“No?”
He shook his head. “If they complete the ritual on this side, Lucifer still has to break through the frozen field in Hell, then open the portal in Chaos. And he’ll likely wait until they’ve completed their task here before leaving Hell. He would not want to risk being trapped in Chaos, with no way to Earth, and his only option to drain his power by returning to Hell—even though that is what both Khavi and Anaria hope will occur.”
“How will Lucifer know that the portal is ready? We destroyed the communication web in the chamber.”
“There could be other chambers. Or he might have already given the sentinels their instructions and a timeline.”
Taylor could believe that. So far, the sentinels’ every move had been almost perfectly executed—all of them dictated by Lucifer, and he wouldn’t risk his demons failing him again. They probably had backup plans stacked up on backup plans.
“So, you think it will be soon,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That’s just great. Of course the end of the world comes when I’m still a novice, and all I can do is wave my gun at the dragons and be all ‘Oooh, look at the demons glow. Can I yank you off to Heaven?’” When a laugh broke from him, she grinned—then sighed. “Seriously, though. I can’t even fly or use a sword. It’s . . . frustrating.”
And embarrassing, though it shouldn’t have been, because she hadn’t had time to learn. But she felt like an unskilled idiot anyway.
“We can change that.” Eyes shining amber, he reached for her hand. “But there’s something more important to do first.”
* * *
This wasn’t what Taylor had expected—though she hadn’t known what to expect. She’d been hoping for the beach again, but unless Michael intended to make out in the middle of an open marketplace, the “more important” thing he wanted to do obviously wasn’t her.
His big hand holding hers, he led Taylor past stalls covered by tarps and striped awnings, past the curious stares of shoppers and vendors. Busy, but not so crowded that they had to push their way through. A light drizzle was falling from a yellowish gray sky, though not a single drop touched her skin or hair. On tables, fish wriggled in shallow tubs. Chickens squawked in cages. A vendor stripped feathers from a bird and hung the skinny carcass on a hook. At another stall a woman pounded cuts of pork flat with the side of a green wine bottle. Men and women crouched beside wicker baskets filled with vegetables, greens and yellows and reds. A man on a bike slowly cruised by, bell ringing. More distant was the sound of a city—cars honking through traffic, the nasally horns that Taylor associated with cities in Europe and Asia.
This was Asia, she was pretty sure. Nighttime in London, morning farther east. Where, exactly, she couldn’t guess. When Michael had been in her head, she’d understood every language, even if she hadn’t recognized the language itself. But now she couldn’t make out a single word spoken around her. She didn’t know if the signs were in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, or if she was thousands of miles off.
All of which Taylor would have to learn, if she remained a Guardian.
But for now, she could see that it wasn’t a touristy kind of market. No stalls filled with jewelry or name-brand knockoffs. And though she couldn’t understand a word, Taylor knew tone. Vendors, buyers—all easy with each other. Many seemed to be just chatting. Probably all regulars, going about their everyday lives.
That probably accounted for the curious looks and stares, too. Either that, or it was just Michael. She’d have turned to watch him, too.
He finally stopped at an intersection of aisles, letting go of her hand and turning to face her. “This will do.”
“What will do? And where are we?”
“Nanjing. Now open your Gift.”
“Why?”
“From this position, you can see almost a hundred people. And I’ll wager that there won’t even be five humans who have more red threads than bright.”
Not more than five out of a hundred going to Hell. “I thought you didn’t wager when the stakes were so low. That the fate of the world had to be hanging on the balance before you made a bet.”
“Your faith in humanity is just as important.”
Taylor laughed before she realized he wasn’t joking. “Is this because of what I said earlier, about people killing Katherine—and that someone your age is supposed to think people are vermin?”
“Yes.” Face grave, he watched her. “What would you want from me if I’m wrong? Anything you wish is yours.”
Her gaze scanned the aisles. Just random people, doing everyday things. “If you lose, I don’t think I win. Because if this is a world where a quarter or half the people go to Hell . . .”
God. She couldn’t even think it. Yet a part of her feared that very thing. And of course Michael had seen that.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I think everybody would lose, then.”
But he obviously didn’t believe they would. Taylor glanced up at him again. “So what do you want if you’re right?”
“To give you whatever you want.”
“That’s what you said you’d give me if you lost.” At his nod, she looked over the crowd. “So why here?”
“Because the people here are the same as people anywhere. Do you wish to go somewhere else? I would make the same wager.”
“What about a cell block in a maximum security prison?”
“Alcatraz would do,” he agreed.
Smart-ass. “You’d lose. Tourists are pure evil.”
His grin flashed, but his amber gaze remained on hers, never losing focus. “I will take you to any city. Any small town. Any district, rich or poor. Any religion—or no religion at all. Not more than five out of a hundred.”
And he was so certain. Maybe because he didn’t have much to lose. They weren’t even really wagering anything.
Except . . . they were, she realized. Because he had been serious. This was about having faith in people. And she suspected that if Michael was wrong, his own belief would take a shattering blow. So he was willing to wager his faith in order to ease Taylor’s fears—and he risked hurting them both if people were worse than he thought.
