against the debris. She could see well enough to make out that the Guardians hadn’t come alone. Wynn and Ella jumped to the ground as well, Ella immediately squaring off against the nocturnis while Wynn scanned the area looking for her. She gave a hoarse shout and nearly sang a chorus of hallelujah when the witch’s eyes locked on her.

  “Oh, my God, did you send down the magic bubble?” she demanded when Wynn knelt at her side. “Because that was kind of awesome. I’m going to have to make you teach me that.”

  “Nope, that was Ella. And I want to learn it, too.”

  Fil quickly turned to present her bound hands. “Can you get me out of these? Quick.”

  The witch drew a knife from her bag of tricks, which this time was draped across her front like a sling. “I came prepared.”

  Wynn sawed through the ropes, careful not to slice off any more of Fil’s skin than she’d already managed to shed herself. She couldn’t stop herself from tugging impatiently, and even before the last loop sprang free, she was yanking her hands apart and reaching for the ties around her ankles.

  “Aaaaaghhhh!”

  The pained cry had Fil’s head jerking up and toward the altar. While Kees and Spar battled the nocturnis and Ella cast spells around the clearing like a wild woman, the cardinal had turned back to Ricky and plunged his knife deep into the other man’s belly.

  “Shit! Ricky!”

  “Here! I’ll go.”

  Wynn shoved the knife into Fil’s hand and began limping across the clearing toward the altar.

  “Oh, of all the idiotic noble gestures to come up with at a time like this…” Fil trailed off and hacked madly at her final bindings.

  In seconds she had herself unbound and darted past Wynn, intent on getting to her friend. She knew Spar would take care of the rest of the cultists, but she couldn’t leave Ricky at the cardinal’s mercy. She had to get him free and see how badly he’d been hurt. If there was a chance to save him, she would take it.

  “Fil, stop!”

  She ignored the witch’s shout but dodged out of the way just in time to see a limp, robed body land on the ground she’d stood on a second ago. Another nocturnis down reassured her that the Guardians had things under control, but the cardinal still stood beside the altar, arms raised, bloody dagger clutched in his hand.

  As she neared the stone slab, she could make out the sound of his chanting rising above the noise of the battle. She couldn’t make out the words or understand what he was saying. The language definitely wasn’t English, but it didn’t sound like any other language she’d ever heard. Not French or Spanish or even Lithuanian, it had a harsh, guttural, menacing sound that made her skin pucker with goose bumps as she approached.

  When she got within ten feet of the altar, Ricky turned his head, and she nearly stumbled as she caught a glimpse of his face. His eyes had swollen shut beneath the crosses carved across the sockets, as if someone hadn’t tried just to blind him, but to X him out of existence. Shallow slices ran bloody trails across his cheeks and into the skin of his forehead: The sick fuck with the knife had carved the same symbol that desecrated her palm. It was horrifying to look upon, and rage and pity warred inside her.

  Snarling, she pulled the rage forward and threw herself the last ten feet to the altar. She reached up for the knife, her only thought to rip it out of the cardinal’s hand and see how he liked it buried in his withered black heart, but she hadn’t counted on him being so strong.

  He pushed her aside with alarming ease and laughed with maniacal glee. “Stupid girl! You cannot stop the Master and you cannot stop me. We will have our time upon the earth, and the world will grovel at our feet. All hail Uhlthor, the Defiler! Come now, thou fearsome Master, and feast upon that which I have offered you!”

  The knife came down again, but Fil screamed in furious denial. She flung herself forward, her only thought to stop that knife from ending her friend’s life once and for all. She hadn’t actually intended to take the blow herself, but her momentum carried her up over the top of the altar and placed her right shoulder in the path of the blade.

  Oh, sweet Jesus, the pain!

  The knife sank deep, the angle biting into her flesh high in the rear before driving forward and down with brutal force. She felt the shock of the impact and heard the snap as her collarbone fractured from the strain. A scream tore from her throat, one she hadn’t even realized was coming until she heard it high and sharp and vibrating with agony. Beneath her, Ricky groaned, and behind her the cardinal shrieked in fury and disbelief. No one had died upon the altar, not yet anyway, and his Master was going to be missing his breakfast right about now.

