Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (19 page)

“And judge whether he deserves to die for it?”

“Yes.”

Taylor wasn’t as comfortable with that. Where did they draw the line? Not where the Rules began. Vampires weren’t required to follow them. And what if the demon had manipulated the vampire? Threatened someone he loved? There was no excuse for killing Brandt, but did he deserve to die for that?

Unless the vampire had simply enjoyed killing him. Then Taylor wouldn’t be so conflicted.

So she was with Michael on this. She wanted to know why. They wouldn’t find out sitting here.

Still, she couldn’t yet ask him. She texted Lilith instead.

We’re in Seattle. The police are here. Brandt’s dead.

Fuck.
Lilith’s first response echoed Taylor’s.
How?

Vampire. We’re sitting tight for now. Senator Blackwell said that SI was disavowed. If we go in, we won’t get any answers.

Fucking politicians. Get what you can.

She tucked her phone away, put her head in her hands. “You’re one hundred percent sure it was a vampire? Not some human with a knife and a taste for blood?”

“Yes. I smelled him.”

Him?
She thought he’d just been saying that in a gender-neutral way. Now she wondered. “You even know it was a male vampire?”

“Yes.”

“Can you track him by scent?”

“I already tried. I lost the trail in the air.”

Vampires couldn’t fly. And demons didn’t have enough of an odor trail to follow. “Then a demon took him out of here.”

“Yes.”

So find the vampire, maybe find the demon. Unless the demon anticipated that. “Would the demon leave the vampire alive after he’d served his purpose?”

“Probably not. There might be nothing left but ash by now.”

She glanced up at the sky. All clouds, but a vampire would burn even in indirect sunlight. “That would suck.”

“Yes, but it is better than the alternative. Because if the demon has kept the vampire alive, it means that the demon needs him for another purpose.”

And there might be another dead human later.

Damn it.
Damn it.
They had to stop him, but she needed evidence to look at. She needed to trace where Brandt had been, to see if the vampire had left any clues that could identify him. The detectives might be good, but they wouldn’t even know to look in the right direction. They’d never find the vampire or the demon.

Taylor knew it too well. She’d been in the same position as they were. The evidence they found wouldn’t add up, and they would have no idea that the problem wasn’t in the forensics or missing data, but that they were using the wrong math.

Hell, they wouldn’t know that different math even
existed
.

But walking onto the crime scene and pointing out the truth wouldn’t result in justice. Just disbelief. And Taylor would be stonewalled as hard as she’d been at the senator’s office.

Oh, fuck it all. She lifted her head out of her hands and made herself say it. “Can you take the body without being seen? All the blood, too. And if you can steal those cameras without breaking the Rules, I also want them.”

“I can. But are you certain?”

Of course he’d ask. He knew her too well.

“I hate it with everything in me,” she said. “But I’m sure.”

He vanished. A raindrop fell on her hand. Then Michael was beside her again.

The shouts began. The detectives’ confusion and anger, the disbelief. Taylor closed her eyes. God, she was sorry. She was so sorry.

“I have the body and the blood, two cameras and a video recorder,” Michael said. “I couldn’t take one camera. It was in a technician’s possession.”

And ripping it out of his hands would break the Rules. “All right. We’ll wait, try again in a few minutes. For now, just tell me what you saw.”

“I can show you.”

Yes, he could. If she opened her shields, he could project an image into her head. But he’d also feel everything else.

“I don’t want you in there,” she said.

His jaw clenched, but he nodded. “It was a personal library. A window was open to the front of the house, the shades drawn. Brandt was in the chair behind the desk. Around the body were three women, four men. Three in uniforms and armed, two in suits and armed, two unarmed.”

Detectives, officers, and techs. “Was Brandt sitting?”

“Yes. Blood from the wound sprayed the desktop. His neck was also broken.”

“We’ll examine the body when we return to SI. How long ago was he killed?” She assumed that Michael had seen enough death in his lifetime to make an educated guess.

“About two days.”

One day after the video was uploaded, two days before the Guardians had known it existed. “Was there a flag in the room?”

