Then he tossed it into the fiery pit beside them and walked away.
Lake Geneva, Switzerland
June 1816
“This must certainly be the lowest point to which a Guardian has ever descended.”
Hugh felt Lilith’s amused gaze, her psychic scent before she spoke. No, she no longer hid from him when she approached. So much easier when she had; he did not have to conceal his eagerness to see her when he’d no idea if she’d appear. But this waiting she forced upon him now, the anticipation—it was its own torment.
He did not take his eyes from the scene before him. Frustration spilled from her before she closed herself away.
Yet her frustration could be nothing like his.
He stood stiffly, willed his heart to keep its steady beat, his body its indifference—all the more difficult with the soft moans that surrounded them, the cries of pleasure.
“It is a vampire?” She tilted her head to better see through the window.
He gave a short nod.
“It is the one from Derbyshire? The one we helped create?” Surprise in her voice now, laughter. “I know he is extraordinarily handsome, but I cannot believe you would follow him from England for that.”
“No.” He had to fight his smile.
“Why do you watch him fuck her?”
Hugh closed his eyes. Cold. He needed to be cold. “He will feed. There have been deaths in this region; I know not if they are vampire or nosferatu.”
“Likely nosferatu,” Lilith said. “I hunted one in these mountains only last month; I came searching for poets and found a bloodsucker. They have become bolder of late. I think they tire of their solitary exile and centuries hidden in caves.” She paused. “Do you see how he kisses her thigh? Will he bite her there, do you think? Or simply feast from her? Do Guardians feast so splendidly in the halls of Caelum?”
Her voice had deepened, as if in arousal. But it could not be; impossible for demons to feel such. Only a trick to lower his defenses.
Concentrate on the nosferatu. “You have become too reckless, fighting them alone.”
“They are stupid. Ignorant.”
He could not keep himself from turning, from lifting his hand to brush her throat with the backs of his fingers. Her crimson skin burned under his—a warning, and one he should heed.
His hand fell back to his side. “Stupid also to allow one close enough to rip out your throat, without certainty we would make it back to a Healer in time.”
“It cannot be as stupid as turning your back on a demon when Michael’s sword is within reach; had your fledgling student not been near, I’d have had your head and the Doyen’s sword to present to Lucifer.” Her glowing scarlet gaze held his. “And I didn’t allow it. I fought. It was service, even had I been killed.”
His heart clenched in his chest, and he returned his attention to the bed, the darkened room. “You are correct,” he said softly. “I am the greater fool.”
A scream came through the glass, but it was not of pain. A name.
“Colin,” Lilith echoed, a smile in her voice. “I remember his vanity well. I believe had I ever called him beautiful, he would have done anything I asked.”
“Yes,” he said, but his gaze went to the cloth that the vampire had draped over his lover’s mirror. Did he hate so much what he’d become, or did something else haunt him? Guilt?
“Are you here to slay him for taking her blood?”
He shook his head. “He is not nosferatu; there is human in him. I will not begrudge him survival, so long as he is not cruel. So long as he does not kill.”
Her silence stretched the air between them, until she said, “I have been cruel. You may not have been a voyeur outside my window, but you know I have been so.”
“Only with their consent,” he said, betraying nothing of his jealousy, his despair. Keeping his indifference firmly in place. “But a vampire does not have to honor a human’s free will.”
“Nor do I a Guardian’s,” she said softly, her breath in his ear. He’d not heard her move. “He is inside her now, taking her blood; she wills it, and he brings her only pleasure. Are you satisfied?”
“Aye.”
Quick as thought, her hand was beneath his robe, gripping him, stroking him. It took all his strength to keep his body from responding. Sweat broke over his brow. He could not think. Only hold his defenses . . . they could not hold long.
Lilith’s patience ran out more quickly.
With a sound of disgust, she turned away. Hugh ground his teeth together to keep from dropping his glamours, showing her the truth of it. From hauling her back, burying himself within her.
