Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  Charlie took a deep breath, seemed to think about it before nodding. “Okay. Drifter said you might have questions for me, though.”

  “I do. Jake, do you have a cropped photo of the suspect?”

  “Right here.”

  While Charlie studied the vampire’s picture, Taylor glanced up at Michael, found him staring down at her. His eyes were fully obsidian. He was apparently feeling deeply about something, but his face offered no clues to which emotion. She arched her brows in question, then quickly looked away when his gaze fell to her mouth.

  Jesus. He needed to stop doing that. It put all kinds of stupid ideas into her head.

  “I don’t know this guy,” Charlie said. “But I’m sure he’s not part of the Seattle community. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”

  “Telling us where he’s not from helps us, too. Jake’s got everyone looking, so I’m sure we’ll have an ID soon.” Taylor took the photo, vanished it into her hammerspace for her own reference. “How close were you to Mark?”

  “Not close enough to text each other every day or anything, but when he was in town, we went out for drinks or he came to see me at the theater.”

  “Did you talk about the Guardians? Vampires?”

  “Both. That’s pretty much all we ever talked about. I think because . . . well, I don’t know anything about politics. He doesn’t know anything about running a theater. But I was the only person he could talk with about vampires and Guardians. So that’s what we did.”

  Considering how her own friendship with Savi began, Taylor understood that perfectly. “What was his attitude when he spoke of them? I’ve heard that he shot you once. That he thought you were evil.”

  “He did. He went crazy for about a half hour, right after he found out that a vampire had killed his dad and that a nephil had possessed his dad’s body. But after that . . . ?” She lifted her shoulders, spread her hands. “As far as I could tell, he accepted that vampires are just like people. Some good, some bad. He hated demons, though. Especially Sammael, but that’s because Mark was still hung up on Jane.”

  Jane, who knew what Sammael really was but believed his pretty lies because they made her happy. Taylor thought that wasn’t the blindness of love, but more like willful self-deceit.

  But she wouldn’t tell Jane’s sister that. “And Guardians?”

  “He didn’t like some of the secrecy around Special Investigations, but he understood it. And with Guardians themselves, he seemed okay, right?” She glanced up at Drifter, then over to Jake. “You guys have both been around when he’s visited, and his shields are pretty thin. I didn’t hear anything negative.”

  Drifter nodded. “She’s right on there. If he was harboring any animosity toward us, then he was awful good at concealing it.”

  “Yep,” Jake said.

  Taylor looked to Charlie again. “So you don’t think he would make a video exposing us?”

  “No. If you asked about his dad, then yes. That was what the senator had been trying to do when he was killed. But not Mark. Maybe especially because his dad wanted to.” Her brows drew in, and she chewed on her lip for a second. “That’s the other thing Mark talked about, now and again. That book that came out about his dad. It mentioned other men, too, and was just vague enough that Mark felt he was implicated by association. He said it had already screwed his career.”

  And a demon had permanently screwed it. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “About six weeks ago. We met at Cole’s for drinks. Well, I didn’t drink. But you know.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual? Did he mention meeting anyone new, anyone hanging around?”

  “No. He asked me how Jane was doing, because he always does. He asked me how I was doing. He was kind of down, but that wasn’t really unusual. And he brought himself out of it by the time I had to go.”

  “Anything since then? Any plans for another drink?”

  “No. Mark said that he expected it would be summer before we met up again.”

  But they wouldn’t. Taylor saw the realization hit her, the renewed grief.

  “All right. I think that’s it for now. And listen, Charlie—” When moisture pooled in the vampire’s eyes, Taylor reached out, gripped her cool hand, and offered a comforting squeeze. “We believe that Mark held out against a demon’s manipulation—and probably a vampire’s threats—for several weeks. If you can’t help wondering what happened to him on that video, remember this: He was strong, he fought, and he didn’t give up. He didn’t break. He beat them. That was why they killed him. Because they played their games, but he won.”

  Heavy tears slipping over her cheeks again, Charlie nodded. “I will. Thank you.”

