Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  “That also includes Colin and Savi,” Michael said. “We should have mirrors against the retaining wall.”

  Jake nodded. “And see what’s coming before it gets through?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll add that. Okay, third line of defense—those are our shooters. Novices, vampires, and our one halfling demon.” He glanced at Ash, who nodded. “We’re going to get a lot of help. Almost three thousand vampires are coming in from around the world.”

  Surprise rippled through the room—and relief.

  “Any demons that get through the first two lines, the third line is going to blow them out of the sky. But it’s a lot harder to keep that quiet, so we’ll try to keep this battle from becoming a firefight and stop the demons before they get that far. But we’ll shoot ’em up if we have to. Taylor, you’re heading up that line.”

  What a sweetie. “I’m always happy to use my gun.”

  “I thought you would be. Okay. Here are the exceptions. Icarus, anything that gets past that lava hole, use your Gift to suck those fuckers into the ground and crush them.” Jake spoke over the laughter in response to that and looked to the tall Guardian next to Ash. “Nicholas and Radha, you’ll work together. Nicholas, use your Gift to see what scares these demon bastards—Radha, you make them see it. Disorient them until they don’t know if they’re coming or going. Rosalia, you’re doing the same by blinding them. Combined with hiding us from the city, I know this stretches you both thin. I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll make it work,” Radha said.

  “Taylor, I also want you to open your Gift as another distraction. Alice told me what happened in Hell. Anything that slows those demons down helps us. But that means everyone else, be prepared for it. No falling to your knees and crying. We’ll save that for afterward.”

  The vampires needed to be prepared, too. “I’ll do a run-through at the site before the portal opens.”

  “Good. Selah and Pim, you’re medical. If anyone gets hurt, scream and Selah will bring Pim to you for healing.”

  “Don’t delay on this,” Irena warned them. “Call for Pim if it’s anything more than a scratch. Don’t let a small injury be what steals the second you need to defend yourself.”

  “Michael can do that, too, if he’s not busy with Lucifer or a dragon. And that brings us to the dragon teams. If one comes through the portal before Lucifer does, Michael and Khavi are on it. Alejandro can’t control a dragon’s fire but he can divert it, so he gets to make sure we all don’t get fried. The second dragon team is me, Alejandro, and Irena. That will pull us off our other lines, so be ready. After a dragon comes through, it’s just going to be tougher all around.”

  “And when Lucifer comes?” Alejandro asked.

  “We don’t engage him. That’s Michael and Khavi. They’ve got his sword and Irena’s spear, and they’re going to tag team. If you see the fight heading your way, get the hell out of their path, because you’ll be jelly under their feet.” Every bit of levity drained from his face. “This is our primary objective, because the portal closes when Lucifer is dead. We have to get that portal closed. So Michael and Khavi, that’s their sole purpose. The rest of us are just playing defense until they kill him.”

  Drifter cast an apologetic look at Michael before asking, “And if they fall?”

  “If they fall, everyone’s primary goal switches from defense to offense. We slam everything we have at Lucifer, and we fight until not one of us is left.” Jake paused. “I’m going to tell you straight-up. That might be how it goes.”

  “We won’t fall,” Michael said.

  “Or just keep thinking like that, because thinking any other way won’t do us any good. So we’ve sent out the battle plan to everyone. Know your role. We’ll have weapons for the vampires. If you need anything else, let me know. I’ll try to get it for you.” He drew a deep breath. “As soon as Colin and Savi tell us that the ritual has started, we’re going to send message to your phones. Open your shields, and we’ll come for you.”

  Selah looked from Michael to Jake. “Do we have any idea when it will be?”

  “Khavi thinks a day or two at least. Lucifer went into Chaos blind. He has to find a place suitable for his army to pass through the portal, get his demons together, and get the wyrmwolves and dragons to the spot. They won’t be easy to round up. So we’ve got a little time.”

  “It will be enough time,” Michael said. “And there is one more thing. Joseph Preston was not a Guardian, but he fought with us. We will be having a gathering for him in Caelum in four hours—unless the portal opens before then. If so, we will delay until after we defeat Lucifer.”

  Jake nodded, then hesitated before he asked, “Anything else you want to tell them?”

  Michael shook his head. “Go be with your loved ones, your friends. And prepare as best you can.”

  * * *

  It was impossible to prepare. But Taylor could be with her loved ones. Some of them.

  Michael had to jump around, returning Guardians to their territories and getting everything ready, so Taylor went to her mother’s house. She found her mom sitting next to Jason’s bed, a pot of tea on the nightstand. Taylor pulled up a chair.

  Her mom smiled and set her book aside. A book of prayers. Taylor hoped they helped ease the pain, even if only a little.

  She glanced at Jason, then her mother’s red eyes. “How are you?”

  “Just tired.”

  Taylor could tell. And she wasn’t surprised. Taylor didn’t physically need rest, but the huge hole in her chest still exhausted her. Her mom must be feeling the same. “Have they been giving you anything to help you sleep again tonight?”

