“You did well, daughter. Tore out his heart without lifting a knife. Smashing performance!”
Wearily, she looked up. Still the retired gentleman, Lucifer perched on the commode, patting his hands together. A golf clap. She shook her head, laughing at the absurdity; he had no claim over her, could not command her attention. “Did you climb up the tree?” She waved toward the window, wiped the tears from her cheeks. “It bears no fruit, and you have nothing with which to tempt me.”
“Not even the lives of four boys?” Quickly, he shifted through four different forms before returning to the original.
Her back straightened. “You broke the terms—”
“No, no,” he chuckled. “Your Guardian guessed correctly; the nosferatu grew impatient. They do not know how to stand and wait.”
“They waited in caves for thousands of years,” Lilith said dryly, climbing to her feet. “Perhaps they simply lose faith in you. Or they worry, because two humans managed to kill your lieutenant.”
A flash of anger and heat before he was smiling again. “Regardless, it is a simple message I deliver today: you perform the ritual, kill the Fallen one—or the boys die.”
So that he would have Caelum; her eternal Punishment paled in comparison to that gain. “You already lose control of the nosferatu; I can hardly accept your word that they won’t kill them if I comply.”
“You have little choice. But do you immediately tell them he will submit to the ritual, and make his students’ continued living a condition of that submission, they will likely delay.” He pursed his lips. “For a day or two.”
Her jaw clenched. There was little choice if he did not lie about the boys being taken. And he was making certain the ritual would take place before the wager expired.
Hugh would sacrifice himself for a hypothetical danger to them, and for her soul; she would sacrifice him for the reality. Cut into him, kill him. Little wonder Lucifer was content for her to fulfill her bargain. Even if the act was brief, and her life not much long after . . . She could not imagine a worse torture.
As if he felt her acquiescence, he smiled. “I am pleased, daughter. Him, I expected—it is his nature to risk all for those he loves. But you cannot hurt them without making yourself sick. You tear him apart, only to puke from it.” His lip curled. “Look at you. You embarrass me.”
She tucked Hugh’s shirt closer around her torso. “I’ll be certain to wear this in front of your new subjects then, and call you ‘Daddy.’ ”
A pile of clothes landed at her feet. “Appearances are everything. Do not disappoint me, Lilith.” He leaned toward her, and she had to resist the urge to turn, flee. “And a little surprise.”
A dagger appeared in his hand; she recognized the hilt. Hugh’s. The knife she had tried—and failed—to use on him in the temple. She raised her eyes to his. “Why?”
“I know you appreciate drama.” He smiled coldly. “It adds a certain flair.”
Carefully, she took the blade.
“Ah, Lilith,” he said. “You’re such a good girl.”
She blinked; he was gone. The curtains fluttered at the window, and she hurried over to close it. Not that it would keep him out. He must have been using some kind of magic to prevent the others from hearing or sensing him. She touched the sill, and her eyes widened. The three symbols carved there: silence, surround, lock. A drop of blood in the center of each one. She destroyed them with a slash of the dagger.
“—LITH!” Hugh’s frantic voice. He crashed through the door, Sir Pup on his heels; Michael teleported in, sword blazing. The hellhound leapt through the window, shifting to fit through the small space. After a quick glance around the room, Michael disappeared.
Hugh lowered his sword and was at her side in two long strides. His face was dotted with perspiration, his breathing rapid. How long had he been trying to get in? “Are you well?”
Was she? “I’m not injured,” she said.
Truth, but the difference between question and answer was not subtle. His fingers shook as he brushed back a curl from her forehead—as if he had to touch her, but did not trust himself to touch her skin.
His throat worked, and he pulled his hand away. “Does he know?”
