Around them, four demons hung suspended from glowing threads—the spider silk woven through their skulls, their flesh. Their eyes were open and glowing crimson.
Aware of the Guardians. But those threads must have been holding them in place. If the demons had been a threat, someone would have already slain them. And some demon must have been slain here recently. Taylor could smell the blood. But there were only Irena and Alejandro, standing with Khavi as she tugged at one of the spider threads. No bodies. Aside from the suspended demons and the Guardians, nothing was in the chamber except a steel cube.
Rosalia’s Gift pushed outward—waking Savi up. Though Taylor didn’t see her friend, she sensed the vampire’s sudden awareness, the concern and horror that flickered through her shields. A harsh sob followed.
Taylor’s chest tightened. That had come from Colin.
Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted them huddled in the farthest corner of the cavern, darkened by Rosalia’s shadows. Both naked, and Colin holding Savi tight against him, his body curled around hers with his back to them. Agonized shudders wracked his emaciated form. Filled with hellfire, Savi’s eyes glowed like a hellhound’s. Murmuring “I’m all right, we’re all right,” she stroked Colin’s face, his hair.
With both hands. Michael had reattached the left. But the two fingers that had ashed in the sun were still missing. Her platinum ring sat at the base of a stump.
Oh, God. Eyes burning, Taylor looked away.
Hugh started toward the vampires. He stopped when Michael shook his head.
“He’ll rip you apart,” he said. “Colin allowed me to heal her, but he won’t let us close to her now.”
“They drained him,” Lilith said. Beside her, Sir Pup whimpered and licked her hand. “He needs blood.”
“Yes. But his need to protect her overrides his hunger.” The harmony of his voice roughened. “So we wait until he recognizes that they are safe and with friends. Until then, if he turns in this direction, look away from him.”
Her throat aching with tears, Taylor nodded. When emotion overwhelmed him, Colin’s beauty was terrifying. She’d seen it before, but she’d never seen him so shattered. She didn’t want to know what effect he’d have now.
She forced herself to speak. “Is that why the others left?”
Jake and Alice, Charlie and Drifter. Michael wouldn’t be here if they were still trapped in Hell. So they must have come and gone.
“Yes. And because there are some things friends shouldn’t have to see.” Michael’s gaze fell to Taylor’s, and the darkness of his eyes didn’t conceal the pain there. “But I am glad you are here now.”
Not just for Colin and Savi, she realized, and the thick lump in her throat almost choked her. There were things friends shouldn’t witness, but Michael had to witness this anyway.
She’d seen this torment in him before—and she’d seen it ease in the same way when he’d looked into her eyes. This wasn’t the frozen field. But if what the demons had done to Colin and Savi left Michael as vulnerable as his own torture had, then Taylor never wanted to know what had happened here before the Guardians rescued them.
And she couldn’t help Colin or Savi yet. But she could help Michael.
She stepped closer. His hands could crush stone, could rip flesh from bone, but he was gentle when she threaded her fingers through his. “I’m glad, too.”
* * *
Until Savi managed to soothe Colin, there wasn’t anything they could do for the vampires except give them privacy. Rosalia’s shadows concealed them in their corner, the thick darkness muffling their voices. But they were never far from Taylor’s thoughts, and the heavy constriction remained in her chest while Michael told them of the battle in Hell—which had only lasted seconds. The rest of the time had been recovery and healing.
But it was always like that. Guardian or cop. Sword or bullet. A pothole in the street or a cadre of demon sentinels. Pain came quickly. Everything else took time . . . if they were lucky enough to recover at all.
“Taylor!” Irena’s voice pulled her attention to the other Guardian, who stood with Alejandro and Khavi next to one of the suspended demons. “Let us see what happens when you yank. It should be easier this time.”
Yes. Her chest ached, but it wasn’t the same despair as when Colin and Savi had been missing—she didn’t fear dropping from joy to this pain. And though Taylor was reluctant to leave Michael’s side, she was glad for something to do.
