Guardian Undone (Stealth Guardians Book 4)

by Tina Folsom

  The baby kept crying. She approached the crib and looked in. The child, a boy, was naked and had thrown off his blanket. She reached into the crib, but realized then that she couldn’t cover the child, because she wasn’t really there.

  A sound across the room made her shift her gaze away from the child. Her heart stopped. Poison-green eyes blinked at her from the door. The demon wore a long cloak with a hood. The darkness in the room did the rest to obscure his face. Frightened for the child, Winter tried to scream, but no sound left her throat. Unimpeded, the demon approached. He reached into the crib. Oh God, he would kill the baby! But the demon lifted the boy into his arms, holding him to his chest as if he were a treasure. Winter stared at the demon, then at the naked baby. The candlelight suddenly spotlighted a curious looking birthmark on the baby’s bottom.

  Then there was another movement. The demon reached in his pocket. He pulled out a small metal flask, opened it and poured the liquid into the crib. Red blood stained the sheets. The flask empty now, the demon put it back in his pocket and turned, leaving the room with the child in his arms.

  Winter ran after him, following him down the stairs of the big mansion. But she couldn’t stop him. The moment he reached the first floor, he made a movement with his free hand and conjured a vortex. A second later, he jumped in and disappeared.

  Oh God, no!

  Tears streamed down her face. The vortex vanished, and suddenly she was staring at a portrait of a man and a woman, a baby in her arms. They both wore clothes that would have been fashionable in the Regency period, but something else drew her attention. On the man’s hip sat a dagger. The same kind of dagger she’d seen Logan and his friends wield. The man was a Stealth Guardian, of that she was certain. And a demon had kidnapped his child.

  34

  Winter heard something rattle in the distance, then the echo of footsteps in a cavernous space. Her head was spinning, and she took a breath. Her lungs filled with a vile stench and jolted her back to consciousness. Her eyes flew open.

  Fuck! This couldn’t be good.

  The smell came from a pit filled with hot, bubbling lava. It was only about as large as a jacuzzi. And dipping into it would be instantly fatal. She shuddered at the thought of somebody slipping and accidentally falling in, and wondered why nobody had bothered covering it. A moment later, she realized why. Her gaze fell on metal implements laid out on a table nearby, implements that could inflict pain. This was a torture chamber, and the lava pit was its ultimate threat.

  Shit! She had to get out of here before somebody came and tried any of the instruments on her. She managed to take two steps, before she was jerked back to the wall, a short, sharp pain ripping through her ankle.

  “What the—”

  Chains bound both her ankles. They assured that she couldn’t move farther than two feet away from the wall. Apparently the demons weren’t quite stupid enough to leave her in this cave without restricting her movements. She tried to reach her feet to see if she could get out of the chains, but realized she had chains around her wrists too.

  The footfalls she’d heard earlier became louder now, and a few moments later she saw a demon march into the cave from the entrance to her right. There were two more entrances, one straight ahead of her and one to her left, but the one to her left was hard to access, because the lava pit was right in front of it, leaving only a slim ledge to walk past it. It wouldn’t be her first choice to try to escape the cave via that route. Not that it looked like she was going to be escaping any time soon.

  The demon stopped in front of her. His size alone was intimidating, as were his glaring green eyes and his grim look. But what made it worse was that she knew what he was sent to do: torture her until she succumbed to Zoltan’s demands.

  Manus had warned her, and he’d been right. While she had successfully defended herself against Zoltan’s mental invasion, she had no defenses against physical torture. And after injuring Zoltan he would have no mercy on her until she gave in. What surprised her, however, was why he hadn’t come himself and had instead sent one of his demons to hurt her. She could have sworn that he would want to be witness to her pain. Had she maybe injured him so badly that he didn’t feel up to the task right now?

  Not that it mattered much. She was sure the demon who glared at her would be just as cruel as Zoltan himself.

  He lifted his hand now, and she saw the dagger he was holding. Instinctively she raised her arms to shield her face, and the chains rattled again.

