by Misty Dietz
Katherine’s skin prickled as a loud whoosh of air flushed through the space, compressing molecules until they quivered like jello shots spilled on the bar, and she thought her body would implode. When Ari lunged at Leviathan, he threw his sword, severing her braid as she spun away, raising her hand to freeze him mid-leap, encasing him in solid ice. Ari’s frozen prison was so thick it nearly blocked the entire width of the demolished hallway and made the black of his t-shirt appear a murky gray.
Leviathan flung the entire ice block out of the hallway onto the dance floor.
Katherine’s fingers wrapped around an exposed wall stud, trying to breathe. She could feel Ari yelling in the ice, trying to communicate, but looking at Leviathan, Katherine couldn’t remember how to reopen their pathway.
“I didn’t want to do that.” Leviathan sighed once more, then brought her tired gaze to Katherine. “You won’t have to worry about anything. I’ll keep a tight rein on Siolazar and his horde. I’ll also help you get this place fixed up in time for tomorrow’s busy crowd. Let me help, okay?”
Trading one problem for a more deadly one? “Let him go. Please.”
Leviathan stared at Katherine like she was actually considering it. “Would that make you happy?”
Katherine nodded, her pulse a heavy knock in her carotid. The archdemon seemed so calm. Too calm? It was surreal having a conversation with one she expected to loathe on sight. Was Satan’s daughter for real? Could she truly only want someone to understand her…
To like her?
If Katherine hadn’t experienced the trauma of losing her family because of her own horrible decision, she wouldn’t have given Leviathan the benefit of the doubt. But because she had…
She understood the desolation of isolation. The need to feel like you belong somewhere, anywhere. But everywhere you turn, people whisper and shun.
It crushes the soul.
Leviathan fingered the severed ends of her hair, then looked down at her hands like they were a stranger’s. Finally, she brought her gaze back to Katherine’s. “I want to please you, Guardian, but I believe he’d be as cranky as a vampire without blackout curtains if he was rescued by a woman. For that reason, we may want to let him figure it out himself. However, I will defer to your judgment.”
A trap? There was no way Leviathan would do as she asked…would she? And if she did, would that somehow come back to bite her?
Ari? Katherine tried their intimate pathway, but heard only static. She pressed her palms to her temples as the buzz grew louder. Leviathan took one step closer, a look of concern settling on her fine features. “Are you okay?”
God, no. Katherine dropped her hands to her sides and wriggled her fingers to try to get the feeling to return to them. “Fine. I’m completely fine.”
Leviathan held her gaze for a moment longer. Katherine brushed sweat from her temples even as she shivered. “If you really want to help, convince your siblings to stop attacking Unholy Inc night clubs and stop this awful search for a way to free Satan. As long as you don’t try to take the relic, I can repel the Rephaim on my own.”
Leviathan’s shoulders sank. “Sadly, I don’t think so, Katherine.”
“Don’t think what? That I can repel the Rephaim—”
“Well, that too, but even I cannot stop the other archdemons. The beauty of our creation is that we are implicitly self-directed. No one can influence us. Not our succubus mothers. Not even Lucifer, our father.”
A low sound like the chanting of a dozen bass voices seemed to come from far away. Katherine shook her head to clear it. “I don’t believe that.”
“Your disbelief in our self-determination doesn’t make it untrue.”
“You just don’t want to stop the other archdemons.”
“If it would make others believe in my goodness, I would stop my siblings any way I could.”
Leviathan had never looked so earnest, or so young.
“I don’t understand what you want then.”
Leviathan’s alabaster skin glowed with an otherworldly beauty. How could someone supposedly so evil be so lovely? “Exactly what I told you moments ago. Understanding, friendship, the chance to be seen as something other than the spawn of Satan.”
“But that’s exactly what you are. You’re a fallen angel’s daughter.” The low chanting in Katherine’s mind expanded, and the chandeliers in the main club areas began to rattle.