  Poor baby.

  All around them, the air filled with a mighty crash, a sonic boom that shook the ground and left Fil’s ears ringing. As if she hadn’t already checked off enough boxes on the minor traumatic brain injury self-evaluation list. The sound of rock breaking quickly followed, and Fil’s second sight showed tendrils of absolute blackness emerging from new cracks in the stone beside Ricky’s head.

  Guess who was coming to dinner?

  Fil screamed again as the cardinal yanked the knife out of her back and prepared to stab again. She didn’t think, didn’t plan, didn’t reason; she just reacted. Even before the tip of the blade cleared her skin, she rolled to her back and raised her left hand, catching the blade in her fist as it descended a second time.

  Oddly, she felt the sharp edges slice through her skin, felt the blood well up and begin pouring forth to stain the demon’s mark, but she didn’t feel the pain. Instead, she felt heat, white-hot and searing as she braced her arm with all her strength and stared up into the eyes of evil.

  “I will hail no demonic filth, you piece of shit, but I will gladly serve you up on your Master’s altar like buttered toast with raspberry fucking jam,” she hissed.

  With a jerk and a twist, Fil used her grip on the knife to yank the cardinal off balance and flipped her body, reversing their positions to leave the cardinal draped across the bloody altar atop his intended sacrifice. Scrambling backward, she slid to the earth and watched, both thrilled and horrified, as the tendrils of Darkness closed around the cardinal’s struggling form and began to feast.

  Fil’s head spun and throbbed and she clutched her right arm uselessly to her side while blood dripped from the left in a steady trickle. She felt three miles past used up, but she could see Ricky’s foot twitch and she stumbled forward, intent on pulling him free. Then hands closed around her shoulders, and even without pressing down they pinned her in place.

  “No, you can’t.” Ella’s familiar voice came to her, firm and steady. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “And it’s too late,” Wynn added, urging all of them back from the sacrificial altar. “Your friend is already gone.”

  Fil blinked and tried to focus on the shapes among the blackness, but the tendrils had grown, twining together into a throbbing, squirming mass of evil. Nothing could survive that desecration, she realized, and her heart broke at the thought of Ricky, his soul devoured to feed that evil. All because of her. If she hadn’t used him to get information, he never would have gotten mixed up in this, never would have seemed like a useful pawn in the Order’s psychotic game. How was she supposed to live with that?

  She trembled as the grief and pain and fatigue threatened to overwhelm her. Her shoulder, thankfully the left one, bumped against Ella as she swayed on her feet. “Oh, my God, how hurt is she? She’s about to pass out!”

  “She needs a hospital. Now.”

  Wynn’s voice came from a long way away, miles and miles, as Fil’s vision once again began to blur around the edges. This time she saw bright sparks in front of her eyes as consciousness began to fail her.

  “What about the demon?”

  “T
hat’s not the demon, it’s just feeding tendrils. The demon is somewhere else, probably guarded by the rest of the Order. Spar and Kees will take care of it.”

  The ground rushed toward her.

  “Holy shit, Fil!”

  She knew nothing but blackness.

  Damn it, not again.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “… at least another twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and that’s assuming she regains consciousness soon with no signs of disorientation or more serious injury. Your fiancée was badly hurt, Mr. Livingston. I hope the police are able to find whoever did this to her.”

  Fil didn’t particularly care if anyone ever found the remains of the Montreal cell of the Order of Eternal Darkness, but if they did, she hoped they found them in pieces. Tiny, charred bloody ones. With bugs crawling all over them.

  Groaning, she forced her eyes open, tempted to pant from the exertion as if she’d just run a four-minute mile. Never in her life had she felt so exhausted and so filthy and in so much wretched discomfort. If she was in the damned hospital, the least the bastards could do was pony up the good medications.

  “Felicity.”