  She recognized the demon now. He was the one who in an earlier vision had killed her, but in a later one had lost his head to Logan’s dagger. But everything had changed since then.

  “Go ahead,” she spat with a braveness she didn’t possess. “You might as well save yourself the time and kill me now, because I won’t give in to Zoltan. You can tell him that.”

  He slapped her face with the back of his hand, knocking her head sideways. Pain seared through her and radiated down her neck and spine. She felt something wet trickle down inside her nose and knew it was blood.

  “Bastard!” she ground out, refusing to give in to the urge to cry. She wouldn’t give the monster the satisfaction.

  The demon brought his knife closer and leaned in. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, no word, no insult. Instead his face suddenly contorted. Then a growl rolled over his lips, but before it could turn into a scream, a hand clamped over his mouth from behind and jerked him back.

  The demon struggled, but the person behind him had the upper hand and wrangled him to the ground, face down. Now Winter could see why he was so easily felled. A dagger was stuck in his back, and green blood was oozing from the mortal wound. The person who’d killed the demon now twisted the dagger some more, making sure the demon was dead, then pulled it from the wound and carefully wiped the green blood off the blade using his victim’s clothing. Only then did he look at her, but she’d already recognized him when he’d yanked the demon to the ground.

  “Logan…”

  Their eyes connected. He’d come. After everything, he’d come to rescue her.

  “I was scared I’d be too late,” Logan said.

  She stared down at the demon again. “In my vision, it was different. You beheaded him.”

  He nodded. “I know. You told me, and you were covered in his blood because of it. I can’t have that, or I can’t make you invisible.”

  She understood immediately. By telling him about her vision, she’d given him the opportunity to change the outcome and thus the future.

  “We’ve gotta get out of here,” he said.

  She raised her hands, showing him the chains. “Same on my ankles.”

  He pulled something from his inside pocket and went to work on the shackles around her feet. They clicked open faster than she’d expected. Her feet were free, but then suddenly Logan whipped his head toward one of the entrances.

  “Wh—”

  He pressed his hand over her lips, preventing her from speaking, and leaned in. “Demons. Drop your arms all the way so the shackles look as if they’re hanging there.”

  Panicked she stared at him. It took her brain a second or two to realize what Logan was planning. With some luck, the approaching demons would only see their dead comrade on the floor and assume she’d fled. She dropped her arms and crouched down a bit, so the chains were hanging loosely from the wall, so the demons wouldn’t notice that they were still holding their prisoner. Because the prisoner and her rescuer were now invisible.

  Two demons entered the cave. She recognized one of them immediately. Zoltan. He’d come to watch her be tortured.

  His eyes immediately went to where Winter was standing. Her heart pounded so loud that she thought the sound would echo in the cave.

  “Where the fuck is she?” Zoltan yelled. Then his eyes shifted and fell on the dead demon who lay not even a yard away from Logan.

  He charged toward his dead subject, his companion on his heels, and kicked him with his foot. But the dem
on didn’t move. Zoltan cursed, his head raised to the ceiling. “The fucking idiot! Gets himself killed by a woman!”

  He spun around, looked at the chains again, and for a heart-stopping moment Winter wondered if he’d step closer. Already, he was close enough to touch Logan if he stretched out his hand. Would Logan be fast enough to spin around and drive his dagger into the leader of the Underworld, or would Zoltan be stronger? And the second demon, would he kill Winter while Logan and Zoltan fought?

  Her lungs felt like they were exploding and she wanted to gasp for air, but she didn’t dare, because the slightest sound, the smallest movement might alert Zoltan to their presence. She felt perspiration run down from her forehead along the side of her nose. Oh God, no, it was tickling her. A few more seconds, and she would have to sneeze.

  Suddenly Zoltan turned to his underling. “Find the bitch! If she thinks she can play her little mind tricks on me, I’m gonna play, but according to my rules.”

