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Authors: Meljean Brook

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BOOK: Demon Blood
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Her smile faded. So was she. She should have been spending this time trying to discover who Malkvial was.
She glanced at the clock. Only eight in the morning. After such a late night, Gemma would sleep in—until Vincente arrived, and then sleep in more, afterward. Heading up to the suite before noon risked hearing her son engaged in activities that Rosalia preferred to remain ignorant about.
Less than twenty minutes later, however, a scratch sounded at her door, and Rosalia opened it to find both Gemma and Vincente. Her heart immediately leapt into her throat. Vincente looked shell-shocked. His color was ashen beneath his tan.
“Are you all right?” She tucked her hands into her elbows to keep herself from running to him—and to prevent herself from brushing the dark curl that had fallen across his forehead. He’d stepped back too many times for her to try it now, when something might genuinely be wrong. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine, Rosa.” Gemma came into the room, pulling Vincente with her. Rosalia finally saw beneath his shock, encountered an emotion that might have been
thrilled
. But surely not. He was within ten feet of her; based on his behavior the past six months, she could expect brooding resentment, not excitement. “We had something to tell you, and wanted to do it together.”
“Oh?” Rosalia doubted that. Gemma had wanted to, and Vincente had reluctantly agreed. Then the only reason she could possibly imagine struck her.
Scared. Thrilled.
Her gaze dropped to Gemma’s flat stomach. Her hands clapped together. “Oh!”
Gemma sighed. “He said we wouldn’t have to
tell
you, that you’d just sniff it out—”
Rosalia stopped that nonsense by flinging her arms around Gemma, laughing. She turned to Vincente. If he stepped back now, she would smack him—and Fall for it, if necessary. But he didn’t move as she slid her arms around his waist. She held him tight. Though stiff, he hugged her back. Good. Stubborn boy, but he hadn’t forgotten all of his manners.
She stepped back, placed her hands on his cheeks. Her eyes had filmed over. “Congratulations. You will be a wonderful father.”
His guard dropped slightly, and his wry humor came out. “Considering who your father was, you would say that to anyone.”
“But I would mean it when I say it to you.” She laughed again at his expression, and flicked back that distracting curl. This would not last long. She would not push more than this. She faced Gemma again. “May I listen?”
“To the heartbeat?” Gemma’s hand flew to her belly, her eyes rounding. “You can do that?”
“Yes.” Years of athletic training had firmed Gemma’s stomach into a washboard. Rosalia pressed her ear against it. She picked up the heartbeat almost immediately. Oh, sweet child. She tapped her fingers against Gemma’s hip in the same rhythm. “It is like this.”
“That’s not too
fast
?”
She heard the panic in Gemma’s voice, made her tone soothing. “No. She is already strong.” She listened for a few more beats, on the edge of crying. She hadn’t been this happy in . . . She didn’t know.
A long time.
“There’s more,” Gemma said when Rosalia rocked back on her heels.
Vincente said, “We’re moving the wedding up. It’ll be in three weeks.”
Of course they would. Vincente’s father had not married his mother or taken responsibility for him after her death. Vincente would never repeat the same.
“And will you be moving back into the abbey with Gemma and me?”
Immediately, Rosalia saw that she’d pushed too far. Vincente’s face took on that brooding expression, a sullen look that might have affected her more if she’d not known it so well from when he’d been five, brought to the abbey by Father Wojcinski, who had been at the end of his considerably long and patient rope with the angry boy. And, ten years later, when Vincente had been denied the right to visit the movie theaters alone after dark. This expression was never permanent, though it had lasted longer than before.
But she remembered how it had been six months ago. She’d returned to the abbey and found it empty. Then Vincente and Gemma had arrived—and she’d seen,
felt
his relief and joy that she hadn’t been dead as they’d thought. She held on to that.
When neither answered, she pushed again. Why not? She had nothing to lose. The line had already been crossed. “You don’t plan to live at the abbey?”