Leviathan glanced around with wide eyes as though only now hearing the chants for the first time. She raised a hand toward Ari’s ice prison.
Katherine jerked away from the wall stud. “Stop! If you do anything else to hurt him, I will destroy the relic!” It was out before she could stop the words. Destroying the Chains would mean her own immediate dispatch to Hell, but she was gambling on the archdemon being unaware of that clause in the Guardian rulebook.
But was it really a bluff? Looking at Ari in that ice coffin, she realized, yes, she’d do it if it meant saving his life. He was more powerful than her, and therefore more important in the fight against evil.
And of course, she loved him.
“I don’t want—or need—the relic, my dear,” Leviathan said. “The sins of my father are no more my own than you’re responsible for your father’s mistakes. I’d think you, more than anyone, would understand that.”
Yeah, she understood the whole sins-of-my-father trap, though it was so difficult to outrun the guilt. That kind of thing always managed to defy logic. The heart was never reasonable. It felt what it felt. Even when it knew a restless Viking would always have to leave her to feel whole.
She’d held Stark in her arms as he shook and spasmed violently, his heroin detox neither kind nor quick. She’d shushed him and sang to him and promised him that blunting the trauma of his past with opiates wasn’t the path to happiness.
Now, she wondered if she’d been lying to them both.
And she wondered if her fleeting memories of love—and her ever-present guilt—would ever go away and leave her in peace. Medicating them away was perhaps the path to contentment after all.
The room shattered in shards of ice that shot outward at velocities that pierced concrete blocks. Shards the size of daggers stopped twelve inches from her face, then zoomed backwards by the pull of Ari’s hands. He shook ice from his hair and rematerialized his sword as he advanced on Leviathan, glancing at Katherine once more.
“Get your head in the game, Kat! Lucifer has been the father of lies since time began. Lying and manipulating is all archdemons know. You’re smarter than this, come on!”
“So circumstances of birth and nurturing are one hundred percent unalterable?” she fired back.
“Of course not.” He kept his eyes on the archdemon, who’d now rematerialized to a more defensive spot near the exit to the pool terrace, looking all around her like she was going to be ambushed. Katherine could only see her because the hallway walls were obliterated.
So tired of all this. But she needed to see to her people. “You must think so, though, if you’re so vehement about this. And if you believe that, what must you think of me?” After all, she’d had an alcoholic father who’d blamed her for her sister’s death.
The kicker was, it was true.
Her father had killed her mother because she couldn’t stop grieving for their lost child, then he’d shot himself in remorse for murdering his wife.
All because she’d begged Mary to come into the water.
“She’s twisting this all around. Human beings and demons aren’t subject to the same rules. You’re not your father, Kat. You never were, and you never will be.”
“You don’t know that. We became Guardians in the first place because we were rotten examples of humanity. Perhaps I’m one meltdown away from…”
Becoming my father.
Ari’s lips were moving like he was yelling at her, but she couldn’t hear him all of a sudden. Her vision grew hazy. She slid slowly down the sanctorum door to her haunches. She blinked, feeling anot
her increase in air pressure and the sounds of chanting before an air mass enveloped her. Leviathan’s face registered alarm as she spun in all directions as though looking for an invisible threat. Katherine’s heart pounded as she attempted to get to her feet.
Ari was chanting something she should recognize. It felt familiar, but she couldn’t place it. The air vibrated, and the walls that hadn’t been leveled shook. Then she heard the voices of several Unholy Inc partners—Nate, Spencer, Jinx, even Alexios—join in on the incantation.
Kat, add your voice to ours. Ari’s push into her mind was so potent her vision blacked out for a moment.
Ut fiat templum Dei vivi, et Spiritus Sanctus habitat in eo…
Katherine tried to form the powerful words the telepathically-linked Guardians were using to cast out the darkest evil, but the phrases wouldn’t come. Her eyes locked with Leviathan’s. The archdemon’s gaze held sadness, her face tight like tissue over rock, the luminescence of her skin now a pasty gray. “I know it’s hard for you to trust one such as me. I’ll go now, but think about my words. We’re not so different. Together we can protect this island from the Rephaim. From the other archdemons even. I swear it.”
