Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors (19 page)

***

“Oh shit.” Valin’s arm snapped out, catching Karissa across the chest. Her gaze settled on the three figures that had just landed in front of them. Two were obviously vampires, but the man they flanked, with his black abysses for eyes and the bloodred cloak that flowed out behind him, was something else…something more.

Valin and the redheaded vampire had both been right. Tonight was not a good night to be out.

“Run, Karissa!” Valin hissed, pushing her behind him.

He didn’t have to ask her twice. She ran. Well, she tried. Problem was she and Valin had been running since the moment the girl had disappeared. Karissa still didn’t understand why the adolescent vamp had told them trouble was on the way, or why she’d then let them go, but she supposed it didn’t matter much. The warning had been too little too late; the enemy was too close and Haven too far. Karissa wished she could have jumped—if she could have they would have been safe by now—but the truth was she could barely stand, let alone run. So there they were, five or six blocks away from help.

She made it a pitiful fifteen feet when she hit an invisible wall. The impact burned and she fell back on her butt with a yelp of pain, landing on something sharp.

Her eyes locked longingly on the tease of an escape route beyond the invisible barrier.

“Isn’t that something,” a seductively low voice said from behind her. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled with each grinding step he took toward her. “Looks like Christos was right. Man, he’s going to be pissed at Gabby dearest for trying to hide this.”

Karissa didn’t know who Christos or Gabby were. Didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to her right now was the scrap of metal she’d conveniently fallen upon. It had torn through her jeans and scratched her thigh, but, blessings of blessings, it could be turned into an excellent weapon. As long as she could stand the heck up. Shaking with exhaustion, she grasped the jagged metal and dragged herself to her feet, then turned to face the man with the cloying voice.

Oh crap. She thought it was the red cape that had made him seem so imposing. She’d been wrong. He was huge. Gigantic. All of a sudden her piddly piece of metal didn’t seem like much of a defense. Certainly not worth the tetanus booster she was probably going to have to have if she survived this encounter.

She looked past him toward Valin. Her hopes for help from that corner dashed when she saw the Paladin engaged in battle with the two vampires…and a demon. Valin wasn’t doing so well either. Despite the fact he was able to do his little ghosting trick, he still bore an alarming number of bleeding wounds upon his naked body.

Her grip tightened around the shard of metal, brandishing the inadequate weapon like a knife.

“You think to kill me with that?” the black-eyed man asked on a laugh, drawing her attention back to the closer threat. “You couldn’t. You’re weak as a lamb.”

And damn him for noticing. With a hiss, Karissa lunged forward and found the shield wasn’t only in front of her, but it surrounded her.

Frantic, she pounded and slashed at the bubble of energy that entrapped her. The metal shard skittered and sparked whenever it met the invisible barrier. Panic clamped down on her lungs. She began to hyperventilate.
Have
to
get
out. Need to get free.

“Karissa!”

She could hear Valin yelling over the buzzing in her mind, but she didn’t stop.

Trapped
trapped
trapped
trapped.

“Leave her alone, you bastard!”

Pulling on the last of her energy—not sure she could even make the jump if she wanted to—she let it loose, only to find it sapped away into the rolling power of the shield. She whimpered, her vision funneling into a black tunnel.

The man laughed again, closer this time. She couldn’t even manage the energy to look.

Her body crumpled, her knees buckling and her head sagging down onto her chest as raking sobs tore through her body.

Too tired to jump. Too tired to fight.

Papa, oh, Papa. I’m so sorry.

She shuddered. Her last thought was that of Papa’s mutilated body as she sunk onto the cold pavement.

***

He’s dead.

The thought barely had time to cross Roland’s mind before he was plunging off the top of the steel roof of the warehouse, knife singing from his leg sheath, and toward the cloaked merker bending over Karissa’s crumpled form. Red fury, red blood. Immortal or not, the merker was a dead man.

Roland slammed into the merker, catching him unprepared. They rolled, fists smashing, fangs slashing, knife and gun sliding out of sleeves. Roland’s knife sliced through the tendons of the merker’s wrist and the merker’s gun dropped before discharging. It didn’t stop the creature’s other hand though, or the attached claws that popped through his human glamour and ripped a painful slash across Roland’s shoulder.

Roland’s roar ripped through the alley, cut off the moment he sunk his canines into the thin flesh around the merker’s trachea. Another muffled growl and a yank and the merker’s throat was hanging from his body. A Colombian necktie, minus the tongue. The merker’s mouth opened in a silent scream, his claws extracting from Roland’s flesh as they flew back to grab at the dangling cartilage. A lesser being would be dead, or dying, but virtual immortality was just another perk of being sired by Ganelon. And birthed by a demon. The only way to kill a merker was to cut out their heart, lop off their head, and burn them both—in His light.

The merker would heal, unless Roland could kill it first.

Roland rolled back into a half-crouch and tossed the long-bladed knife from one hand to the other, his gaze following the backpedaling merker. First things first. The heart. He lunged…and was grabbed from behind.

***

So
cold.

Karissa turned her head, wincing at the grind of gritty pavement against her cheek. Her entire body was twitching, the jerky movements abrading her skin wherever it met blacktop. She didn’t care. In this case blacktop was good. It meant no one had kidnapped her while she was unconscious. She was still in the road. And blessed be, alive.

A muffled scream tore her from her momentary optimism. The fight was still on. Trying not to draw attention to herself until she could determine status, she lifted her head just enough to turn her chin toward the noise.