Maybe that was the bigger risk for him. He’d promised not to hurt her, so that she wouldn’t lose faith in him again.
She wouldn’t. Not for this—not for what other people had done. But now she saw the stiffness of his shoulders, the taut line of his jaw. That wasn’t just Michael, always ready for a battle. That was Michael, bracing himself.
Her chest felt tight. “Are you sure?”
Despite his tension, there was no hesitation. He nodded.
Still holding his gaze, she opened her Gift. Michael’s threads surrounded him, dark and constrained. Like a mummy wrapped in linens, but instead of a desiccated corpse, vitality and power beneath. And like ancient cloth, some of those threads seemed almost . . . fragile. As if they were fraying at the edges.
Maybe that was how eight-thousand-year-old threads looked, though. He was ancient, after all—older than any Egyptian mummy. And Taylor couldn’t imagine that they were truly delicate. Not Michael’s. He was the embodiment of strength. Her impression of fragility was probably just one more instance when appearances were deceiving.
But she’d look a little closer at Khavi’s the next time, just to compare.
“How many, Andromeda?”
Pivoting slowly, Taylor swept her gaze down the aisles. People walked and chatted and worked in halos of shimmering light. Almost all of them bright, with a few red threads. Only a couple of people even came close to half and half, and just one went over a bit.
Behind her, Michael sighed—a sound of relief. She hadn’t even needed to tell him. With her Gift open, he must have felt her reaction to what she’d seen.
His arm slipped around her waist. He drew her back against his hard form, his breath stirring her hair when he spoke. “Will you let me see?”
Through her eyes. In her mind.
Throat thic
k, she nodded—and felt him there, so dark and familiar. But he didn’t go any deeper. With her shields open, he could have slipped through and sensed everything she was feeling now, every bit of joy and relief and terror because she was falling so hard for him, but he remained on the surface, just looking.
“The children,” he said softly.
From the moment he’d touched her, Taylor had been looking, too, but hadn’t been seeing. Now she focused. A boy of eight or nine, tugging on his mother’s hand, pointing back at a stall they’d just left. His insistent whines seemed at the edge of a full-blown tantrum. His threads were fully bright. No red at all. Farther down the aisle, a toddler slept in a baby sling—also fully bright.
“I already knew kids were like demons,” Taylor said.
His deep laugh rumbled against her back. After a moment, he said, “This fits what I already knew, too. I’ve never seen a child in the Pit.”
“Good.” Taylor had known kids who’d committed terrible crimes, and bullies who’d seemed mean all the way through. But there wasn’t one she’d thought was completely at fault. “I’m glad they’ve got time to figure stuff out before they’re judged for it.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m glad you’re right, because I thought for sure that we’d be worse than this. Or maybe we just aren’t judged for the petty stuff.”
It didn’t matter either way. Both were better than she’d thought.
But not everyone was. A man emerged from between two stalls and began making his way toward them. Midthirties, slender build, short black hair, medium skin. Chinos and a light blue button-down under a tan windbreaker.
His threads almost fully red.
Taylor’s body instinctively stiffened, as if preparing to chase after him. Against her stomach, Michael’s forearm tightened. Holding her back.
She forced herself to wait. “Do you see him?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think he did?”
“You could ask him.”
Yeah. Because that always led straight to confessions and to jail. And the man was already moving on, turning past them down another aisle. Taylor reached out, trying to sense his emotions. No anger or hate or guilt as he nodded to people passing him and in the stalls. Just mild and pleasant. Enjoying the day.
Or maybe imagining whatever he’d done, and enjoying that.
With sickness in her gut, she watched him go. “Where do you think he’s headed now? To rape someone? Kill them? Worse?”
“Whatever turned those threads red, it was something he’s already done. You can’t know he would do it again. You can’t know if he’s already paid for it by human laws.” Gently, Michael turned her to face him. “What will you do with this Gift, Andromeda?”
Shut it off, for now. Because Taylor hated knowing that someone could walk past her and she would see that he must have done something . . . but then what?
“I don’t know.” Blindly, still seeing only those red threads, she shook her head. “I’m glad about the others. But when I see someone like that guy, what’s my role? Should I follow him and figure out what he did, then tip off the cops? Show up in front of him, looking big and scary like you, and terrify him into turning himself in? Or make him feel so guilty that he does? But what if I go too far and he kills himself instead?”
“That is what Lilith used to do—persuade those who are already damned to kill themselves.”
When she’d been a demon. “So that’s obviously not how I should use this Gift. Is it?”
“Only you can decide that,” he said, and his expression had shuttered again. Not closing her out this time, she thought, but so that he wouldn’t influence her one way or another.
But Taylor already knew she’d never do anything like that. She wasn’t a demon. “And what if it’s the opposite? What if I’m walking through death row and I see someone as bright as that kid? Should I try to prove his innocence? But some defense attorney already looked at everything that could be used in court. So should I plant fake evidence to get him pardoned?”