Losing himself within her.
“You swore to your student that you would protect the vampire, yet you contemplate his execution?”
How had she known of his promise? Had she listened in doorways after Ramsdell had Fallen? It was several moments before he had the ability to say, “Yes.” He glanced at her; her mouth was set, her eyes flaring with anger.
“You would break your vow?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “If he cannot be saved. If his bloodthirst overwhelms his humanity.”
“I will kill him now.” Her sword appeared in her hand, a hard smile on her lips. “It shall bring me pleasure to finally rid the world of all bloodsuckers, half-human or no.”
“No, Lilith.” He laid his hand on her arm. She looked down at it. “As long as he is not cruel, not a murderer—I will not break my vow.” And he could not keep the rest from hanging unspoken between them. Even for you.
She grinned suddenly, and said, “A vampire’s life is nothing. Shall we bargain? A kiss, and I’ll promise not to kill him.”
It was impossible not to agree; she would be bound by the bargain, and it was a small price to help secure his vow. Perhaps it was what saved the vampire that night, and those that followed; but as her lips touched his, he felt his destruction bearing down upon him.
When had the price of saving her become his soul?
New Orleans, Louisiana
August 1857
The moonlight cast long shadows across the graveyard; stone angels guarded houses for the dead, locked in endless prayer.
They’d have been better served protecting the living.
Lilith darted between granite tombs, her taloned feet silent over the red clay. It clumped between her toes; she paused and shook it off as she listened.
The thick perfume of magnolias hung in the humid air, and the cicadas chirped their annoying tune. A psychic probe revealed nothing. No sign of the Guardian she’d followed here, or the human Selah had been protecting.
Her breath hissed out between her teeth. Most humans wouldn’t have been able to hide their minds from her, but this young man had much to conceal—from those humans around him, and that which he attempted to hide from himself lest it rage inside him.
He’d do well to release some of that anger.
Lilith’s focus narrowed. There—a heartbeat, a low, quick breath. She called in her sword.
Selah leapt out from behind a low wall, a tall blond figure in a white gown. Not to fight; she held the young man in her arms. His dark form was in stark contrast to her pale skin and wings. She raced toward a tomb, his slim arms clinging around her neck. Hardly older than fourteen, but of age to decide his future.
With a triumphant laugh, Lilith gave chase. The Guardian was a fledgling, only recently returned to Earth after a century of training in Caelum. Lilith would have her skewered before—
Oh, fuck. The tomb opened; Selah and her charge fled into the dark interior. Hugh closed the heavy stone door and stood in front of it, his arms crossed over his chest.
He caught her wrist before she could bring her blade down on his head. She took hold of the neck of his robe and whirled, slammed him back against granite. The tomb shivered under the impact.
Her eyes shone red across his skin. Her fingers wrapped around his throat. “She’s your student?”
“
Yes.” He stared down at her, his gaze hooded. “Let him be, Lilith.”
She snarled, her lips drawing back over her fangs. “Give him to me. You cannot save him; he will not leave of his free will. Not without his mother.”
“No. But driving him to murder will not save either of them.”
“It is justice. He is free, but his mother is not.” Her hand tightened; Hugh didn’t flinch. “Do you know what her owner does?”
With barely a thought, Lilith shifted. Her black hair became an artful tumble of auburn ringlets; her breeches widened into hoops and skirts. Ridiculous trappings, in a ridiculous society.
She pressed her lips to his cheek; her slim white hand covered his flaccid cock through his robe. “Service me, boy. I should like to ride upon you—you are nothing but a beast. An animal.” Her slow drawl dripped with bitter honey. “And if you do not . . .” Her gaze rose to Hugh’s. “The threat depends upon her mood: one day, his mother’s back is stripped of its skin by a whip; the next, she is sold to a plantation upriver.”
“If he kills her, he will have a noose around his neck and his mother would still suffer—perhaps still beaten and sold. That is not justice.”
