Demon Forged

by Meljean Brook

  Anger shook through her. She opened her mouth. Lilith held up her hand. “Let me finish, detective. I’m telling you that I don’t give a fuck about his issues with you or how he thinks you’ve gone off the deep end; I just want to know if Rael is the reason Julia Stafford is on a slab in the morgue. So get the job done, however it needs to be done. I’ll cover your ass if you have to bend any rules.”

  Taylor hadn’t expected that. Not from Lilith. Her throat tightened. “Yes, sir.”

  “But try not to bend the Rules. You know the ones I mean?” At her nod, Lilith said, “And for fuck’s sake, if you play good cop, bad cop during Rael’s interview, let Irena be the bad one.”

  “What prophecy?”

  Preston’s tone told Irena that he wouldn’t be teleporting anywhere without hearing this first. She liked that he’d gotten his teeth into it and wasn’t letting go. And she’d have wagered he wanted to know now so that he could judge Taylor’s reaction to whatever they learned. They were obviously close, and moved together with the ease of longtime partners. Like Taylor, he was creased and worn. But unlike Taylor, who looked pale and shadowed, Preston just looked comfortably lived in.

  She turned to Alejandro. “Do you have the translation?”

  Although she’d made Alice read the prophecy to her until she’d memorized each line, Irena didn’t carry a copy.

  “You do not wish to recite it?” His eyes held amusement.

  Somewhere, she thought, after some time in Lilith’s office, they’d both lost the burn of anger that had followed them from the conference room. Perhaps it was only knowing that he was as frustrated as she was by how little the Guardians could help the vampire communities targeted by the demons.

  Perhaps it was that she wanted to let the anger go.

  “It is too stupid to say aloud,” she told him.

  “At what point do you begin laughing?”

  He knew her well. It was not just that the prophecy was stupid; she could barely make it through the recitation. “Caelum’s voice.”

  “Ah.” Triumph filled his tone. He produced a single sheet of paper, held it out for Preston. His gaze remained on her. “I last longer than you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. As Preston took the paper, she said, “You will not provoke me into reciting it. I will not be your amusement.”

  “Not my amusement. Enjoyment. That is your laughter: the most incredible pleasure.”

  She drew in a breath, and held it. Everything inside her seemed to be waiting. She would laugh, she thought. Laugh, just from the pleasure his words gave her.

  His voice lowered, inaudible to human ears. “And the deepest pain. I do not know why I ask for it.”

  Her heart jolted and squeezed, as if he’d dropped it to the floor and stepped on it as he strode past her. Heading toward Selah, she realized. Irena hadn’t been aware that the other Guardian had teleported into the hallway with them.

  Her breath would not steady. Her emotions rebounded between anger and hurt, but her reaction went unnoticed. Preston and Taylor quietly read over the prophecy. Preston’s psychic scent churned with confusion; Taylor’s mind was shielded, as usual. Making certain her own shields were strong, Irena looked at Alejandro again, found his gaze on her.

  When had this happened? The balance they had maintained for so long, the sharp edge they’d walked . . . it had disappeared beneath their feet. She didn’t know whether to find it again, or keep stumbling until they fell to one side or the other: everything, or nothing.

  Both options gripped her throat with fear. She signed to him. What is happening between us?

  His hands briefly clenched at his sides. I don’t know.

  “So what does this all mean?”

  Preston’s voice filtered through the heavy silence that seemed to surround them. Alejandro blinked slowly, like a human waking, and unsure if he was still sleeping. Irony filled his reply. “We don’t know.”

  Selah scoffed before vanishing and reappearing behind Preston. Standing on shoes that were nothing but ribbons and spiked heels that put her at a few inches over his height, she looked over his shoulder. The detective glanced up at her. Then peered up again, as if once hadn’t been enough to take in the waves of light blond hair and the perfection of Selah’s features, warmed by the smile she gave him. His gaze dropped a little more slowly, and his lips formed a soundless whistle as soon as he was facing away from her.

