Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  A small line formed between her brows. Concentrating. Reaching for the Gifts she’d used before—his ability to teleport and heal. Good. Her experience would make this easier.

  “It will feel similar to mine, but will come from within you.”

  “Yours came from within me.”

  “Only because I was there, too. This is your weapon, your defense. If Lucifer appears behind you, how will you save yourself?”

  “I’d call in my gun.”

  “You have no guns. You are naked and alone and there’s no one to help you.”

  A bitter smile twisted her mouth. “You aren’t there to protect me?”

  “I’m already dead. You felt it, you saw it.” Calling in a knife, Michael sliced his wrist so that she could smell it. “My guts spilled out around Lucifer’s sword, and my blood splattered on your face when he tore off my head.”

  “Jesus, Michael.”

  Silently, he teleported behind her, used Lucifer’s voice. “He won’t help you, either.”

  She lurched forward. Her Gift opened through her shields, a crystalline version of her psychic song, each note perfectly clear.

  Pain vanished. Ravenous desire roared to the surface, a fire raging beneath his skin. Unfamiliar, unbidden.

  Make her mine.

  Not now. He didn’t want to cool his arousal or stamp out the flames, but this wasn’t the time to act on it. Still caught in the grip of fear, Andromeda whipped around, gun in hand. She froze, her eyes widening. Confusion jolted through her mind.

  Michael followed her gaze. She was staring at Fazeal, pinned to the cavern wall. “What do you see, Andromeda?”

  “I don’t know . . . I can’t . . . He’s glowing.”

  “You see a light?”

  “Yes. It’s bright and all around him. Like when you transformed me.” She tilted her head. “But it doesn’t blind me. I can still see the demon through it. And the glow isn’t lighting up the rocks.”

  “What do you see when you look at me?”

  Her gaze ran from his feet to his eyes. “You’re dark. Not not glowing. The glow is dark, but it’s not a shadow. Does that make any sense?”

  “It makes sense. But I don’t know what it means.”

  “No one has had a Gift like this before?”

  Michael couldn’t determine that yet. “Some have seen colors, lights—but they indicated different things for each Guardian. Anaria saw truth as a color, but Hugh never did. Perhaps you will have to associate the dark and light with something a person is thinking or feeling. It’s probably an association that you’ve already made. A Gift doesn’t come in a form you can’t interpret.”

  “And it’s supposed to reflect some part of my human life, right?”

  “Yes.” And not always the most welcome aspects of that life.

  The clear sound of her Gift faded, her mind hidden again behind her psychic shields.

  His need didn’t fade with it.

  “At least nothing exploded,” she said. “Although explosions would be more useful than seeing people glow.”

  “Don’t assume that. Some Gifts are more dangerous than others, but they are never useless.” He called in his sword. “Can you find your Gift again?”

  She had to concentrate for a few seconds. Then her mind opened all at once, the beautiful and perfect melody that was Andromeda, with triumph pulsing beneath.

  Make her mine.

  Michael closed his throat against a groan. That song was pure pleasure to his senses, called to a deep, echoing need within him. To possess, to claim.

  He couldn’t do either. A woman couldn’t be taken. Michael could only give himself.

  And it would have to be enough.

  “I got it open.” Andromeda glanced at him. “This time it was easy.”

  “Good.” Purpose rose through the sweet ache of his arousal. He stepped closer to the demon hanging against the cavern wall. “Don’t look away from Fazeal.”

  With a single swing, he chopped the blade through the demon’s neck. Steel rang against stone. Shock chimed another hard note through Andromeda’s mind, followed by regret.

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” she said softly. “I know we have to slay them, but . . .”

  “I know.” Michael preferred a fight, too. But he would not give the demon a chance to hurt either of them. The resignation in Andromeda’s psychic song said that she understood that as well. “What did you see?”

  “The light went away. Not vanishing, exactly. More like it was . . . sucked away.”

  Michael frowned. Though he’d expected the glow to disappear, he’d never heard of anything quite like that.