“That you will submit, yes. The nosferatu have taken some of your students so that you won’t change your mind—we need to contact Taylor and Preston, have them make certain it wasn’t a lie.” It didn’t matter if it was; they had little choice. Lucifer must love that. She rubbed her forehead, then signed, But he doesn’t know about Colin, nor the nosferatu. If he did know of a link to Chaos, he would care little for anything else until he had obtained it. She frowned. He must be concerned he will fail, to risk using his magic, and then leaving traces of it. He guards it closely, to keep his control over those who would take his throne.
A short laugh escaped her; he well knew he did not have to fear such from her.
Hugh’s gaze fell to the dagger in her fist, then met hers again.
“He must have taken it when he pulled me through the Gate in the temple.” She set it on the counter, glad to be rid of it. “If he intended to increase my sense of fatalism, to remind me of the consequences of failure, it was the right thing to give me. I did not serve him that night,” she said, her voice bitter.
He mistook the cause of it, and shook his head. “Lilith, I did not mean—”
Her heart suddenly thudded in her chest, and she did not hear what he said, could not hear anything but its racing beat. She had not served. It had been a rebellion, and it had given her Hugh—and it was the best thing, one of the few good things, she’d ever done.
She pushed past him, scooped up the leather breeches and corset, then went into the bedroom for her boots. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and she listened—did not even know if he said anything, though she could feel him watching her.
Michael returned. Sir Pup, Colin, and Selah stood at the bedroom door. In the living room, they had turned from her, their expressions showing disgust or rejection or pity. And she had deserved it.
“He is gone,” Michael said.
She finished lacing her boots, stood. She didn’t look at Hugh. “There is a dagger in the bathroom; I need you to check it for poisons.”
The dagger appeared in his hand. Touching the blade to his tongue, he frowned and nodded.
Lucifer thought she might be able to begin, but he apparently hadn’t trusted her to go through with killing him. She smiled wryly. “If you would clean it for me, I would be grateful,” she said. “I’m going to perform the ritual with it.”
Protests from Selah and Colin; one did not want to lose Caelum, the other was concerned for her. Nothing from Michael. He vanished the poison from the blade’s surface and produced a sheath for it. Sir Pup lay on the floor, his three mouths opened wide in identical grins.
She did not look at Hugh.
She strapped the knife to her thigh, her focus on the buckles more intense than the act warranted. “Continue with what you’re doing—Colin can procure the equipment from Ramsdell.” She glanced up at him, and though his brow was creased with confusion, he nodded. Little that he did not know about blood or transfusions, but he had not been able to read the sign language Hugh had used to outline the plan. “Selah, you explain to him what we need—write it out.” Keep Hugh’s, she signed. Colin will want to drink it, will need it after he gives his own, but don’t let him.
The blond Guardian’s mouth was set in a mutinous line, but she gave a short gesture of assent.
Lilith looked at the Doyen. Michael, store the blood in your cache. “But first, go to the nest and let them know we’re going to do the ritual tonight. A location of our choosing. If they touch Hugh’s students, I’ll kill him before he can submit to anything, and it won’t matter if the wager is lost for they will have no access to Caelum.” A lie, but only Hugh would know it. “The students are to be released after the bloodletting—but before the nosferatu drink—or else you will vanish it from the cups.”
/> “Lilith,” Hugh said softly.
“Don’t ask me what I’m doing.” She took a deep breath. The corset did nothing to hide the symbol between her breasts. “I need your bike.”
“The keys are hanging by the garage door.” Warmth in his voice. “Is this going to be absurd?”
She grinned. “Oh, yes.”
And her attack wasn’t as quick as she would have liked; he had time to lift his hands to hold her against him, met her kiss with open lips, and a laugh. She smiled against his mouth. Pulled back.
No ice in him now, but she was not done. “I have to do it alone,” she said. His eyes searched hers; slowly, he nodded.
Relief filled her. She would do this regardless, but it was easier with his acceptance. She turned away, ignoring the looks from the others. Sir Pup trotted at her heels as she stalked toward the garage.
Time to be her father’s daughter.