  “We know some of it,” she said, reaching around him to run her fingers over the first line. “ ‘She waits below’—that is Anaria, Michael’s sister. And she’s not waiting anymore, because the nephilim found her.”

  And the rest was nonsense, Irena thought. “And you can explain the next part . . . all the way to the ‘dragon’s blade’?”

  She watched Alejandro, and didn’t feel the urge to laugh as Taylor quickly read the lines aloud.

  “ ‘The dragon will rise before the lost two. The blood of the dragon will create one door and destroy another. Caelum’s voice will sing it closed with ice and fire and blood, and be lost until she claims her new tongue and the dragon’s blade.’ ” She finished and looked to Selah, who shook her head.

  “I have no idea,” the Guardian admitted. “But the rest we do know. ‘The blood that heals will release the dead unto judgment, and the judged unto Heaven.’ That’s talking about vampire blood, and how it weakens the nephilim—so that the nephilim can be slain, and the soul of the human trapped in the body they’ve possessed can be freed.”

  “We think that is what it means,” Irena said. “We do not know.”

  “She is such a stickler. You’re going to have such fun today,” Selah said to Taylor, but her smile faded when she glanced down at the paper again. “The last line is self-explanatory.”

  And upon the destruction of Michael’s heart, Belial will ascend to the Morningstar’s throne.

  Lucifer’s throne. And a compelling reason for Belial to arrange his son’s death.

  “Except that there might be more than one meaning,” Alejandro said. “Michael’s heart might be just that—his heart—or it might be Anaria.”

  “Or something we have no idea about,” Irena said past a sudden tightness in her throat.

  “Yes.” His gaze held hers before moving to Preston. “Rael is one of Belial’s demons, and so the prophecy—if he believes in it—might be influencing his actions. Khavi also foresaw the shooting and Margaret Wren . . . but it is difficult to know if any of the events are related.”

  “So if there are connections, we have to dig them up,” Preston said.

  “Yes.” Alejandro looked at Irena. “Before we go, I need to speak with you.”

  He led her into a small office—not much bigger than a closet. She could not stop her smile as she waited for him to close the door.

  “I intended to give this to you earlier,” he said, and a small electronic device appeared between his thumb and forefinger. “But we were—”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. A reminder wasn’t necessary. “What is it?”

  “A video recorder. You’ll need to conceal it during your interview with Rael. A pendant or a bracelet, perhaps. Whatever you can design that will allow us to see and hear him.”

  Thoughtfully, she studied the camera. Yes, it would be easy to conceal. “How do I record?”

  He showed her, then dropped it into her palm. She vanished the recorder and looked up at him. “Is this so that I don’t kill him?”

  “I’m certain you wouldn’t hide it if you did. It is for Castleford, so that he can watch it later and know which of Rael’s responses are lies.” His smile came into his eyes. “And now you do not protect me from Rael, but Taylor from a vampire.”

  Irena laughed. She didn’t ask how he’d known what Lilith had planned. “I won’t have to protect her from many vampires during the day.”

  “No. But perhaps we will see what puts her in a position to be threatened by one.”

  “Being friends with Savi isn’t enough?” Irena asked
, although she knew Ames-Beaumont and Savi would protect Taylor as they would one of their own vampires. “Perhaps Taylor will only be in that position because Khavi told us it was her fate, and everything we do now drives Taylor closer to it.”

  “That would not be acceptable.” Alejandro’s face darkened. “A Guardian should not determine a human’s path.”

  His words were evenly spoken, but she felt the force behind them. How had any of his lovers believed he lacked passion? It still astonished her.

  “We agree.” She raised her hand to his jaw. Her thumb skimmed the cleft in his chin.

  He caught her wrist, then pulled her to him and bent his head. “I would give my life to step away from duty with you today. To discover what is happening between us.”

  She would, too. “But we cannot.”

