by Tina Folsom
But even if somebody had been able to note down the same strings of numbers she’d scribbled down, they would need a degree from MIT to figure out what they were looking at.
She started her calculations, using the calculator she’d taken from the big box store. The formula was complicated and the variables she had to use in order to get the correct outcome known only to the Stealth Guardians. They’d developed this method of finding the coordinates of the closest portal only a short while ago, after it had become clear that not all portals were located in a guardian compound.
The lost portals, as they were called, could be anywhere. A special task force had been established to locate all lost portals and catalogue them. She could only hope that this part of the country was already in the catalogue.
“What’s all this?” Wesley asked over her shoulder.
“Trying to find the coordinates of the closest portal.” She continued scribbling figures on her pad.
“Looks like math to me.”
She glanced up. “Scared of smart women?”
“Not of smart women, but smart-ass women,” he retorted and leaned down to her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “You’re a piece of work.” Then he winked. “But you do have a really cute ass.”
Shaking her head, she chuckled, then asked, “So you’re not mad at me anymore?”
“I didn’t say that. But if you want to appease me, I can tell you how.” He slid his hands over her shoulders, extending his fingers down her front, slowly dropping lower. “You got out of bed so quickly this morning.”
“Do you ever think about anything other than sex?” Though she had to admit, she was thinking of it, too. She was having to call on decades of discipline to help her push those thoughts into the background.
His mouth was at her ear, and his palms were on her breasts now. “I also think of the sounds you make when you come.” He gently massaged her boobs. “And the way you reacted when I woke you in the middle of the night.”
“Mmm.” At first she’d thought it was a dream when he started whispering naughty things to her, but his hands had shown her that it was real. And his cock had felt even better when he’d taken her the second time. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You have to stop this.” She grabbed hold of his hands and lifted them off her breasts.
“Later then,” he murmured into her ear and stepped back.
She felt his eyes on her back, but continued with her calculations. A few minutes later, she was done. She opened the map and spread it out on the table, then plotted the coordinates.
“There,” she said triumphantly.
Wes bent over the map. He pointed to another spot on the map. “And we’re here?”
She nodded. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour’s walk.” She folded up the map and rose. “Let’s pack up the trash and toss it in the dumpster behind the building. And then we need to burn the demon’s body.”
“How’re we gonna do that?”
She opened another shopping bag. “Lighter fuel and matches.”
Wesley grinned. “I’ve never liked going shopping with women, but somehow I feel like I wouldn’t mind shopping with you.”
15
It was easy to find the spot where they’d jumped out of the demon’s vortex the night before. It was just as easy to find the trash and debris behind which they’d hidden the dead demon’s body. Unfortunately it wasn’t at all easy to find the body itself: it had vanished.
“That’s impossible!” Virginia ground out.
Wesley scratched his head. Maybe the wound Virginia had delivered hadn’t been fatal and the demon had only been unconscious, not dead. “What if he was still alive?”
Virginia spun her head to him. “When I kill a demon, he’s fucking dead.”
He put a hand on her forearm. “Hey, easy. Nothing personal, okay? I saw you kill him. And he looked dead to me. I just wonder whether he could have played dead in the hopes that he’d get a chance to escape later.”
She slanted him an assessing look. “That might make sense for any creature other than a demon. But a demon doesn’t plan ahead that far, not in a situation of life and death. If there’d been any life left in him, he would have continued fighting. It’s an instinct. I’ve fought enough demons to know that. I hacked a demon’s arm off at the shoulder once, and he was staggering, losing blood faster than an open faucet, and he grabbed a dagger with his other hand and lunged for me. He didn’t have a prayer, but he tried with his last breath.” She met his gaze. “That demon was dead.”
Wesley let her words sink in. Admiration for the warrior in her collided with the fear that one day Virginia would come across a demon she couldn’t defeat. He didn’t voice either thought. Instead, another concern pushed to the forefront. “Then I think we have a problem. Somebody disposed of the demon’s body. And if it wasn’t you or me, or any of your colleagues, then it must have been another demon. If a human had found him, this place would be swarming with police.”
Virginia sucked in a visible breath. “Which could mean one of two things. And I don’t like either.”
Wes lifted his chin. “Meaning?”
“Either another demon knew where he was heading and came looking for him, or somebody followed us.”
“I don’t see how the second scenario is possible. How could they have tailed us? And if they had, why not follow us to the motel and kill us in our sleep?” After all, he and Virginia had been rather distracted while in bed. Anybody could have snuck up on them. He made a mental note to surround them with a guarding spell next time—though in his defense, he didn’t have his tools on him. They were probably still in the Baltimore compound, since Virginia hadn’t brought them along to the council meeting.
“Do you remember back in the Underworld when the guard at the vortex asked our friend to state his business?” Wes asked, suddenly remembering something.
Virginia’s eyes widened as the memory came back to her.
