Demon Forged Read online

“That crazy fucking—” Lilith cut herself off. “Unbelievable.”

  Irena’s own anger burned hot at that. Even if the shooter was a human—whose will they couldn’t have interfered with—Alejandro and she still could’ve done something. Alerted the detectives, or created a distraction that would have gotten Julia Stafford off those steps.

  “Perhaps Khavi didn’t see Julia Stafford. Khavi showed Irena another woman.”

  “Her name?”

  “I don’t know. She never identified herself while I could hear her, but she could have been in Rael’s employ. Pale blond hair, a dark suit that might have been a uniform—”

  “Margaret Wren,” Dru said. “I heard her speaking with an agent at the hospital. She provides personal security for the Staffords.”

  Lilith wrote the name down. “All right. I’ll look at her, too.” She glanced up at Irena. “And Taylor?”

  Irena quickly recounted their steps from the courthouse to the roof, then listened as Alejandro reported how little they’d gotten out of Rael.

  At the end of it, Lilith sat back in her chair, tapping her pencil against her lip. “Do you have anything, Dru?”

  “No.”

  “Then I think we’re done.” Lilith glanced at Alejandro, then back to Irena. “Except you. Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Surprised, Irena searched for a reason to say no. But a woman was dead . . . and she was just curious enough to stay.

  His swords were still strapped beneath his jacket when Deacon woke up. His world narrowed to the pain in his back. Jesus Christ. Sword handles couldn’t leave a permanent impression beside a vampire’s spine, but it freaking felt like they had.

  Had Irena just thrown him on this narrow bed and left him? What a pal.

  He supposed it could’ve been worse, though; she could have left him on the floor. Or she could have discovered the real reason he’d contacted her, and killed him in his sleep.

  Fuck. He blew out a heavy breath—and slapped at his mouth when something fluttered against his lips.

  Paper crinkled. Though the room was dark, he easily made out the block letters.

  DO NOT LEAVE THE WAREHOUSE.

  I HAVE BLOOD FOR YOU. IRENA.

  Guilt slapped him like a bitch. He crumpled the note in his fist and stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t let guilt stop him; he had to get through this. And maybe his deception wouldn’t hurt her—just piss her off. Irena was tough. She could take care of herself.

  His people couldn’t. Hell, he couldn’t. And they’d all be dead if he didn’t follow through on his agreement with Caym.

  Just get a little info on a vampire connected to the Guardians. Save his community. Real simple.

  Fucking demons.

  He sat up. The small room hosted a desk and bureau pushed up against bare walls. Opposite the bed, a door stood ajar; through it, he could see a sink and the frosted glass front of a shower stall. He’d wash, but it wouldn’t matter—his suit smelled like the woman he’d fucked in Rome. Deacon hadn’t wanted her, but the bloodlust hadn’t given him any choice. And it marked the first time he’d been with a woman he hadn’t desired—or at least been friends with. Bloodlust had never been a curse before.

  But it was one he’d use to his advantage tonight.

  Five minutes later, he finished in the bathroom, donned his wrinkled clothes again, and stepped out into the hall.

  The scent of blood struck him at the same time as the hoots of laughter. He looked toward the sound, rubbing his tongue against his fangs to soothe his stirring hunger. The hall opened into a large rec room, with sofas and sitting areas anchored by blue and green rugs, a huge oak entertainment center against one wall, and a game table at the center of it all. Around the table sat two vampires, and three others—Deacon couldn’t tell if they were humans or Guardians.

  A dark-haired woman reached forward and gave a water bottle a spin. It came to a rest pointing at the female vampire, who grimaced, squeezed her eyes shut, and held out her hand. After a tiny hesitation—filled by the claps and cries of the others that You can do it!—the first woman whipped a dagger out of nowhere and sliced through the vampire’s fingers. They dropped to the table in a spurt of blood. The others cheered.

  Jesus. He’d seen sicker games in his life, but he hadn’t expected something like this here. The cheering quieted as he entered the rec room, and everyone looked toward him but the vampire and a different woman, her black hair cut in a sleek bowl.