  “Maybe I’m seeing life?” Andromeda suggested. “But why would yours be dark, then?”

  If that were true, Michael could guess why his might be dark. He wouldn’t make the assumption that she saw life, however. If demons could conceal themselves as rocks, such a Gift would serve a purpose. But he couldn’t imagine what use it would be to Andromeda. “You can’t know that you’re seeing life. The glow could be many things. The demon’s desperation. The strength of its psychic shields.”

  She nodded. “Or his fear after seeing Lucifer?”

  “Yes,” Michael said, though he knew that wasn’t likely. If Andromeda sensed fear, she would have seen Michael glowing like an angel.

  Not just because of Lucifer’s power. Not just because Michael feared that he wouldn’t be able to defeat him. No, he was terrified because Lucifer had seen Michael’s love for her—and somehow, the demon was communicating with his sentinels on Earth.

  He would protect her. But if he failed, she would have to rely on the other Guardians, on her own skills, and on her Gift to do the same.

  Explosions might have eased some of that worry. That wasn’t her Gift . . . but she needed to carry something more dangerous than a gun.

  And a glowing light wasn’t it.

  CHAPTER 8

  So she could see auras or something. Maybe she’d become a medium and play parlor games with a crystal ball. She might have had more luck figuring out the identity of the vampire who’d killed Brandt.

  She might be a little closer to finding Savi.

  Even discovering that sentinels were behind Brandt’s murder didn’t help there. Michael had dug the sentinel’s name out of Fazeal’s head—Jophiron—but it didn’t tell them where the cadre had been or where they were keeping Colin and Savi. It didn’t tell them how the demons had gotten their info. It didn’t tell them what human identity the demon was using, if it was using one at all. And it didn’t fill in the missing piece nagging at the back of Taylor’s head.

  Khavi was still shielded, so Taylor texted what they’d learned to Lilith and asked Michael to teleport her back to Seattle. Retracing her steps. And even though she hadn’t gotten any farther than the roof of Brandt’s house last time, she could trail the investigators and listen in.

  So she did. She discovered that she’d have won her million-dollar wager, though it hadn’t been the anonymous call she’d expected—someone had sent the video of Brandt’s murder directly to the local cops. They did exactly what Taylor would have done. Start tracing the e-mail. Catalogue the evidence they had, print everything to a hard copy, then copy it again. Then list everything that had vanished, checking their memories against the remaining photos.

  Lots of legwork, and all of it took time. Too much time. Before long, Taylor was wishing that she’d kept that damn drive-through receipt for herself, just to have something else to do. She’d assumed that she would be busier than this. She’d worried that her useless badge wouldn’t get as far as Bradford’s agents could. Now she would have considered stealing the surveillance equipment just so she wouldn’t be sitting on her hands.

  Then Michael vanished and returned a second later with Brandt’s manifesto and the list of addresses, and she could have kissed him. There wasn’t anything new there, but at least there was something to do.

  She read through it while the detectives and
techs tried to figure out how much evidence had disappeared. Beside her, Michael kept vanishing and reappearing—teleporting to all of the vampires’ residences, she realized. She knew he didn’t expect to find anything, but he still went to look.

  Good thing, too. She could imagine the demons including the address where they’d taken Colin and Savi as a big “fuck you”—like serial killers sending clues to the police, because they couldn’t tolerate not being appreciated for their cleverness.

  After a few minutes, though, Michael returned and shook his head. Taylor sighed and began revisiting the photos she’d stolen from the detectives, aware of Michael vanishing now and again—always returning to her side within a minute or two, and her thoughts returning to him almost as often.

  It shouldn’t have been this easy to be with him. She should have been on her guard. He’d torn that demon’s mind apart and ripped out its memories just by using his Gift. He could stab spikes through a demon’s head and pull out its spine without blinking. He could encounter Lucifer in Hell and say he was terrified, but the only time she’d ever heard his heart beat faster was when he’d been thinking about tasting her.

