Demon Forged (13 page)

“You are boiling.”

At the sound of Khavi’s voice, Alejandro shook off memory’s hold, and glanced up. Steam rose in a column over his head.

“The statue excites you?” She gave him a look that he might have given a ten-eyed dancing goat.

“I was thinking of another statue.”

Her expression cleared. “A good memory?”

“Yes.” What did it say of a man that his best memories were more than four hundred years old?

He’d felt so much then. Even moments of calm, of contentment, had been deep—his emotions had never remained on the surface. Their strength had surprised him, and he’d fought them, fought
her
. He despised fighting with Irena now, even though it dredged the depths he’d felt then, and for a moment . . . being with her was good. But then he remembered the bargain with the demon, and his failure. And how empty he was when the fight was done.

He could not do it any more. He vowed not to fight with her again—and hoped his will would be stronger than his need.

He’d made that vow before; he’d never honored it. He broke his promises, even to himself. When he fought with her, he left nothing of himself to be proud of.

Headlights swept across the square. Khavi lifted her hand against the glare, watched the car disappear down the street.

She looked back at him. “For more than two thousand years, I waited to leave Hell. Yet sometimes, when I see all that has changed, I want to return and hide.”

Rain slid down the back of his neck. Alejandro vanished the drop. “Why not remain in Caelum, then?”

“It is too quiet there. And there is too much to do here.” The whites of her eyes turned completely black. “I need to find Irena.”

So she’d come to him? “Why?”

“A woman needs protection.”

“A human?” At her nod, he said, “I can—”

“No.” Khavi shook her head. “No, I have seen. It cannot be that way.”

Not seen, but
foreseen
, Alejandro realized uneasily. What had she seen that involved Irena?

Irena . . . and a human who needed protection.

He pushed away his unease and focused on duty. Irena had argued with him. Where would she go afterward?

“You’ve tried her quarters in Caelum?”

“Yes.”

“She is probably at her forge in Siberia, then.”

“Give me a picture of where that is.”

“I’ll go with you. If you show up alone, she will—”

“All right.” Khavi took his hand. Her Gift drew in a sharp draft, and she nodded. “Yes, this is much better. Your presence there will convince her to come.”

Alejandro pictured Irena’s forge and projected the image. The world spun in a dizzying whirl. But there was sunlight, when the frozen Nenetsia region in northern Russia still lay under cover of night.

He looked up, forcing himself to focus past the disorientation. He stood in the shadow of a brick building, partially hidden by the wall. Ahead of him, a crowd of humans gathered at the foot of a columned courthouse. On the wide steps in front of them stood a demon.

Alejandro turned and searched for Khavi—but the grigori had already gone.

Irena didn’t need to spar with Olek to take his measure. She didn’t even need to see him fight to know how his strength and speed had increased over the past four hundred years. It was in every graceful movement he made.

And she didn’t need the furnace or the hammer to shape his swords. Her Gift could have created the blades in seconds. But she needed the work of it, the heat and the precision of each hammer strike. She didn’t ask herself why she wanted to linger over them. They would not be better for her effort, and she would finish them with her Gift, removing every imperfection, refolding and strengthening the metal.

Her Gift gave her pleasure, but so did working the metal in this way. Perhaps that was reason enough.

The steel glowed orange when she removed it from the furnace, radiating heat that she could feel through her leather apron and gloves. His blades had always been long and thin, but now she made them longer, heavier.

Sparks flew as her hammer struck the blade. Her Guardian strength was no help here; if she used any more than a human’s, the sword would be ruined.

Olek had learned that quickly. He’d had a delicate artist’s touch when he worked with metal. Just firm enough. And so it hadn’t surprised her that his mouth had been just as—

Her hand slipped. The hammer struck on the edge of its face. Too hard. Much too hard.

Steam boiled up as she plunged the sword into a vat of water, but the damage was done. The blade was a hair’s-breadth thick where she’d smashed it flat. A touch would shatter it.

She could repair the blade with her Gift. She wouldn’t. This sword was ruined. Perhaps she would reuse the metal, but it would never be a worthy weapon.