  The second vampire, a tall, wiry male permanently in his mid-twenties, stood and stuck out his hand.

  Deacon cast a glance at the stairs, but realized he couldn’t avoid this. He took the vampire’s hand. “Deacon.”

  “Good to meet you. I’m Ben, that’s Echo.” He pointed to the female vampire who’d just had her fingers cut off. “Pim is the one fixing her up. There’s Becca—don’t worry, she always looks at new people like that—and Randall.”

  Becca rolled her eyes. “He’s not wondering who we are, Ben; he’s wondering what the fuck we’re doing.” She nodded to the female Guardian who was holding a severed forefinger to the stump, her face a picture of concentration. “Pim’s practicing her healing Gift. We’re growing balls and helping her out.”

  Pim muffled a laugh. “Literally?”

  Becca flipped her the bird. “You wish.”

  Echo forced a smile through some obvious pain. “Luckily, growing balls isn’t an option for us, because they’d probably just want to cut them off.”

  There was some snickering, but Deacon stared as a warm, uncertain power pushed against his mind, and the vampire’s finger reattached to her hand without a single mark to show for it. A healing Gift. Christ. These three kids were novice Guardians, and each one could twist him into a pretzel. But he hadn’t known they could heal each other.

  He watched for a few minutes longer before excusing himself—before they could ask him to volunteer.

  At the bottom of the stairs waited the Guardian he’d met in Rome. Irena’s friend who had enough names for a freaking prince—Alejandro de Something la Something. A prince who’d barbequed a nosferatu without a change of his expression or an increase in his heartbeat.

  Yeah. All of these Guardians could take care of themselves just fine.

  Alejandro inclined his head in greeting. So polite. “Irena should be here presently.”

  “Great.” Deacon glanced down another hall and spotted the one man he’d been told to avoid—Hugh Castleford, a human who could detect lies. Which meant Deacon would say whatever it took to get out quickly and to stop Alejandro from trying to delay him. “Is she going to feed me herself?”

  “I believe she already answered you.”

  Yeah, and considering the vibe this Guardian and Irena had been giving off in Rome, Deacon bet Alejandro hadn’t liked the question much. “You’re right—she prefers them big and blond, doesn’t she? And after she rode one of my vampires so hard that Karl was still limping the next day, I’m not about to offer myself up for the same.” Deacon paused. “And you know whose name Karl said she was calling at the end?”

  Alejandro’s eyes narrowed. That had gotten to him, hadn’t it? The prince’s indecipherable face was as sharp as his swords.

  Deacon’s smile showed his fangs. “It wasn’t yours.”

  Death slipped into the Guardian’s dark eyes. Deacon’s death, Alejandro’s. Jesus, he knew that look. It’d been in the mirror after Caym had beaten the shit out of him, when Deacon would rather have seen everyone dead—including himself—than admit defeat.

  But there hadn’t been an everyone. There’d been vampires with faces and names he’d known and who he’d sworn to protect, so he’d choked down his pride and accepted that he’d lost.

  He wondered how many times Alejandro had done the same.

  The Guardian stared him down. “I will let Irena know you’ve gone.”

  In other words, if Deacon didn’t get the fuck out of Alejandro’s sight, there’d be one less vampire suck
ing blood every night. Perfect. Deacon flashed him a grin and headed for the exit.

  At the security desk, an old, stiff-upper-lip type in a somber black suit gave Deacon an identification card with a magnetic strip and code that would let him back in to the warehouse. Deacon walked down the empty corridor, feeling the old man staring at him the whole way, thanking God the demon had taught him to strengthen his psychic shields—and that the Guardians were too polite to go looking without permission.

  He stepped into the fenced parking lot with only a vague notion of which direction to go: northwest, toward downtown, where the head of San Francisco’s vampire community—Colin Ames-Beaumont—kept a nightclub.

  “Lost?”

  Deacon whipped around, searching for the female who’d spoken. Impenetrable shadows gathered near the warehouse’s entrance. The soft psychic touch of a Gift brushed over his mind, and the darkness fell away as if the woman shed a heavy cloak that had muffled both visibility and her heartbeat.

