Preston said, “According to witnesses, she caught a jumper, then jumped over the side herself.”
The relief and joy that washed over him left his knees weak, and he slowly sat down onto the hospital bed. “She saved him?”
“Scared the shit out of him, too.” Humor in the detective’s gruff voice now. “Of course, he was so high on meth, a squirrel might have done the same.”
Hugh’s breath caught as realization struck: she’d interfered with his free will. Oh, God no.
“We’ve had a hell of a time keeping them out of the media,” Taylor added. “I had one of our guys clean up these images from the traffic cams, but if they get out . . . er, Castleford, are you okay?”
She wasn’t coming back.
He clenched his teeth, but still the harsh sob tore from him. No possibility that she was being forced to help the ritual out of fear of Punishment; she couldn’t be, to then save a boy from suicide. Punishment, destruction, or transformation—Lucifer had to do one, and he’d never allowed a halfling to Fall. Had never reversed the transformation. Had she been so certain she would be Punished or destroyed that she’d forced Lucifer’s hand? Had she so little faith that he’d find a way to save her?
Or had it been because he’d only talked of saving her? He’d opened himself up to her, but he’d never spoken of love. Had kept that part of him back.
His breath came raw, tears burned. And he could only be grateful that she’d never seen his doubt. That she hadn’t seen how he had failed her again . . . had not believed in her until too late.
Salt, stink, rot, fire.
Running through it, sniffing, her trail bright and crimson above his heads and he had to keep one gaze on the sky, the other two gazes watching the sides. Wary of those like him but not-him. The distant howls of those like him, calling.
Hunt.
Chase.
Kill.
Ignore those urges, pass the hives. The frigid faces, screaming, hurting his paws. The musk of the father, growls but lets him pass when he widens his own jaws and roars. The strange, golden odor of the one who had healed him while the oil-paint vampire’s den burned around him, and the yellow scaly one—distant, relief. And her, her. The voices speaking to her: Kill him, you or him, must save yourself, fulfill your bargain, halfling, nothing.
Cries of the guards, those who talk in hisses and lies, their delicious fear. Hunt, chase, kill. Tear through them, then into the dark, where she crouches, cold.
Different, but her arm curling around his shoulders, her voice, the same. Desperate, amused, tired.
“I’ll hold on. Just run.” Her weight on his back.
Run, run, run.
“So, have you been laughing at Ganesh all this time?”
He felt Savi’s concerned gaze, and forced a smile for her sake. Difficult, when he seemed empty, hollow. “No.”
She shouldered his bag before he could reach for it. “Are you just saying that?”
“No. There are other realms.”
“Have you seen them?”
“No.”
“Then how—” She broke off and sighed. “Sorry. I’ll save my questions for later. You’ve probably had enough of them. They’re waiting out there to give us a ride home. I think you scared them. They didn’t expect you to break down—oh, holy shit.”
She stumbled back, and Hugh turned to look behind him.
“Michael.” Hugh’s voice was flat. “Should you feel inclined, I believe the two detectives outside could benefit from one of your displays.”
Savi’s eyes widened, and she slid her hand into Hugh’s.
Michael’s gaze flicked down to their linked hands. I need to take the girl to Caelum. She’ll be safe there, he signed.
“From whom?”
The nosferatu. The Guardian’s jaw clenched, muscles tightening beneath the bronze skin. Lilith. She’s coming back.
Hugh’s eyes closed, not daring to believe. “How?”
“I cannot speak of it.”
His heart thudded. “Auntie, too,” he finally said.
Michael nodded shortly, and Hugh turned to Savi. “You’ll have to go with him of your free will; you have to choose to go, he can’t simply take you.”
Though there was fear in her gaze, excitement quickly began to replace it. “Where?”
“Heaven.” Hugh smiled, but he couldn’t keep the sardonic edge from it.
Savi placed her hand in Michael’s without hesitation. Too trusting, too accepting, Hugh thought, but he could not fault her now for what had helped heal him sixteen years before.