  Charlie could thank her when she found the fuckers. God, this never got easier. Taylor watched as Drifter wrapped his arms around the vampire and tenderly drew her in to let her cry against his chest. She glanced up. Michael was looking at her again, eyes still obsidian.

  Or maybe he’d never looked away.

  She made herself focus. “Will you give Jake the cameras from the scene? Jake, can you ask someone to get the pictures loaded onto a computer for us to look at later?”

  “Can do,” Jake said.

  And she needed to examine the body after they were done with the video. But there was something else . . .

  What?

  Maybe because he’d been staring at her face, Michael didn’t miss her wracking her brain. “What bothers you?”

  “Something’s nagging at me.” She’d seen something or heard something that might matter, but until she remembered what it was, she couldn’t know whether it did. But she could feel it lurking in the back of her brain, a loose connection waiting to happen. “When we’re done here, I want to go back to his house. Retrace our steps. I missed something.”

  Michael nodded. “We’ll re—”

  He vanished in the middle of the word. Taylor blinked.

  A hush fell around her as Guardians quieted. Faint emotions brushed against her shields, originating from a strong mind but weakened by distance. A taste of anger, grief, fear. Taylor knew that mind. She recognized the psychic scent even as other Guardians spoke it: Lilith.

  Rage shattered against her shields, icy shards that stabbed through her brain. Taylor gasped and stumbled. She knew that mind, too.

  Michael.

  She leapt for Jake, caught his hand, and held on. He jumped and she spun into a hell of splintered wood, melting portraits, and the stench of burning silk. Savi’s parlor. Heat blasted her face, tightening her skin.

  Jake jumped again and she was outside, her knees crashing into the paved driveway next to Lilith’s feet. Jake vanished.

  Michael appeared in front of her, Maggie Wren in his arms. He set her down. The butler bent over and puked.

  Michael disappeared again. Back into the house, Taylor realized. She struggled to stand, horror crashing into disbelief as she took it in. The front of the mansion was gone. A ragged hole in the roof gaped open as if a bomb had exploded inside. Everything burned.

  A monster burst from the flames shooting from the roof. Her gun popping into her hand, Taylor aimed—and stopped herself an instant before Lilith’s foot lashed out, knocking the weapon from her grip.

  Not a monster. Sir Pup.

  In his giant three-headed form and his eyes blazing with hellfire, he jumped down to the driveway. In one bound, he landed in front of Lilith and dropped two bloody lumps to the ground.

  Oh, God.

  Two left hands, neatly severed at the wrists. A man’s and a woman’s, tanned skin and dark, platinum rings circling their third fingers.

  At the touch of the sun, Savi’s fingers began crumbling to ash. Taylor lurched forward but Hugh was already there, covering the hands with a shirt he must have ripped from his chest.

  With a whimper, Sir Pup vanished the hands and glanced up at Lilith.

  “Look again,” Lilith said hoarsely. “Please.”

  Faster than Taylor could t
rack, Sir Pup spun back toward the house. His enormous body crashed through the front door just as Jake appeared beside them again.

  And Michael was still in there.

  “I couldn’t find them,” Jake said, then grabbed Taylor’s wrist when she started forward. “Not a chance. He told me to get out. There’s no one alive in there.”

  No one alive. Taylor stared at the house, helplessness tearing a hole in her gut. Beside her, Maggie steadied and wiped her mouth, her psychic scent reeling with sick horror. Sir Pup ran across the porch and onto the driveway, shaking his heads.

  Where was Michael? She could feel him, his psychic sweeps slamming against her shields in repeated blows. Still searching for Colin and Savi—or searching for the demons who’d killed them.

  Then he was there in the driveway, a big four-poster bed beside him, the curtains in flames. He ripped them down and vanished the burning fabric. Pain and grief ripped through Taylor’s chest, locked her throat. Body-sized piles of vampire ash lay on the mattress. Two bloodied spots marred the sheets.

  But . . . why hadn’t the blood turned to ash when the bodies had?