The look that Gemma and Vincente exchanged told her that was still in dispute.
As if agitated, Vincente pushed his hand through his hair. “I don’t think the home of a Guardian is the safest place to raise a child.”
He had the grace to look uncomfortable as he said it. Gemma turned away, dropping his hand to stalk over to the balcony.
Rosalia crossed her arms. She would
not
shake sense into him. “It is strange, then, that in two centuries no child has ever been harmed in my home.”
“No. But fourteen vampires were.”
Gemma spun back around.
“Vin!”
Rosalia held up her hand. She formed the sole rift between these two. She would not widen it. “Do whatever you feel is best. I hope I will not be completely excluded from your child’s life, however.”
Vincente’s gaze flicked to Gemma, standing rigidly at the balcony doors. Rosalia read that glance and interpreted it all too easily. Hurt speared through her chest. Safety might be an issue, but it wasn’t the abbey that worried him: It was
her
. If they lived with her, Rosalia would be too influential a figure in their child’s life. Vincente would not be able to control everything she said or did, and she would fill the child’s head with stories about the Guardians.
Vincente had heard them. So had Gemma and her brother, Pasquale. But only Pasquale had sacrificed himself to save another’s life in an attempt to become a Guardian. The danger he’d saved that woman from hadn’t been an otherworldly danger, however, but just a man—and so Michael hadn’t been called to transform him. Rosalia still didn’t know what angered Vincente more: that she’d inspired a young man to his death at twenty-two years of age, or that Michael hadn’t come—even though Michael couldn’t have
known
to come, and couldn’t have transformed or healed Pasquale if he had.
Rosalia had grieved, too, and had blamed herself—she didn’t regret the stories, but that she hadn’t succeeded in protecting Pasquale. Her grief and sorrow hadn’t been enough for Vincente, however. Ten years ago, before he’d left, he’d asked her,
Have you ever succeeded at anything, Mother?
He never spoke the words now, but she still saw them in his eyes from time to time.
She could have told Vincente that if her goal had been to protect him from emotional upheaval so well that he’d be incapable of coping when tragedy struck—to the extent that he had left his heart vulnerable to only one person in ten years—then yes, she had succeeded spectacularly.
Only Gemma’s rigid posture stopped her from saying it now.
She shifted her clothes from the pajamas to her black pants and boots, instead. A heavy cloak formed over her dark shirt. “I am leaving you to celebrate, then. When I return, I’ll find an opportunity to wire Theriault’s apartments. If Michael has no information, perhaps we will learn more of Malkvial that way.”
“Michael?” Gemma blinked. “You’re going to Caelum?”
“No. I will be in San Francisco.” Where the Guardians kept a base of operations that was connected to American law enforcement. Even if Michael wasn’t at the Special Investigations warehouse, someone could find him for her. Rosalia hadn’t been to Caelum since Pasquale had died; she wasn’t ready to return now. She glanced at Vincente. “I do not know if this matters to you, but I
would
change the stories to include Michael’s lie.”
He hadn’t been a man when he’d killed the dragon in the Second Battle, but a grigori, the son of a demon. Rosalia wouldn’t tell the truth through
his
story, however—it would be the story of his sister, Anaria, who’d been the reason the nephilim had slaughtered so many vampires, including those Rosalia loved. Until six months ago, Rosalia hadn’t even known about Michael’s sister. Now her thoughts were filled with the woman who possessed such terrifying power and good intentions.
Supposedly, the path to Hell was paved with good intentions. Rosalia hoped to make that path an expressway for Anaria and every one of her cursed nephilim children.
Vincente shook his head. “Michael lied, yet you go to him now?”
“Yes.” Michael was not perfect as she’d once painted him, yet he always came through when he was needed. But Michael couldn’t do that if he didn’t know she needed him. Rosalia smiled and flicked her hood up over her hair. “I have a little more faith in him than you do.”
