Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (25 page)

Taylor wasn’t sure whether it was right for the most powerful Guardian in the world to joke about an oncoming apocalypse, but she liked it anyway. “
Can
you jump to Venus?”

“I like living too well to try. Another Guardian with a teleporting Gift attempted to jump to Mars. He never returned.”

Was he still joking? She couldn’t tell. “Seriously?”

“Yes.” The fading of his smile convinced her better than his answer did. “Savi was the last person I told that to. I was afraid she’d persuade Jacob to take her.”

That sounded exactly like Savi, who wanted to be immortal partly so that she could live long enough to own a spaceship. Michael was right to warn her.

Taylor sighed. “I wish she was on Mars now.”

She felt Michael studying her face. When he spoke, his voice had softened. “You did well with Charlie earlier—to tell her that Mark Brandt had beaten them. It’s not easy to know what to say when someone grieves for a friend, but you helped her.”

“Yeah, well. I would be happier if they hadn’t killed him for winning.” So would Charlie. “You have a soft spot for her.”

“I do.”

“What is it? Is it the music thing?”

“No. It is that she never stops fighting. And she has had to—fighting herself, most often.”

So he admired that? Taylor usually did, too. But now it chewed at her. After everything that Michael and Khavi had thrown at her, she’d chosen to Fall. Did he think badly of her for that? Did he think she was giving up?

She shouldn’t care what he thought, but simply wondering started an ache in her chest. And now she was fighting herself, too. All of this stupid shit she felt for him, even though she knew better.

He wanted to protect her. But she had to protect herself first.

And she’d had enough air.

Taylor pushed out her cigarette, began tossing around all of the evidence lurking in her head. Brandt. The vampires, nothing more than ash on a bed. Colin and Savi.

Mark Brandt had beaten the demons, and they’d killed him. They were assuming that Colin would give in, but maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he knew the demons would just kill him and Savi anyway. Maybe he’d try to bargain with them—that would take more time, too. And the demons needed them both to open the portal, but Savi wouldn’t even be awake yet. When she did wake up, maybe Savi wouldn’t give in, even if Colin did. Or maybe she and Colin would hold out as long as they could, trusting that the Guardians would find them.

And they
would
find them. But first Taylor had to go back to Mark Brandt and figure out the how and the when.

“We’re missing something,” Taylor said. “Obviously, we missed the demons grabbing Colin and Savi. But we knew they might be a target. We just didn’t know how quickly the demons would make a move or how well they would execute it. So something else doesn’t fit. Because we all thought Colin and Savi would be okay. Maggie was there, and hurting a human would mean breaking the Rules, but they blew up the house anyway. And Colin could have asked Maggie to come up to the bedchamber and help—that’s what she’s there for—but instead he sent her to the safe room. So he must have believed that at least one demon would risk breaking the Rules and kill her in order to carry out their plan. Like a demon fanatic. That’s not normal, is it?”

“It is not,” Michael said. “They will follow Lucifer’s orders because they are too afraid to defy him. They will die fighting in his armies, because deserting means torture before death. But most would not sacrifice themselves for him.”

Yet Colin must have believed these would. “Has anyone checked out the housekeepers?”

“Hugh is doing that now.”

“Is anyone tracing the bomb materials?”

“Yes. Bradford is our contact in the investigation.”

At the FBI. Good. She liked Bradford. “How did he get the case?”

“Lilith planted evidence to make it look like domestic terrorism.”

Oh, boy. “Because SI couldn’t grab it.”

“Yes. So she made certain he would get it.”

Because Bradford knew what they were and knew to look where other investigators wouldn’t. “I wonder what he’ll find. As well executed as it was, as much info as they gathered, the demons must have been working on this since the Gates closed.”

“Yes. And there is much they should not have known.”

She looked up, saw his troubled frown. “What does that mean?”

“Even I was not aware of Colin’s connection to Chaos until just before the Gates closed. I hid it from Lucifer—I took Colin to Caelum so Lucifer wouldn’t discover it. And Savi’s link wasn’t established until after the Gates closed. Lucifer also couldn’t have known of their ability to create the portal.”