Michael’s eyes narrowed on the bandage at his neck. A pulse of power flowed from him; Savi staggered, but the Guardian slipped his arm around her waist to steady her.
“What was that?” No fear in her eyes now, only that wide curiosity.
“A display,” Michael said with rare humor, and they disappeared.
Taylor and Preston burst through the door, their weapons drawn. They stared at Hugh, standing alone. He looked back at them without expression, taking a deep, pain-free breath.
“You have a camera in your phone, too?” he asked. Taylor’s brows drew together, but she nodded and holstered her gun.
In the hallway, he heard two nurses chatting easily as they exited another room; Michael’s power must have been closely contained, only felt by those in a very small radius. Though a hospital-wide healing might have been a more spectacular display, a Guardian’s healing power only worked on injuries sustained from inhuman causes: a nosferatu’s bite, a wound from a demon’s sword, or a bad landing made during transportation.
“It’s not much,” Hugh said, peeling away the bandage at his neck.
“It’s enough for now,” Taylor breathed as he exposed perfectly healed skin. “It’s something.”
“Perhaps he has a twin,” Preston said, but Hugh could hear the uncertainty in his voice.
“Those pictures from the bridge,” Hugh said. “Has anyone else seen them?”
“No. And except for a few people, it would be taken as seriously as a grilled cheese sandwich,” Preston said, shaking his head. “But there were witnesses, and we don’t know what lengths these things would go to keep their presence a secret.”
Hugh suddenly felt like laughing. “Not very far; they’d love the results of such a revelation. Imagine, if it became known that evil creatures, who could take any human form, walked among us.” At their blank looks, he said with a wry smile, “You would never get another conviction, to start. A shape-shifting demon is the best defense.”
Taylor nodded slowly. “Then why don’t they?”
“Lucifer,” Hugh said simply. “No demon wants to be singled out, or star in a world-wide broadcast.”
“You singled out Lilith with your book,” Preston said.
“She was dead.”
“But no longer.”
“No.” He held Taylor’s gaze with his own, saw the knowledge in her eyes. “But she’s not behind the murders. Don’t waste your time looking at her.”
Preston’s brows raised. “Who should we look at?”
There was a threat in that question, and the offended tone of one who didn’t like being told what to investigate, but Hugh didn’t respond to it. “The nosferatu. Beelzebub.” He recalled the demon’s appearance in Colin’s basement, the witness who’d seen Smith leaving the house. “Who must be Agent Smith. Was the house completely destroyed?”
“No. Neighbors saw that one side of the house had imploded, and thought there’d been an explosion, so the fire trucks were already on their way. Were you there?”
“Yes,” Hugh said. “There will be traces of my blood in the basement. There might be ash remains of several nosferatu.”
“Within two hours you were at Auntie’s; Milton’s apartment in Hunter’s Point; the Beaumont place in The Haight; and back to your place?” Taylor frowned. “You got around the city rather quickly.”
Realizing what she was thinking, that he had also managed to b
e in two places almost at once, Hugh said softly, “I didn’t murder those kids, or Sue. Some things are exactly as they appear, and some appearances are deceiving.”
“We just have to trust you?”
Hugh ignored the mockery in Preston’s tone. “No. You just have to look for the truth. Trust takes much longer.” Eight hundred years, at times.
CHAPTER 26
Waiting had been easy for Hugh, once. Easy to let things happen around him, without doing anything himself. Now, when it was forced upon him, it ate at him with sharp teeth. He pounded the weights until he shook with fatigue, but the exertion was routine, leaving his mind busy and his thoughts drawing out endlessly—as time seemed to.
Javier, Ian, and Sue, dead. Colin and Selah, missing. Savi and Auntie, swept away to Caelum for their protection though no human had ever been taken to that realm before.
Had he failed them all?