  She should have been wary of that, too. Of every look that lingered on her mouth, each one hotter and longer than the one before. Of the way he held her when they teleported, which was far closer than necessary. And she should have been wary of how she found herself wanting to kiss him—and how she never stepped away as quickly as she could.

  So stupid. And this comfortable silence with him even stupider. She should have been wishing for Joe and the way they’d talk a case through. At moments like this, when there was little to do, Joe would have been pulling out some clipping he’d found in a newspaper, one of those “bizarre news” stories that he liked so much, which were usually less bizarre and more about stupid criminals doing stupid things or about lonely people who did crazy things to feel less lonely. Would-Be Thief Waits for Closing Hours in Walk-In Freezer of 24-Hour Restaurant or Police Find Collection of 500 Mummified Cats in Old Woman’s House.

  Taylor had always thought that after her mom and Jason were gone, only her job would keep her from becoming the lady with the cats. But then the Guardians had shown up, and she’d gotten a few steps away from Unhinged Cop Claims to See Demons and Vampires Everywhere.

  Except . . . that had become normal. Even having Michael in her head had become normal, after a while. Not those first awful months, when he’d tried to kill Deacon and took over her brain without asking, but the months that followed. After they’d come to an agreement that he could take over her body and save her, but she just had to give permission first.

  In those months, she hadn’t liked knowing that he was in her head, but she’d liked having him around. She’d liked the memories he’d shared with her. She’d liked how she could almost hear his laugh sometimes, a harmonic rumble in the back of her mind. She’d liked letting him take over and then coming back covered in demon or nosferatu blood, because it meant that they’d kicked some evil ass. She’d liked teleporting to the frozen field every day and letting her hands warm his icy face—and she’d liked that in the moment he first saw her, when she blocked his view of Lucifer’s tower and looked into his eyes, the screaming around them seemed to quiet.

  She’d still wanted him out of her head. But she’d thought that when he was finally freed from the frozen field, when he returned to Earth, their time together would be a lot like that. That she would like knowing that he was there, even when they didn’t say anything. That she would like his laugh and everything he shared with her. That she would like hunting down demons with him.

  And the reality was exactly what she’d thought it would be.

  It shouldn’t have been. After everything he’d done in Hell, she should have been scared. She should have been angry. Instead she wanted to touch his face, look into his eyes, and let everything screaming inside her go quiet.

  Stupid. Unhinged Future Cat Lady Trusts the Guy Who Almost Ate Her. But now with the bonus headline of She Says That Demons “Glow.”

  * * *

  Taylor waited another hour before accepting that whatever she’d been hoping to figure out wasn’t going to occur to her in Seattle. At least not yet. She teleported with Michael back to their new headquarters, then told herself to remember his dragon’s talons when his hand lingered at her waist.

  The afternoon had almost gone. Only a few hours remained until sunset. No one had found shit yet, but Lilith was smart enough to pull everyone into a conference room and make sure they were all on the same page.

  Taylor took a seat at the table and wasn’t surprised when most of the other Guardians chose to stand instead. Their asses were allergic to comfort. Taylor, Charlie, and the halfling demon Ash were the lone sitters, with everyone else towering around them, their backs to the walls.

  Which, when she thought about it, was probably all about defensive positioning. But Taylor liked her allergic ass theory better.

  “Here’s what we know,” Lilith said. “About two weeks ago, a demon began impersonating Mark Brandt—living at his home, going in every day to work. The real Mark Brandt was locked in a room at his home in Seattle. We’re assuming that a vampire helped the demon, because Brandt knew the Rules and that the demon didn’t pose a threat to him. We don’t know the method of travel between Columbus and Seattle, but commercial flights are out. It might have been by car, because we know at least one of them was using a vehicle to make purchases at fast-food restaurants. But chances are, the demon flew them there.”

