Temptation, Chronicles of the Fallen, Book 3 (2 page)

He lurched forward once more. Something about that piece of gold and glittering stones was important. He couldn’t remember why, but the power in it drew him with such strength he couldn’t resist.

But he was too late. His challenger had disappeared, his shimmer trail rapidly fading. And on the ground where his foe had stood just a moment before lay a ball of blackened gold and crushed ruby. Melted and deformed. Without a trace of power left. The sight of that melted lump brought clarity. Temptation let go, and Gideon took control once more. In a rush of blinding pain, he morphed back to human form.

Unable to breathe, unable to fully process what had just happened, Gideon fell to his knees. The sword clattered to the floor at his side. His face twisted in shock. Trapped in immutable horror, Gideon scooped up the mangled ball. He held it before him in shaking hands.

Everything he’d hoped and prayed for…gone. He let his hands fall to his lap, his fingers limp, and he watched as the ball thudded to the floor and rolled lopsidedly away.

As the last shreds of hope disintegrated, Gideon dropped his head forward. Despair the likes of which he’d never before experienced rocked him. He was hollow. His guts ripped out. His purpose lost. He was wrecked, beyond destroyed.

Here and now, he could finally admit the truth. Forgiveness was not for the likes of him. He’d never believed he could be redeemed. He’d never again see his Heavenly home. Never again feel the warmth of God’s grace and love. All that had been left for him was the promise of the amulet.

And that was now lost to him.

He had nothing. Not false hope. Not a purpose for existing. Not even the hope of one day feeling the comfort, the warmth, the basic sensation of physical contact without destruction.

No hope.

Tipping his head back, drowning beneath the despair welling up inside him, Gideon released his raw grief in a howl so frightening the jungle for miles around fell utterly still.

Chapter One

Three weeks later

Gideon ripped himself free of the nightmare as his cell phone screeched. He rolled to his back and scrubbed both hands over his clammy face. He was covered in a cold sweat. His ragged breath sawed in and out, burning his lungs. His eyes were gritty. His head throbbed like an abscessed tooth. In short, he felt like something the cat had dragged in. Something that, if it wasn’t already dead, damned sure should be.

So, all in all, about the same as normal.

Xander, Gideon surmised by the ringtone. A ringtone he’d once found amusing, given Xander’s recently whooped status. Now he couldn’t give a shit one way or the other. The phone went silent—
thank God
—which was a good thing as he’d had no intention of answering it anyway. Unfortunately, Gideon’s ears continued to ring, an insistent accompaniment to the throbbing in his temples.

He glanced first at the heavy watch on his wrist, then at the bright sunlight pouring in through the crack in the drapes, and he stifled a groan. Two in the afternoon. By now he should have been up, should have been back out on the streets. He should have been chasing down those ever-elusive relics. But he hadn’t shimmered home and crawled into bed until…well, he wasn’t even sure what time it had been this morning. At least, he was pretty sure it had been this morning.

Or had it been yesterday?

Ah, hell. What does it matter anymore, anyway?

Gideon rolled to his side and sat up. He braced himself on the edge of the bed as he hung his head. A stifled curse slipped from his mouth as he lifted both hands to clutch at that foreign-feeling appendage attached to his shoulders.

He waited until his head—or the room, one or the other—stopped spinning before he tried to stand. He didn’t even want to consider how much whiskey it had taken for him to hit the state of numbness he’d found last night. But, judging by the raging hangover he was contending with, it must have numbered in cases rather than bottles.

Oh dear Jesus, his mouth tasted as if something had crawled in there and died. By the swollen, furry feel of it, the
something
was his tongue.

Groaning, he braced a hand first on his dresser and then the wall as he staggered to the bathroom. Once there, he splashed water on his face. It took a long while, standing over the sink with the water running, before he could work up the effort, or the courage, to look in the mirror. Squinting against the sight that met him, he groaned, then winced at the pain that small sound had caused.

One step at a time
, he reminded himself.

He brushed his teeth. Twice. Just as he reached to turn on the shower, his phone began its shrill serenade once more. Gideon cringed. Niklas’s ringtone this time. Grimacing, he ignored the phone and peeled his clothing off, not even wanting to know what had made them so crusty they could damned near stand up and dance on their own.

He could have conjured himself clean, but he needed the steady pounding of hot water against his battered flesh. Besides, conjuring would take far more energy than he had right now.

The spicy, citrusy scent of shampoo revived him little by little. By the time he’d cracked open the bottle of body wash and lathered from head to toe for the third time, he felt almost human. Almost was pretty damned good, all things considered.