“He said he was going up top on somebody’s orders,” Wes added, though he couldn’t remember the name the demon had mentioned.
Virginia nodded. “On Vintoq’s orders.”
“Exactly. So whoever this Vintoq is, he knew where our dead demon was heading. And when he didn’t return, he must have sent somebody after him, or maybe even come himself.”
Virginia let her gaze roam. There were trees and bushes in the vicinity, an old shack maybe a quarter mile away, and a water tower in the distance. When she turned her gaze back to him, she leaned in.
“What if they’re still here watching us?”
“What for?”
“So they can follow us.”
“Why would they even suspect that we’d come back here? To the scene of the crime, so to speak.” Only an idiot criminal would do that—and he and Virginia, apparently.
“They’d expect us to return to dispose of the demon’s body because we can’t afford to let humans know what we’re dealing with. It would cause widespread panic.”
“But wouldn’t they assume that you’d remain invisible?”
She shook her head, and her red hair picked up the sunlight and shimmered like it was on fire. “Not necessarily. Cloaking takes a lot of energy. Even the demons know we can’t keep it up all the time. And out here, without any human around to witness us burning a body...” She shrugged. “They’d know there’s a good chance we wouldn’t cloak ourselves.”
“I see.” And considering what they’d gone through in the Underworld—and later—he was certain that Virginia was exhausted. “We should leave now.”
She nodded. “We have to be prepared that they might follow us.”
“That’s why I think it’s a bad idea to return to the council now.”
Virginia slanted him a suspicious look.
He sighed. “And, no, it’s not because I don’t want to land in that lead cell again.”
“Uh-huh.” She gave him a no-shit-Sherlock look.
“If they really are following us, then
the last thing we should do is have any contact with the council. You said yourself that they’re the leaders of your race. I’m taking a wild guess here, but when was the last time any of the council members went hand-to-hand with a demon?” When she hummed in agreement, he continued, “The best thing we can do is to transport to a compound where all they do, day in, day out, is fight demons.”
“Let me guess. You want me to transport us to the Baltimore compound.”
“Glad you agree.”
“You do know that the guardians at that compound have been breaking every rule in the book, right?”
Wes grinned broadly. “Anybody can follow the rules. But these guys can improvise. They’re perfect. And I trust them.”
“Fine, but if something goes wrong, I’ll have your hide,” she warned.
He drew her into his arms and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “You can have my hide anytime you want. I’m not opposed to being tied up and ridden like a bull if the woman riding me lets me admire her gorgeous naked body while she does so.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Impossibly sexy?”
“Impossibly annoying,” she shot back.
Wes slid his hand into her mane and pulled her head to him. Her flushed cheeks were too tempting, and if there wasn’t the chance that some demon was lurking in the shadows, he would take her right here. But he was smart enough to know when his desire for her had to take a backseat.
“You’ll get used to it, babe. Now let’s get out of here.”
~ ~ ~
Virginia had to grudgingly admit that Wesley was right. They couldn’t go meet the other council members. Most had been sitting on the council for many decades, some even for centuries. They weren’t warriors anymore, and while they had all learned how to wield a sword and a dagger in their youths, they were out of practice. They had other obligations and left the fighting to the young guardians, the men and women who lived in compounds all around the world, eager and prepared to do battle any day of the week. Willing to fight to the death. That was what they’d all signed up for.
She’d done the same back then. Trained and fought as a guardian in a compound. Protected humans worth protecting. Fought demons. Killed a lot them. But she’d made mistakes. Mistakes that had cost her compound dearly. Because she’d broken the rules, trusted the wrong person.
To repent she’d punished herself by vowing never to mate, and instead had signed up with the enforcers, an elite troupe of exceptional fighters who enforced their race’s rules. She’d undergone the most gruesome training and bowed to their stringent rules. And she’d managed to excel. All because she’d expelled emotion from her life.
Successfully.
Until now.
As they hiked toward the lost portal, Virginia cast Wesley a sideways look. He was everything she’d avoided for so many decades: a man who lived by his intuition, skirted the rules whenever it suited him, and didn’t seem to have a serious bone in his body. On top of that, he was driven by his desires—which turned out to be insatiable—and took every opportunity to rattle her, as if he found pleasure in seeing her lose her composure.
Any other man she would have beaten to a pulp by now. But there were other sides to Wesley that she had a hard time resisting: the man who risked his own life to save hers, the lover who made her body hum with pleasure, the witch whose skill both fascinated and frightened her.
And then there was the way he called her babe. And the way he looked at her with his baby-blues.
“Could that be it?” Wesley asked and pointed to a church that stood on a small hill, surrounded by tall grass that clearly nobody had mowed in months, if not years.
Virginia looked back at her map. “Seems so. It’s the only structure I can see. The portal needs something to anchor to, like a rock face or the side of a building, a wall, something with structure. It can’t be in the ground.”