Irena tossed the sword onto the pile of damaged weapons heaped near the wall—and frowned as another sound intruded over the clatter. She tilted her head, listened. Someone outside the forge sang her name. A psychic probe met with nothing. She called in her knives.

Outside, swirling white snow filled the air. Khavi knelt in a drift, brushing the fine powder from side to side. She looked up, her black eyelashes dusted with flakes.

Her gaze rested on Irena’s weapons. “I do not need foresight to know that jumping into your forge, unannounced, would not end well.”

“For you.”

“For either of us.” Khavi stood, held out her hand. “You will come with me.”

“Where?”

Exasperation crossed her face. “You
will
come with me. I have seen it. Do not make me explain. There isn’t enough time.”

“Until what?”

The image that exploded past Irena’s shields stayed a brief second, but she saw enough: Alejandro with blood on his hands, crouching beside a still body. A woman with pale hair kneeled next to him, her white shirt soaked with crimson.

“He is already there,” Khavi said. “And so is a demon. He will need help.”

Irena extended her hand. This time, Khavi’s foresight had tested true. Irena
did
go with her.

Khavi teleported her next to a brick wall. The grigori immediately disappeared again, while Irena fought the spinning effect of teleporting.

The wall belonged to a building. The distant noise and psyches were human. Their English sounded American. Straightening, Irena vanished her knives and traded her apron for her rabbit fur mantle.

She quickly found Alejandro at the edge of the crowd. The protesters were mostly young, she thought, but with a good mix of middle-aged and older humans. Some were holding signs. Others stood, blowing into their cupped hands to warm their fingers.

Alejandro didn’t look at her when she stepped up next to him, but kept his gaze fixed on the speaker, a tall, handsome man with blond hair sprinkled by gray.

Irena’s lip curled. Rael—the demon who supported SI. He spoke into a microphone about rights and love and marriage. What would a demon know or care of them? Yet the psyches of the humans around her said
they
cared very much. Rael deceived them with every word.

“What game does Khavi play?” Irena asked. Alejandro understood these sorts of games better than she did.

“I don’t know.” He paused briefly as shouts and applause broke over the crowd. “Did she tell you who we need to protect?”

Protect? Anger ripped through her. They were to protect a human, and Khavi hadn’t told them
who?

Irena scanned the crowd. “She showed me a woman. Pale blond hair.”

She projected the image—not tight enough. Though Rael’s mind was blocked and he probably hadn’t seen the image, he’d felt her. His speech faltered.

He met her eyes, smiled, and continued.

Would it be such a terrible thing if this crowd of humans witnessed her ripping his heart out?

“Did she show you whose blood it was?”

Irena shook her head. There were many women here, but none were familiar, none but—

She met a pair of cool blue eyes. The flat expression in them wasn’t dislike, but there was nothing warm in them, either. A human, who shielded her mind as well as a Guardian did.

“Detective Taylor is here,” Irena said. She hadn’t seen the woman since the night Lucifer had lost his wager with Michael, when Taylor and her partner had stood with the Guardians against Lucifer and the nest of nosferatu.

What she remembered of the woman had been sleek and collected. There was little of that on display now. She looked fragile, her skin drawn tightly over her bones. Her hair color wasn’t much different from Irena’s, but appeared dull and brittle. Her clothes were creased.

It happened like that, sometimes. Discovering that demons, vampires, and Guardians walked the Earth didn’t always sit easy.

“Her partner, Preston, is at a post on the other side of the crowd,” Alejandro said. “He has not yet spotted us.”

Their presence here meant she and Alejandro were back in San Francisco. Irena looked at the courthouse steps again. “Who is up there with Rael?”

“The mayor of the city stands on his left. Behind and to the right is Rael’s wife, Julia Stafford.”

It didn’t matter what era or country—a woman like Rael’s wife was unmistakable. Her highlighted hair swept back into an elegant chignon. Pearls circled her neck. Perhaps they didn’t have titles in America, but the woman was undoubtedly an aristocrat.

“Does she know what he is?”

“We don’t think so.”

By
we
, Irena assumed he meant those at SI. Which meant Rael had been a topic of discussion, along with the consequences of slaying him.

There was that, at least.