As he was toweling dry, Sebastian’s ringtone screamed through the bedroom. Growling, he considered crushing the phone. Or stomping on it. Or throwing it against the wall. Or out the window. Anything to make the damned thing shut up. Lord knew muting it was no longer an option, courtesy of Mikhail and whatever it was he’d done to the damned thing. Despite a serious lack of social skills, that bastard could do some crazy shit with electronics.

The phone continued to ring.
Can’t they take a damned hint?

Checking up on him? Making sure he hadn’t gone off the reservation, were they?

Well, too damned bad for them, ’cause that ship sailed. Three weeks ago, to be precise.

Or had it been much longer than that?

At least he didn’t have to worry about Mikhail calling. The Demon of War wasn’t exactly the babysitter type. If you weren’t helping him kill something, or weren’t the thing he was killing, then he didn’t have time to waste on you. Dude was so cold penguins would drop over dead of hypothermia just standing in the same state.

Gideon pulled on a pair of jeans and, despite the pain using his powers would cause his already splitting head, he conjured himself a caramel macchiato—the grande the better. He took the first sip and groaned appreciation.

Bliss. Pure, undiluted bliss.

With a great amount of effort, he made his way down the grand staircase, intent on the big kitchen at the back of his Civil War era plantation home deep in the heart of Tennessee. For the first time in weeks, he actually looked around. The once majestic house he’d taken pride in, the inviting home where he used to find peace and comfort, his haven, was an absolute wreck.

Priceless period furniture had been overturned and tossed about, shattered in fits of rage and despair. One-of-a-kind oil paintings had been slashed or ripped from the walls altogether. Luxurious window coverings sagged to the floor, pooling on one side of the window. Mud and only God knew what else had been tracked over once gleaming floors and expensive carpets. The place looked as if it had been invaded by a hostile army.

But Gideon knew the sad truth. He was the only thing to have crossed that threshold in months. He’d done this. He’d wrecked the beautiful oasis he’d once called home.

Sadly, he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

Gideon pulled up short three steps across the foyer. He did nothing to temper the nasty snarl he aimed at the blurry disruption of air near the front doors. Half a second later, golden blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a powerful body took shape.

“Nobody’s home,” Gideon snapped as he walked right on by the Demon of Vengeance without a second glance. “Go away,” he growled over his shoulder for good measure.

“You didn’t answer your phone.” Undeterred, Sebastian followed him toward the kitchen. Gideon heard the Demon of Vengeance swear beneath his breath as he stepped over the splintered pile of what once had been an expensive side table. And, once again, he couldn’t muster up the energy to give a damn.

Gideon ignored the pained disapproval on Sebastian’s face. If he didn’t like the mess, he could damned well leave. No one was keeping him here. In fact, no one had invited him in the first place.

“You haven’t answered your phone for three weeks.” Sebastian glanced around the room, clearly looking for a safe, relatively clean seat. Unable to find such a place, he pushed empty, and some not-so-empty, pizza boxes and takeout containers down the long table to clear room and conjured his own chair.

“Mikhail doesn’t answer his phone for three months,” Gideon bit out as he buried his head in the fridge to dig out a couple cartons of leftover sesame chicken and fried rice.
When did I get Chinese?
He shrugged, popped the tops open and grabbed a fork from a drawer. Didn’t appear to be anything green in there that wasn’t supposed to be, so he dug in. “I don’t see anybody calling out the National Guard or dropping in on him uninvited,” Gideon added.

The latter probably had something to do with the fact that anybody stupid enough to “drop in” on Mikhail was liable to end up decorating the top of a very long pole. But neither one of them bothered to point that out. Vlad Tepes had nothing on Mikhail.

Then again, neither one of them bothered to point out the obvious either. But they were both thinking it. Gideon could tell by the uncomfortable expression tightening Sebastian’s face. Right now, Gideon was the one his brethren were all worried about. The one they were all waiting to take a swan dive off the deep end. The one they all expected to go rogue.

They also thought they’d done a good job of hiding their concerns, that he didn’t know they doubted him.

He wasn’t blind, nor was he an idiot.

Not that he could begrudge them their doubts. He was just as unsure of himself as they were.

“Yeah, well, I’m still on the right side of the grass. I didn’t play with my food last night.” He paused, giving Sebastian a mock-thoughtful frown. “At least, I don’t think I did. The last half of the night’s entertainment is a little blurry, so I can’t guarantee anything. I didn’t enslave half the human population of…well, wherever the hell I was. Again”—he shrugged noncommittally—“blurry, so no guarantees. And I didn’t wake up with a bed full of strange women, not that it would matter. You know, the whole not-being-able-to-touch-anyone curse and all,” he snarked bitterly. “So you can run along now like a good little demon and reassure the others.”

“Well, aren’t we just Sally Sunshine this afternoon?”

The look he shot Sebastian would have made a lesser demon piss himself.

Sebastian arched an eyebrow and considered him in silence for a long moment. Subdued, he asked, “What’s this about?”