“And what is your alternative?”
His fists clenched; his mouth hardened, and she briefly felt his psychic despair before he closed his mind to her.
It was answer enough: there was nothing.
“Poor Guardian. So limited in your options; so long as he will not leave, you cannot force him to go.”
Her tongue traced his lips; Hugh did not react. Not even a twitch from his limp flesh. She vanished her skirts and rammed her knee into the offending organ. His mouth opened on a pained grunt, and she swept inside.
For an instant, he responded with gentle suction, his palms rising to cup her jaw—and then he shoved her away.
Lilith grinned and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Let me have him. You know you would like to kill her yourself; I will convince him to do it.”
He watched her with cold eyes. “You will try.” Stepping aside, he opened the tomb.
Her brows drew together; Selah was not inside. Nor was Lilith’s target. There was only one entrance, and they’d stood in front of it. “What kind of trick is this?”
“No trick,” Hugh said softly. “We leave such methods to you. We will both be protecting him, Lilith—and we will convince him to go. His mother does not believe she owns herself; once we persuade her of that and she acknowledges her free will, we shall take them both to the North.”
“So he will flee, and his abuser shall never pay . . . and you will let him be used in the meantime?”
“It is unfortunate, but aye. I must.”
“ ‘Unfortunate’?” Hilarity rolled from her, high-pitched and wild. “Just as losing an eye is unfortunate?”
“For a Guardian, losing an eye is nothing at all. It regenerates.”
She searched for any humor accompanying the statement, and found none. It did not surprise her; she had not heard him laugh for two hundred years.
Hers had become increasingly desperate.
Her amusement faded; a strange lethargy took its place. She could not even make the effort to fly—she perched on a nearby tomb, and watched him walk away. It was hard not to admire his form; even in that endlessly youthful body, he had powerful shoulders and a strong back.
She should have stabbed him through it.
London, England
October 1945
Despite the early morning sun, London lay drab and tattered, like an old woman abed in a ragged dark cloak. The wartime blackout had ended; electricity hadn’t yet been restored to this part of the city, but still the mortar-pocked townhouse was closed and shuttered.
Hugh was not surprised; the vampire inside didn’t need the light. The front door opened easily—the lock had been broken. The rooms were bare but for the cracking plaster, rubble and dust. A broken portrait frame lay empty near the fireplace in the front parlor; the marble mantel had been removed.
A tortured moan drifted down the stairwell, ripe with pain—and human. A wet, wheezing cough followed it. The scent of blood permeated the air: the human’s, and the rich, heavy odor of a vampire’s.
Colin’s.
Hugh frowned as he moved toward the stairs, automatically transforming the suit he’d worn on the street into his woolen robe. The vampire had never managed to create more of his kind; each attempt had ended in death. Did Colin try again?
The risers screeched under his weight; the carpets had been ripped away, the wood left to dry. As if disturbed by the sound, a shower of debris rained down from the vaulted ceiling.
Hugh froze; the building had been damaged, but it was not so shoddily constructed. His sword appeared in his hand. “You promised you would not kill him,” he said softly.
Lilith dropped from above; the banister splintered beneath her boots, but did not collapse. Her wings snapped wide. “This house reeks of sickness and blood,” she hissed. Her weapon glinted at her thigh. “I tire of both.”
So did Hugh. “Then you ought not to be here; if you have sought me in hopes of finding relief from them, you must be disappointed.” He turned, continued on to the next step.
Her sword pressed against his throat; he knocked it away with a dismissive swipe of his blade.
The psychic blaze of anger hit him before she did. His steel shattered under the force of her blow. Hugh called in a second sword, blocked a thrust that would have torn through his heart. He spun; his heel slammed into her jaw.
Lilith crashed through the banister; the foyer wall crumpled around the shape of her body before she slid to the floor. Blood streamed over her chin, splattered at her feet along with a small chunk of flesh.
She’d bitten through her tongue.