Even though everything inside her revolted at the idea. But so did the thought of letting an innocent man pay for something he didn’t do.
“Perhaps he isn’t innocent,” Michael said. “He might be guilty of his crimes, but redeemed his soul in some way.”
“God.” With a laugh, Taylor shook her head, put her hands over her face. After a second, she looked up at him again. “You’re supposed to make this easier.”
A faint smile broke through the rigid shield of his features, but his voice remained solemn. “There is no ‘easy,’ Andromeda. The burden of your Gift is one of the heaviest I have ever seen. To even look at another person means you must decide how to use—or not to use—the knowledge you gain. But your Gift is like any power. You can easily hurt others with it, but far better to help them. What form that takes is up to you.”
“But how will I know what’s right?”
“You can’t,” he said bluntly, then softened the statement, cupping her jaw in the warmth of his palm. “But no one else knows, either. Some things, we can be more certain whether they’re right or wrong, but many times we make the wrong choices, or we have no good choice. You can only do what you think is best . . . which is what you already do.”
Judging by the people around here, that was apparently what everyone did. And they must have been doing a pretty good job of it so far—or maybe they just weren’t judged too harshly if they tried to do what was best and fucked everything up anyway.
As Taylor had, so many times. She sighed. “You have all the answers.”
Michael broke into a laugh, shaking his head. “No.”
Maybe not. But he at least had answers that made sense. That she could agree with. That felt right. Taylor didn’t know if they were, but she could live with them.
But there was another answer he hadn’t given—at least not fully. Narrowing her eyes, she studied him. Michael wasn’t at all like Lucifer. But he’d said that the demon would choose a location that was significant. She found it difficult to believe that this was just some random place for Michael, too.
“Why here? Out of everywhere in the world, why this market? It must mean something.”
“It does. Not exactly here, but very close.” He took her hand again, led her back down an aisle. Leaving, but they couldn’t just teleport and disappear, not with so many people still following them with curious stares. “The angels did guide me. But I’ve learned far more from humans. And this is where I first learned to have a bit more faith, too.”
“When? What happened?”
“About three thousand years ago.” He slanted her a wry glance. “I finally figured out one right from wrong.”
“Which one?”
“The enslavement of another human. I realized what a great injustice and evil it was.”
When he was five thousand years old? “You didn’t already know that?”
“No. For all of my life, it was the natural order. When a people were conquered, it seemed right to take possession of their lives and labor in victory. Of course I saw a difference between good slave masters and cruel ones. I knew that it was wrong to starve them, to rape them, to whip them.”
God. “At least you knew that.”
“No.” He stopped, his gaze intense on hers. “That was what I had to learn. There is no such thing as a good slave master, no matter how kind his treatment. Not because of the person, whose intentions might be good, but because of the slavery itself. It’s a great evil, and participating in it is as well. Even if that participation uses a gentle hand.”
“And no one ever pointed that out to you before?”
“Yes. I’d heard humans argue against it for thousands of years—and Anaria and Khavi had long said the same. And I’d never owned a slave myself, but I didn’t think it wrong, either. I only thought poor treatment was.”
“What happened to change your mind, then?”
“Nothing happened.” He shook
his head. “I watched a child sold away from his family. But it was nothing different from what I’d seen a thousand times before—and I’d always felt pity for them. But for the first time, I felt the wrongness of it. Of denying a person’s free will, of professing to own their very flesh, and of selling them like that woman sells carp.”
Taylor glanced at the stall behind her, where a gray-haired woman used a plastic basket to net a fish out of a tub. “So what did you do?”
“I purchased the family’s freedom. Then I purchased the freedom of every slave I could. I spent all the gold and silver I had—and I’d hoarded five thousand years’ worth.”
Like a dragon. “You must have freed a lot of them.”
“I did. But in the end, it changed nothing but their individual lives.” His thumb stroked the back of her hand, and he started down the aisle again. “Anything else was beyond my power. I had to have faith that humans would change fundamentally, that they would come to see slavery in the same way. They eventually did.”
Most of them, anyway. “But it took a really long time.”
“There were a lot of people whose minds needed to change.” He smiled faintly. “It didn’t take as long as I thought it might, in truth.”
“No wonder. If it took you five thousand years . . .”
“Yes. But that is always the way of any new idea. It begins with a few and slowly, then racing. All that I have seen of humanity tells me that. Change used to be so slow and painful, and now it is quick and constant. In the past one thousand years, I have learned more from people than I learned in the previous seven millennia combined.” As he spoke, his expression became stark, his gaze flat. “Yet there is still so much to learn.”
And in a few days, Lucifer would try to take it all from them. Knowing that apparently got to Michael, too—no matter his determination to win.
And she couldn’t bear the bleakness in his eyes. Gently, she bumped her shoulder against his arm. “So, you won our wager. What prize do you want?”
“That was not the agreement.” He tugged her closer to his side as a bicyclist passed them from behind. “It was that I would give you anything, no matter the outcome. So what do you want?”
Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) Page 40
