Demon Forged (17 page)

These Guardians could take care of themselves.

Rosalia gave him another searching look, and he had the feeling that she was wondering, questioning,
expecting
something—as if she knew him. “If you need a blood-sharer, I imagine you’re going to see the community leader.”

“Yes. You know him?”

“No, though I have heard of him—the one who walks in sunlight.”

His stomach dropped. In sunlight . . . and in Chaos, too? “I thought that was a myth.”

“So did I, and all of the vampires I knew.” She stopped. The sudden grief on her face would have made angels weep.

Deacon knew he was closer to a devil, and it still tugged at him. She’d lived in Rome. The nephilim had exterminated the vampires there, so any she’d known were dead.

She dredged up a smile. Even forced, the curve of her lips took her from sultry beauty to stunningly gorgeous and almost knocked his legs out from under him. “I have lost too many friends today. But I would like to meet this myth. Shall I take you?”

“You know where the nightclub is?”

“Polidori’s, yes. I asked the novices. But I have been waiting.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. For you, perhaps. And now I have a reason to go.”

She held out her hand. Deacon took it, and she didn’t flinch at the touch of his cold skin. She pulled him back toward the warehouse.

“The shadows are deeper here,” she said.

He nodded, expecting her to use the darkness to hide the formation of her wings. Her Gift swept over him, instead.

The shadows opened up and swallowed him whole.

Irena waited as Lilith walked around her desk and leaned back against it. Why change position? To emphasize that she wasn’t issuing orders from behind the desk? To emphasize that she was taller than Irena? Or for no reason at all?

The difficulty in dealing with someone like Lilith was knowing when she was—or wasn’t—manipulating a situation. Lilith’s direct gaze gave no clue; unlike most humans, she could lie without giving herself away. And so the only smart response was to assume she was manipulating.

“I’m going to put Alejandro on Rael,” she said.

Investigating the demon’s role in the shooting? “Do you think Rael was involved?”

Lilith shrugged. “There are factors that lead me to believe either way. His wife was a political asset: She’s good money, and a married politician is always more appealing to voters. Killing her has no benefit that I can see. And in the more than two millennia that I’ve known of Rael, I’ve never heard of him doing anything—
anything
—against humans. Never tempted, never pushed anyone to murder, never bargained with one to get something. The only thing he needs for a candidacy to sainthood is a different religion than the one he professes to have.”

Irena didn’t believe it. Rael hadn’t become one of Belial’s highest-ranked demons by playing a saint.

Of course, Belial claimed he wanted Hell’s throne so that he and his demons could return to Grace. Was it possible that a demon practiced what he preached? That he truly believed it? Or was that just another form of manipulation?

She would be stupid not to assume that it was. “And the factors on the other side?”

“He’s a demon.”

As if to let that sink in, Lilith left her desk, walked to a small cooler installed behind a wall panel. With a bottle of water in hand, she turned back. “The Bureau can’t look where we’ve got to look. That means your friend Alejandro is going to have to get close to Rael. And I need you at his back.”

Irena stared at her. Her laugh started and she didn’t attempt to stop it. Lilith’s brows arched, and she smiled as she sipped from her water.

She swallowed. “You think it’s funny?”

“I was imagining Olek’s response when you ask him.”

Lilith shook her head. “I won’t ask. His pride won’t allow him to agree.”

Yes, Olek’s pride was great, indeed. He’d accept another Guardian’s—even Irena’s—help, but never for the purpose of protecting him.

Irena studied the other woman. She shouldn’t be surprised that Lilith saw it, too. When Lilith had been a demon, she’d had to read the character of men in order to break them.

The character of men
and
women.

“This request makes no sense. I am a risk to you and to SI. You know that I don’t care if Rael is guilty; given the opportunity, I will kill him.”

“A woman is dead, and we need to know if Rael is responsible. We can’t do that if you slay him.”

Irena sneered. Throwing her own words back at her was obvious manipulation.

But it was also effective. Impotent anger surged through her, and she began to stalk a path from wall to wall. “If we determine that the demon is responsible, I won’t hold back my sword.”

“We’ll see if you do. Perhaps you’ll decide not to slay him.” Lilith’s gaze remained on her; Irena could feel it. “You did not always hate demons so much.”

“You are wrong.” She had slain her first demon not a week after she’d finished her training in Caelum and returned to Earth. In the centuries since, she’d lost count of the numbers who’d fallen before her blades.

“I saw you in Walachia after Lucifer made his bargain with Vlad—after I pissed Lucifer off, and was punished for it. Yet instead of slaying me, you told Hugh where to find me.”

Yes. Almost six hundred years before, Irena had come across Lilith impaled on a giant pole, weakened and helpless; knowing that Hugh—then a Guardian—had formed an attachment to the demon, she had left Lilith’s fate in his hands.

Irena stopped pacing. “
That
was a mistake.”

“You think so?” Lilith’s smile wasn’t friendly. “I think, between then and now, you learned what a demon is.”

Yes, she had. Not just tempters, not just beings who collected souls to strengthen Lucifer’s armies—but beings who reveled in tearing the souls apart. Lilith wasn’t much different. Given a chance, she’d dig up everything Irena kept buried.

Irena turned to leave. “I will do as you’ve asked, hellspawn.”

“Good. We’ll meet here tomorrow, seven A.M.” Lilith added as she reached the door, “He said there was no one he trusted more at his back.”

Irena’s hand froze on the knob. “Olek?”