  Deacon stared, his bloodlust sharpening. He recognized her—Rosalia—but she didn’t appear anything like he’d last seen her. Now she looked like Snow White with her black hair, white skin, and crimson lips full enough to suck on. Snow White, healed and awakened, and wearing a red sweater that clung to every curve. But he was no prince, so he shouldn’t even be thinking about all the places on that body he’d like to kiss.

  He found his voice. “I’m looking for a meal. You want to volunteer?’

  The second the words were out, he called himself an asshole. God knew what the nosferatu had done to her. The last thing she’d want was another bloodsucker at her neck—or to be reminded of it.

  “No.” Her calm brown eyes searched his, looking deep. But she must not have seen his soul or his secrets, because she didn’t kill him. “You led Irena and Alejandro to me. I’m indebted to you. My blades, my protection—you only have to ask, and they are yours if you ever have need of them.”

  No way in fucking hell was he taking them. “You don’t owe me anything. I had no idea you were there.”

  And he hadn’t known there were three nosferatu feeding from her. If he had, he wouldn’t have waited so long to contact this agency. Wouldn’t have waited while the bastard demon put whatever plan he had into place. And he’d have warned Irena they were walking into a nest.

  He thought of Eva and Petra—and their terror when he’d lain on the ground, beaten.

  He was so full of shit. He’d have waited, and done exactly as he’d been told. He’d have used Irena, his one contact among the Guardians, and through her, would’ve found his way into Special Investigations. And now he’d learn who had the keys to the Chaos realm—whether that person was the vampire the demon suspected it was.

  These Guardians could take care of themselves.

  Rosalia gave him another searching look, and he had the feeling that she was wondering, questioning, expecting something—as if she knew him. “If you need a blood-sharer, I imagine you’re going to see the community leader.”

  “Yes. You know him?”

  “No, though I have heard of him—the one who walks in sunlight.”

  His stomach dropped. In sunlight . . . and in Chaos, too? “I thought that was a myth.”

  “So did I, and all of the vampires I knew.” She stopped. The sudden grief on her face would have made angels weep.

  Deacon knew he was closer to a devil, and it still tugged at him. She’d lived in Rome. The nephilim had exterminated the vampires there, so any she’d known were dead.

  She dredged up a smile. Even forced, the curve of her lips took her from sultry beauty to stunningly gorgeous and almost knocked his legs out from under him. “I have lost too many friends today. But I would like to meet this myth. Shall I take you?”

  “You know where the nightclub is?”

  “Polidori’s, yes. I asked the novices. But I have been waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. For you, perhaps. And now I have a reason to go.”

  She held out her hand. Deacon took it, and she didn’t flinch at the touch of his cold skin. She pulled him back toward the warehouse.

  “The shadows are deeper here,” she said.

  He nodded, expecting her to use the darkness to hide the formation of her wings. Her Gift swept over him, instead.

  The shadows opened up and swallowed him whole.

  Irena waited as Lilith walked around her desk and leaned back against it. Why change position? To emphasize that she wasn’t issuing orders from behind the desk? To emphasize that she was taller than Irena? Or for no reason at all?

  The difficulty in dealing with someone like Lilith was knowing when she was—or wasn’t—manipulating a situation. Lilith’s direct gaze gave no clue; unlike most humans, she could lie without giving herself away. And so the only smart response was to assume she was manipulating.

  “I’m going to put Alejandro on Rael,” she said.

  Investigating the demon’s role in the shooting? “Do you think Rael was involved?”

  Lilith shrugged. “There are factors that lead me to believe either way. His wife was a political asset: She’s good money, and a married politician is always more appealing to voters. Killing her has no benefit that I can see. And in the more than two millennia that I’ve known of Rael, I’ve never heard of him doing anything—anything—against humans. Never tempted, never pushed anyone to murder, never bargained with one to get something. The only thing he needs for a candidacy to sainthood is a different religion than the one he professes to have.”