  The demon nodded. “May I suggest something, oh Great One?”

  “What is it, Vintoq?”

  “Have the guards at the vortex circles tripled, in case she tries to escape by forcing one of our own.”

  Zoltan let out a laugh. “Forcing? With what? She’s unarmed, and she’s a sprite of a thing.”

  “But her mental powers, oh Great One. She injured you. And I’d venture a guess that if she set her mind to it, she could force a demon to transport her out of here by using those powers on him.”

  Winter exchanged a look with Logan. Was she really capable of that? Or was it merely an unsubstantiated fear the underling was expressing?

  Zoltan seemed to contemplate it. “Do it. Hurry!”

  Vintoq rushed out of the cave, while Zoltan headed to the other exit. Just as he reached it, he braced himself against the rock wall and groaned in pain.

  “Fuck!”

  Then he stumbled along, hurrying out of Winter’s field of vision.

  Logan finally took his hand off her mouth. “We have to hurry or we won’t get out of here alive.”

  35

  Logan finally removed the shackles around Winter’s wrists and rose. As much as he needed to take her into his arms and explain to her why he’d had to kill her grandmother, there was no time for it. They had to make it to one of the vortex circles before they were swarming with demon guards. If that happened, his escape plan would be dead on arrival.

  “This way,” he said and pointed to the exit Zoltan’s underling had used.

  Winter shook her head. “More demons will come from there. I know it.”

  He stared at her for a second, then nodded. “Your vision.” He pointed to the tunnel Zoltan had used. “How about that one?”

  “Same.” She motioned to the opening at the other side of the cave. “Nobody came from there.”

  Logan realized immediately why. “The lava pit.” He exchanged a look with Winter, then took her hand. “We’ll have to be careful.” But they had no choice. It was either navigating their way around the lava pit, or running straight into the arms of more demons.

  They walked toward the pit, and Logan could already hear sounds coming from one of the other tunnels. He quickly assessed the ledge around the pit and tested it with one foot. A piece of stone broke off and fell into the bubbling pool of lava, where it instantly turned into liquid.

  Winter gasped.

  “We’ll make it,” he assured her. “I’ll go first. We’ll walk as closely to the wall as possible. Stay behind me.”

  She nodded, but he could see the fear in her eyes.

  Taking a deep breath, he walked forward, one hand gripping the indentations along the wall, the other clasped in Winter’s. Beneath him, he could feel the stone start to give. Eventually the hot lava from beneath it would erode the stone, liquefying it, and making this tunnel inaccessible. But he hoped that day wasn’t today.

  Slowly they inched forward toward the tunnel entrance. Four more yards, then three. The ledge got slimmer here, and Logan knew he had to change his approach. He stopped, calculated the risk, and made his decision. He turned his head to look at Winter.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here’s what I’ll have to do.” Logan pointed to the ledge. “That won’t support the two of us at the same time. I’ll have to go ahead. You need to stay here, hold on to the rock wall for balance. As soon as I’m on the other side, I’m going to help you over.”

  He saw her swallow hard. “Oh God.”

  “I won’t let you die.”

  Winter nodded, her body shaking.

  He let go of her hand and moved forward, gingerly setting one foot in front of the other, while trying to take some of his weight off the ledge by holding onto the jagged rock to his left. Two more yards. Three more steps. He set his right foot on the solid surface at the entrance to the tunnel and pushed off. His left leg jerked downward, and he lurched forward, falling into the tunnel. He rolled around and looked back. A piece of the ledge he’d stepped on had fallen into the pit.

  His eyes shot to Winter, who clung to the rock wall, her feet still on the ledge, but between them there was now a gap of two yards, a gap too risky for her to jump over. Winter looked at him in utter horror.

  “I’m going to get you. Hold on.” He removed his backpack and pulled out a rope with a hook on one end. Quickly, he looked for a solid object to anchor the hook to and found a large boulder only a few yards into the tunnel. He tested the rope, making sure it wouldn’t slip, then returned to the opening of the tunnel, measured the distance between him and Winter with his eyes, and tied the rope around his waist, leaving sufficient length so he could move as much as he needed to.