“The portal I used in Sonoma was in a rickety old shack that was leaning against a boulder,” Wesley volunteered.
“One of the lost portals. The portals are centuries old. So the material they’re anchored to has to be old. In many cases it’s rock.”
“You said lost. What does that mean?”
“Until about a year ago we weren’t aware that there were any portals in places other than our compounds. But we were wrong. We’ve since found hundreds spread out all over the world. Not tied to any compound.”
“How do you think they came into existence?”
“We’re not sure.”
“Mmm.” Wesley ran a hand through his hair. “You said they have to be anchored to something like rock?”
She nodded. “Yes, or some other material that’s been around a long time.”
“Interesting. You think a portal could be moved?”
“Moved?” That thought had never occurred to her. “Like how?”
“Let’s say some company excavated a bunch of rock from a plot of land to clear it, and somewhere in all that rock was the entrance to a portal, and then somebody used it to build”—He pointed to the church—“a church or something. Would that stone still be the access point to the portal?”
She stopped walking. “Oh my God.” Wesley’s idea made sense. How could a witch who knew very little about their race have come to that conclusion? But it was logical, and it would explain the existence of the lost portals. It would explain so much.
“What?” he asked.
“How did you figure that out?”
He chuckled. “I’m good for more than just sex, you know.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Let’s go inside and find the portal.”
Inside the church it was musty. Nobody had let any fresh air inside in a long time. The windows were dirty, most of the pews had been ripped out. There was no artwork left, just one large wooden cross hanging behind a stone altar. To one side was an old confessional, but the doors had been removed, and the seats had been stripped of their upholstery, leaving small metal tacks sticking out from the wood.
Virginia headed straight for the altar, Wesley followed her. She examined the heavy stone, ran her palms over the rough surface to find the sign that indicated that this was the portal. Every inch of its surface she touched, but there was nothing. She looked up, meeting Wesley’s gaze.
“I don’t understand it. It must be here,” she said.
“Let’s check the rest of the place,” Wesley suggested, his voice calm as if he wanted to soothe her.
She nodded and traced every square foot of the church’s walls, every stone under her feet, while Wesley started at the other end of the building. With every minute that passed, she grew more nervous. Had she made an error in her calculation? One mathematical error, and her coordinates could be hundreds of miles off.
“Found it!”
Wesley’s triumphant voice made her spin around and practically sprint to where he stood: at the confessional. When she reached him, he pointed inside the area where the priest would sit. She followed his finger and saw it, too. The ancient dagger their race used to identify a portal was carved into the wall.
Quickly she pressed her palm against it and felt heat build beneath it. Moments later the portal opened behind the priest’s pew.
She looked over her shoulder, and Wesley nodded at her, indicating that she go first. Virginia stepped over the seat and jumped into the darkness, then turned and reached her hand out to Wesley.
As soon as Wesley was inside the portal, he put his arm around her waist.
“Drive carefully, will you? I get a little motion sick,” he said with a wink.
“It’ll be over before you know it,” she promised and concentrated on their destination.
Within seconds, they arrived. Virginia eased out of Wesley’s arms and adjusted her clothing. Now that they were back in the compound, where in a few moments they’d be around other Stealth Guardians, it was paramount that nobody found out what had happened between her and Wesley. If they did, it would undermine her posi
tion. Fraternizing with a prisoner—because technically Wesley was still her captive and his fate hadn’t been determined yet—was equivalent to treason.
Virginia stepped out of the portal and looked over her shoulder, watching as Wesley did the same. She met his eyes and took a breath, about to explain to him that any physical contact or familiarity between them had to cease. But she didn’t get a chance to speak.
A loud beeping suddenly sounded. She froze.
“What is that?” Wes asked, panic in his voice and eyes.
A high-pitched scream came from somewhere in the building, then a loud thud echoed through the corridor.
“Shit!” Virginia cursed.
“Demons?” Wes was already heading toward the stairs. “We have to help them.”
She gripped his forearm, jerking him back. “We need weapons.” She pivoted, away from the stairs and toward another corridor. “The arsenal is this way. Hurry!”
She charged ahead, her heart beating into her throat.
Had the demons managed to attack not just the council compound, but also the other compounds around the world? If they had, then she wasn’t sure all the weapons in the arsenal would be enough to defeat them.
16
The hell pit was a crater filled with bubbling tar that consumed anything unfortunate enough to fall into it. There was no surviving it; it was a slow, torturous death. Every leader of the Demons of Fear before Zoltan had used it to punish traitors among their kind, and it had become a useful deterrent. Which was the reason why Zoltan liked to assemble his demons around its edges—to remind them what would happen if they didn’t execute his orders. If they didn’t succeed in fulfilling their duties.
And they hadn’t succeeded.
Not this time.
They had failed miserably.
“You had bloodhounds, and still you couldn’t find the intruders!” Zoltan bellowed now, his voice thundering in the cavernous space.