His gut roiling, Hugh watched her spit into her hand, her body heaving, and waited for her second attack. It didn’t come. She stared up at him, her narrowed gaze radiating crimson heat.
Then her attention shifted, moved past his shoulder. Surprise etched a line between her brows.
“How marvelous! A demon is struck dumb by my countenance,” Colin said. The vampire stood at the head of the stairs; his slim sword gleamed as sharply as his smile. “How fortunate that you do not need a tongue to appreciate it.” He glanced at Hugh; his mouth dropped open in exaggerated shock. “Good God, now I am speechless. I daresay that robe is a greater sin than any she could imagine.”
“I rather doubt it,” Hugh said. His face was without expression as he took in the vampire’s appearance; the dark suit and vest were perfectly pressed, but his blond hair was disheveled as if he’d just risen from his bed. Never before had he seen Colin with a strand out of place. Tall, slender—but paler than their last meeting, and his skin tautly drawn. “Have you had trouble feeding?”
“No. The London vampire community is . . . difficult, but there are war widows and shell-shocked soldiers enough, and I shall soon return to San Francisco.” With an elegant wave of his hand that included both Lilith and Hugh, Colin gestured for them to follow. “Since you are come, I may as well take this opportunity to hunt. I am drained,” he said as he entered a room. “I prefer not to pass the day in hunger, but I do not like to leave him alone.”
Unlike the rest of the house, these quarters had not been stripped of their furnishings—or the suite had been redecorated. An old man lay sleeping fitfully on the bed; his breath rattled in his lungs.
Lilith strode to the window, threw open the shutters, and leaned against the sill. Fresh air flooded the room, and daylight fell across the occupant of the bed and the vampire. Colin slanted her an amused glance before stepping out of the sun’s path.
“Tuberculosis?” Hugh frowned; bloodstained metal bowls and yellow tubing cluttered the top of a nightstand. “You have been providing him with transfusions?”
“Yes. He’d not have survived the journey from California without it. His family is in Hartington; I hope to travel with him to Derbyshire
tonight. They asked that he be with them when it took him.”
Hugh nodded. A human could be transformed into a vampire if he was drained of blood, and then drank vampire or nosferatu blood; transfusions offered strength, and if applied to an injury, could speed healing—but the effects were not permanent. “Who is he?”
“My valet,” Colin said. “The fourth Winters. Unfortunately, his niece has no desire to take his place. I’ll have to learn to comb my hair, I suppose.”
“In San Francisco?” No surprise then that he’d not been able to locate the vampire for more than four decades.
“Yes, but I shall not give you my direction.” The vampire grinned. “Protecting me should be a challenge.”
“I found you easily enough merely passing through London,” Hugh said.
“Yes.” Colin retrieved a black umbrella from a stand near the door and propped it casually against his shoulder. “But you knew very well that my family has owned this property for generations. It shall not be so easy in the future, for I’ve every intention of discarding it. Shiftless ruffians have scrambled through it from kitchens to attic, and the house is hardly livable with their boiled-wool stench about.” With a shudder, he left the room.
“He does not use the shade,” Lilith murmured. She looked out over the square; Hugh joined her at the window and watched as Colin strolled across the street. He glanced up at them, his golden hair brilliant in the sunlight. “He should be afire by now—and he should be in the daysleep.”
“Yes,” Hugh said. “He should.” The vampire disappeared; if they hadn’t been Guardian and demon, they’d not have seen him move.
“A vampire cannot run so quickly.” She pushed away from the window, began a circle of the room. “Not even one who is nosferatu-born. And despite his vanity, there is not a mirror to be found.”
“There is not.”
Her lips curved. “Has he taken Stoker’s tale deeply to heart, and convinced himself he has no reflection?”
“I believe,” Hugh said, “Stoker met Colin, and added that detail to his tale. Or perhaps he merely heard rumors; Colin did not abandon Society until the turn of the century.”
Demon Angel Page 10
