Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors (36 page)

***

Logan roared, slicing into another merker and sending a pulse of light inside it. He had purposely separated himself from his father and was ignoring the ever-increasing brutality of the slaps on his mind. He’d close the trigger-happy bastard completely off if he could do it without closing himself from any possible communications from Valin.

“Come on, Valin. What is taking you so long?” he asked of the air and jumped a bit when the Paladin fighting beside him answered.

“He might be dead.”

Alexander’s answer to the rhetorical question was not appreciated. If Valin was dead, then none of the sacrifices they were making up here were worth it. More than one Paladin was wounded. The moment one went down for good it was all over. Logan would have to release the bomb. He’d sacrifice everything of himself for Roland, but he would not ask that sacrifice of another brother.

Merker down, Logan spun about and sunk his blade into the back of the vampire that Alexander had been fighting. His aim was true and the blade sunk into the heart. No need for light with this one; a direct hit to the heart with a Paladin blade was akin to staking the creature with blessed wood.

“Thanks.”

“You’re slipping, Alexander,” he said, wiping away the sweat and drizzle from his face.

“Nah. Just thought I’d let you have some fun too. Besides, I’m a demon man, myself.”

“You’re too kind.”

Alexander’s grin faded. “Uh-oh. Here he comes.”

Logan spun around to see his father advancing down on him, his own knife coated in blood and fury etched into his face. “Why haven’t you released the light? Are you trying to kill your brothers?”

Logan’s jaw ticked. “I’m trying to
save
my brother.”

His father came to a halt before him with a huff, tossing an annoyed glance at the newest enemy that charged at them. But Alexander was there and moved to intercept, allowing the elder—thanks for nothing, Alex—to focus his ire on his son. “Roland is no longer your brother. The only thing that matters now is saving the others. If you won’t do it for them, do it for your sister.”

“Why do you think I’m holding off? It is for my sister, you fool. She is bonded and mated to Roland. If I call the light and kill him, it will be akin to killing her.”

His father gave a sharp shake of his head. “She cannot be bonded to that…thing.”

“She is. I swear it on my Paladin soul.”

Calhoun Senior’s mouth worked, his irritation palpable in the air between them. “Roland has no soul.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You. And how many centuries have you lived? How many true bonds have you seen? Three centuries? A half-dozen bonds maybe? Most of those when you were still a youngling? I’ve been here for over a millennium. I’ve seen hundreds. I will give you that it’s possible he could have been her mate, but what they have now is but an echo of what could have been. It’s not true.”

Logan shook his head.

“Look around, Logan. Are you willing to risk the lives of twelve Paladin on one man’s misplaced belief?”

Logan raised his gaze past his father. In general the Paladin were holding their own. If they could just keep this up a few more minutes it would give Roland a fighting chance—

Just then there was a loud blast. A shape, formed of shadow and evil, rose from out of the depths of the mine, reforming into a towering mass of claws and fangs and chiseled hooves. Demon. Master demon.

“Oh, crap.” Time had just run out.

Roland stumbled as the muddy ground shook beneath his feet. His senses were screaming in a way they hadn’t in ninety-four years.

“Roland? What’s wrong?” Karissa gripped his arm, her body trembling from the after-effects of the change. He wasn’t sure how much of that was true weakness, and how much was the sensory cocktail of her new abilities. The smells, the increased vision, the pulse of life around them. He knew what she felt. Knew that it called to her, making her hungry. He had to get her away from here and to someplace where he could help her deal with her new instincts.

“Nothing. Just a weird feeling.”

He started forward again, picking up speed as Karissa was able to keep up. They were trying to skirt the outer edges of the battle and slip behind the ridge that the Paladin had taken their high ground on. He’d given up on finding Logan, but he didn’t dare start leaping around until they were past the danger zone. There was at least one Paladin out there with a rifle picking off the vamps doing aerobatic tricks.

A vast roar rose above the clashing sounds of the battle just as another hit to his senses slapped Roland in the back of his skull. He stumbled forward, his arm shooting out to smack into the ground just as the vision overtook him.

Logan
stared
into
his
father’s firm gaze, then back to the vile monster that had risen out of the mouth of the tunnel. A creature of shadow and evil possibilities brought here from Lucifer’s realm to form into a creature of chaos and suffering. Off to the side Alexander was already holding back a merker, but like all his brothers, his mouth had now begun to move in an endless chant that would be their only defense against the master demon that had been thrown into the middle of the fray.

Logan’s eyes closed, his hands fisting. “I hope to hell you’re cloaking him, Valin.”

Then
he
opened
his
eyes, lifting his arms up toward the heavens, and called down the light.

“Roland!” Karissa screamed.

Roland’s eyes snapped open. He was lying on his back looking up into Karissa’s pale face. Her eyes were wide, her brow knit with fear as she glanced from him toward the battle raging to the north of them. He turned his head. Everything was in slow motion, the demon hanging in midair as it smashed up against the Paladin’s line of defense, the low roar of violent death. This was it. His vision. What he’d seen was an instant away.

And Karissa was out in the open.

With a roar he leapt up, tackling Karissa and taking her to the ground. She screamed in alarm, her cry muffled against his chest as he tried to gather up all her arms and legs and tuck them firmly under himself. He couldn’t cloak her in darkness, but perhaps his body would last long enough to shield her. Please, God. Please.

The burn hit him at the same moment that light blazed in the sky. He closed his eyes, squeezing out the moisture as he tucked his head closer, kissing the soft curls of Karissa’s hair. So sweet. So soft. So perfect. If this was his last thought, his last sensation, his last moment, he was glad that it was with her.
My
heart, my body, for you. I love you.

Roland
…She wiggled beneath him.

Ah, Gawd. Even now, even while he burned to death above her, he wanted her.

