Authors: Meljean Brook
Demon Blood (54 page)
“Khavi wasn’t sure,” Taylor said. “And we won’t know until all of the nephilim are dead.”
“They are beginning,” Alejandro said.
Rosalia wrapped her arms tight around Deacon and looked up at him. His heart pounded against her chest. From the speakers, she heard a smack of flesh against flesh. She felt Irena’s instinctive anger in response to the demon’s abuse. Deacon’s eyes emptied.
He jerked toward her, straining against the chains. The bars groaned, but they held him for now.
She turned her head to look just as the nephil teleported into the catacombs.
One
, she counted.
One
, she counted.
Swords clashed. A demon was almost immediately killed—the one who had broken the Rules. Deacon went limp. Four demons came at the nephil, and the creature fell.
Deacon looked down at her, his eyes dazed. “It’s over?”
“Only one.”
The demons jeered. Malkvial kicked the head of the fallen demon. He shouted, and the others shouted back.
“The weak and the dead are unworthy to stand at Belial’s side,” Taylor translated in a harmonious voice.
Rosalia glanced over and her blood chilled. Taylor’s face was pale, her eyes fully obsidian. Her hair had darkened to black.
Just like Michael’s.
A human shouted. Rosalia’s gaze snapped to the monitor. A demon approached a tethered man, shifting into the form of a little girl with sharp teeth.
“Can I have a lollipop now?”
“Stay away . . . Don’t touch me!”
The human’s shout became a thin, terrified scream.
The human’s shout became a thin, terrified scream.
“Goddamn son of a bitch,” Deacon growled. “You’ll get what you deserve.”
Rosalia wasn’t sure if he meant the demon or the human. She wanted to turn away, but made herself watch. She had to count.
The demon-child ripped the human’s trousers open and touched him.
Deacon went rigid. On-screen the nephil teleported in, sword raised high.
Two.
The demon-child didn’t fall. Deacon didn’t stop straining. The demons killed the nephil, but they didn’t have time to torture another human. Another nephil teleported in.
Three.
Shouts of surprise came from the demons. Seven died before they overwhelmed the nephil.
Four.
Malkvial began shouting orders, and this time the demons were better prepared. The humans screamed as demons raced around them, swords flashing, blood spattering. The demons’ laughter was just as loud.
Five.
The chain around Deacon’s right arm snapped. Mindlessly, he flung her away from him. Rosalia flew back, almost smashing into St. Croix but hitting the solid wall instead. Instantly she was on her feet, racing to catch his wrist, trying to force it back against the bars.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—he was
strong
.
strong
.
Then Irena was there, born when a Caesar still ruled Rome, her strength many times greater than Rosalia’s. Together, they pinned his arm. Irena brought in a new chain and held Deacon while Rosalia secured it.
She looked back at the screen. Bodies littered the catacomb floor, steeped in pools of blood. “How many?”
“Twenty-three,” Alejandro said.
Even as she watched,
twenty-four
.
Twenty-five
. Malkvial had the demons working in perfect order.
twenty-four
.
Twenty-five
. Malkvial had the demons working in perfect order.
And Taylor had said there were fifty-seven in total. Rosalia glanced over at her. “At fifty-three, go.”
Four more nephilim fell in the few seconds it took Taylor to reply. “That doesn’t give me much time.”
“She’s a mother,” Rosalia said. “She’ll come as fast as she can.”
“And I’ll get the humans out.”
“Yes,” Irena said. “But dump them in a sewer.”
Rosalia glanced up at Deacon. The cords in his neck stood out sharply, veins popping out against the muscles in his forearms. The bars wouldn’t hold much longer, and he’d remain like this until the demon who’d broken the Rules was slain.
She looked to the screen. It had been the demon who’d become a child—but it had already shape-shifted back to its original form. She didn’t even know which demon it was.
“Forty-six.” Alejandro kept the count. “Forty-seven.”
She glanced at Taylor. “Bring her into the corridor, so that none can escape.”
“Fifty-two. Fifty—”
Taylor vanished.
“—three,” Alejandro finished.
Rosalia held on to Deacon and prayed.
Anaria stood in her mansion, sword in hand, looking desperately around with eyes that shone like halogen flashlights. Oh, Jesus. She’d probably watched each of her children disappear, one at a time—perhaps understanding what was happening and yet unable to do anything to stop it.
She spotted Taylor, and before Taylor could get more than “Belial’s—” out, Anaria had sprinted to her side.
“Take me.”
Cold and dangerous. Taylor shivered, and then they leapt together.
Fifty-seven.
The last nephil fell. On the monitors, a breathless waiting seemed to take over the demons. All was silent, except for the sobbing and pitiful whimpers of the humans. Then Malkvial raised his sword, and a cheer overwhelmed the speakers.
It abruptly died. As one, the demons turned toward the entrance of the ossuary. Not one looked at Taylor as she flashed in front of the humans, touched two, and was gone.
Anaria didn’t show on any of the screens. The demons’ eyes were all turned to her, though, and their crimson skin seemed to pale.