  Irena didn’t believe it. Rael hadn’t become one of Belial’s highest-ranked demons by playing a saint.

  Of course, Belial claimed he wanted Hell’s throne so that he and his demons could return to Grace. Was it possible that a demon practiced what he preached? That he truly believed it? Or was that just another form of manipulation?

  She would be stupid not to assume that it was. “And the factors on the other side?”

  “He’s a demon.”

  As if to let that sink in, Lilith left her desk, walked to a small cooler installed behind a wall panel. With a bottle of water in hand, she turned back. “The Bureau can’t look where we’ve got to look. That means your friend Alejandro is going to have to get close to Rael. And I need you at his back.”

  Irena stared at her. Her laugh started and she didn’t attempt to stop it. Lilith’s brows arched, and she smiled as she sipped from her water.

  She swallowed. “You think it’s funny?”

  “I was imagining Olek’s response when you ask him.”

  Lilith shook her head. “I won’t ask. His pride won’t allow him to agree.”

  Yes, Olek’s pride was great, indeed. He’d accept another Guardian’s—even Irena’s—help, but never for the purpose of protecting him.

  Irena studied the other woman. She shouldn’t be surprised that Lilith saw it, too. When Lilith had been a demon, she’d had to read the character of men in order to break them.

  The character of men and women.

  “This request makes no sense. I am a risk to you and to SI. You know that I don’t care if Rael is guilty; given the opportunity, I will kill him.”

  “A woman is dead, and we need to know if Rael is responsible. We can’t do that if you slay him.”

  Irena sneered. Throwing her own words back at her was obvious manipulation.

  But it was also effective. Impotent anger surged through her, and she began to stalk a path from wall to wall. “If we determine that the demon is responsible, I won’t hold back my sword.”

  “We’ll see if you do. Perhaps you’ll decide not to slay him.” Lilith’s gaze remained on her; Irena could feel it. “You did not always hate demons so much.”

  “You are wrong.” She had slain her first demon not a week after she’d finished her training in Caelum and returned to Earth. In the centuries since, she’d lost count of the numbers who’d fallen before her blades.

  “I saw you in Walach
ia after Lucifer made his bargain with Vlad—after I pissed Lucifer off, and was punished for it. Yet instead of slaying me, you told Hugh where to find me.”

  Yes. Almost six hundred years before, Irena had come across Lilith impaled on a giant pole, weakened and helpless; knowing that Hugh—then a Guardian—had formed an attachment to the demon, she had left Lilith’s fate in his hands.

  Irena stopped pacing. “That was a mistake.”

  “You think so?” Lilith’s smile wasn’t friendly. “I think, between then and now, you learned what a demon is.”

  Yes, she had. Not just tempters, not just beings who collected souls to strengthen Lucifer’s armies—but beings who reveled in tearing the souls apart. Lilith wasn’t much different. Given a chance, she’d dig up everything Irena kept buried.

  Irena turned to leave. “I will do as you’ve asked, hellspawn.”

  “Good. We’ll meet here tomorrow, seven A.M.” Lilith added as she reached the door, “He said there was no one he trusted more at his back.”

  Irena’s hand froze on the knob. “Olek?”

  “Yes. You are a risk. But sending Alejandro to investigate Rael alone is a bigger one, and SI can’t afford to lose him.”

  Lose him? Ridiculous. Between his Gift and his skill with the sword, Alejandro would survive any fight with a demon.

  “He’s reckless,” Lilith added.

  Irena laughed. Lilith saw much, but she was wrong about that. No one was more careful than Olek. He did not make a move without weighing every consequence.

  “I will do this, but you are mistaken. We will not lose him.”

  So she told herself, but as she pulled Lilith’s office door closed and saw him standing at the end of the hallway, dread grabbed her by the throat.

  Of course it was possible. It was for any of them. An ambush, a misjudgment of speed . . .

  A stone turning beneath a foot.

  Her breath sharpened. Alejandro squared his stance as she approached him, and her eyes narrowed. Did she look as if she were eager for a fight?

  She was. Oh, how she was. “You’ve become a foolish ox.”