Gideon swallowed a mouthful of coffee and shot him a deadened look. “What are you talking about?”

“This attitude. For a while there, it was like the old Gideon had returned. We all thought you’d found your focus, found your faith again. And then wham. Look-at-me-wrong-and-die Gideon is back. I mean, hey, we understand, dude. We do. Given the situation we’ve all been forced into, it’s not out of the question to second-guess what we’re fighting for here. It’s perfectly natural to get a bit…ah, depressed. Maybe feel a little antisocial, you know.”

Gideon stared at Sebastian, unable to wrap his mind around the fact that the Demon of Vengeance was getting all Psych 101 on him.

Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I’m just gonna throw this out there and you can do with it what you will. We’ve been…concerned about you for some time. It’s been pretty obvious you were starting to lose your way. The last several months, the way you’ve been with Carly and Kyanna, well, we were beginning to think you’d gotten back on the wagon, so to speak. Now it’s like you just don’t give a shit about anything anymore. You gotta know we’re all struggling here.” Again, Sebastian rubbed at the back of his neck. “Dude, don’t make me say this shit out loud, don’t make me get all warm and fuzzy.” His gaze pleaded with Gideon to let him off the hook.

Normally, Gideon would’ve had a snappy comeback. Maybe something about Sebastian never being warm. Fuzzy maybe, but never ever warm. Normally. But Gideon stayed silent. Needling his friend held no appeal.

At Gideon’s lack of response, Sebastian’s frown deepened. “Is this about the loophole?”

He’d confided in Sebastian once, a few months back, about the possibility of the Amulet of the Gods being able to lift his curse. He’d been drunk off his ass and half out of his mind with jealousy over Xander and Niklas both finding mates. Leave it to Sebastian to not let what was said in a drunken stupor stay in a drunken stupor.

“Loophole’s closed,” he snapped, letting his tone make it clear he wasn’t discussing the issue. Ever. Again.

Sebastian opened his mouth, pity written all over his face.

“Closed,” Gideon snarled.

“Whatever,” Sebastian growled, none too pleased. “Look, since you can’t just answer your phone like a normal dick, I drew the short straw and had to come find your sorry ass. We need you to intercept and guard a Halfling.”

“Oh, sure, no problem,” Gideon snipped between cold bites of sweet and spicy chicken, “’cause they’re just falling out of the sky left and right. If this Halfling’s so damned important, and you have enough time on your hands to come check up on me, why aren’t you doing the search and rescue thing?”

“I’m off to Michigan as soon as I leave here. We’ve tracked down a descendant of the Guardian charged with protecting the Sword of Kathnesh. We’re hoping I can find something that might help us trace the stolen relic, maybe recover it.”

Gideon took a swig of coffee, unimpressed. “Send one of the others.”

“Mikhail, Xander, and Niklas are already tied up with missions of their own. By default, that leaves you.”

The Sword of Kathnesh, along with the Arc Stone, the Scrolls of Prévnar and the Chosen One, made up the four Sacred Relics. It had long ago been prophesied that whosoever controlled the four Sacred Relics would possess the means to overthrow Lucifer. Only problem with that scenario was that the demon prince, Stolas—who’d already absconded with the sword and was, even now, working on stealing the rest—intended to unleash Armageddon, as the veil between Earth and Hell depended solely upon Lucifer’s life force.

That had been God’s own curse. Lucifer existed, therefore the veil existed. If Lucifer perished, then the veil fell. Pretty effective torment for someone whose sole heart’s desire was the one thing that could only be had at the expense of his own life.

As much as they all hated bad old Lucy, Gideon and his legion of penitent demons couldn’t let it go down like that. So, regardless of the fact that they’d turned their backs on Lucifer centuries ago, regardless of the fact that Lucifer now hunted them with a vengeance, putting a price on their heads few demons could resist, they fought to keep him in power down under. Not to protect Lucifer, but to protect the human race, and—hopefully—earn forgiveness.

Gideon gave Sebastian a droll stare. “Easy enough to figure out. Guardian sucked at his job. Sword’s in enemy hands, out of reach. End of discussion.”

“You need to shut up and drink your coffee,” Vengeance snarled.

Where’s all that vaunted patience now?
Well, good. Maybe if Gideon pissed him off enough Sebastian would go the hell away and leave him alone.

Gideon grunted, flipping him the bird with one hand as he tipped the coffee cup to his lips with the other.

“Back to your mission. That key you found a while back in the spine of Kyanna’s book? Xander and Kyanna figured out what it goes to,” Sebastian went on. Kyanna was Guardian of the Arc Stone. Five mostly reformed demons, one Guardian and one little human were all that stood between the status quo and the complete and utter enslavement and annihilation of the entire human race. No pressure or anything.