  He stepped to the very edge of the pit and felt the rope behind him tighten, while he leaned forward, his feet braced on the edge of the pit, his body held by the rope. This was as far as he could go.

  His gaze connected with Winter’s. “I’m halfway there. It’s only a yard now, Winter. Just reach your arms out and reach for me. I’ll catch you. And I’ll pull us back.”

  Cold fear shone from her eyes. Tears brimmed at their rim. “Logan, it won’t hold us both.”

  “It will.” It had to. “Trust me, Winter. I’m not going to leave you here. We’re getting out of this place.” He reached out his arms toward her. “Do it.”

  He watched as she hesitantly let go of the rock wall and took one more step toward him. She stood at the very edge now.

  “Reach your arms out.”

  He could see she was shaking, but finally Winter reached her arms out, bridging the distance between them, and he grabbed her and pulled her toward him, just as beneath Winter’s feet more of the ledge crumbled.

  He twisted to the side and swung his precious cargo toward the tunnel, releasing her there. Winter rolled onto the ground. With a sigh of relief, Logan pulled himself in along the rope until he had found his balance again. He looked back at the pit, and beyond it, in the cave where Winter had been imprisoned, he saw several demons.

  He untied himself from the rope and helped Winter up. “You hurt?” he whispered.

  She shook her head.

  He snatched his backpack, took Winter’s hand and started running down the tunnel. After about a hundred yards, there was an intersection. Logan pulled out the map Winter had drawn and looked at it, holding it closer to one of the flames shooting out through the crevices in the rock.

  “This way,” he said.

  Winter put her hand on his arm and pointed to the map. “No. Those vortex circles are too close to the tunnels Zoltan and the other demons used. They’ll already have too many guards there.” She pointed to another circle where several tunnels converged. “This one is farther away. Chances are they haven’t reached it yet to add more guards.”

  “You’re right. Let’s go that way then.”

  They ran most of the way, hurrying as much as they could without making too much noise. On occasion, they had to consult the map. Logan was surprised at ho
w accurate it was, and glad for it. By his estimate, it took them about ten minutes to get close to the vortex circle. Logan could see it at the end of the tunnel.

  He stopped and pulled Winter close to him, so he could explain the next step.

  “We have to get to the vortex circle and get a demon to open a vortex for us so we can travel to the human world.”

  “Are you saying that I should try to influence a demon? I don’t know how to do that. I’ve never tried it. What if it doesn’t work?”

  Logan shook his head. “I have a better plan.” He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a vial. “Wesley gave me this. It’ll temporarily turn my eyes demon-green, and remove my aura, so the demons won’t realize that I’m a Stealth Guardian.”

  “You mean, you’ll be able to cast a vortex to get us out of here?”

  He shook his head. “Alas, no. But don’t worry. I have a plan. Do you trust me?”

  She nodded.

  “Then do exactly what I tell you to do once we reach the vortex circle.” He opened the vial and downed the liquid in it. “This had better work.” The potion tasted disgusting. He almost gagged.

  “Oh my God,” Winter whispered.

  “What?”

  She pointed to his eyes. “Demon eyes.”

  “Good. Let’s go. We’ll be visible now.” He paused for a second. “And sorry about this.”

  Before she could protest, he grabbed her by her bicep and led her toward the circle. In the distance he could hear shouting and footsteps approaching. Reinforcements. He had to act quickly.

  “Hey, you!” Logan addressed the guard who stood at the edge of the circle holding a clipboard.

  Almost bored, the demon said, “State your business.”

  “Orders from the Great One,” Logan said and dragged Winter closer. “He needs you to take her up top now. There’s a mutiny afoot.” He motioned to the tunnel from which sounds could be heard. “They want to kill her. It’s of the utmost importance to the Great One to hide this woman. Go! Take her up top.”