Curled atop his desk, Emilia watched him, blinking lazily each time the bar clanged into its cradle. The minutes crawled by. It was near midnight when the cat rocketed across the room, screeching, her fur standing on end. His heart pounding, Hugh let the weights fall to the floor, and ran after the cat. He detoured to the living room when he saw it disappear under his bed. If the cat was afraid, then either a nosferatu had come to finish him—or a hellhound.
A scratching at the back door, then an urgent chorus of barks.
Sir Pup broke the latch just as Hugh skidded into the room, and he caught her as she tumbled from the hellhound’s back. She was shivering—her clothing soaked through, her lips blue, her skin pale and bloodless.
Only one symbol remained on her chest.
“Lilith,” he said, gathering her close against him. He pressed his lips to hers; they tasted of sea water. Her eyes opened.
“I’m really . . . fucking . . . cold.” Her teeth chattered together, and realization and panic struck him at the same time. He lifted her; her head lolled back against his shoulder.
Human.
His eyes burned as he carried her down the hall toward the bathroom, as he set her down on the toilet seat, holding her up with one hand as he turned on the taps to fill the bath with the other. Working quickly, he unlaced the corset, stripped it off. The wet pants clung to her legs; weakly, she tried to help him, and with a final yank he ended sprawled against the opposite wall.
“Stupid . . . leather,” she said, and whether she shook with laughter or cold he couldn’t tell.
“I like them,” he said simply, and slid her shivering form into the lukewarm bath.
Her breath hissed from between her teeth, her eyes squeezed shut. “I hate this. I can’t be this.”
His heart seemed to tear from his chest. Kneeling beside the tub, he pushed tendrils of hair from her forehead. “I know.”
She slept. Eventually dreams felt like madness, and she clawed her way out of them. Two thousand years without sleep, and she had forgotten how to tell dream from reality, forgotten how easily they fell away on waking.
She was still tired—exhausted—but it was a pleasure to open her eyes. A pleasure to see the wash of midmorning light across the room. A pleasure to see Hugh, leaning against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest, his long body absolutely still. It was a protective stance, yet unguarded in its focus: as if he’d been content to watch her for an eternity, and had settled into the watching with his entire being.
Strange, that a man could do nothing but be, and it was a pleasure.
She grinned suddenly, rolling over onto her side and propping her head on her hand. One day as a human, and she’d descended into maudlin sentimentality.
Her movement seemed to spur his, and he sat down on the bed next to her, laying his hand across her forehead. The mattress was soft beneath her, the blankets a comfortable weight. At some point, he’d put a sweatshirt on her, and she felt loose fleece sweatpants against her legs.
“I have to kill you.” Her voice was light, but she regarded him intently, searching for his reaction. “If a fever takes me first, Lucifer will be furious—though it would be his fault. Even a demon should know that a human body cannot easily withstand the frigid water in the bay.”
His brows rose, and a smile seemed to flirt with his lips. His gaze touched everywhere his hands had not, as if looking for signs of sickness or injury. “Are you well?”
Weak, tired, with aches that she couldn’t remember if they were normal or not. But she nodded. “I’m fortunate that Sir Pup swims very quickly.”
He looked at her for a moment more, then said, “Very fortunate. I fed him a few small children as reward.”
A few moments later, she held her belly and groaned, “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
That smile that had appeared with her laughter immediately failed. His throat worked before he said, “Why are you not angry?” At her sigh, he continued, “Have you resigned yourself to this so easily then?”
She stiffened, then saw the brief flash of humor in his eyes and realized he was trying to provoke a heated response. Unwilling to give in, she relaxed back into the pillows, and pulled the comforter up to her chin. “I’m building up to it; within ten minutes, I’ll be myself again.”
He stretched out on his side next to her, crooking his elbow and looking down at her face. “Who are you now?”
According to the symbol over her heart, still Lilith. But she did not want to think of that at this moment; beneath the blanket, she ran her hand down her torso. “Do you want to come in and find out?”
His gaze fell to her mouth, but he shook his head.
She hid her smile, rounding her lips in an O of surprise. “What is this I’ve found? Round and”—she gasped exaggeratedly, and tented the blanket over her chest—“no longer sharp? There are two!”