Only he wasn’t burning. The burn had turned into a radiant warmth that seeped into his body, spreading out through his limbs.

“Roland. Let me up.”

He shook his head, squeezing her tighter underneath him. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t dead yet, but it would only be a matter of time. As a master vampire he was strong, but not enough to resist the light of heaven.

“Roland! Open your eyes.”

Hands clasped onto the side of his face. Alarmed that she’d managed to free her arms enough to expose herself thusly, his lids snapped open. Karissa smiled up at him, her pretty, bowed lips curved up enough to reveal her pointy little fangs. Damn they were sexy. He wanted her to bite him. Mark him. Claim him.

He shook his head, tossing away those thoughts. Strange what he chose to focus on when he was dying.

“You’re not dying, silly.” She jerked her head toward the battlefield. “But they are.”

He looked over the valley and saw the charred remains as they floated to the ground. At the same time the unnatural light dissipated, only so did the clouds, leaving the valley bathed in sunlight.

And still he didn’t burn.

His eyes flashed to Karissa. She still smiled. Completely unharmed by the rays of the sun. “How?”

He shook his head. Didn’t matter how. Somehow he was alive and so was Karissa. But though Christos’s vampires were dead and Lucifer’s demons similarly banished, there were still a couple dozen merkers to contend with. And if there was one thing Roland had always been good at, it was dismembering a merker. And with Karissa’s ability to transport their vulnerable remains into His light? Well, they now made the perfect team.

“Come on. I think the others could use our help.”

***

Karissa scrambled up the mountainside beside Roland, cursing her weakness. Being turned into a vampire may have given her body the ability to heal enough to function, but it did nothing to alleviate the pure exhaustion that the trauma of the last twelve hours had rendered.

She stumbled another few feet, tripping over both root and brush. Only Roland’s firm grip on her waist kept her upright and running. She’d tell him to go on without her, except for the fact that she never wanted to do without him again. Nope, she’d already made that mistake once. From now on they were joined at the hip. Well, not literally. She had insisted he put her down when it became apparent that he too was tiring from the whole ordeal. A decision she was regretting now with her bare feet and only his thin T-shirt to cover her against the branches and twigs that grabbed at her.

“Where are we going?” she demanded when her knee tried to buckle out from under her.

He glanced over his shoulder at her, then pulled her in tighter. “Let me carry you.”

“No. I just want to know where we are going.”

“Top of the ridge. The Paladin are good, but there were a couple dozen merkers who will have survived Logan’s little bomb.”

“Why are we running?”

“Don’t want to let them have all the fun.”

She planted her feet, forcing him to stop. “No. I mean why are we running? Why not jump?”

“Because there’s also a trigger-happy Paladin with a rifle. No offense, I don’t like healing large caliber holes through my head. That shit can really fuck with your mind.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not hearing me. I can see the edge of the cliff over there, so I can jump us to it. That can’t be far from the ridge.”

His eyes widened. He smiled. Then his mouth was descending onto hers. She hardly had time to acclimate to the heady taste of his tongue as it pierced and plundered her mouth and the throb of their simultaneous heartbeats, before he was pulling away. “You’re brilliant.”

She winked. “Just keep that thought in mind and we’ll never have a fight as long as we live. Which, I’ve been told, could be a long, long while.”

He laughed, grabbing onto her hand. “Let’s go,
mon
chaton
.”

She turned her attention to the cliff, concentrating on setting her will on a spot that was just a touch back from the ledge, though slightly above. They’d fall when they came out of the netherplanes, but it would be only a couple of feet, and far better than finding themselves encased in granite rock.

When she was sure she had a bead on the extraction location, she pulled them both into the netherplane, brilliant light flashing as they traveled the couple hundred yards in an instant. They hit the end and popped back out, falling with a grunt and thud to the ground.

She started to turn around to see where they were, but Roland quickly grabbed her up, pulling her into a nearby set of bushes.

“What?” She tried to crane her head around. “What is it?”

“Crap, Logan. Can’t you stay out of trouble when I’m not around?”

Roland set her down carefully, his hand reaching down to the wicked looking knife strapped onto his thigh. She followed his gaze to where he was looking and gasped when she saw that Logan wasn’t more than a dozen yards away, struggling with two imposing looking men who she guessed were merkers. As she watched, the fight drew close enough to hear the heavy panting of the creatures and the undertone of Paladin swearing.

“Stay here,” Roland commanded, then dove into the fray, his knife carving chunks out of the merker who’d been lunging toward Logan’s back.

Karissa couldn’t keep up with the movements and found her gaze pulled to another battle going on a few yards away. The red-haired giant she’d met back at the hall—heck if she couldn’t remember his name—was back-to-back with a man who looked alarmingly like Logan. They were both muttering some strange sort of chant, their blades flashing a defensive pattern against the clawed attack of a blackened demon that had somehow managed to survive the blazing light of a few minutes before.

She forced her attention back to Roland and Logan. She couldn’t do much, other than maybe bare her fangs and bite one of the two merkers. But she could be ready to distract if needed.

Good thing it wasn’t needed. The two men had obviously worked together in the past. They didn’t rely on standing back-to-back, but the merry dance they led the two merkers on as they played with their prey was impressive to watch. They taunted, they parried, each swipe of their deadly knives wearing their opponents down, raising their frustration levels, and inviting them to make a mistake. It happened fast. A merker lunged at Logan as Roland swiped the head off the second merker he’d just spun behind. Logan’s knife pierced into the first merker’s chest cavity. The creature screamed as fire pulsed down Logan’s blade as he focused his gift into the knife. Then Roland was there, ignoring the blind stumbling of the other merker as he sank his hand into the creature’s hair, pulled its head back, then sliced through its neck.