  Her mother nodded. “But you can’t?”

  “No.” Taylor wished she could, sometimes. It would be easier to float along, and forget. But she would rather live with this ache than miss a single second while Michael was still alive.

  Maybe after he was gone, she’d want to sleep again. But she didn’t think it would matter. The time didn’t really pass. She’d already missed two and a half years, and it felt like an instant. She’d just wake up to the same pain.

  Her gaze distant, her mother rocked in her chair. “I keep thinking, I shouldn’t have gone to bed. I should have waited up for him so that he could have stayed the night here. Or I should have moved into his house earlier, or brought him coffee that morning instead of waiting for him to come over.”

  “And I shouldn’t have told Lucifer to fuck off.”

  Her mom froze in midrock. “What?”

  “That was why he targeted Joe. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, look right here.”

  Eyes wet, she shook her head. “I’m not looking for blame. Just . . . trying to think of anything to stop it from happening.”

  But it already had happened. And there was nothing they could do to change it. They could only desperately imagine a world where it wasn’t true.

  Taylor reached out, gripped her hands. “I know.”

  “You really told Satan that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Andy.” Laughter shook her mother’s shoulders.

  “Joe laughed, too.” But Taylor was crying now. “And Michael’s dying.”

  “What?”

  “He’s dying. He only has a day or two. And I love him. I love him so much. And I’m going to lose him, too.”

  “Oh, baby.” Her mother’s fingers tightened on hers. “Don’t let him go.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Hold on as hard as you can. Every second.” Her face softened. “Do you want to be with him now?”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “Jason’s here. I’ll sit with him. You know that always helps me.”

  “Yes.” Taylor nodded, wiped her cheeks. “We’re having a gathering for Joe in Caelum. Did he tell you he saw it?”

  “He didn’t talk about anything else for a good hour.”

  Of course he hadn’t. “Do you want to come?
It might be hard to see. But I’ll help you.”

  “I thought it was a ruin.”

  It was. But she said, “It won’t be.”

  * * *

  When Michael came for Taylor, her mother wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him close. Taylor watched the emotion cloud his eyes before he returned the embrace, dipping his head to breathe in her mother’s hair.

  “Thank you, Carolyn Taylor.”

  Her mother laughed and shook her head. “That wasn’t . . . You don’t have to thank me.”

  “I am always grateful for kindness.” Michael smiled. “And I am grateful to you for Andromeda.”

  “I wasn’t really planned,” Taylor said. “You should be grateful for booze, instead.”

  That earned a swat from her mom, but she was smiling as they left, so it was worth the little spank.

  But Taylor’s heart was hurting when they arrived in Caelum, so she simply stood in his arms, waiting for some of this pain to pass. She didn’t want to rebuild the realm feeling like this.

  Her throat ached as she said, “My mother didn’t deserve this. Neither did Joe.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “You were right about not killing his murderers. This is hard enough as it is. If I’d done that . . .” She shook her head. “Does it get easier? Losing someone you love?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “Is there any purpose to it? Any reason?”

  “A reason other than Lucifer wanting to hurt you and open the portal? A reason other than four humans believing his lies and seeking justice?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The angels didn’t tell you?”

  “Is there any purpose that would bring you comfort?”

  “No.” Joe was gone. Nothing could make that better. “But if there’s a reason behind it, if there was a purpose, then I could be angry again. That’s easier to deal with.”

  “I know that very well.”

  And he had so much reason to cultivate his own anger.

  Feeling lost and tired, she laid her cheek against his chest. His arms held her tight. When he’d learned how to comfort someone, he’d obviously learned well. “Didn’t the angels tell you why this shit happens?”

  “Only that there is the creator’s will, and our will.”

  And the angels didn’t interfere with the creator’s will. He’d told her that before. “But did you ask why it happens?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you get an answer?”

  “That was the answer. The creator’s will, and our will.”

  “But what’s the reason? As a lesson? Punishment? Something else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have any idea? After eight thousand years, you have no idea what it all means? The purpose?”

  “No.” He drew back to look down at her. “And you will not like the answer I do have.”

  “Try me anyway.”

  “That we can’t know. Not because it is secret, but because it is unfathomable. The angels said the creator is all-knowing. I have seen more than most humans, but I know that if I lived a hundred thousand lifetimes, I could only scratch the surface of what there is to know in this world—and that doesn’t include the billions of people who’ve lived in it. So if there is such a being who can know everyone’s heart and mind, who knows their past and maybe their future, who sees their souls cross through realms, I don’t know how we can possibly conceive of how it thinks or sees, or how it perceives life and death or pain, and we can’t know its purpose. So instead we try to fit it into things we do understand. Punishment, rewards.”

  “There is punishment. We go to Hell.”

  “That’s different. That punishment is a result of what people do. Whether they’ve done right or wrong. I know you believe in those.”

