Demon Blood (44 page)

Staggering, Deacon rose to his feet. It was so fucking hot here, bone-dry. Not anything like Rome. He smelled human blood—and saw a human male in a white robe, lying facedown on a yellow rock. His shadow stretched unnaturally long and thin toward the veil around Deacon. The sun was high overhead. In the distance, sand formed dunes against the horizon.

He could almost piece it together. A demon had killed the human. The nephil had been called to slay the demon. Deacon just couldn’t figure out how the fuck he and Rosalia had gotten here. This sure as hell wasn’t Europe.

The nephil’s gaze touched Rosalia before moving past her to Deacon. His lips drew back from his fangs as he spoke. Deacon didn’t recognize the words, but he felt the creature’s rage and grief.

“He wants to know if you killed his brother,” Taylor said from beside him. “Rosalia, he can sense the blood in Deacon. He
knows
.”

“And if he tells the others, Deacon’s as good as dead. They’ll hunt him down.” Her grim determination resonated through the shadows. “Get him out of here, Taylor.”

The detective didn’t move. Her expression tightened as the nephil looked at her and spoke again. With a chilling smile, he began to edge toward her. Two swords appeared in Taylor’s hands—Deacon wondered if she realized that she’d called them in.

“What’d he say?” Rosalia slipped between them, staying beyond the reach of the nephil’s weapon. “Taylor! What’d he say?”

“He said, ‘My mother isn’t here.’ ”

Dark humor slipped into Rosalia’s voice. “But I am.”

She rushed forward. Darkness snaked around her, thickening her form into an indistinct shape, creating shadow limbs, until it was impossible to determine the exact position of her hands and her head. Her sword flashed out of the darkness—the nephil barely managed to block it. He stumbled back against the slashing fury of her weapon before recovering and bearing down on her.

The shadows from the veil to her feet stretched thinner, thinner. The pain of her Gift was a volatile, living agony against Deacon’s shields. He had to get closer. Had to help her.

He stepped through the veil, into the sun. Fire erupted from his skin, engulfing him in flames. Instinctively, he dove back into the shelter of her Gift, clenching his teeth against the flaring pain.

Stupid.
Stupid.
Of course she couldn’t track both the nephil and him at the same time. He had to stay put.

Taylor joined her, weapons awkward in her hands. Though her eyes were pure black, she was slow—slower than she should be. Not just fighting the nephil, but fighting Michael, too. She dodged the nephil’s blade, but not by virtue of her own skill. Each time, she was yanked back at the last moment like a puppet by her strings.

She was fighting Michael . . . but Michael was fighting to save her.

Deacon shouted, “Taylor! Let him have you!”

Rosalia stumbled to one knee, her legs swept out from under. The nephil raised his weapon. Deacon broke out of the shadows, into the dazzling day. Instantly, his exposed skin caught fire. He didn’t give a fuck. If a vampire ball of fire barreling toward the nephil could make him hesitate for even a second—

Just before the sun blinded him, the creature fell.

Rosalia cried out his name. Pain engulfed him again, his and hers. He felt something cover his head and shoulders, smelled chlorine and earth and his own charred flesh.

Jesus Christ, it hurt like a son of a bitch. He breathed shallow, controlling it. “What happened?”

“Taylor cut off his head.”

Deacon hadn’t seen it—not just because his sight had burned out. When Michael had taken over, Taylor had just been that fast. Christ Jesus. He almost laughed. “Then I’m damn lucky she’s been fighting him whenever he pops in to kill me.”

“Yes.”

He felt her shudder against him. “Rosie?”

“I just . . . pulled the bodies into my cache. A few Bedouins have seen.” He felt her move, as if shifting around, being careful not to jar him. “Taylor! We have to go.”

He heard footsteps, dimly saw movement beside him as Taylor laid her hand on his shoulder. Pain shot down his arm. Rosalia’s Gift vanished from around him—then he had hard concrete beneath him instead of hot sand. Judging by the scent of oil and the sweltering heat, Taylor had teleported them back into Rosalia’s garage.

The detective’s blurry figure backed away from them until her shoulders met the wall. She slid down to the concrete floor, pulling her knees against her chest. Deacon felt Rosalia’s breath against his shoulder, the press of her lips to his skin, and the prayer of thanks she whispered.

God wasn’t the reason he hadn’t fried out there. Rosie was. But before he could pull her into his arms, before he could thank her, she turned away.

“Taylor, don’t go yet.”

Deacon’s sight had healed well enough to see the bleakness of Taylor’s expression, her blue eyes shattered and her mouth in a tight line. Rosalia moved to her side, crouched down on her heels next to her.

“He’d have killed Deacon,” she said softly. “He’d have killed me. And if Anaria and the other nephilim learned that we’d slain the nephil in Lorenzo’s home, her revenge could have taken her to my family. Vin, Gemma, their baby. The Rules do not hold her back. You saved so many lives.”

“I know.” Taylor pushed her hands through her disheveled red hair. Frustration overwrote the bleakness. “He was going to kill me, too. They aren’t completely loyal to Anaria. And she refuses to recognize what they are.”

Rosalia had pegged the other Guardian well, Deacon realized. Taylor would only kill to protect or defend. And although slaying the nephil hadn’t been easy for the new Doyen, this one wouldn’t hang on her.

“This is the wrong time to ask you . . .” Rosalia trailed off. “No, perhaps it is the right time. This has been difficult, and it is a horrible thing that I’ll ask of you—and only you could know if you can withstand more than this.”

Taylor shook her head, laughing a little. “I already have. So lay it on me.”

“Deacon and I have been working to destroy both Belial’s demons and the nephilim. But although we have found a way to slay the nephilim, the demons are left to kill. If Michael was alive, I would ask him. I would do it myself, but I might fail. Anaria won’t.”