“So unlike the other demons, Lucifer couldn’t have sent these out with this plan.”

“No.”

“Could they have made the plan themselves, hoping to grab the power from Chaos on their own? A demon and a nosferatu teamed up and tried that before.”

“It is possible.”

But his voice said that he doubted it. Taylor did, too.

“Yeah, and the timing just happens to coincide with Lucifer purging the Pit?” That was hard to swallow. Coincidences
did
happen, but not usually alongside such a well-executed plan. “Maybe he gave them a ‘figure out a way or die’ date.”

“Perhaps.”

“But you don’t believe it, either.”

“No. They might have a timeline to follow, but Lucifer doesn’t leave things to chance. He also doesn’t trust his demons to figure things out on their own—and he doesn’t offer them enough knowledge to do it.”

But what was the alternative? One was betrayal. Michael must have been thinking the same thing. His eyes had filled with darkness, absorbing the light.

“So we are both missing something,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go figure out what it is.”

*   *   *

Michael took Andromeda to the local federal building first, where she gave Luther Bradford a receipt and asked him to use his resources to find surveillance footage from the restaurant and the surrounding area. From there, he teleported them back to Brandt’s town house in Columbus. He held her as she spun, simultaneously changing his clothes from the suit he’d worn at the FBI office to the toga.

As much as he liked the way Andromeda looked at him in his suit, Michael liked even more the feel of her against his skin.

When she regained her balance, she spoke again of something nagging at her and began walking slowly through the home, replacing the items she’d taken and looking at them in context. Michael was content to wait, continually attempting to anchor to Colin, Savi, and Katherine, teleporting away four times to take Guardians to the new headquarters, and once after encountering a demon in his psychic sweep. He ripped out the demon’s spine and teleported it to the caverns in Romania, leaving it there until he had more time to question it—and that could wait until Andromeda was less preoccupied. She obviously wanted to be left to her thoughts, and he did not want to interrupt her.

Michael enjoyed having these few quiet moments as well. They allowed him to mull over the questions that she hadn’t asked.

He didn’t believe that any of the Guardians would betray the others in this way—but one might have had little choice. And it could not be just any Guardian. If Lucifer had been dictating the shape of this plan, then the demons here must have been communicating with those in Hell. With the Gates closed, that was impossible—unless a Guardian who could teleport was carrying the messages.

Selah and Jacob were possibilities. Like Savi and Colin, they loved deeply. They might sacrifice everything to save their lovers, their friends. And when Jacob had been trapped in Hell with Alice, he’d barely escaped before making a bargain with Belial.

But perhaps he hadn’t escaped in time. Perhaps a bargain had been made and kept secret. Michael didn’t think so, but the question had to be asked.

He heard Andromeda’s steps on the stairs. She never simply walked down, but used a quick one-two-three rhythm with a beat in between.

She stopped abruptly on two. “Are you texting?”

His use of a phone amused her? It must not fit the image she had of him. He was happy to surprise her.

“I’m asking Hugh to discover whether Jacob and Selah might have been trapped in a bargain to share information with Lucifer or Belial.”

She winced. “Ouch. Like an Internal Affairs rat.”

“No. They respect Hugh too well. And they know that asking is necessary.” A bargain might also demand silence, and until they were asked, the truth couldn’t be revealed. “When I see Hugh next, he will also ask me.”

“And Khavi?”

“Yes. Anyone who can communicate with Hell.” Outside, a vehicle slowed, stopped. “Someone is here. Two humans.”

She quickly moved out of view from the window. “Uniformed cops. Either Senator Blackwell filed that missing persons report or Seattle got on the horn and asked the local department to take a look around.”

“Do you wish to leave? Did you discover what you were missing?”

“I didn’t. And I’d rather stay close and listen in again, see what they’ve heard. Maybe something will click. I also want to get the police reports from Seattle when they are filed. Maybe they’ll mention something that we didn’t take—and I want to know who called the murder in. A million bucks says it was an anonymous tip.”