  She tried to turn her head, but just the intent was enough to make her cry out. She’d recognize Spar’s voice anywhere, could even tell by the timbre that it came from his human, not his gargoyle, chest, but when she tried to look at him, some sadist with a white coat and a penlight leaned over her and pried her eyelid up with a thumb.

  “Miss Shaltis, do you know where you are? Can you tell me how you’re feeling?”

  Since rolling her eyes was beyond her, Fil let the doctor check her pupillary reactions and satisfied herself by giving him the finger in her head. “I’m in a hospital,” she tried to answer, but the only thing that came out was “hospital” and that sounded like it had been croaked out by a dying frog.

  “Good. And how are you feeling? Any pain?”

  “Buckets full.”

  “On a scale of one to ten. One being no pain and ten being the worst pain you can imagine.”

  Since she could imagine a lot of things, including the feel of a knife slicing through her flesh and bone, Fil winced and settled for the low end of the scale. “Seven and three-quarters.”

  “Okay, I’ll send a nurse right in with some pain meds. You’ve had a hell of a night. Multiple stab wounds, a broken collarbone, three broken bones in your hand, numerous contusions and lacerations, a mild case of hypothermia, and one hell of a concussion. Your fiancé said you were attacked by some kind of strange, violent cult. Do you remember anything about what happened?”

  Well, she certainly didn’t remember Spar asking her to marry him, but she doubted that’s what the doctor meant. “Some,” she managed, figuring the truth was none of his business. “Still kinda foggy.”

  “That’s not surprising, given the severity of your head injury. Someone is going to be checking up on you regularly through the night to make certain you can be roused and that you respond appropriately and without confusion, okay?”

  “Okay.” Hell, she’d have told him to send in the Spanish Inquisition so long as they brought those painkillers he’d promised along with the rack and the thumbscrews.

  “You’re a very lucky woman, Miss Shaltis, but you’re going to need time and rest to recover completely.” The doctor pocketed his little light and stepped back from her bedside. “The police have asked to speak with you, but I’ve instructed them to return in the afternoon, after you’ve had some time to get your bearings. Until then, try to relax, and I’ll send that nurse right in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her eyes drifted shut, the effort required to keep them open simply too much for her to manage. She heard the click of the door closing, then a whisper of air before fingers settled tenderly against her cheek. Spar. Moving just didn’t seem like an option, so she couldn’t lift her hand to cover his, and she couldn’t turn her head to press a kiss against his hand; she settled for leaning into his touch just a little and whispering his name into the quiet.

  “Spar.”

  “I love you, Felicity.” His voice washed over her, almost enough to take the pain away, and she felt her lips curve into a smile.

  “Love you, too,” she whispered, and slipped back into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  Fil woke again to the feel of something tugging on her arm and opened her eyes to see a nurse adjusting the IV line that ran from the pole next to her bed to the inside of her elbow. Within seconds, the claws of pain that had begun to flex into her withdrew, and blessed relief flowed through her veins. Also known as morphine. She sighed and let herself relax.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake and not grumbling at me,” the nurse teased. “What a nice change of pace. I’m Jamie, by the way. I bet your fiancé knows by now not to try and wake you when you’re sleeping. You can be a real bear about that.”

  Looking around, Fil realized the sledgehammers inside her skull had been downgraded to rubber mallets, and she no longer wanted to puke every time she moved. Progress! Unfortunately, she could also see that other than Jamie the nurse, she was alone in the hospital room.

  “Where did he go?”

  “Just downstairs, hon,” Jamie hurried to assure her when she saw Fil’s frown. “Your friends stopped by for a visit and they convinced him to pop by the cafeteria to get something to eat. He hadn’t left your side in almost twelve hours! Poor guy needed to get some food before he fell down. A guy that size needs a lot of fuel.”

  Fil relaxed and gave the other woman a smile. “You’re right. I’m glad he’s eating.”

  She was, now that she knew he hadn’t left for good. Losing him might be inevitable, but she hoped they’d at least have time for her to get back on her feet and jump his bones one last time before the threat passed and he slipped back into his stone sleeping bag. She wasn’t ready to let him go.

