Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  Because, eventually, the vampire would be recognized. But except for the Guardians, no one knew what had happened to Adam and Dina Meer. After they were identified from the video, almost everyone would just assume that they’d fled to escape arrest. No one would suspect they’d ended up in a stranger’s bed in a burning house eight hundred miles away.

  With a sigh, she shook her head. “When someone you care about is missing, is it better to know for sure they’re dead or always be wondering if they’re still alive?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m the worst person to ask. Because it’s my job. Guardian or detective, it’s my job to find out. So I always want to know. I’m always looking for answers. And I hate it when I can’t find them.”

  “Why does that make you the worst person to ask?”

  “Because that’s just the job. But when it’s close to me? When it kicks me in the gut? I don’t want to know. I mean, look at me. I can’t even look at my brother to find out whether his soul is still in his body. Because if he’s gone . . . that’s it, isn’t it? No hope. And my dad. I’d prefer him to be out there somewhere rather than dead. I’d rather he’d abandoned us, and we never knew what happened to him, if that meant he might be alive instead of rotting in the ground. And I sure as hell don’t want to know why the angels have been sitting on their hands, because I don’t think I’d like the answer. It’s like I can’t even deal with it.”

  No Michael Smith now. Just Michael, watching her with obsidian eyes and his body absolutely still. But his voice was as flat as a human’s when he spoke. “So you’d rather not know if someone was dead. You would prefer to think they were still living somewhere.”

  “If I cared for them. If it wasn’t my job. Like Katherine Blake. No one has found her body yet, right? And you just know that even as they’re hunting down whoever took her, Savi and Colin are praying that Geoff was wrong. That there’s some other answer, and that she’s not dead. As awful as not knowing is, at least there’s something left. A little hope. The problem is, though, if you don’t know what happened, then you can never make the fuckers who hurt her pay for it.”

  And for Taylor, it always came back to that. And understanding herself too well. She’d never be able to stop searching for answers, even if she didn’t want to know. She’d keep looking until she found them.

  She glanced up. His face unreadable, Michael still watched her. Probably seeing right through her. Unsettled by that intense scrutiny, she lowered her gaze. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, but his tie was right there, and she wanted to touch him.

  Scissoring her fingers around the flat silk, she slid her hand from the knot at his throat down to his vest. Her knuckles skimming over cotton, she tucked her fingers inside, where the edge of his pectoral formed a ridge of steely muscle under his shirt.

  Lucky shirt. Sighing, she continued, “And of course, the one job I’m best at is to give answers, to take that hope away. To give closure. Because that’s the only way to get any sort of justice. And that’s so messed up, because I’m too wimpy to do it for myself.” Though with Jason, it was different. Just an accident, with no one to blame, and no justice to be found. “But for everyone else? I have to find out what happened, then inform their friends and family that the people they love are dead—and, hopefully, say who killed them. To get justice, I have to destroy hope. Or maybe at that point, justice is all that’s left to hope for.”

  “It’s not messed up. And you’re not wimpy.” The harmony had returned to his voice. “I think you stand for both. Hope and justice. First one, then the other—whether you are human or a Guardian.”

  And Taylor supposed that answered whether she’d Fall or not. Because it was basically the same. As a Guardian, it was the hope of protecting people from demons. But when people were hurt, making sure demons couldn’t do it again.

  “I guess being a Guardian is the job for me, then. I’ll be blindly hopeful, yet fierce with my sword. When I learn how to use one.”

  With a faint smile, he lifted his hand to her face. His fingertips traced the line of her jaw. “I will teach you a bit of that as well.”

  She hoped so. Except she could barely think of weapons now. Not with her heart clenching, because even though Michael smiled, sadness lurked beneath the curve of his lips. The same melancholy had lingered over his expression throughout the morning.

  What was going on with him? But she’d already asked. And each time he’d changed the subject or said he was fine.