CHAPTER
3
Anaria
After the First Battle, Lucifer gained the throne in Hell, and as its ruler, the realm resonated deeply within him, strengthening his already considerable might. As the eons passed, he practiced his magic, using symbols and blood to increase his knowledge and power. He opened Gates to Earth and sent his demons into the world. He made portals to Chaos, where dragons with unharnessed magic reigned over a realm of stone and fire. From the creatures of both realms, Earth and Chaos, he took blood and bodies, and formed new life in Hell—the hellhounds, the basilisks, the nychiptera, and more—each terrifying and hungry. He named the act “creation” and said his powers equaled those Above, yet he was not satisfied. For although some of Lucifer’s creatures feared him and a few were loyal to the throne, none worshipped him.
On Earth, however, humans had begun worshipping the seraphim, despite having little reason to do so. The Rules protected humankind; they did not have to fear the angels, who in their weakness never made examples of men or demanded their obedience. Lucifer was not weak, and so he schemed to create a race superior to humans—a race that did not have to follow the Rules and that could bring humanity to their knees. A race that would obey and worship him, as was his due. To that end, he carved symbols into the flesh of his chosen demons—including his most powerful and loyal lieutenant, Belial—and bade them to drink the blood and eat from the heart of a dragon. The spell transformed the demons; they left Hell and mated with humans. Five sets of twins were conceived, and in each set a child of light and a child of darkness were born. They were the grigori, and they possessed strength and power, just as Lucifer had planned.
But Lucifer had not anticipated that the demons’ transformations went deeper than the physical, and that they might love their human mates and their children. The seraphim befriended and loved the children, as well, and so the grigori were raised as a family—not in hatred and fear, but with understanding and kindness.
Of the grigori, Belial’s daughter, Anaria, was the most understanding, the most kind. Her goodness shone through to her soul as easily as the sun through glass. Though her dark brother, Michael, possessed greater physical strength and spirit, it was Anaria they each tried to emulate, and to whom they looked as a guide. She was their heart.
Her heart she gave to another grigori—Zakril, one of the light twins and brother to Khavi. They married, and their lives were filled with a happiness that was marred only by the gradual change in their parents. Though the demons’ physical forms became more angelic than human or demonic, the corruption in their hearts once again resembled a demon’s.
And so when Lucifer brought his dragon from Chaos to Earth and the Second Battle began, their parents joined the demon prince. The grigori, led by Michael and inspired by Anaria, stood with the angels and mankind, instead. Three grigori fell before the dragon and Lucifer’s demons, and much of the world burned. When Michael was killed while slaying the dragon, Anaria held him and wept—and when he returned to life, transformed by the seraphim and made a Guardian, her tears were of joy.
Each of the grigori eventually made the necessary sacrifice to become a Guardian, and for hundreds of years, they lived in Caelum, training new members of the Guardian corps, and defending the Earth from demons and nosferatu.
Their lives were full. They had both purpose and family. Anaria lacked only one joy, but it became a steadily growing blight to her happiness: She could not bear children.
For more than a thousand years, she and Zakril tried to conceive. They Fell; they became Guardians again. Zakril eventually accepted that they could not have children, and found his joy in what they had.
Anaria could not, and she would not give up.
In secret, she went to Lucifer, and they struck a bargain: If he taught her how to create children, they would serve Hell’s throne. Though Lucifer hated to share his knowledge, he could not resist the temptation of commanding the children of a grigori, and so Anaria learned of the symbols and how to work their magic.
They were not immediately successful, however. Anaria’s body would not conceive. Finally, they bargained with the human women suffering in the Pit—women who were not truly flesh, but spirit that manifested as flesh in Hell. In exchange for a quick burn and their souls’ release from Hell, they were impregnated with Zakril and Anaria’s seed. Hundreds of nephilim were born full-grown and stronger than most demons—but Anaria was disappointed, for her children could not physically leave the realm. Like the women who bore them, the nephilim were only spirit that manifested as flesh in Hell. They could travel to Earth only by possessing a human spirit as it entered Hell and by inhabiting that human’s body; on Earth, they could shape-shift into their own form temporarily, but a prolonged transformation risked the host body rejecting the nephil’s control. And as long as anyone who had to follow the Rules sat upon the throne, the nephilim also had to follow the Rules.