  Right and wrong? “Yes.”

  “And they’re judged for it at the end of their life. They’re judged for their actions—and I could not guess why they are punished in Hell or what purpose it serves. But when you ask me if there’s purpose or meaning, why these things are allowed to happen, you’re talking about punishment from another source. But it can’t be both. If what happened to Joseph Preston is a punishment or a reward, dictated for some other reason, then it means no one is making choices. It means that he died not because four humans decided to stab him, but because something else made them do it. If these things happen for another reason or in service of another purpose, then free will would have no meaning. There would be no reason for Hell, because no one would truly make any choices—so why would they be held responsible for them? Yet free will and life are the two things we protect more than any other. So they must be important.”

  “So you think the only punishment is Hell? And everything else that’s shitty is just what people do. Or shitty stuff like a flood is just what happens—because of science or whatever. No meaning. No purpose.”

  “Yes. And because it’s impossible to know otherwise. What of your two and a half years in bed? Why were you asleep that long? What meaning could that amount of time have? Did you deserve it? Were you being punished—or was I being punished? Calling it a punishment only shifts responsibility away from the person who is to blame, and onto some being whose motivations we can’t know. The only reason you were in that bed for two and a half years was because it took your mind that long to heal after I hurt you. No one else did that. I did.”

  “And Khavi.”

  “Both of us, then. But either way, it was not the result of your deserving something, but the result of my actions and my will. Khavi’s will. And while we are living, we receive no punishment but what we put on each other or that we make for ourselves.”

  “So we can’t know any other purpose? You’re right. I don’t like that.”

  “Well, what should I say this is?” His arms tightened around her. “Are you a reward, a final bit of joy at the end of my life? Are you punishment, that you love me when I have so little time, and that I lose you so quickly? What should I make of you being born when you were?”

  “I don’t know.” Pain scraped her throat. “But I wish it had been five thousand years ago.”

  “And what if you were granted that wish? Would you have loved me five thousand years ago? I don’t think you would have. If I met you then, would that be a punishment—because I would miss this opportunity? I can’t know what was intended, or why you arrived in my life when you did. I only know there was booze to blame.”

  She laughed against his chest. “Yes.”

  “So that is why I say that purpose does not come from above—and meaning is what we choose to make of it. What we believe is another choice. I choose to believe in a creator whose intentions I can’t know. Some choose to believe in no creator and still believe the universe has a purpose. Some believe in no purpose. But the only thing we can be certain of is our own purpose and our own choices. You can know yours. I can know mine.”

  She exhaled on a shuddering breath. “That’s not so bad, actually.”

  “Because it’s not different from what you already believe. People should be responsible for what they do to each other, and their reasons for doing those things matter—but only to the extent that it affects their own actions. Everything else is just an excuse.”

  “Yes.” And it did help. Michael’s answer wasn’t what she’d been hoping for. But it was one that she could live with.

  Rising up on her toes, Taylor softly kissed him—but she couldn’t give in to hunger now. She quickly stepped back, took a deep breath.

  Michael glanced down at the portable CD player she called in from her hammerspace; she’d found it in the bottom of her closet. The disc had been in her mother’s stash.

  “You’re going to sing?”

  “Yes. You might want to close your ears.”

  His grin flashed, gorgeous and sweet. “Never.”

  “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She knelt beside the l
ittle stereo. “I don’t know this song very well. I just remember that on our first stakeout, Joe had the radio on and he started singing along with it. I never forgot that. He’d always seemed so serious and all ‘You’ve gotta learn the ropes, kid, or this city will eat you alive,’ and I thought I’d been paired up with an asshole. Then he starts telling these crazy, bizarre stories. And turning this way up, and singing about drunk bullfrogs named Jeremiah.”

  “‘Joy to the World,’” Michael said.

  “Yeah.” She glanced up, saw his smile. “You know it?”

  “I hear all the songs.”

  “That’s good. Since I’m building Caelum with karaoke, you can remind me of some of the lyrics when I get stuck.”

  “Or you can fake it. Caelum won’t care. Just hold your emotions close, picture what you want. Then sing it.”

  She didn’t have to hold her emotions close; they were pressing in all around her.

  “I just keep thinking that Joe was going to visit Caelum with my mom, and see what I made of her. But I can’t go back. I can’t change what happened. I can still do this, though.”

  Her voice was becoming hoarser with each word. She didn’t know how she’d sing. But maybe Michael was right; maybe it wouldn’t matter.

  Flattening her hand against the marble, she felt for Caelum. What did she want the realm to look like? Taylor said to her, “I told Joe that Michael’s temple was like the Parthenon, but that wasn’t how you looked. You were so much more. I remember standing beside the columns, feeling you under my hands and Michael in my head. And I wanted to share that with Joe, so much. I want you to be something that would knock Joe’s socks off. I want you to be a strong and beautiful home for my friends. And I don’t want either of us to be a ruin anymore.”