  Even as she watched, one of the spots ashed in the sun. Savi’s blood. Colin’s would last longer. His body should have, too.

  Lilith was frowning. “Is that where you found their hands? On the bed?”

  The hellhound answered with three vigorous nods.

  Taylor shook her head, still trying to catch up. “Why cut off their hands first?”

  “It’s not Colin and Savi,” Michael said. “And I can’t sense them. Colin might have his shields up, but Savi would be sleeping.”

  “So they are probably behind the shielding spell,” Hugh said.

  “Yes.”

  Jake nodded. “I’ll get Drifter and start the search,” he said and vanished.

  Lilith looked to Sir Pup. “See if you can pick up a scent. A twenty-mile radius, to start.”

  Not Colin and Savi. The memory of those bloody hands still in her mind, Taylor didn’t dare believe it. Not yet. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” Michael said, and hope lifted through her. “The demons must have expected the hands to burn before we arrived. We would have only found ash and their rings.”

  “But we were only a few blocks away when it blew,” Hugh said, then he looked to Maggie. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I only heard Mr. Ames-Beaumont on the intercom. He asked me to bring a DVD up from the basement.” Maggie shook her head, her normally impassive expression a mask of stunned confusion. Taylor thought that her own expression probably looked the same. “That basically means, ‘Get down to the safe room and call the Guardians.’ But I didn’t have time to make the call. I barely had time to shut the door.”

  “Then who are they?” Taylor gestured to the ash on the bed.

  Scooping up a handful, Michael brought the ash to his nose. Taylor sucked in a sharp breath. His fingers were blistered and raw. The darkness of his suit had concealed the charring of the fabric, but now she saw the burns through to his skin. At the back of his neck. His feet.

  The burns were healing even as she looked, but her stomach clenched up sick and tight. He’d vanished his shoes before going in. What kind of idiot got rid of his shoes before running through a fire? She wanted to yell at him.

  She wanted to cry. Afraid that she might start doing exactly that, she clamped her jaw and waited.

  “One is the vampire who killed Brandt,” he said.

  Damn it. This wasn’t how she’d wanted to see justice served. And they still didn’t know who he was. “So the demon did have another use for him.”

  “Yes.” He inhaled again, shook his head. “I don’t recognize the other. Female. Vampire. I can’t smell anything else.”

  “We’ll have to figure it out later.” Lilith turned her head toward the approaching sirens. “Hugh and I will take care of this. Just find Colin and Savi—and, Taylor, don’t get distracted. Brandt and those videos are still your strongest leads to find whoever set this up. Wren, you go with them.”

  Maggie nodded. “We need to bring Geoff, too.”

  Colin’s nephew—and another possible target. “Has anyone checked on Katherine?”

  “I’m sending Selah to London now.” Hugh looked up from his phone. “How long do we have?”

  Lilith’s expression was bleak. “Without the Rules to protect them, every second is going to be too long. The demons will play with them first.”

  “Yes, and that will be their mistake.” Darkness filled Michael’s eyes. His voice was an icy, terrifying thrum. “We will have enough time. We will find them. And the demons will regret they ever left Hell, because they would find more mercy there.”

  And for the first time since Michael pushed his way into her head, Taylor wanted to believe every single word he said.

  But it wasn’t enough to hope they were true. She’d damn well make them true.

  “Let’s pin these demon bastards down,” she said.

  CHAPTER 7

  The only problem with pinning demons down: The fuckers were damn slippery.

  Watching a vampire kill Mark Brandt on video didn’t yield any surprises. Neither did her examination of his body. She made herself slow down and carefully inspect each photo from the crime scene, though every beat of her heart seemed to push her faster and faster, chanting the same refrain. No time, no time. Every second was another that Savi and Colin were in the demons’ hands.

  The new offices were quiet. Except for Rosalia, who’d set up a little war room and was keeping lines open to vampire communities around the world—while using her Gift to keep Deacon from burning and Charlie awake—almost everyone was out searching for a hint of the direction the demons had taken Colin and Savi, or even how they’d taken them. By air, by vehicle.