Lucifer was not disappointed, however. The nephilim became useful to him; when demons on Earth broke the Rules, a nephil was called across the realms to slay them. And when demons within Hell, led by those who had been transformed with the dragon’s blood, rebelled against Lucifer’s reign, he sent the nephilim to kill them.
Upon learning that her children had been ordered to slay her father, Anaria intervened and led the nephilim against Lucifer. Though the nephilim’s numbers were small, their strength devastated Lucifer’s armies, until Belial’s forces joined with Lucifer’s. They defeated Anaria and her nephilim. As punishment, half the nephilim were slain, and the others were imprisoned with their mother.
When Anaria did not return to Caelum, the Guardians began searching for her. For years, they searched. They finally learned of her bargain with Lucifer and the children she had created, the war she had waged. Michael, Zakril, and Khavi journeyed to Hell and, with enormous effort, freed her from her prison. They did not free the nephilim.
Centuries passed. Anaria dreamed of releasing her children. She dreamed of liberating Hell from the tyranny of Lucifer’s reign, and of freeing the tortured souls in the Pit. She dreamed that humans would no longer sin and always choose kindness and compassion over hatred and fear. She developed a plan that would fulfill all of her dreams.
As her first step, she led a group of Guardians who shared the same dreams. Together, they slaughtered a human army.
Michael did not allow her to take any more steps. They’d broken the Rules, and so he forced her Guardian companions to Fall or Ascend. His sister was grigori, however—and even though he stripped Anaria of her Guardian status and Gifts, her strength and power far exceeded a demon’s or nosferatu’s, and she posed a terrible danger to humankind. When he ordered his sister’s execution, his pain was as great as if he’d ripped out his own heart.
Zakril saved Anaria and hid her away, though he told Michael that the deed had been done. For centuries, Zakril, his sister Khavi, Anaria, and the Guardians loyal to her hid from Michael, until a demon who had called himself their friend betrayed them. Zakril was slain. Khavi was trapped in Hell, where Belial killed her husband, Aaron. And Anaria, who had been hidden away in a temple that only Zakril could enter, found the temple had become her prison.
She remained there for two and a half millennia. Imprisoned, just as her children were still imprisoned Below.
In Hell, Khavi, who bore the Gift of foresight, delivered to Belial a prophecy: Anaria would be freed. A dragon would rise from Chaos. Vampire blood would destroy the nephilim. And after the nephilim had been defeated, after Michael’s heart was destroyed, Belial would ascend to the throne.
For two and a half thousand years, none of it came to pass. The names Anaria, Zakril, and Khavi were no longer spoken on Earth or Caelum. Guardians knew nothing of the grigori, the nephilim, or the prophecy. Michael continued leading them, never faltering. Civilizations crumbled, and men advanced in fits and spurts. Ancient cities fell to ruins and skyscrapers rose in their place. The Guardian corps carried on, though their numbers fell dangerously low.
With one wager, everything changed. Michael risked Caelum and bet the heart of a Guardian against the heart of a demon, and won. Lucifer was forced to close the Gates to Hell for five hundred years. Many demons remained on Earth, however, and the Rules still had to be enforced—and so Lucifer released the nephilim, who possessed the bodies of humans recently dead and bound for Hell.
Aware that vampire blood weakened them, the nephilim began massacring vampire communities. They freed their mother from her prison, and assisted her attack against the Guardians, where she collected a vampire’s blood that allowed her access to the Chaos realm. From there, she hoped to gain entry into Hell, where she would resume her battle for Lucifer’s throne. Her portal to Chaos unleashed a dragon that the Guardians fought and destroyed.
Now the Guardians wait for her next move.
BOOK: Demon Blood
4.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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