Ari snarled the final words of the incantation, and the room detonated in a light so bright it whitewashed the blue-painted ceiling.
Before Katherine’s vision restored, she was hoisted into Ari’s arms. Leviathan’s abrupt departure was a relief, but also a little like…
Loss.
She couldn’t begin to understand why. What was the point of any of this struggle between good and evil? Why did she care? And why did she choose to come back to an eternity of this shit?
Talk about a lack of foresight.
Ari’s arms tightened as his steps slowed. She dashed at the infernal watering of her eyes. “Put me down, I’m not going to break.”
When he set her on her feet, her surroundings came back into focus. He’d brought her into the kitchen, facing the storage room door where he’d compelled Jade and AQUA’s core staff in order to keep them safe. As soon as he unwarded the door and dissipated the air pressure against it, Kat’s team stumbled into the kitchen, talking all at once.
“Shut up, all of you, I’ve had enough social interaction for one day,” she said, trying to find her reserve of anger to overcome this awful sense of vulnerability and hopelessness. Her team deserved better than this…from her and from life. Anger had been her go-to emotion for decades. Rage, don’t fail me now. “Where’s Kai? If you’ve lost him, you’ll wish the Rephaim had gotten to you after all.”
“You planning to kill everyone, or are you just gonna eat us and spit us out?” Jade grabbed Katherine into a fierce hug, whispering into her ear, “Thank God, you’re okay. I thought you were done for.”
Me, too, she thought.
“If she ate you, her stomach acid would kill you, so you’re fucked either way,” Stark said.
“If Kat assassinated everyone who annoyed her, it wouldn’t be homicide it’d be the Apocalypse,” Ari drawled. Everyone snickered, but only she saw the worry in his eyes.
Drawing back from Jade, Katherine smothered the urge to lay down and never get up. “Strange how humor darkens in correlation to vile circumstances. I’m not always a bitch, you know. Sometimes I’m asleep. NOW, IS KAI HERE OR NOT?”
“Relax, boss, he lit out when that gray-skinned monster blew open the doors, but Leviathan brought him back and trussed him up on the stage, neat as a bow,” Stark said, grimacing when Jade smacked the back of his head.
“You idiot, all you needed to say is ‘he’s here.’”
“Konani and Maddox designed a new Trap on the stage and weighed Kai down with iron chains, so he’s not going anywhere,” Ari said behind her. She felt him move closer and lay his hand at the small of her back. She allowed herself a moment to absorb his warmth and solace because she wasn’t sure what to do next. Siolazar was on the prowl, half of her club lay in ruins, and Leviathan was…what exactly?
A tormented, but neutral soul? An unexpected ally? Pure evil?
Not knowing if you could trust someone was quite possibly the most unsettling feeling of all.
But Ari was trying to keep everyone—including her—calm. Kai was on the premises and the Holy Chains were still safeguarded, so she supposed she should be grateful.
Turning back to Ari, she saw dark shadows under his eyes and a drawn pallor to his face before he quickly put up another smile. That white light exorcism bomb he’d orchestrated with the telepathic help of her Unholy Inc partners had obviously fatigued him. Of course, she’d never had the kind of power it took to initiate one, but she’d never imagined anything would require Ari to recharge so strongly.
She frowned, clasping her fists at the sudden tightness in her chest. Not good. Especially when she was in no shape to protect him. “We need to make fresh salt lines across all the windows and doors. After that, Maddox, see if you can get some contractors in here to clean up this disaster. Stark and Konani, make sure our weapons—especially the Molotov cocktails—are topped off and ready. Jade, call the other members of the team to make sure they made it home okay, and then put your feelers out there to see if we can locate Father Angus.”
They were going to need him as desperately as she needed sleep.
