Demon Marked (7 page)

He eyed the demon. “I suppose a former nun doesn't call someone ‘evil' lightly.”

To his surprise, Rosalia laughed. “No, I don't.”

“What are you saying?” The demon got to her feet and started toward him. She froze when Nicholas showed her the remote device again. Her fingers curled at her thighs. Frustration? If so, good. She ought to feel a little of what Nicholas had, talking to her and receiving no answers at all.

She looked to the phone. “This woman knows more about demons than you? Who is she? Can I speak with her?”

Rosalia's voice sounded sharply in his ear, her laughter gone. “Who is that, Nicholas? If a demon is there, don't trust—”

Nicholas hung up, cutting her off. No, he couldn't trust the demon. But she might be his only way to find Madelyn, so he'd take the risk.

If they were going to risk anything, though, they had to do it quickly. Rosalia wouldn't wait around for him to call her back. She was probably heading to London right now—either flying with her wings or using her Guardian power to gather the darkness around her and speed through the night. If she found them, this demon would be dead within seconds.

Knowing Rosalia's skill with a sword, perhaps she'd be dead in
less
than a second.

He tossed the remote to the bed. “We need to go. Now, before the Guardians catch up to us.”

She stood still as he reached for her neck. “Who are the Guardians?”

Whether she played stupid or just didn't know, he didn't have time to explain it. The heat of her body had warmed the steel collar. He unlocked it, tossed it aside.

“All you need to know right now is that the Guardians will kill you. So let's head out.”

She nodded and started for the door. “Where to?”

The demon didn't know how to find Madelyn, so they'd try to find Madelyn through her connection to Rachel . . . and get as far from London as they could.

“The States,” he said. “We'll fly there tonight.”

“I can't. I don't have any ID.”

“And I wasn't thinking of a plane.” When she looked at him blankly, Nicholas clenched his teeth and counted to three. “I know you can fly.”

Her eyes widened and she looked down at her hands. “I can shape-shift into a bird? How?”

Jesus H. Christ. The next time he made a bargain, Nicholas would damn well make certain the demon knew more than a bag of bricks.

“You can't turn into a bird. You can only form wings—” Oh, fuck it. He turned for the door. “I have Rachel's passport. I'll charter a jet.”

“That's good. It's probably less likely to crash into the Atlantic than I am.” She hurried into the hallway after him. “Why do you have Rachel's passport? Did you kill her?”

Even if this demon truly didn't know that Madelyn had done it, why would she care? Perhaps she was just testing him to see if he'd break down into some guilt-induced confession. To see if Nicholas secretly felt that he was to blame, that his actions had killed her, boohoo.

Thanks to Madelyn, he'd stopped boohooing as a kid. Nicholas
did
feel guilt—that he'd used Rachel, that she'd fallen in love with him, that he couldn't save her when she was dying in his arms—but he wasn't responsible for her death. Madelyn had killed Rachel. Full stop.

He didn't know this demon's reasons for asking, and he didn't have to speak the truth. But in the end,
truth
was just simpler.

“No,” he said, and started down the stairs. “I didn't shoot her. Madelyn did.”

He glanced over his shoulder to catch her response. Her eyes had narrowed, and he easily read the suspicion in them.

She thought he was lying.

Now, wasn't that just fucking hilarious? Shaking his head, he pulled out his phone again. He'd take time to be amused when they were on American soil, and a Guardian wasn't hot on their asses . . . a Guardian who could come for them even
after
they were in the air.

It was going to be a damn long flight.

Michael was gone, and the walls of his temple were cracking.

Taylor stared at the thin lines twisting through the pale marble. If there was one place a Guardian should have felt safe, it was here—in the center of Caelum, the Guardian realm, standing within Michael's great hall. The first and strongest of all the Guardians, he'd been entrusted with great powers by the angels themselves after killing a dragon and ending the second war between Heaven and Hell. He'd built the massive temple simply through the power of his voice and will. And for the past six months, almost without realizing the adoption taking place, Taylor had come to consider this temple her home. She
should
have felt safe.

But she was terrified, because Michael was gone. At least, part of him was—the part she could usually feel in the back of her mind, after he'd linked his psyche to her through blood and a kiss. The part of him that sometimes protected her, guided her. The part she often fought against. The part that was probably responsible for her coming to accept his temple as her home. But that was only part of him, and a tenuous connection, at best.

The rest of him was in Hell, tortured in the icy field surrounding Lucifer's throne. Buried, with only his face showing, his eyes frozen open and fixed on Lucifer's tower; his body eaten by dragons in the Chaos realm before it regenerated to be ravaged again.

Surrounded by the screams of the damned, he'd been in that field for a year now, and for the past six months, Taylor had visited him as often as she dared—using his power of teleportation, which was also a part of her, and which Taylor had begun thinking of as her own Gift. They'd come to an agreement of sorts: He wouldn't teleport her without her knowledge or against her will, but if she needed protection, he could take over her body and fight for her.

Obviously, that agreement had changed. Because whatever of Michael was left in Taylor's mind, he still allowed her to teleport . . . he just didn't allow her to teleport to Hell anymore.

That scared her more than the cracks in the walls, scared her more than the sense of shattering and pain that she felt when her hand flattened against the marble—because it meant that whatever was happening to him in Hell, Michael was protecting her from it. Through their link, Taylor had become used to the echo of the pain and horror he experienced, though she knew Michael shielded her from most of it. Now, whatever was happening, he shielded her from
all
of it.