“You need Anaria?”

“I need you to teleport with her . . . but you would be bringing her into a nightmare. Into
any
mother’s worst nightmare.”

“Into a slaughter?”

“Of the nephilim, yes.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Taylor pushed her hands into her hair again. “And if I can’t?”

“Then I’ll return to my original plan.”

Deacon’s voice was rough. “Does that original plan involve you dying?”

“God willing, no.”

In other words, Rosalia felt she had no choice but to try. And only by the grace of God would she succeed.

“No fucking way am I letting you do that. I’ll chain you down first.”

Rosalia glanced over her shoulder at him. Not upset by his threat or pulling her crossbow out again, as he’d half expected, but with a soft pleasure—as if surprised that anyone would care enough to forbid her from gambling with her life.

Christ, how that ripped at him.

“We all have to take risks, Deacon.”

“You don’t. Not this one.”

“That’s up to Taylor.”

Deacon’s anger battled with his fear. Anger was on the verge of winning when Taylor lifted her wry gaze to Rosalia’s.

“For once, Michael’s not pushing me one way or another—finally letting me decide.” Her chest rose and fell on a heavy breath. “Would you want
me
to do it, or him?”

“That’s also up to you. You’re a Guardian, and so you slay demons. But this will be cold, Taylor, and you are new. Michael, Deacon, and I—we have seen enough demons that the burden of slaying them is a light one. And if you hesitated, if you struggled against him at all, you would be in danger.” Rosalia held her gaze. “But there will also be humans to protect. After bringing Anaria, they would be your priority. I can’t imagine that would be a struggle for either of you.”

The detective managed a slight smile. “You’d be surprised how easy it is for me to find something to struggle against.”

The warmth of Rosalia’s answering smile transformed her features from beautiful to resplendent, hitting Deacon like a punch to the heart, but her smile faded quickly. “I will be taking steps that no Guardian should take, Taylor. You should hear what I have planned before your make your decision.”

Taylor laughed. “You’ve already got me halfway there, just by being the one Guardian who gives a warning before throwing a girl into the deep end.”

Rosalia outlined it all. From Theriault, to the first demon had slain in Budapest, all the way to how she saw the end. Christ. Laid all out, Deacon could see how many places it’d could have gone wrong—but hadn’t, because she’d considered so many angles, understood the personalities of so many involved. And even though she still didn’t know every detail of when or where or how the battle between the nephilim and demons would go down, Deacon believed she could pull it off.

Hell. She’d already pulled off one miracle. Every night, vampires had been greeting him with smiles and handshakes instead of disdain and hatred. If she could do that, then he could easily imagine everything she said would happen here.

Taylor asked few questions until Rosalia spoke of the humans she planned to bring in. Then her eyes became obsidian and her voice a dark, disapproving harmony. Taylor fought him, and Rosalia finished the outline of her plan with her hands shaking.

As she fell silent, waiting for Taylor’s response, the phone began ringing in the War Room. Rosalia glanced upward, as if torn. Finally, she rose to answer it, leaving through the hole she’d smashed through the connecting wall. Both he and Taylor remained quiet, listening to her half of the conversation.

Rosalia returned and told them what they’d already heard. “St. Croix’s waiting at the church, with possible names.”

And Deacon wouldn’t try to stop her from going this time. “You’ll bring the surveillance equipment down so that I can listen in here?”

“Yes. If you’ll turn the air-conditioning back on.”

“Consider it done.” Air-conditioning wouldn’t do much now with a giant hole exposing the garage to the sun-warmed chamber on the opposite side of the wall, but what the hell. He’d burned enough for one day.

Smiling, Rosalia looked to Taylor. “Will you stay? If St. Croix bumbled around at Legion and revealed his interest in Malkvial, he might have brought thirty demons along without knowing it. If I need help, a teleporter would be a big one.”

Taylor’s eyes brightened. “Listening in on wire surveillance? Just like old times.”

“If you enjoy that, you should come around more often,” Rosalia said dryly, and turned to go. She paused when Taylor spoke up again.

“Rosalia? I can do this thing. I’ll bring Anaria in.”

Her eyes shining with sudden tears, Rosalia’s face collapsed in that devastating way women had. Relief, pain, dread, joy—Deacon wasn’t sure what lay behind it. But a man would have to be stronger than he was not to take that step toward her.

“Rosie.”

She waited while he crossed the garage. When he lifted his hands to cup her face, brushed away the tears with his thumbs, she gave him a watery smile. “It looks like we’re almost there, preacher.”

Almost finished, and it felt like a hole in his chest. God, what he wouldn’t give to ride along this way for a few more weeks. Hell, a few more years. But he’d be damned before he screwed this up, so that everything she’d done was for nothing.

“Then go get that demon bastard’s name,” he told her.

Once again, Rosalia took the roundabout route to the church, using the opportunity to contact the Guardians in San Francisco. Someone would be sent to investigate why the demon had been in the desert when he’d killed the human—although, with the nephil and demon already slain, it was unlikely that much would be discovered. And from what she’d glimpsed of the scene before the nephil had arrived, she suspected the human’s death had been an accident. The demon had been desperately trying to revive the man, his shock palpable.

She didn’t mention to anyone at Special Investigations how Deacon had been called to the scene. The horror she’d felt when his eyes had emptied and the demon language spilled from his tongue hadn’t completely abated. And she didn’t know what it meant for him now. Would he be called
every
time a demon broke the Rules? She feared he would be. With so few demons on Earth, it wouldn’t happen often—and the chances would be less after Belial’s demons were gone—but even a small chance was too much.

He hadn’t been released from that call until the nephil had slain the demon. Perhaps with time, he might gain control over his response—but he could only learn that control with experience. He couldn’t afford to gain that experience during the daylight hours.