  “No.” He pressed his lips briefly to hers. He’d barely lifted his head before going back for another—longer, slower. His kiss offered more promise than heat, but the need still smoldered. She was clutching at his shoulders when he pulled away. “Tonight, Irena. At your forge.”

  “Yes.” Her heart pounded. “Be safe, Olek.”

  She watched him leave, then went to meet Taylor.

  CHAPTER 11

  Taylor remained silent on the ride through the city. The quiet suited Irena well. Traveling by car was new, and the two vises her hands had become were just beginning to relax when she and Taylor neared the orange steel bridge that led north out of the city. Irena reached out with her Gift to taste the metal, and immediately wished she hadn’t. She clamped her lips together and resolved not to think about the sheer weight suspended above the water.

  The sky was clear and bright. It was a day for flying, not for being trapped inside a car moving across a massive bridge corroding in tiny bits and rivets that she could feel to her bones.

  “Are you going to be carsick?”

  “No.”

  Taylor clearly didn’t believe her. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway. You don’t eat, so nothing would come up.”

  Irena didn’t tell her that she had eaten that morning. The bites she’d taken of the animals’ hearts were lodged in her stomach, doing whatever it was her Guardian guts did to food.

  “I am not sick.”

  “Okay.” Taylor slanted another glance at her, then poked at something on her door. The window beside Irena slid down.

  Irena tilted her face into the wind. After a few minutes, Taylor shivered and the heater blasted.

  “Did you read Wren’s file?”

  “No,” Irena said, and opened her eyes as the acceleration changed. They drove uphill now, where mansions clung like fat vultures overlooking the bay.

  Taylor reached behind her, brought a folder up front. “Can you take a look?”

  Irena opened to a photo of a woman with the sort of pale blond hair that she often saw on children, but rarely on adults. Her gray eyes were flat and piercing, her face composed in the strong, fierce angles of a Nordic ancestry. Irena recognized the warrior in those eyes and that face, but she couldn’t see deeper.

  Irena found Wren’s statistics and converted the numbers. She and Taylor were almost the same height; Wren would tower over them both.

  “She is very tall. Should I be taller?”

  “Why? You’re already like a mob enforcer.”

  “I’m like a what?”

  “A really big guy. One who’s always ready to crack heads. It’s the way you move—No, that isn’t right.” Taylor’s forehead creased and she gave Irena a once-over. “Scratch that. It’s the way people move around you. Even the Guardians at SI. They give you room, and watch you out of the corners of their eyes. Like you take up a lot of space.”

  That amused her. “So should I take up more space when we meet Wren?”

  “For the intimidation factor?” Taylor considered it, then shook her head. “She’ll already be on the defensive. We’ll try to appear non-threatening. Demure.”

  Irena snorted and read on. It took longer than just the look Taylor had probably anticipated, but Irena made her way through the thin file. There wasn’t much more than Lilith had told them. Wren had lived in foster care until she’d entered the military, and gone on to the Central Intelligence Agency. Little information existed about her activities there, and no indication about why she’d quit. After leaving the CIA, she’d trained at a butling academy in the Netherlands.

  Irena frowned. “What is a butling academy?”

  “She’s a butler. You know, they open the door, look down their nose. Sounds about right for a family like Julia Stafford’s. New money, so they try to put on the class.” Taylor pulled a coffee cup from the holder between the seats, sipped, and grimaced. “Jesus. I thought this was bad when it was hot.”

  “They burnt it,” Irena said, and tapped the side of her nose when Taylor looked at her. “What do you know of Julia Stafford’s family?”

  “Three generations back, they were bootlegging. Then they got into real estate—some of it legit—and Hollywood during the 50s. That’s where they got most of their money, but there was some gambling in Vegas during the 60s and 70s, drugs, ties to the mob. Her dad and her uncles are all politicians now, mostly state and city level. But one of them is a governor, and there’s a cousin in Congress. They don’t have so many ties to gambling—it’s all in oil and land. But that taint is still there, so they’ve got to keep up appearances. She went to a good school, got a law degree, served on charities, boards—but of course, nothing controversial.”