Though normally, “something to do” didn’t include yanking a demon’s soul out of his body.
She looked up at it. Hundreds of spider threads ran from a single point on the stone ceiling to a single point on the floor, widening around the demon. Each taut thread was woven through the demon’s flesh and wings, but, unlike the demons in Hell, this one hadn’t been eviscerated with its guts and flesh laid open. Just a whole demon in its own form. Not male or female. Red scales instead of skin. Horns curled back from a broad forehead. Glowing threads wired its jaw shut, but she knew that sharp teeth and fangs lay behind its lips. Split hooves, and knees jointed like a goat’s hind legs. More spider silk held its leathery wings open wide, like an insect on display.
Her gaze fell to the spot where the threads disappeared into the floor. “So those go all the way to Hell?”
“No,” Khavi said. “Those are anchored in the stone. The threads through the ceiling cross the in-between and reach the chamber in Hell.”
Like a kid’s phone made out of tin cans and a string. But with demons as the cans and a string that could cross realms. “So Lucifer can’t see this side anymore.”
“That depends on whether the explosion in the other chamber destroyed the threads, and how quickly Lucifer can string up new demons and write the symbols again.”
Michael had said that Jake set off a bomb before he left, which would vaporize the demons in the chamber and break the shielding spell. So Lucifer could have gotten into the chamber again. But what would have been left?
“You don’t think a nuclear explosion would destroy the threads?”
In answer, Alejandro tapped the sharp edge of his sword against a taut string. A soft clink sounded. The thread didn’t break. “We can’t be certain. Irena’s knife can cut them. My sword does not—so perhaps a bomb wouldn’t, either.”
“But we’ll slay the demons on this side, so it won’t matter. Right? Lucifer won’t be able to make the connection.”
Khavi met her eyes. “Can you slay them?”
Could she? Taylor looked up at the demon again. It couldn’t defend itself. But there was nowhere on Earth it could be safely imprisoned, unless they put it in a steel box and tossed it into the ocean. Even then, the steel might eventually corrode and break open—and if it didn’t, that meant sentencing the demon to an eternity trapped in darkness. And teleporting the demon back to Hell meant leaving it to Lucifer’s mercy. Neither of those options was any better.
So, yes. It needed to be done.
“I can do it. But first, I want to know this.” She met the demon’s crimson eyes, and, keeping her shields high, she softened the mental blocks that kept out other people’s emotions. Savi’s devastation and worry pushed through, Colin’s despair and rage—and the demon’s hate, like a snake’s belly slithering across her mind. “Did you like watching what the other demons did to my friends?”
No response, except for Khavi’s quick laugh beside her.
“This demon has been in this chamber for thousands of years, Taylor,” she said. “It doesn’t understand English.”
“Then ask it in the demon language.”
“Why?”
Honestly? “So that I can feel better about doing this.”
“Then you already believe that the demon enjoyed it. Why do you need it to tell you?” Despite her amusement, the look that Khavi gave her reminded Taylor of how very old the other woman was, and how much those eyes had seen. “You must remember that any response the demon gives might be a lie. Perhaps it will w
eep—to make you doubt, to give you more pain when you slay it, or in hope that you will stay your hand.”
Irena nodded and said softly, “Either you are certain that slaying the demon is right, or you are not. And there is no shame in doubt. My certainty is born from hatred, and from my many years of fighting them. You don’t possess either of those.”
No, she didn’t. And that would be a nice excuse to make. Then she could sit back and let someone else slay them.
If she doubted whether it was right to slay them, however, then standing aside while the Guardians killed the demons would be wrong. Yet she felt no conflict there. Demons only existed to harm humans; they were a malevolent cancer that needed to be eradicated. Given half a chance, this one would kill her, her friends, and every other person it met. If Taylor hadn’t absolutely believed that, she would fight to stop the Guardians from killing a single demon. So that wasn’t the problem. She just didn’t like doing it so coldly. She’d rather have anger or hatred driving her.