  The reports coming in had been depressingly thin on info. The only thing that was clear: The demons had been organized. They’d been prepared. And they’d been quick about it. So organized, prepared, and quick that all of the Guardians had begun to assume there were more than one.

  But maybe that was just to make themselves feel better.

  Taylor finished with the pictures and started sorting through the garbage. One receipt. Five days ago, someone had paid cash for a sausage biscuit at a drive-through. Taylor set it aside. She couldn’t go there now, but she would soon. Michael, Jake, and Selah were popping in and out. She’d hitch a ride with one of them—and try to use whatever pull her badge had left to grab surveillance.

  Taylor glanced at the clock when Lilith showed up. Just a few minutes after noon. Jesus. Only five hours had passed since watching Mark Brandt’s first video. This had been the longest day of her life, and it wasn’t even close to over.

  Taylor vanished Brandt’s garbage and intercepted Lilith. “Anything new?”

  “No. You?”

  “Not yet.”

  Mouth tight, Lilith nodded and continued to the desk where Maggie and Geoffrey Blake had set up shop. Both had phones growing out of their ears. When Maggie hung up and shook her head, worry and sickness began gnawing at the anger that had carried Taylor through the past hours. Still trying to locate Katherine. Still not having any luck.

  Lilith didn’t wait for Geoff to finish his call. She focused on Maggie. “I’ve already heard it through the others, but I want to hear it from you. What happened before it blew?”

  Taylor had already heard. Maggie Wren, the butler who saw everything, hadn’t seen anything. Just Colin over the intercom. She’d made it to the safe room. Normally, Colin would have followed—or would have at least taken Savi down there.

  But he hadn’t. And the only reason Taylor could imagine why he wouldn’t was that the demons had already been in the bedchamber. They’d already gotten to Savi, lying helpless and asleep in their bed.

  If it kept her safe, Colin would have gone as quietly as they wanted. He’d have agreed to anything.

  “The housekeepers came in at eight,” Maggie said. “Al
l of them were human, and they all checked out on the scanners coming and going. Mr. Ames-Beaumont always stays in his bedchamber while they work. The housekeepers have no access to that floor. They left at nine thirty. I counted heads as they left. Usually, we put up the shielding spell around the house at that time, and Mr. Ames-Beaumont paints or watches movies while she sleeps. But after we heard about the video and Brandt’s murder, along with the list of addresses, he kept the shields lowered so that we could keep communications open. He remained in the bedchamber. I was in the kitchen at nine fifty-five when his request for the DVDs came over the intercom.”

  “No shields.” Lilith clenched her teeth, whipped around. If there’d been anything to kick, Taylor thought it would have been flying across the room right now. “No shields, because I called and told him about the list. And because I told him we were coming to back him up.”

  And that was what the distraction had really been about, Taylor thought. The demons broke Colin’s usual pattern. They’d just managed to slip in before Lilith and Hugh arrived.

  “Of course Colin kept the shields open,” Taylor said. “He leads this community. He’d want to know what was going on before everyone else woke up, and if he needed to protect his vampires.”

  “Yes.” Lilith leveled a flat stare at her. “I know this. Don’t worry about me, Agent Taylor. I don’t do guilt. Whatever my part in this, whatever is my fault, whatever I should have seen and did not—I will make sure that Colin pays for it when we get him back.”

  That sounded just fine to Taylor.

  The shift of Lilith’s attention told Taylor someone had arrived behind her. Two someones—Selah and Michael. In his short toga again, all bronze skin and ropes of muscle, his eyes obsidian. For once, Taylor appreciated the Big Badass Warrior look. It eased the sick worry in her gut, just a little.

  Until Geoff hung up his phone. His psychic shields were strong, but she read the fear and unease in the lines of his face.

  With unerring focus, he looked to Michael. Taylor didn’t know how Geoff did it—he’d been born without pupils, and his eyes were just irises and whites—but he always knew who was in a room, and often responded as if he’d seen expressions, not just heard words.