  Whatever it was, he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. So she’d wait until he did.

  She gave a little tug on his vest. “I’ll tell the Larsons. Not right away, but eventually. Because otherwise I’m just making the decision of whether they should know or not for them.”

  This time, his smile held genuine humor. “You’re making that decision if you tell them, too.”

  “I know. But it’s different, isn’t it? Because it’s the job. If I show up and they say, ‘No, don’t tell us,’ I won’t. But I won’t keep the truth from them just because I wouldn’t want to hear it.”

  “It’s different,” he agreed.

  “Is it what you would do?” Though she already knew that it was. And she knew that he’d only asked because he liked knowing what she thought, and why she thought it.

  “It is,” he said.

  “Good. But I’m not in a rush, anyway. Telling them won’t matter if the world burns, so finding those sentinels comes first. And I’ll wait a few days before filing that missing persons report, too. Because as soon as I do, the cops will be all over it. So we’ll give ourselves a little time to figure out why two nice kids started killing people and how the demons found them before investigators start crawling up everyone’s ass.”

  Michael nodded. “We’ll return to the unit as soon as we can. Though I don’t expect we’ll find anything. There were no computers.”

  “You noticed that, too?” Despite Larson telling them that Adam Meer did computer work, not a single one remained in their residence. “I’m guessing that the demons came by after killing them, just in case. And covered their asses by taking whatever we might have used to trace them.”

  “Yes. So we’ll come back, but before that, I’d like to know where Meer was from. Larson said they lived here for about one and a half years—and that was just before the first murder. That’s likely not a coincidence.”

  It probably wasn’t. Maybe Meer had changed location to avoid suspicion—then went back and killed his chosen victim.

  “The first was the district attorney in Alabama, Robert Johnson. And that strangulation caused the most damage.” The throat completely crushed. She’d thought the injury indicated a lack of practice, but it might have been more than that. “Maybe Johnson was the one who made Meer the angriest?”

  “If so, they probably had a personal connection,” Michael said.

  “That would fit.” She pulled out her phone, texted Lilith a request to look into that angle. “A vigilante. So Meer made sure that Johnson got what was coming to him. Probably because someone else didn’t get the justice Meer thought that person deserved, and he thought Johnson was to blame. So we’ll look through the DA’s cases, see if Meer pops up somewhere. Or if Dina does.”

  Because love made people do crazy, stupid things.

  “Johnson’s widow is on vacation,” Michael said quietly.

  “Yeah.” And they both suspected the same thing: It wasn’t really a vacation. Joe and Drifter needed to confirm whether it was, as soon as possible.

  His thumb brushed her cheek. “You’re all right?”

  Except for the heavy dread filling the pit of her stomach. “I’m glad we’re getting closer. But I have a bad feeling that we’re not going to like what we find.”

  “We still have to find it.”

  “I know.” She studied his face. Perhaps this was the reason for the melancholy. Maybe he was just worried at how close they were to Lucifer breaking through. “W
e’ll do this, you know. It’s not going to be the end of the world.”

  “I know. I’m determined to see Lucifer stopped.” He gave that faint smile again. “Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Well, don’t rush to make it the last thing.” She wanted him around a lot longer than that.

  “I won’t.” His amber gaze holding hers, Michael lowered his head. “If I have any luck at all, Agent Taylor, my last moments will be something like this.”

  Softly, his lips pressed to hers, warm and sweet.

  Her heart swelling, Taylor cupped his jaw and rose up onto her toes, lingering as long as she could. So she was this person now—a Guardian kissing her partner in the middle of a street. It was so crazy, so stupid to fall in love at the end of the world.

  So it was no surprise that she’d gone and done it anyway.

  * * *

  Though in the car, Taylor hadn’t yet pulled away from the curb when both she and Michael got a buzz on their phones—Lilith had come through with info more quickly than Taylor expected. Adam Meer had been paying his rent with cash, so she’d been sure that he’d covered his tracks financially and electronically. She’d also have wagered Colin’s car that “Adam Meer” was a false identity.

