Beside the door, Alejandro wiped away the blood from the carved symbols that had created the shielding spell around the warehouse. Noise from outside the building rushed in.
Irena stood in the entrance, her palm flat against the steel door, watching the nephilim disappear into the night sky.
“Do we go after them?” Alejandro asked quietly.
And be killed? She shook her head. “We can’t.”
She walked back into the warehouse, but had to stop a few feet inside. She couldn’t breathe. The corridor shrank around her.
Alejandro touched her back. There. Always there.
And, by the gods, she was a Guardian. She didn’t need to breathe. She whipped around, punched her fist through the wall.
Again, and again—until the walls stopped closing in on her.
Taylor worked to clear everything off her desk that might give Jorgenson a reason to chew her ass out once she got back to regular duty. Almost an hour after she was ready to go home, and forty-five minutes after Joe took off and she had nothing but his empty chair to look at, Michael—in his SI agent form—appeared beside her. Or maybe he hadn’t just appeared. Maybe he’d walked into the bullpen and she hadn’t noticed. God knew, he’d sneaked up on her before.
“About time.” She grabbed her jacket, knowing she sounded irritated and ungrateful—but, goddammit, she was irritated, and not feeling so grateful. She’d been on edge since sunset. She’d thought Khavi’s prediction would feel less real as time passed; instead, it weighed a little heavier with each tick of the clock. “This isn’t going to work if I’m stuck waiting for you to show up before I can go anywhere. Isn’t the idea that you stay where I am, making sure I’m not vamp bait?”
He could have at least looked apologetic. He only said, “I was here.”
Great. Nice to know now.
Like everyone else in the bullpen, the desk sergeant had a phone growing out of his ear. She tapped her fingers across his desk as she passed. He waved her on without looking up.
No surprise. Even when they weren’t busy, no one in the bullpen looked her in the eyes much anymore.
She kept silent until they hit the stairs at the rear of the station, leading down to the parking lot. “You were really here?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The roof.” The glance he gave her might have been wry. She couldn’t tell. The face he wore looked softer than his own, but the same man still lived behind it. “Waiting for you to leave.”
Was he serious? She stopped, shaking her head. “Hold on. This supposedly worries you guys so much that the Doyen himself takes time out to sit on the roof of my station—yet you expected me to walk outside at night when I don’t know you’re there?”
Michael frowned and shifted back to his Doyen-sized body, and she suddenly realized how big he was. Even without his wings, even in his loose pants and tunic that couldn’t have been less threatening, he seemed to fill the narrow stairwell. She suppressed the urge to take a step back, to give herself more space.
“I assumed you knew that I would be nearby, even if you cannot see me.”
Unbelievable. “I don’t work that way. There are two people in my life I trust enough to assume they’ll be there. One is probably about ten minutes from his recliner, a beer, and a basketball game on the tube. The other’s waiting for me, cooking and reading a cozy mystery—because it’s cozy, and the detectives always make it back home.” She turned her back to him and continued down the stairs. “I don’t know you well enough to trust you like that.”
“When you do, you still will not.”
Taylor was trying to figure out that softly-spoken statement when he appeared at the bottom of the stairs ahead of her. He must intend to go through the door first. She didn’t plan to argue.
When he looked back at her, the cast of his face resembled carved granite. “Margaret Wren awaits you outside.”
“What?” Rael’s butler, here? Taylor was glad he’d told her now; she could hide her surprise later. “How is she feeling?”
“Determined. Uncertain.”
Which could be anything. Wren could be here to confess or to shoot up the station. “She hasn’t been turned into a vampire, has she?”
He smiled slightly. “No.”
“Then let’s go.”
He didn’t change back to his agent persona, although his clothes altered and became a suit. She eyed his size. He didn’t have mob enforcer written all over him, but he definitely had the intimidation factor.
Because he couldn’t protect her from Wren, she realized. If he interfered with a human’s free will, even the Doyen would have to Fall. The thought made her vaguely sick.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said as she followed him through the door.
She thought he might have sighed. “You must stop talking to Lilith.”
Taylor smiled, her gaze sweeping the lot. Wren wasn’t attempting to hide. Her uniform starched and pressed, her hair almost white beneath the lot’s security lights, she waited beside Taylor’s personal vehicle. How she’d known which was hers, Taylor wasn’t going to ask.
Not right now.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket as she walked across the lot. She ignored it.