“I never wager for so little.” Like bargains, wagers could be powerful tools.

“Only to save the world, right? Or to force Lucifer to close the Gates.”

“Yes.” He drew her in against him, teleported to a bus stop a half block away. She dropped unsteadily onto the bench, put her head in her hands.

“Toga,” she croaked.

With a sigh, he changed into the suit again. She didn’t scoot away when he sat beside her. After a long moment, she lifted her head and looked toward Brandt’s house.

“They’re just knocking, looking around the property, making sure everything is in order. They’re not going in—which means they’re responding to the missing persons.” Frustration pushed through her shields in a ragged blast. “Can you teleport around the back of his house and quietly break a window? It’s a crap thing to do, but we’ve already screwed all the evidence, and it might get them all moving faster.”

Michael would do anything she asked, but he wanted to know her reason. She’d hated tampering with that evidence. So why do this when it clearly upset her, and after she’d already looked through the home? “They cannot solve his murder.”

“No. But maybe they’ll turn up whatever it was we missed—even if they don’t recognize it. Or maybe a person will come forward after hearing a news report. Maybe someone saw something.
Anything.
” Her jaw clenched. “I just want it all to be louder and faster, and more information coming in.”

Because the longer it took, the more Savi and Colin suffered. That made perfect sense. And if she wanted them to hurry, Michael could do better than a broken window.

He paused long enough to send another text, then teleported inside the house and opened the back door. He allowed some of Brandt’s blood to fall out of his cache and splatter over the tile. From outside, he heard the officers start around the side of the home, looking in windows—and farther distant, Andromeda’s strangled gasp.

Back at her side, he found Andromeda holding her phone and laughing uncontrollably. She looked up at him, tears in her eyes.

“‘BRB’? Did you really send that?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I was.”

That set her off again. He considered sending a smiley face, but decided to save it for a later time. She might need another reason to laugh soon.

He might need to see her laugh soon, too.

She quieted on a long sigh. “Do you think it’s Khavi?”

“I think it’s possible, but unlikely.”

“Why unlikely? She already made one deal with Lucifer when she handed over Nicholas and Ash to him. She considered their torture worth learning how to free you from the frozen field. She might be willing to trade Savi and Colin for something else.”

“I believe she’s capable of it, if she feels that every other option has vanished.” Because Michael was capable of the same, and the dragon at her core was the same as his. “But there were other options besides torture. If she wanted to access Chaos, Irena would have given her the spear.”

“Or she could have taken Colin’s and Savi’s blood. Pretty easily, too.”

Acknowledging that irritated her, he saw. Andromeda wanted to think the worst of Khavi.

Just as she wanted to think the worst of him.

Both he and his friend deserved it. Michael would never argue against that. But for all of the sins that could be laid at their feet, Michael didn’t think this was one of them.

“I also don’t believe she would assist Lucifer,” he said. “She wants to destroy him.”

Not as badly as Michael did. But Khavi had wanted to remove the demon from his throne for millennia.

“Maybe she has a twisted little plan to help him before betraying him.”

“She does have a twisted plan. But to further it, she’s helping Anaria.”

She frowned a little at that. “Anaria knew about Colin and Savi, too. And she has that power to compel people. Maybe she convinced demons to carry out this plan, and, while pretending to help her, Khavi brought them to Earth.”

That was the scenario that Michael feared over any other. “Yes.”

“What would you do if Khavi did?”

“I would kill her,” he said.

Khavi might have her reasons, and her plan might eventually destroy Lucifer. But if she opened a portal between Chaos and Earth, if she was responsible for Brandt’s death, then he would have no other choice.

Andromeda didn’t appear surprised. Her gaze searched his face. “Like you had to execute Anaria.”

“Yes.”

He had once shared the pain of that with her. He’d given her his memories of the battlefield, of finding the human men that his sister had slaughtered. He’d shown her Anaria, unapologetic. He’d let Andromeda feel his despair, his grief.

She would know that he didn’t want to experience that again. But he would, if it was necessary. And he would take the responsibility of executing Khavi himself.