  And it had been, but not a deeply buried identity. Lilith hadn’t had to do much digging to find him. Born Jason Adam Webber, he’d lived in Hartselle, Alabama, and had been employed by the city as a social worker until eighteen months ago. Meer was his mother’s maiden name.

  Taylor studied the DMV photo. Twenty-nine years old. Blond. He’d dyed his hair to dark brown after moving to Washington, and shaved off the short beard and mustache he’d worn. Both parents deceased. His mother dead of cancer when he was twelve, and his father—chief deputy at the county sheriff’s office—gunned down on his front doorstep while off duty, seven years ago.

  Three years ago, Jason Webber had married Crystal O’Dell, a high school counselor—brown hair, blue eyes, and whose face matched the photo Mrs. Larson had sent of the platinum-haired woman offering a tight-lipped smile over a birthday cake. Dina.

  She glanced at Michael, who’d been waiting for her to finish reading. “Want to take a trip to Alabama?”

  * * *

  Within a few hours, the story behind Jason Webber’s vigilantism had begun to take shape. In interviews with Webber’s grandmother and his friends, it hadn’t taken much digging to pull out the rumor that a local drug runner who’d been using the Tennessee River to move his goods from New Orleans to Nashville had ordered the hit on Webber’s father, and that the district attorney had been in the man’s pocket, so no charges had ever been brought up against him.

  No charges had ever been brought up against Crystal Webber’s father, either, even though, shortly after she ran away from home at fifteen years of age, he was investigated for sexual abuse. Her mother had supported him, both parents dismissing Crystal’s claims as the product of an overactive imagination and an attempt to avoid being punished for having sex with a boyfriend. She’d been returned to their custody for the next two years, followed by a suicide attempt. Treatment for chronic depression began when she’d moved out and started taking classes at a community college.

  Looking at Crystal’s father through her Gift couldn’t tell Taylor that he was guilty of the abuse his daughter had accused him of. But something had turned all those threads red.

  The sun had begun a downward slide in the western sky when Taylor left the father’s house, her gut churning with sour revulsion. It was warmer here than either San Francisco or Seattle, and they hadn’t rolled down the Bentley’s windows before getting out. The car was hot and stuffy and cramped when she and Michael got inside, and Taylor wanted to punch through the windshield.

  She forced herself to start the engine and turn on the AC, instead. As soon as they could drive to some inconspicuous place, she’d vanish the vehicle into her hammerspace and they could teleport back to headquarters.

  But first she wanted to get her head into the right place. For now, her anger and disgust toward Crystal’s father was a distraction. No other kids lived in the house. She could come back to him later—if there was anything left to come back to.

  She stared at the house through the window—a wraparound porch, wisteria, a white picket fence. “They were just ripe for the picking, weren’t they? Jason and Crystal. Damaged and angry. So the demons saw them, said, ‘Hey, we’ll give you vampire superpowers, and you can make sure that other people get what’s coming to them.’”

  “But they still had a choice. And they chose to murder.”

  So it was Michael’s turn to be a hard-ass. And he was right. “When my dad was killed, I was so pissed when the DA gave Schreiner that deal. Manslaughter instead of murder, because he snitched on his suppliers. But I never once considered running out and shooting him or his lawyers.”

  “You worked to make sure people got what was coming to them, too. But you went about it the right way.”

  “I don’t know if I was always right. But at least I didn’t murder anyone.” She sighed. “Jason and Crystal were both dealt shitty hands. But they played those hands. And the demons might have been behind them, urging them on, but no one else was to blame.”

  “That’s true.” With a thoughtful frown, he looked toward the house. “But the demons likely chose who died. Beginning with Robert Johnson.”

  Michael must have been getting the hang of this detective thing, because that had been nagging at her, too.