CHAPTER 37
The day wore on, but she didn’t return. By the time the sun began to slide toward the horizon, Hugh felt scooped out, hollow. Preston and Taylor had arrived not long after Lilith had left; he had not needed to contact them. Four, taken that morning.
“Are the detectives still waiting in the living room?”
Colin nodded, checking the tube leading to Hugh’s arm. He’d fed sometime in the last twenty minutes—already his color was renewed.
The last bag was almost empty; perhaps it was best she hadn’t returned yet. She wouldn’t want to see this, know the long process of the blood draw and transfusion. For all her wicked humor, the power in her when she’d decided to act instead of wait—instead of serving—he would still be her weakness.
He closed his eyes, recalled how she had looked when she’d pulled on the clothes she’d worn for hundreds of years—but had outshone them, as if they were only an accessory to the rest of her. A costume, put on for a play.
What had she done? He sighed, rubbed his forehead. And why had she to do it alone?
He looked up as he heard the click of Sir Pup’s claws.
Then Lilith stood in front of him, her eyes dark, glistening. “I love you.”
She had not said it without lies before. He’d always read the truth, but it was nothing to hearing it when it needed no translation.
And it filled him, left him unable to reply.
“I can leave the room,” Colin said.
Her gaze sharpened on the vampire’s flushed cheeks. “Did you drink from him?”
He shook his head. “Eleven o’clock news.”
A ghost of a smile on her lips. She turned as Michael came into room. Can you take him to Caelum—can your will override his anchor that much? We don’t want him near when Lucifer realizes the truth about the blood.
“Yes.” The Doyen inhaled, and Lilith’s eyes flashed with annoyance.
“Don’t.”
Apparently, she didn’t want them to have knowledge of where she’d been, who she’d been with. Hugh slipped the small tube from beneath his skin, stood. Michael immediately healed the puncture, erasing physical evidence of the transfusion.
She glanced at him, then back to Michael. I need to speak with you about the symbols, the ritual, she signed. “But I need a couple of minutes with Hugh first. Alone.”
Hugh frowned when he read the hesitation on Michael’s face; the Doyen did not trust her. “Get out,” he said, his voice harsh.
The Guardian’s jaw hardened, but he disappeared. Colin left, and Sir Pup whimpered softly. Lilith smiled. “You, too, but sing for a while.”
She closed the door behind the hellhound, and Hugh grinned when he began howling. With the point of the dagger, she quickly scratched out three marks on the wood beside the door, stabbed her thumb and placed a drop of blood over each.
Sudden silence.
Hugh saw the surprise in her eyes; she hadn’t known it would work.
Surprise—but also uncertainty. “It’s Lucifer’s trick,” she said quietly, and walked toward him. Her gaze flicked to the transfusion equipment. “Are you well?”
“Aside from a nigh uncontrollable urge to paint my self-portrait, yes.” Better than he’d ever been; if these were to be the last hours of his life, they would be perfect hours, so long as she loved him, so long as she did not serve.
Her smile did not last. “I can’t tell you what I’ve done,” she said. “If you know, and they take your blood, they will know it, too. Once the nosferatu have drunk the blood, it is too late for them, but I can’t have them warn Lucifer.”
He slid his hand into her hair, laid his forehead against hers. Fear coiled in his gut. “Did you bargain?”
She did not answer, but said, “What I told you before, it wasn’t truth. There was much left unspoken.”
“I know.” He felt her startle and smiled. “Not immediately, but upon reflection.” And there had been nothing but time to think of it as he’d waited for her to return. To realize what his pain had not allowed him when she’d been saying it.
She drew back to look at him, her fingers tracing the line of his jaw, her thumb smoothing over the planes of his face. “You have never failed me, though I have failed you many times. I have always been waiting: for you to give me my freedom, for you to save me. And you gave me freedom in the only way you could, though it was Hell for you. You had no other options—but I might have, had I ever looked. The cowardice was mine. I was not strong enough, nor brave enough. Yet you always were.”
His throat closed and he shook his head. Her fingers were warm against his lips, denying his protest.