“Yes. You
are
a risk. But sending Alejandro to investigate Rael alone is a bigger one, and SI can’t afford to lose him.”

Lose him? Ridiculous. Between his Gift and his skill with the sword, Alejandro would survive any fight with a demon.

“He’s reckless,” Lilith added.

Irena laughed. Lilith saw much, but she was wrong about that. No one was more careful than Olek. He did not make a move without weighing every consequence.

“I will do this, but you are mistaken. We will not lose him.”

So she told herself, but as she pulled Lilith’s office door closed and saw him standing at the end of the hallway, dread grabbed her by the throat.

Of course it was possible. It was for any of them. An ambush, a misjudgment of speed . . .

A stone turning beneath a foot.

Her breath sharpened. Alejandro squared his stance as she approached him, and her eyes narrowed. Did she look as if she were eager for a fight?

She was. Oh,
how
she was. “You’ve become a foolish ox.”

“Forgive me.” He gave a short bow, and paused at the end of it. “You will, of course, tell me why.”

Even bowing, he still looked down at her. “You placed yourself behind me at the courthouse. It was an idiot’s decision. Don’t do it again.”

He straightened abruptly, as if she’d struck him. She had. She’d slapped at his pride, his warrior’s pride. “You are the stronger of us—”

“Yes,” Irena hissed. “I do not need protection from a bullet.”

“
The stronger of us
,” Alejandro repeated, circling her with his silent, deadly stride—forcing her to move in a wider circle to prevent him from maneuvering around behind her. “And we did not yet know the scale of the threat. One bullet might have been followed by fifty from an automatic weapon.”

Which would cause much more damage, but—“I would recover more quickly than you.”

She put her back to the wall and planted her feet. She would not let him push her off balance.

He stopped in front of her. A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Yet you would have to recover. If I place myself behind you and take that injury, you—the stronger of us—can better face a threat if it becomes larger than we anticipate.”

“The stronger exist to protect the weaker, you self-important mule.”

“Guardians protect weaker vampires and humans, yes.” His eyes darkened. Her breath stilled. Powerful emotions made
her
eyes glow; in his, the color deepened. “But in battle, the weaker Guardian must sometimes be used to hold a threat at bay, until the stronger Guardian is positioned where she is most effective.”

Damn him. She’d taught him that. But it only applied when the threat was dire. Not when they faced a bullet.

“That battle and that time was not today.”

“I determined that it was, Irena, and I will again.” He pushed closer, leaning in. “And I vow that I will cover your body with mine whenever I see fit.”

The vow echoed in her ears. His smoky scent surrounded her. Her blood heated. No—her blood was already boiling. She’d been so focused on him, but now her focus shifted to the tightness of her skin. The cool, flat press of the wall against her shoulder blades. The molten heat at her core.

Oh, gods, she was wet. He could push at her, slide inside without any resistance. She’d take him all. Make him hers.

“No.” He straightened. His eyes shuttered. “I will not fight. I do not like the man I become with you.”

The words stabbed her chest. Reflexively, her hands fisted. Irena held them at her sides, struggling against the fury and hurt that urged her to batter them into his face. He stared down at her, and she thought, prayed, that he might take the words back.

Olek shook his head and turned. “Your vampire friend has gone into the city.”

He walked away. Irena watched, her heart hammering.

He should have hit her. She’d have known how to respond to that. But this pain, she did not.

The city sparkled below her. Sitting atop a building that rose into the night sky like a flaming spear, Irena looked toward the bay. The dark water was all she recognized from two centuries ago, toward the end of the two hundred years that she’d spent walking this part of the world. She smoothed her hand over her leggings. And she’d made friends during those two hundred years, even as she’d tried to escape the pain that had brought her here.

Yes. She had.

She’d known from the beginning that there were three types of demons: one who relished pain and suffering and death; one who cared for nothing but his own ambitions; and one who delighted in shredding souls, ruining lives—who reveled in emotional anguish and despair. She’d known that in the same way she knew letters of the alphabet—she was able to name them, to know their sounds, but when they were put together they shifted around so that she had trouble pinning the words down and wrestling out meaning. But with demons, it was simple—it did not matter that there were three types. She killed them all, and it was a job done well. She didn’t need to know more than that.

When she’d found Olek on his back, and the demon’s blade against his throat, she’d thought it was the first type of demon. She’d guessed wrong. But even if she’d known, she would’ve still made the bargain to save his life.

Irena closed her eyes, but the image of Olek and that demon was still clear behind them.

He’d been ready. Alejandro with his swords was magnificent to behold. Sleek and deadly. And so when she’d learned that a magistrate near the southern edge of her territory was a demon, she’d taken Olek with her to the demon’s residence. When they’d separated to flush out the creature, her worry had been a soft thing. When she’d come up on them in the gardens behind the house, fear had dug into her throat.

She knew what had happened. The soft earth recorded the tracks of their battle; the fight was as clear to her as if she’d witnessed it. Olek had been on the offensive, the demon falling back. Its blood streaked Olek’s sword; drops, splatters, and streams ran over the soil.

And in the dirt lay a rock, as big as her fist, freshly overturned. Olek had stumbled—enough to signal the end in most battles between Guardians and demons. But the demon hadn’t killed him. He’d cut off Olek’s hands as protection against his Gift, then straddled him after shape-shifting into a lush female body. The edge of the demon’s blade had been buried in Olek’s neck, blood sliding down the sides of his throat—but not so deep that Olek couldn’t talk.

So that the demon could hear him beg, she’d thought. Olek wouldn’t. He’d die first.