  “Charlie said the vampire wasn’t a member of the Seattle community,” Taylor broke in, and on the other side of the table, the vampire nodded her confirmation. “So if they had a vehicle, it might have been a rental or stolen. Or the demon keeps a residence and vehicle there. Someone needs to hop on Bradford’s ass and get that receipt checked out. Even if there’s nothing at the restaurant, there’s going to be cameras at nearby businesses, banks. I’ll gladly look up every single plate of every single car that drove through that area myself if they can just get their hands on the surveillance.”

  Michael vanished.

  “So Michael is going to hop on Bradford’s ass,” Lilith said. “And since that sentence just included ‘Michael’ and ‘Bradford,’ that’s never going to be as hot as it sounds. More like a dry rasping.”

  Behind Charlie, both Drifter and Jake cringed and backed closer to the wall. Taylor pressed her lips together to stop her laugh. Lilith was the gift from Hell that just kept on giving.

  A moment later, Michael returned and Lilith continued, “Sometime before Friday, a demon made a video as Mark Brandt, claiming that he would reveal the truth about infected vampires and government cover-ups. We are assuming that video was supposed to have been made by the real Mark Brandt, but when he wouldn’t cooperate, the demon had to do it himself. So here is their first fuck-up that we know of—the demons wanted to keep their part of this a secret as long as possible, but to anyone who knows how to look, it was obvious that Brandt was being impersonated. Not only that, but another demon recognized him, and identified Jophiron as one of Lucifer’s sentinels.”

  “Are we sure the demon wasn’t lying when he gave us that name?” Drifter asked.

  “Yes,” Michael said.

  And that was that, Taylor thought. No one asked how he got the info. Maybe no one wanted to know, considering what had happened to the last demon Michael had interrogated.

  “What is a sentinel?” Ash asked. “What do those demons do?”

  From this angle, Taylor couldn’t see the vermillion symbols tattooed on her face, just blond hair and eyes glowing crimson. Though she was a halfling, Ash knew less about demons than most of them. Lucifer had wiped her memory before tossing her out of Hell as a sacrifice to open a Gate, but she’d never been evil to begin with. She hadn’t even known what she was until Nicholas had tried to slay her.

  Since then, Ash had tried to be a good demon—which meant she was a very bad o
ne. And, unlike the demons who’d originally been angels until they followed Lucifer in his rebellion, she wasn’t inherently evil. Just a human caught in terrible circumstances, and who should have been a Guardian when she’d sacrificed her life to save someone else. A broken bargain had dragged her into the frozen field instead.

  Inherently evil. Of all the things Taylor had learned about demons, that had been the hardest for her to accept. All over history, humans justified the horrible things that they did to each other by believing that there was something inherently wrong with another group of people.

  Despite that struggle, Taylor had come to believe it of demons. Yet she didn’t know whether they had any other choice. Lilith, Ash, even Michael—they obviously all had free will. But she didn’t know if demons chose to be evil every single time, or if it was the only choice they could make.

  In the end, though, she didn’t even know if it mattered. They would be evil. The Guardians would stop them.

  As soon as they figured out where the damn demons were.

  “Sentinels are the worst kind of demon,” Lilith answered Ash. “All of the demons serve Lucifer, because they made a bargain when he started his rule over Hell. They serve him because they fear him, or because they fear breaking the bargain and ending up in the frozen field. But for most demons, serving him is all about saving their own ass. That’s what I did.”

  At the mention of the frozen field, Ash had stiffened. Now she asked, “But not the sentinels?”

  “No. They serve him because they believe in him—and they value something more than their own skins. In that way, they’re a lot like Belial’s followers. Belial’s army doesn’t have a tenth of the demons that Lucifer’s does, so they should have been wiped from Hell a thousand years ago. But they believe that Belial will lead them back to Heaven. So they don’t care that they’ll end up in the frozen field, and they keep fighting after Lucifer’s demons have cut and run. The sentinels are the same, but instead of trying get back in God’s good graces, they’re devoted to Lucifer.”

  “Wait, wait.” Jake stared at Lilith, wide-eyed. “You believe in God?”