She expected to see Valin, and there he was, struggling with one of the two vampires in a cloud of ash. The other was noticeably absent, and hope of hopes, the reason for the dust. What she didn’t expect to see was the other man playing do-si-do with a demon.

“Roland…” she whispered through her tight throat, watching as he made another thrust with the wicked-looking knife in his hand. The blade was dripping with a black oily substance—demon blood. It would have been another score for the good guys if not for the fact that Roland was similarly dripping—red blood. He was hurt.

Karissa pushed up on her hands and winced as something sharp cut into her palm. The metal shard. Her eyes narrowed on the hideous demon that was digging groves in the pavement with its razor sharp hooves as it danced in for another slice at Roland.

Karissa sucked in a breath, something vital dropped two stories from behind her ribs to below her belly, then let the lungful of used air out again as Roland whirled aside, the demon’s clawed hand slashing open space.

A bit of optimism slipped back in. Roland was here. Everything was going to be all right.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, a figure lifted from the sidewalk nearby. She hadn’t noticed him before; in the dim light the dark red cloak he wore blended him in with the blood-soaked cement. She felt her heart skip a beat. The night, which seemed warm until that moment, chilled the sweat on her skin, making her shiver.

It was the man with the black eyes, the one who trapped her. He shouldn’t have been able to stand. Shouldn’t even be alive. He had a friggin’ hole in the middle of his chest!

He didn’t look at her, his eyes fixed on Roland as he lurched forward first one step, then another.

Uncaring of the sting across her palm, Karissa’s fist tightened around the metal and she pulled her legs under her. The world spun.

She could do no more than cry out helplessly as the cloaked man lunged at Roland’s unprotected back. In a gravity-defying move, Roland crouched, then sprang up, twisting his body up and over Black Eyes, and landing behind him in an effortless flourish.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Karissa found the corner of her mouth twitching. The next second her half-smile faded as the cloaked man’s head slid from his body, landed with a sickening thud on the ground and rolled to a stop less than three feet away from her hands, its black eyes boring into her.

She hadn’t even seen Roland use his knife.

Bile rose in her throat, a scream stuck behind it. The death, the monsters, the constant running, thinking she was safe then the betrayals, more running, more death. Too much.

There was an inhuman roar. A demon’s cry.

“Back up, Karissa!” Roland yelled, his boots scuffing as he rushed to engage the remaining enraged demon.

She heard him, noted the clipped tone that bespoke a raised level of anxiety. Still, she could not draw her gaze from the unblinking eyes. She swore there was still something there in the black depths. It saw her.

Dimly, she was aware of Roland still dancing with his demon and at the same time stringing together a series of chants eerily similar in tongue to the one both Logan and Valin had used on her, though different, darker. She started to lift her gaze when the black eyes blinked. They effing blinked! Her jaw dropped open, her eyes riveted on the decapitated head as she desperately tried to convince herself she hadn’t seen what she’d seen.

From farther down the road came another inhuman screech. Almost thankful for the distraction, Karissa allowed the instinctive twist of her head. A cloud of ash billowed in the place where Valin and the vampire had been. A second later, a cloud of dark particles separated out, swirling into form a step beyond until only Valin remained.

Valin stood, feet planted wide, arms spread slightly as if ready to tackle something, but with his head half bent and his chest heaving. He was covered in sweat, blood, and grime. He’d killed two vampires, but his battle had not been without personal cost. There was a deep gash across his upper arm, and a wicked wound from his chest down to his groin where it looked like someone had tried to disembowel him—and thankfully failed.

Karissa squirmed. She
was
glad he was alive and that both wounds, though vicious, didn’t seem to be life threatening. But she was decidedly uneasy as well. Their momentary camaraderie as they fled was iffy at best.

Valin raised his head, his eyes drifting over her to narrow in on a point to Karissa’s left. Her head swiveled back around. The demon was gone. Only Roland stood, his own chest heaving to match the rise and fall of the naked Paladin staring him down.

“Roland,” Valin spat the name out like it was something vile that needed to be eradicated.

“Valin,” Roland replied more calmly.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

Roland nodded, his mouth twisted up into a mocking smile. “Some would say that I am.”

Valin tensed. Roland shifted his weight back to the balls of his feet.

Karissa blinked in disbelief. They were both Paladin. They’d just saved each other’s assess. They weren’t going to fight each other, were they?

In the next second Karissa had her answer. Silent as a hunting cat, Valin rushed forward.

***

Roland sidestepped Valin’s charge. Too easy. Valin, who normally might have been a challenge, was injured and weak with fatigue. Perhaps he should allow his brother Paladin a strike or two for his ego. Something with which to console himself once Roland brought the Paladin down. But one glimpse of the lightening sky, Karissa’s trembling body, and the jiggling limbs of the not-yet-dead, headless merker had him pushing aside such feelings of sympathy.

So, as his foot hit pavement, his body twisting out of the way, he also reached out with his arm, snagging the man who’d once fought by his side. The man who’d once called him brother. Given that Valin wanted to kill him, Roland was pretty sure he could count on the fact that those days were definitely over.

With an arm-wrenching twist, he threw the Paladin up against the wall of a nearby building. Knowing Valin would just shift, Roland did the one thing guaranteed to keep him there, the one thing that would also confirm the totality of his lost soul in the Paladin’s eyes.

Once, a long time ago when he was initiated into the ranks, Roland went through the ceremony that bound him forever to his fellow Paladin. A ceremony Valin went through also. A blood ceremony. Using his vampire powers to draw on that blood tie now, Roland forced himself behind Valin’s natural defenses, worming his way into the Paladin’s mind, and squashing his will to shift.