  “Because if Jason Webber were to kill someone, why did he choose the district attorney, right? Why not the man who ordered the hit? Unless that target was too dangerous.”

  “Webber was a vampire. If he’d wanted to destroy the drug runner, he could have.”

  True. Security systems and guns wouldn’t be much help against a vampire determined to kill a man. And that wasn’t the only murder that didn’t quite make sense—or rather, it didn’t make sense that another person still lived.

  “Why not Crystal’s father, too? He fits the profile just as well. He was accused of a crime, but he never paid for it. And in this case, Crystal would know for certain that he was guilty.”

  “Because it didn’t suit Lucifer’s purpose—or the sentinels’.” Michael’s amber gaze met hers. “A demon’s ability to persuade cannot be understated. One could have convinced Webber that killing Johnson better served justice. And if killing her father didn’t serve their purpose, a demon might have also persuaded them that it was too dangerous, that they would be exposed.”

  “That might have been true. Any investigator would have taken a close look at them.” But she could see where that truth could be used to persuade them again. “But the demons knew exactly who to point them toward next. That was Julian Walker. He’d been accused of molesting his daughter.”

  “A substitute,” Michael agreed. “One who served the demons’ purpose better.”

  “The question is, who were Lucifer’s real targets—Webber’s victims or someone in their families?”

  “We cannot know for certain, particularly if Lucifer devised this plan. All death and pain serves his purpose in some way. He takes enjoyment from it all. But if this does lead to opening the portal, then I suspect the families are the targets.”

  Taylor did, too. Now the question was how to protect those families . . . and whether it was already too late. With dread weighing heavy in her gut again, she dialed Joe’s number. Drifter, Jake, and he had been jumping around the country all day.

  “Hey,” she said when he answered, and she put the phone on speaker. Michael could hear the conversation either way, but if Michael had a question, now Joe would be able to hear him. Unfamiliar voices spoke in the background, the clatter of plates and utensils. “Where are you at?”

  “Montana. We just finished up our interview here—heading out of the restaurant where the brother works. I heard you ID’d our guy.”

  “We did. We’re in Alabama now. The next town over from Decatur
.”

  “So he knew Johnson?”

  “Looks like it was pretty personal. Any word yet on the demons?”

  “Almost all of our families recognized Brandt—or the demon posing as him.”

  “Shit.”

  “Well, it gets worse—because those are just the people who are around to talk to us. We just spoke with Steven Parkins’s brother. Most of those we’ve interviewed said they only remember Brandt coming around once. Each of them, about a month after the death. But Parkins’s brother says that Brandt visited his father several times. And you’ve got one guess as to who just went to visit his sister in Tulsa, but whose sister didn’t know anything about him coming.”

  Taylor closed her eyes. “Parkins’s dad?”

  “You got it. And so far, we’ve got two others gone visiting or on vacation, and that’s not including Johnson’s wife. We don’t know how many times Brandt—or the demon, rather—might have visited them before they took off.”

  “So four in all are missing?” Jesus. The demons just needed one to open the portal. “Have the families been able to contact any of them?”

  “Not one. The hotels they said they’d be staying at never had reservations in their name, no plane tickets, nothing.”

  Mouth in a grim line, Michael said, “Are you returning to headquarters now, Joseph?”

  “As soon as we get to a private place to jump from.”

  “Andromeda and I will meet you there.”

  “And compare notes? Sounds good.” He disconnected.

  Taylor stared at the phone, her mind racing. Four gone. And no idea where they’d gone to. But there were a million places to look. She didn’t know how the Guardians would find them in time.

  She didn’t even know what time would be too late. Except that every second ticking away took them closer to it.

  Her gaze lifted to Michael’s. “You really think Lucifer will open the portal near San Francisco?”

  Jaw tight, he nodded. “I am even more certain of it now.”

  She hoped he was right. Because that would narrow their search down, if nothing else.