Could it truly be that bad?
Worse
than what she'd already seen?

She was afraid of that answer. A former detective, she'd seen every evil that a human could visit upon another being. That evil didn't even scratch the surface of Hell.

Michael had sacrificed his life and broken a bargain to save Earth and Caelum, and in the faith and hope that, eventually, his friends and fellow warriors would find the right spell to release him. Six months ago, Taylor had sworn that she'd find a way to free him. But she was no closer to finding a solution . . . and she couldn't feel him anymore.

And she knew that was what scared her most of all: that she wouldn't be able to save him.

 

Outside the temple, Caelum's sun shone brightly in a cloudless blue sky—as it always did. The shining marble city was nearly empty of any other Guardians—as it always was.

At least, for as long as Taylor had known it. Through Michael, she had the faintest memory of the city filled with thousands of Guardians, mentors and novices, warriors and scholars. Less than a hundred Guardians remained now, and they didn't pass their time here. There were simply too many demons and too much to do on Earth.

A few were passing through, however, visiting the archives or taking a short rest between assignments. Taylor could hear their heartbeats and voices, and at times, it seemed as if she felt their footsteps vibrating through the marble streets and courtyards. She hadn't yet decided whether she truly felt those vibrations, or if it was another echo from Michael: his connection to the realm, channeled to her.

She doubted that her singing would reshape the arches and spires as Michael's singing did, however.

Across the courtyard facing Michael's temple, Rosalia emerged from beneath one of those arches, which doubled as a Gate between Caelum and the human realm. Used by the Guardians who didn't possess a teleportation Gift—which was most of them—each Gate led to a different location; Rosalia was coming in from France.

Dark-haired, stunningly beautiful, and so nice that it was impossible to hate her for it, Rosalia smiled when she spotted Taylor on the steps of Michael's temple. Her yellow sundress flirted with her knees as she crossed the courtyard, and she looked so sunny and cheerful that it was easy to forget that this woman could manipulate shadows like a weapon, and that behind those warm eyes lay a mind that had formulated a plan that tricked hundreds of demons into destroying each other.

And her warm eyes also saw too much. Her smile dimmed when she drew in close, and Taylor wondered if the cracks were showing inside her, too.

“Are you feeling well, Taylor?”

“Fine.” No need to worry her about Michael or the temple yet. For all of Rosalia's brilliance, for all that she could manipulate people and form devastatingly successful plans, she knew no more than Taylor about spells or how to free Michael from Hell. “Just one of those days.”

Rosalia nodded as if accepting that explanation, but Taylor wasn't certain that the other woman wasn't on the verge of feeling her forehead for a fever, even though Guardians couldn't become sick. Rosalia had that way about her.

But she didn't pull out a thermometer. She only sighed and said, “I see.”

She probably did see, and understood that Michael was at the root of it, even if she didn't know the specifics. Rosalia had witnessed the worst of Taylor's battle with Michael for control of her own body. Hell, Rosalia had
healed
from the worst of it, when Taylor, possessed by Michael, had stabbed the other Guardian through the chest.

Strange how that incident had resulted in a bond of friendship between them. But then, since becoming a Guardian, a whole lot of Taylor's life had become strange.

Strange was her new normal.

Though now that she thought about it, Rosalia being in Caelum wasn't normal, either. The Guardian didn't visit the realm very often, and usually only when meeting her friends. Neither Radha nor Mariko was here now, so that meant she'd probably come looking for Taylor. If so, now Rosalia was probably wondering if she'd come at a bad time.

“Did you need me for anything? It's not
that
bad of a day, if you are.”

Smiling faintly, Rosalia stepped close enough to adjust Taylor's white shirt collar, then smooth her hands over Taylor's shoulders. Though she might have punched anyone else, Taylor allowed Rosalia this, too. The poor woman couldn't stand seeing someone that she cared about looking untidy—and in any case, Rosalia wasn't really paying attention to what her hands were doing. She'd gotten that look in her eyes that said:
A demon would be dying soon
.

“Do you remember Nicholas St. Croix?”

Taylor frowned. Did she? The name was familiar, but she couldn't recall a face.

Rosalia helped her out. “The dungeon in Rome.”

Ah, yes. No wonder Taylor couldn't immediately remember. She'd spent half of her time in the dungeon watching a few hundred demons being slaughtered, and waiting for Michael to take over her body and save the humans stuck in the center of the massacre.

St. Croix had watched the massacre, too. He'd made being present for it a condition before allowing Rosalia use of the dungeon.

“Let me see if I remember,” Taylor said. “Caucasian. Sixtwo, one-seventy, black-brown hair, and blue eyes that remind me of ice chips from the frozen field in Hell. A handsome devil of the
GQ
variety, and if I'm not mistaken, you thought he actually was a demon for a while.”

“You're not mistaken. He's a straight-up bastard.”

“Who you helped anyway.”

“Yes, well. He was useful.” Rosalia stepped back, and seemed satisfied with the straight line she'd made of Taylor's button-up front. “I think he's found his mother.”

“Oh.” Yes, Taylor recalled part of that, too. He'd bought the dungeon because he'd been searching for a demon who'd posed as his mother. Maybe after he'd had his revenge, he'd be less of a bastard. Taylor doubted it, though. “So is he headed to Rome, intending to lock her up and slay her?”

“I don't know. I lost him in London.”