Not losing color, Rosalia realized. The shadows behind them darkened as a bright light filled the room. Brighter. A few demons narrowed their eyes and turned their heads away from the brilliant glow. Another stumbled back, as if trying to find a place to hide. His fear acted like an electric prod.
All hell broke loose. Demons scrambled. Monitors darkened in splotches, blood splattering against the cameras. Demons screamed. The light that was Anaria whited out the screens for an instant, a radiant streak. Rosalia couldn’t track her.
She strained to see past the light, past the blood and the running demons. She could tell only that there were far, far fewer of them. “Taylor?”
Alejandro pointed to a different monitor. “Only two humans are left.”
Almost done, then, and thank God. An instant later, she saw that no humans remained.
Then no demons were alive, either. Emitting a bright light, Anaria stood, her sword bloodied, her white wings saturated with red.
St. Croix’s mouth hung open, his face a picture of shock. “What happened? How—?”
Only a few seconds had passed since Anaria’s arrival. The massacre must have been nothing but a blur to him.
“Who is that?” He stared at Anaria.
“The worst of them,” Irena said.
Chains rattled behind her. Rosalia turned, and horror gripped her throat. Deacon hadn’t been freed. He threw his body forward, his lips peeled back from his fangs. Shouting in the demon language, he hurled himself against the chains.
Rosalia whirled back around. “Have any escaped?”
Frantically searching the screens, she spotted the monitor showing the main floor of the church. Sunlight flooded the interior through open doors.
Deacon had locked the entrance when he’d led the vampires outside. Realizing he was the nephilim’s target, the demon must have fled before Anaria arrived.
“Irena, hold him,” Rosalia said. “Don’t let him out.”
The other Guardian didn’t question her. She took hold of Deacon. Rosalia looked up into his blank eyes.
And let the darkness of her Gift take her.
The sun hung low in the morning sky, and the shadows were long. Still, the pain of her Gift was a sharp, hungry bite as she gathered the shadows, wrapped herself in them, and stretched them toward the church.
Stabbing outward with a hard psychic probe, she felt Anaria, huge and brilliant and bright, like the sun; Taylor, closed and dark; at a distance, Irena, Alejandro, the sleeping vampires, and Deacon’s possessed mind; and farther away, the snakelike touch of a demon’s psyche.
Her focus narrowed on him. Below her, a thick swath of darkness crawled over the streets and buildings, a long shadow that rose upward in a black ribbon. She caught the shadow, whipped it forward, and rode along. Ahead, the demon’s wings beat frantically, terror spilling from his mind like bitter ash against her tongue.
She pushed the shadows forward, surrounding him. He shrieked, whirling about, blindly slashing with his sword. She condensed the darkness into a cocoon, silencing his screams from human ears, and let the black carry her closer.
He had no warning. She erupted out of the dark, her blades slicing through his chest, his neck. She vanished the pieces of him into her cache as they fell, then reached out with another psychic probe.
Deacon’s mind was dazed, but it was his own.
But she felt the touch of another mind, brilliant and light, seeking her out. Dismay spilled into her heart, but she’d known that using her Gift would come at this price. She stretched the shadows north again, carrying her back across the city. She couldn’t return to Lorenzo’s home—Anaria would find them all.
Still enshrouded in darkness, she landed in front of the church. She passed through the doors, wondering if she’d already been noticed on the monitors in Lorenzo’s dungeon.
She hoped Irena was still holding Deacon.
On bare, silent feet, Anaria approached from the rear chambers and walked past the sanctuary. Though still soaked with the demon’s blood, she glowed. Her radiance ate away at Rosalia’s Gift, and the shredding pain was like the agony of Caelum’s sun.
Anaria smiled gently. “Do not hide from me.”
Oh, God. Rosalia had heard about the effect of that voice, melodic and sweet, difficult to resist. Rosalia proved not strong enough. Obeying, she let go of her shadows and stood trembling, cloaked only in her terror.
She had to turn her face away from Anaria’s brilliance, and stared at the plastic-enshrouded pews to her left.
“You have slain the one that fled?”
Rosalia nodded, a sob working up through her chest. Never had she heard such kindness, such sweetness. Her yearning to reach out to Anaria was almost unbearable. She fought not to drop to her knees.
But she
wouldn’t
. Not before Anaria. Her gaze sought the carved figure above the altar, and though it, too, was wrapped in plastic, Rosalia took the strength she needed there.
wouldn’t
. Not before Anaria. Her gaze sought the carved figure above the altar, and though it, too, was wrapped in plastic, Rosalia took the strength she needed there.
“You helped me,” Anaria said.
No, she hadn’t. A terrible ache filled Rosalia’s heart. However terrible and frightening Anaria was, she’d acted out of love. It was so much easier to destroy a demon, who relished fear and hate.
But Anaria was no less dangerous, and Rosalia dared not lie. Anaria could see the truth, and so her only chance to survive was to speak it. To
always
speak it.
always
speak it.
“No mother should lose her children in such a way,” Rosalia whispered.
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