“Not that large, certainly,” he said, pushing the blanket back down. His brows drew together, and he studied her as if he’d seen something new in her features. “And so you delve into absurdities when you wish to avoid a truth, whereas I brood and overanalyze myself into permanent inaction.”
“I hate that you know me so well,” she said mildly, and then narrowed her eyes. “How are you resisting me? Is this your inaction?”
He grinned. “I would love to give in to temptation this time, but we don’t have protection.”
“Sir Pup—”
“Condoms.” His hand found hers through the comforter and tightened when she looked at him, stunned. “Assuming that we live through the next year, I’m too old for children and far too—as you once put it so eloquently—fucked up.”
She was, too. Bile rose in her throat; her body still too vulnerable, though in entirely different ways.
“I believe they call it ‘having issues,’ ” he continued. His voice was rough, but his lips quirked into a smile.
His attempt at humor renewed hers. “Baggage,” she said, grinning. “Though I’m certain such a thing didn’t exist when I was born. Everyone was perfectly adjusted.” Now she had two thousand years’ worth, and the heaviest was her bargain with Lucifer. Her smile faded, and she sat up.
A moment later, she had him flat against the bed, and she straddled his hips. His gray T-shirt was warmed by his body heat; curling her fingers into the soft, worn cotton, she tugged and said, “Let’s do this quickly. No drawing it out.” When he nodded his agreement, she placed her hand on his chest as if to hold him down—but it was more for her support than fear he would try to escape.
He ran his palms up the length of her thighs, let them rest at the top. Holding her down, in turn. “There have been two more murdered.”
“Your missing student? Who else?”
“Sue Fletcher.”
Lilith hardened herself against the grief in his voice and delivered the next blow. “I have to fulfill my bargain in . . . what is today?”
“Monday morning.”
“Four days. Michael made a wager with Lucifer; if you are not dead by the fifth day, Caelum’s Gates will be opened to those Below
. My father stipulated that the Doyen may not speak of it to the other Guardians; I don’t know that they’ll be able to help.” But there was no reason Lilith could not speak of it; she was bound by her bargain to kill Hugh, but Michael’s wager only included her in a peripheral sense. It depended upon the result of her actions, but she was not a participant in the wager itself.
“And if you don’t kill me?”
“The nosferatu come for me on the fourth day. They will kill me if the bargain is incomplete; my soul will be frozen in Punishment, and Hell’s Gates closed for five hundred years.”
His hands tightened. “Colin and Selah are missing. Beelzebub—Smith?” At her nod, he continued, “—attacked us at Colin’s house after you left. Selah managed to transport me out, but I don’t know that they are alive.”
She had to look away for a moment, her breathing ragged. Swallowing, she focused again and said, “Lucifer planned to transform me back into human even before Michael offered his wager. The nosferatu intend to take Caelum for their own and will act as Lucifer’s assassins in payment.”
“A nosferatu at Colin’s could have killed me, but he did not pierce the jugular; I don’t think it a mistake.” His thumbs smoothed over her inner thighs, not to arouse, but to soothe. “We are both halflings who have been returned to our human forms.”
“They will use Savitri against you; they know you broke when she was shot.”
Hugh was shaking his head. “Michael took her to Caelum.”
“But how—?” She sucked in a deep breath when she saw his face, the regret lurking in the lines around his mouth. “You have more. Quickly.”
“Beelzebub tried to bargain Savi’s life for mine and wanted me to submit to the ritual. They set fire to Colin’s house. I have no weapons; my swords and your gun were lost during the attack. Taylor and Preston know you are a demon; they have pictures of you saving a boy on the bridge. Smith has taken over each investigation associated with the rituals, and he has witnesses who saw me in the park with Javier’s and Sue’s bodies, which have been stolen from the morgue, along with Ian’s. You are listed as missing, presumed dead; I’m the primary suspect and all of the weapons and books at your apartment were confiscated.”
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