“I have given you little reason to trust me, little evidence of my worth, but I need you to trust me in this. I will let you do what you must to save me—but you must let me save you in turn.”
He studied her face, trying to read the mixture of emotions there. “What must I do?”
“Look away. When I am about to cut into your heart, look away.”
It was the same thing Mandeville had asked of him—but Lilith did not need that kindness, would never ask it for herself.
But what difference could his seeing her make?
His lips parted as the truth struck him, and his laughter rang through the room. She was going to lie. And she did not want him to give her away; he would be weak from blood loss, his psychic blocks almost useless.
A demure smile curved her mouth. “I’m simply doing what my father wanted.”
She found Sir Pup at the threshold to the living room, his muzzles pointed toward the ceiling. A touch on his shoulder and the chorus ended.
On the sofa, Detective Taylor pulled her fingers from her ears and sighed with relief.
“You verified that they’ve been taken?”
“Yes,” Preston said from the entrance to the kitchen, a soda in his hand. His face was haggard, drawn. The investigation had taken its toll on him—or perhaps it was just the past few hours.
“You know what to do?” Easier to include them than to fight them. Hopefully, Michael or Hugh had outlined their course very clearly.
Preston nodded. “Once they release the four, we take them and get them to safety.” The nosferatu would be focused on the blood, and any demons wouldn’t be able to interfere with the detectives’ will to leave.
“Good,” Lilith said and turned to find Michael.
“Agent Milton!” Taylor was on her feet now, her lips pressed tight. “It’s not good. We know what you intend to do to Castleford, and we can’t allow—”
“I’m allowing it,” Hugh said, brushing past Lilith’s shoulder. A small touch, but not accidental. Warmth spread over her skin.
“We don’t care if it’s murder or suicide,” Taylor said. “If she tries to go through with it, we are obligated to stop her.”
Hugh leaned against the doorjamb, smiled lazily. Heat raced up her spine. “You could come back after you’ve gotten the boys away. Risk the nosferatu and shoot her before she cuts out my heart.” They likely didn’t recognize the dangerous glint in his eyes; Lilith did, and
a melting awareness pooled low in her belly. He glanced at her, and she realized he’d been trying to distract her with sex. That was her trick, dammit. “I think we’ve a problem; Michael showed them what he was, they’ve seen Selah and Colin, but they don’t yet realize the danger from the nosferatu.”
She frowned. Remembered that Taylor had already been convinced of their existence, but that her partner had doubted. Her gaze shifted to Preston. “You believed because you saw Michael?” What was it with men, persuaded by that warrior-angel display?
The older man flushed. “Hard to refute.”
Taylor shook her head. “And you may have once been a demon, but it doesn’t change that you intend to kill a man. We don’t understand a lot of the forces at work here, but I don’t care whose law you think you are following. In this you’ll follow ours.”
Hugh began to speak, but Lilith said sharply, “Then arrest me afterward—no, I’ll walk into the station and give myself up. We’re the only access you have to those boys, and Hugh is the only way we have of saving them. This ritual is the only hold we have over the nosferatu now, the only reason they aren’t slaughtering humans all over the city. You think these things are just serial killers, some creatures who get their kicks by slashing up a couple of humans? You think Selah and Michael are just pretty angels with wings and swords? You think my hellhound is just a freak three-headed dog? Show them your mean face, Sir Pup.”
He shifted, taller than her shoulder. Spikes tore through his fur, scales rippled the length of his belly. Blood-flecked foam dripped from his mouths, his eyes burned with hellfire.
No mistaking the legacy of the dragon in him; no pretending he wasn’t a creature from Hell.
Drama. Appearance—and it worked. Taylor paled; not from fright, Lilith realized, but with the understanding of what the nosferatu were, what might happen to the boys did Hugh not go through the ritual. Understood the choice he was making.
She couldn’t resist an exit line. “You get those kids, and then you get the fuck out of there.”
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