But she didn’t. Taylor only felt tired and heartsick, because her friends were hurting and she couldn’t help them. So she needed to suck it up and do what was right because it was right, not because she was pissed or defending someone, or to avenge her friends, or any other reason that might have made this easier.
“I’m certain,” she said. “But doing it this way feels shitty.”
“Yes,” Khavi and Alejandro agreed in unison.
Irena shrugged. “You do not have to worry that it will happen often. Usually, they will be coming after your head.”
“That is true, too,” Alejandro said.
Okay, then. Taylor reached for her Gift. The demon’s brilliant glow filled her vision, hundreds of thousands of threads, far brighter than the softly shining spider silk.
She buried her hands in her pockets, fighting the impulse to just yank—to get this over with. Better to take her time and learn as much as she could now. This wasn’t something she could practice often. Immobilized demons didn’t exactly lie thick on the ground.
“Do you think it matters where I grab?”
“I don’t know,” Khavi said. “How long are the threads?”
“They extend a few feet around him. Kind of like a big, fiber-optic Chia Pet. Except . . .”
Taylor narrowed her eyes, focused on one of the glowing strands projecting from the demon’s hooves. The thread was longer than she’d thought. As long as she kept her eyes on it, she could follow the thread all the way to where it disappeared into the stone floor.
As soon as she glanced at another strand, the first thread appeared short again—but she could follow the next strand to the chamber wall.
“If I’m really looking at them, they go as far as I can see.” To the floor. The wall. The ceiling. “Why don’t they all go up?”
Of course, the spider threads to Hell had gone through the chamber ceiling. So maybe the threads to Heaven should go down?
That seemed weird.
“To Heaven?” At Taylor’s nod, Khavi shook her head. “I don’t believe it’s actually up.”
“But you call it ‘Above’ sometimes.”
“It’s just a word to help us visualize the differences between realms. In the demons’ language, the word for Heaven is the same as ‘home.’ It is also ‘beyond.’ But to us, ‘home’ is what we make of it—and ‘beyond’ can fit Heaven or Hell or Caelum or Chaos, or the in-between. So Heaven is ‘Above’ and Hell is ‘Below.’” She pointed to the chamber ceiling. “But Hell isn’t physically in that direction, either. That’s just the direction that some Guardian was headed when he teleported with the spider silk.”
“But it’s actually . . . what? A step aside?”
Like an alternate universe, with Evil Spock wearing a goatee. Or a realm out of phase, vibrating at a different frequency.
God. This was what she got for watching Star Trek marathons with Savi.
Khavi shrugged, and the dark strands around her shoulders undulated with the movement. “A step to the side, inside, outside? I don’t know. I only know what I can conceive. The same as your Gift or our psychic senses. Do you truly believe those are threads—or that emotions have a scent or a sound? It is only how you and I perceive them. How we fit them to our understanding.”
Taylor studied the threads. “Then what are they really?”
“Maybe they are really threads.” With a shake of her head, Khavi laughed. “How can I know? I can’t perceive them except through you. Perhaps only the angels see the threads for what they really are, but what use would knowing that be to us if we can’t see as they do? I’m not even certain if we see or hear the angels as they are. Are they energy, or flesh, or something else? I can only see what my mind can interpret, but how can I know if it interprets correctly? There is always something lost in the translation.”
So either the threads were really there or they were the best Taylor’s brain could do. Fair enough.
“But it is the same with your vampire friend,” Khavi continued. “Looking upon him, I don’t know what we see.”
“Colin’s Terrifying Beauty thing?”
“Yes. My brother, Zakril, possessed the same ability. And it is similar to looking at the angels. But it is not beauty,” she said, “because the effect was the same when your friend didn’t have a face. We simply feel it in the same way as when we see something sublime but dangerous.”
Oh, God. Taylor’s mind stuttered to a stop before Khavi finished.
Colin hadn’t had a face?