  Jamie patted her arm and stepped around the end of the bed. “I’ll be back later, hon, but just buzz the desk if you need anything.”

  “Thanks.”

  She watched the nurse bustle over and open the door, then step back with a laugh.

  “It looks like your entourage is back, Felicity. You’re quite the popular girl around here.” Jamie shook a finger playfully at the group gathered outside. “Now, you all be careful not to tire her out. She needs to rest, not party, so in fifteen minutes I’m coming back and kicking you all out.”

  Fil heard the familiar sound of Spar’s growl followed by the nurse’s hasty amendment. “Not you, Mr. Livingston. Of course you can stay as long as you’d like. Excuse me, I need to, ah, I’ll check back later.”

  Ella pushed her way into the room, laughing all the way to her side. “Fil, you need to put a leash on your guard dog before he bites one of the staff here. He’s been a grouch the whole time.”

  Fil reached up to return her friend’s careful hug. “Hey, you’re okay, right? You guys weren’t hurt?”

  Wynn stepped up to the foot of the bed and rubbed Fil’s foot reassuringly through the blankets. “We’re all fine. You got plenty hurt for the lot of us. Well, my ankle’s still sore and swollen, but nothing new. You’re the one we’ve all been worried about.”

  “Well, I’m fine,” Fil assured her, then made a face. “Okay, actually I’m not so much fine as I am beat to shit, but I’m recovering, so that’s the pretty much the same thing, right?”

  “It is not.” Spar’s growl sounded fierce, a perfect match for his scowl as he settled himself carefully onto the bed at Fil’s hip. “You are seriously injured, Felicity. In fact, you nearly died. You are never to do such a reckless thing as throw yourself in the path of a murderer ever again. Do I make myself clear?”

  Fil looked from her Guardian’s expression of stubborn command to the rest of the group. Behind Spar, Kees stood with one arm wrapped around Ella and his chin bobbing in vehement agreement. Ella herself was rolling her eyes and elbowing her lover in the ribs, while Wynn looked straight at Fil with one e
yebrow cocked and her lips pursed in an obvious bid to keep from laughing.

  “Yes, I think we’re all clear there,” Fil drawled, deciding to see the humor in the big warrior’s obvious concern. It was either that or bean him over the head with her IV pole for acting like an overprotective idiot. “But since I don’t plan to get kidnapped by another murderer for as long as I live, I don’t think that’s going to be a hard promise to keep.”

  “Good.” Spar’s face softened, and he leaned in to brush a soft kiss over her forehead. “I will hold you to your word, little human.”

  “Speaking of murderers, though, what happened to the nocturnis?” she asked. “I mean, aside from the cardinal.”

  “The cardinal?” Spar frowned. “You mean the Hierophant?”

  Fil shook her head, then winced and went back to keeping still. “No, that wasn’t the Hierophant. I thought he was because of what I saw in my vision, but it turns out I was wrong. He told me the Hierophant wasn’t here in Montreal and told me he was sort of an adviser to the Hierophant, like a cardinal to the pope. That’s why I called him that.”

  Spar and Kees exchanged glances. “That is unfortunate,” Kees grumbled. “We had hoped that with him dead, the Order would be weakened, but if he was merely a member of the high priesthood, the impact of his death will be much smaller. The cell here will suffer, but the Order’s plans will likely continue without much interruption.”

  Her heart sank. “So what did we really accomplish then? The Hierophant is still alive, and before I lost it, I remember hearing Wynn say that wasn’t even the demon that ended up killing Ricky and the cardinal, so we basically failed.”

  “That is not true,” Spar said, grasping her chin and forcing her to meet his gaze. “We might not have killed the Hierophant, but we removed one of his counselors, and we destroyed the inner circle of the Montreal cell. For now, the Order will not be able to act within this city at least. No more bodies will be found in the park, because no one else will die here. That is something.”

  “But the demon is still out there. We weren’t able to send it back to the prison it crawled out of.”