Please let me regenerate this time. Normally, if she brought Ari with her, it’d go a long way to healing them both. Even more so if they made love. But she couldn’t expose him to the burden of her dread, thoughts of Siolazar and Leviathan chasing away any hope of rest. And what if whatever she had—this darkness inside—was somehow contagious? He’d already felt slivers of her experience.
No, she wouldn’t expose him. So she’d try to lay down and quiet her mind…alone.
Yeah, right. She’d never be able to fall asleep, wondering when the demons would come again. Would it be hours? Days?
The only certainty was that they would come.
As her team dispersed to fulfill their duties, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck suddenly stood on end. She spun to face the wall of small, square windows above the kitchen prep counter. Her heart pounded inexplicably as she stared out into the dark Hawaiian night that shared no secrets.
Seconds later, the Waikiki Beach sirens began to wail.
Chapter 12
Ari stood on the stage where Kaikoa had curled into a mumbling ball in the middle of the Devil’s Trap, weighed down by more than a hundred pounds of chains. At the bar to his left, Kat was talking to Stark, looking deceptively strong. But it was a façade. He’d bet his prized shield that Leviathan was the one behind this current city-wide emergency, not the Rephaim, like Kat believed. There probably wasn’t even an emergency. It was likely another stunt meant to further unravel Kat’s nerves.
Why couldn’t she see through Leviathan’s lies? Her ploy seemed so obvious. Yet the archdemon had some kind of hold on his compar, fabricating a shared life experience based on Kat’s grim childhood.
He jumped down from the stage and crossed the dance floor toward what was left of the hallway. He retrieved his sword from the rubble instead of materializing it in order to conserve strength. That nuclear-style Guardian light bomb he’d detonated with Kat’s partners’ help had emptied his tank more than he’d expected. He reached into the ether to thank the Unholy Inc. team.
No worries, mate. How’s Kat? Nate asked.
You in over your head, Viking? This from Jinx.
Things are a little rough at the moment, but it’s nothing we can’t handle, he pushed back, hoping they didn’t pick up on the sirens still roaring in the background. They didn’t need to know the details—they had their own problems to deal with. Kat would agree. She was so proud, always unwilling to ask for help. Always wanting to do everything on her own. He loved and deplored that about her.
And if he stood here one minute more, ruminating like some jackass, he’d run his sword through himself.
A hand on his arm stopped him before he lurched out the
front door to figure out why the sirens were sounding.
“You leave her now, and I don’t care how much you outweigh me, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
He turned to face Jade. “Leviathan’s getting to Kat. She’s got to be the reason for Kat’s failure to thrive around me. I need to put this threat behind us.”
“Are you nuts? You can’t take on an archdemon by yourself. Why don’t you call on some of the other Guardian free agents?”
“I already have. But most of them are assisting in areas more vulnerable than Waikiki. Since the Seam opened, Leviathan is the only one of Satan’s five offspring and their attending legions who hasn’t laid siege to a Guardian stronghold yet. Other free agent Guardians will be here as soon as they can.”
“What about Nate and Jessie? They got rid of Asmodeus.”
“Yes, but they’ve still got their hands full with the fallout. Asmodeus is back in Hell, but now they’re dealing with his demon horde. And they’ve never known what it’s like to give in to their own terrible desires instead of the whims of their controlling archdemon.”
“Well, okay, but leaving Kat when she needed you is why she lost trust in you three years ago. I thought you finally realized that.”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “When I brought you here, I thought she’d see it as an act of commitment.”
“Leaving as an act of commitment? Come on, Grimm,” she scolded, eyebrows pulled low. “Her past wired her brain to believe that everyone always leaves. Think about your motives for leaving in the first place. Yeah, you found me, but that’s incidental. She didn’t ask you to find me, but you seem to think that because you did, she should automatically forgive you and get over her fear of abandonment. Well, think again.” Jade poked him in the chest. “Why couldn’t you stay in the first place? Were you afraid of Kat’s grief…and maybe your own?”