Behind them, Michael sighed, a breath of sound that slipped over Taylor’s skin like a soft caress. Taylor wanted to run back there, straight into his arms, and comfort herself with a real touch. But she stood and forced herself to confront her horror.
If they’d known of Colin’s vanity, perhaps the demons imagined that taking his face was the worst they could do to him. But they’d have discovered the only thing that mattered was what they’d done to Savi.
She really didn’t want any details about that, though.
“Michael is right.” Khavi gave her an apologetic look. “That is something to discuss when the subject is not so raw.”
Taylor hadn’t heard him say anything like that, but she wouldn’t argue. She glanced at Alejandro. “Will you use your sword and cut through the air a few inches from his scales?”
It was crazy, watching him. All Alejandro did was wave his arm around, and each slice of the blade was a graceful dance of steel. The sword didn’t do a thing to the threads, though. Just slid through the strands as if they were no more solid than a projection. Taylor called in her own blade, with the same result and none of the elegance.
“Irena?”
The other Guardian was ready with the dragon blade. The swipe of the knife did nothing. Irena gave the weapon to Taylor. The warm grip thrummed in her hand. Carefully, she touched one of the threads and concentrated through the joy, holding back the tears that burned in her eyes so that she could focus on the strand. She watched it extend toward the chamber wall, then stroked the blade across the thread.
It sliced through. The long end disappeared from beneath her forefinger, as if sucked into the stone wall—or into whatever lay beyond it. The shorter portion remained, still attached to the demon.
Taylor looked up. The demon was still alive. Maybe because it had thousands of other threads.
“That worked.” She handed the blade back to Irena. “Kind of. It cut through, but didn’t really do anything.”
“Perhaps because you didn’t yank the soul out, but simply severed an anchor,” Khavi said.
An anchor to Heaven. “So what would happen if I cut them all? Would the demon be a ghost after it died? Trapped here on Earth instead of heading toward the Pearly Gates?”
Khavi shrugged. Taylor was beginning to hate that answer, but maybe it was better not to test that one out. The last thing she needed to do was unleash some evil spirit on the world.
Though it would probably give Joe a few more storie
s to read in the bizarre news sections.
“All right, then.” Taylor braced herself for the joy, wrapped her fingers around a single strand near the demon’s backward-jointed knee. She looked up into its crimson eyes.
And hesitated. Something on its face had changed. She didn’t know if the expression was fear, or hope, but the snake’s belly of hate across her mind had faded—or maybe the warmth and joy blaring from her Gift just drowned it out. Maybe the demon hadn’t felt joy like this since being tossed out of Heaven.
Either way, it only seemed fair to let the demon know what was happening. “Tell the demon that I’m sending it home.”
Khavi didn’t translate for her; Michael did. When he finished, Taylor yanked.
There was resistance. Not much. Maybe just enough to warn her, so that she couldn’t do this accidentally. She had to apply her will.
She did. The thread pulled free.
The demon’s heart stopped. The other threads vanished—sucked away.
Joy still coursed through Taylor’s mind. She glanced down. The strand she’d yanked remained in her hand. It hadn’t been sucked away, didn’t pull at her, and beneath the warmth lay endless patience. Experimentally, she tugged and took a step back. The thread lengthened and came with her. Holding her fist tight, she closed her Gift. The thread disappeared. But when she reached for her Gift again they were both there, the strand in her hand and the overwhelming joy.
“This is insane,” she whispered, and the burn of tears on her cheeks told her she’d been crying. But Irena was, too, and Alejandro, and Khavi’s eyes were closed, her face enraptured.
What now? Could she tie it somewhere? She looked back at the demon and wrapped the strand around its knee.
Brilliant threads shot through its body from all directions. Its heart thudded. Crimson eyes popped open.
With a shriek, Taylor yanked the thread again—and this time let it go. She stared at the lifeless demon, her heart hammering. Beside her, Irena burst into a wild laugh. Another laugh sounded behind her, deep and harmonious.
Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) Page 35