“Yes. The flagpole could have easily served as a spear.” He frowned, vanished, and reappeared. “The library is the same room as in the video.”

She grinned. Now he was getting it. “Were they keeping Brandt here these two weeks?”

Michael vanished and reappeared. God, that was so handy. She missed teleporting like that. No dizziness, no sickness. Just popping in and out.

“He was here,” Michael said. “A room on the second floor locks from the outside. There was food waste in the bins. Most of it from drive-through restaurants. There were bags, cartons.”

Good. That was what she would have asked next. “So they were bringing food to him. Why were they keeping him alive? Why not make the video and kill him two weeks ago?”

“I can think of too many reasons. The foremost is that they wanted to persuade Brandt to make the video himself, so we wouldn’t know that a demon was involved.”

That sounded about right. And if that was true, then Brandt had held out against a demon’s brand of persuasion for weeks, until the demon had no choice but to make the video himself. Did that mean there was some kind of deadline the demon had to meet? She hoped not. But they’d sort through those possibilities later.

“Did you take all of the garbage?” Maybe they’d find a receipt to one of the restaurants and luck out on a surveillance camera.

“I did.”

“Anything else?”

“The desk chair in the library was brown leather. Tell me how it matters.”

How it mattered? Lilith must have really gotten to him. But he wasn’t being defensive, she saw. He truly wanted to know.

“Perhaps it doesn’t matter,” she said. “It probably doesn’t. But in Hugh’s living room, the color does. He was a Guardian for how long?”

“Eight centuries.”

“Eight centuries, and the Guardians’ realm is all white. But there’s not a single white wall or countertop or piece of furniture in his house. So it’s not the specific color that matters; it’s that there’s color everywhere. It suggests to me that after he Fell, Hugh deliberately surrounded himself with things that wouldn’t remind him of Caelum or the Guardians.”

“Or he chose color to remind him of Lilith, because he thought she was dead.”

Taylor had never considered that, but he was probably right. She shrugged. “And perhaps it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he just doesn’t like white because he’s a klutz and he spills a lot of food. But if I was investigating him, it’s a detail that I’d mentally file away. Then I compare it to what else I know of him—what fits, what doesn’t, what motivates him. So I look for something out of place. Or if I establish a pattern, I can look for something that should be there, but isn’t.”

And now the way that Michael was looking at her didn’t fit any patterns that made sense. The softness, the warm amber glow. She shouldn’t ask.

She couldn’t help herself. “What?”

“I like knowing how you think.”

She’d like to figure him out, too. But it was smarter to remind herself why she shouldn’t care. “A year in my head didn’t tell you?”

“No. I saw what came of such thoughts, but not how you reached your conclusions.”

“And what will you do with that knowledge? Is it easier to manipulate me now?”

“It would be,” he said quietly. “But I only intend to enjoy knowing it.”

She didn’t believe him. And now, somehow, she felt like an utter bitch—so it put her in the perfect mood to receive a text from Lilith.

“‘Drifter and Hugh are in Seattle talking to Sammael,’” Taylor read aloud. “That’s the demon who gives Charlie the blood, right?”

Vampires couldn’t live off animals or most bagged blood. But vampires could survive on bagged blood if the source was a living demon. Sammael sent a pint to Charlie daily, which she sent to the Guardians, so they could temporarily help out any vampires who’d lost a partner.

But the donation wasn’t out of the goodness of Sammael’s heart. The demon was bound by a bargain. It was the only reason the Guardians hadn’t slain him.

“Yes,” Michael said. “I would have also visited him next. It is rare for a demon to hate any individual specifically. They hate all humans. But Sammael hates Brandt more than any other.”

“Why?”

“Brandt discovered that Sammael was a demon, and tried to protect Jane Newcomb from him.”

“Charlie’s sister?” Taylor had never met her, but she knew that Jane was human and married to a demon. “And Sammael supposedly loves her.”

“He does.”

“Demons can love? Really?”

“In their way.” He met her gaze. “It’s more accurately obsession or a need to possess.”

“Some humans call that love, too.” With only a thin line between them.