  Irena nodded. “So Julia Stafford had resources and connections, but Rael can hold her family over her head if he needs to.” An advantage for the demon, both ways.

  Taylor pushed her cup back into the holder, fumbling until the paper folded and she smashed it in. “I guess. What I see is a demon who fashions himself as the everyman who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and who got lucky enough to marry the princess who turned some bad history around. Now they’ve got a butler and a house on the hill. It’s all America, baby, and they are proof of the dream. Who wouldn’t vote for that?”

  Irena thought her answer was too obvious, and so she remained silent.

  Taylor took a deep breath. “Sorry, that turned into a rant. I have, to quote Jorgenson, ‘anger management issues.’ ”

  Irena shrugged. “So do I.”

  A smile brightened Taylor’s face, and when it faded the detective looked less tired than she had. “But it’s not Julia Stafford that gets to me. Or the money. It’s that fucking demon.”

  Irena liked this woman.

  “All of you, actually.” Taylor met her eyes without apology. “No offense. Not you. The idea of you.”

  A police officer, bothered by the idea of anyone with different rules and who worked outside the law. Yes, Irena understood that. But that wasn’t all that bothered Taylor, Irena thought. Through her Gift, she’d sensed the small silver cross that lay hidden beneath Taylor’s collar. The detective was likely going through the same struggle that thousands of Guardians had in the years after their transformation, when everything they’d believed as humans didn’t seem to fit what they’d learned in Caelum.

  Irena had never experienced that particular struggle herself, but she’d been on the listening end of it hundreds of times. “I do not offend so easily,” she said.

  The detective didn’t reply, but went back to her thoughts. A road unwound before them. The bay glittered under the sun, but a fog bank was rolling in from the west.

  “What are we looking for with Wren?” Taylor asked abruptly. “The feds have already questioned her.”

  “We need to find out if she knows what Rael is.” If Wren did, then the questions Taylor asked could be different.

  Taylor shook her head. “We can’t go in, asking if she knows she’s working for a demon. Even if we told her she was, even if you flashed your wings, she probably wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t.”

  Humans rarely did anymore. Centuries ago, convincing humans not to believe
their eyes had been more difficult.

  “It is simple, then.” Irena tilted her face into the air again. “We will find out if she believes what she sees.”

  Clumps of shrubbery squatted between needled trees and provided a screen between Rael’s house and the street. A black iron gate guarded the drive. A private security guard checked their identification before waving them through. The house exterior had been constructed with peach stone; block columns flanked the entrance and came together in a smooth arch beneath a clay-tiled roof.

  The structure had fewer levels than Irena expected, until she realized that the rear of the house sprawled down the side of the hill. It likely had a balcony, she thought—or several. At night, Rael could leave by air without anyone being aware that he’d gone.

  Margaret Wren opened the door at Taylor’s knock.

  Irena was instantly certain that this woman had killed before. But she wasn’t convinced that Wren knew about demons; Wren’s emotions were still easy to read. After learning about psychic abilities, most humans slowly developed shields; their desire to guard their thoughts became a reality. Chances were, this woman had no idea—

  No. Irena forced herself to slow down. She wouldn’t decide right away. Quick judgments had no place here. It was possible that Wren knew about Rael, and yet he’d never told her about his psychic abilities—she wouldn’t know that she needed shields to conceal her emotions.

  As Taylor introduced herself and Irena, those emotions were layered with irritation, anger, and grief. Wren’s expression remained flat. Her eyes quickly measured them both, then settled on Irena. Suspicion bloomed through her psychic scent, but she let them into the house.

  Bright bouquets in baskets and vases filled the entry with a suffocating array of perfumed foliage. Irena stopped breathing; she wouldn’t be talking, anyway. She mulled over Wren’s suspicion, instead. Did the woman suspect that Irena wasn’t human? Taylor had mentioned Special Investigations—did Wren know who was employed there?