“Yes. But with demons, dishonesty always comes with it. Whatever is required to keep Jane happy, to keep her in love—he will tell her that, he will pretend to be that, rather than offer her the truth.”

“So he’ll give her whatever she wants?” Taylor snorted. “It sounds like the perfect relationship to me.”

His smile came and went in a quick flash. “Eight thousand years of seeing perfect relationships fall apart has taught me that it’s better to know what is in someone from the start.”

A few decades had taught Taylor that. “Does she know he’s a demon?”

“Yes.”

“And she knows what demons do?”

“Yes. But she believes him when he says that he’s different.”

“Is he?”

“No. He trapped Charlie in a car with a vampire and forced her to choose between dying or becoming one herself.”

Jesus. “Does Jane know
that
?”

“Yes. Sammael convinced her that it was for Charlie’s own good.”

Taylor shook her head. From the front of the house came the sound of vehicles approaching. She rose and glanced over the peak of the roof. More cruisers, their lights flashing. No doubt here to lock this house down and pick over every inch.

She sank into a crouch again. “We’re not going to get that camera. Even if we do, they are already uploading the pictures and e-mailing backup copies.” She rubbed her forehead. “Maybe Jake and Savi will be able to dig the photos out of their servers and off their computers and phones, erase the rest of the evidence. Unfortunately, they all saw Brandt’s body, and we can’t erase their memories.”

“I can. It is one of my Gifts.”

Taylor frowned at him. She hadn’t been serious. “What?”

“If their minds aren’t shielded, I can slip in. But I don’t use it on humans or other Guardians anymore.” A hint of amusement played around his mouth. “Hugh persuaded me centuries ago that it is not . . . good.”

“You didn’t just know that?”

“No. I didn’t have the benefit of being born in enlightened times.”

So dry. Taylor wasn’t sure if he was joking. “Would you do it now?”

“No. Memory is uncertain, anyway. They will all question what they saw, whether they have the pictures or not.”

That was true. Eyewitness testimony was always unreliable. It was too easy to make someone doubt what they’d seen. Throw in disappearing bodies and wounds that looked as if a vampire had ripped out someone’s throat, and none of those cops downstairs would be absolutely certain of anything tomorrow.

And Taylor hated that she’d been the one to cause it.

Michael was watching her. “Do you doubt yourself? I can replace everything. We will find another way.”

“No. I’ve come to accept that justice can’t be meted out by humans in cases like these. How can they track down a demon? How could they prosecute a vampire? He can’t even show up in court during the proper hours.” She blew out a heavy breath. “So it bothers me a hell of a lot, but I’ll deal with it. Could Sammael have been the demon we’re looking for?”

“I doubt it. He’s bound to protect anyone that Charlie cares about, and Brandt is her friend.”

“He might have broken his bargain.”

“And risk the frozen field for this?” Michael shook his head. “I don’t think Sammael would, even for Jane. But Ethan and Hugh will be finding out now.”

Ethan? That was Drifter. And he was supposed to be with Joe. Damn it.

She texted Lilith.
Where’s Preston?

He elected to stay in WV and finish the interviews. We are in contact.

Good. She turned her head when a cold drop fell on her cheek. Michael had disappeared.

Just as quickly, he was back. “Joseph Preston is well.”

Something in her chest squeezed tight. “You went to check on him?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“He is important to me as well.” His voice was low, reassuring. “He’s pursuing a vampire and it is still daytime. He’ll be safe.”

“I know.” But she wasn’t safe. She was on the verge of forgetting why she should be angry. She was on the verge of thinking she mattered, too. It was time to remind herself that it wasn’t true. “Close your eyes for a few seconds.”

He frowned at her.

“I know, I know. You won’t see a threat coming and you’ll be all vulnerable. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

His frown disappeared in a laugh, and he obediently closed his eyes. “I’m not vulnerable like this. Not unless you also take my ears, my feet, my voice, and my psychic senses.”

Braggart. Scooting in front of him, she lifted her hand and covered his eyes with her palm and fingers. Just in case. With superspeed, he could cheat and blink his eyelids open faster than she could detect.

“Now tell me the color of my eyes,” she said.