Wren’s hands were out in the open. A good sign. Her flat gray eyes skipped to Michael before meeting Taylor’s. “Detective.”
“Miss Wren. Just out for a walk?”
“No. May I speak with you in private? I am conflicted.”
Conflicted—had Wren witnessed Rael do something illegal? Taylor barely stopped herself from doing a fist pump. She glanced at Michael. He nodded once and moved a few parking spots down. He could still hear everything, but Wren didn’t need to know that.
“I am not going to reach for it, detective—but I have my employer’s driver’s license inside my jacket pocket.”
Taylor frowned. “I don’t—”
“He is currently operating a motor vehicle without a license in his immediate possession, which I believe is unlawful,” Wren continued in a flat tone, but put a little more emphasis behind the rest, “and may endanger the party he has with him.”
Taylor got it. She didn’t understand the code this woman lived by, but she understood that Wren was doing her damnedest to deliver a message in a way that didn’t break that code.
“Where are they headed? Perhaps we can inform this other party that he’s riding with someone who shouldn’t be operating a vehicle.”
“The airport. My employer told me that Mr. Deacon has almost completed a job for him. They are returning to Prague, where it will be finished.”
A job? Oh, Jesus.
And why did Deacon sound familiar? Had she run across it in one of the files?
Wren went absolutely still, her gaze fixed over Taylor’s shoulder. Taylor glanced around. Michael stood just behind and to the left of her. His eyes weren’t black, but they might as well have been. The intensity of his amber gaze burned.
“Describe Deacon, please.”
Wren’s gaze darted to where Michael had been standing a few seconds ago. “How—”
“Describe him.”
Without moving, Wren seemed to draw herself up straight. “Six-three, two-ten—all muscle. Brown hair, shoulder-length. Green eyes. Scars here”—she drew her forefinger in a line across the knuckles of her left hand—“and in a crescent below his jaw.” She hesitated before adding, “Theatrically altered teeth.”
The vampire from Savi’s club. Oh, shit. Taylor was almost afraid to look at Michael now. She did. He appeared calm.
She wondered what was going on below that.
But the important thing here was that Rael had brought a vampire close to Wren. If the demon wasn’t trying to hide Deacon, what else would he be revealing to her? And what kind of bargain would he use to keep her quiet . . . if he didn’t have her killed, too?
Michael must have been thinking something similar. He gestured to the car. “Will you please come
with us, Miss Wren?”
Wren didn’t move. “Where, and why?”
“Special Investigations,” Taylor said. Her phone vibrated again—just once. A text. “For your protection, and to explain a few things about bargains—and why you won’t want to make any in the near future.”
Wren only hesitated for a second before nodding. “I’ll come with you.”
“Good. Take the passenger side.” She preferred to have Michael at her back; she thought Michael preferred that, too.
As Wren rounded the hood, Michael said softly, “She’s not concerned for her safety. She’s curious.”
Taylor would have been freaked out, but it took all kinds. She got in, checked her message as she waited for Michael to slide into the back.
She frowned and turned to look at Michael. “It’s Cordoba. He says, ‘Michael is needed at SI.’ And that’s all.”
But it was apparently enough. Michael’s eyes flashed obsidian. Her breath caught. Suddenly, the man wasn’t someone she wanted anywhere behind her, but something dangerous, frightening.
“SI,” she dimly heard Wren repeat. “That is where we are going?”
“Yes,” Michael said in the deep, harmonious voice she hadn’t heard him use around other humans. In the confines of her car, it sounded utterly inhuman. “We are going now.”
Taylor braced herself, realizing what was coming, but she didn’t see him reach out. His hand touched her shoulder and the world dove into a flat spin.
God. Even before she opened her eyes, she smelled the blood. Michael held her against him, his arm like a rock across her stomach. Metal flashed in front of her eyes; he had a sword in his opposite hand.
Wren weaved dizzily on her knees next to them. She’d gone for the gun in her shoulder holster, but hadn’t pulled it out yet. Her eyes were wide, her face white.
“I can stand,” Taylor forced out.
Michael let her go. She stumbled a few steps, but thank God, remained upright. Their surroundings came into focus: the hub at the Special Investigations warehouse. A novice sat on the stairs, sobbing. Standing at the head of a hallway, Cordoba turned their way, lowering his phone. He started toward them, his hands flying in the Guardians’ sign language.
Taylor’s quick scan screeched to a halt. To her right, Savi sat with her back against a wall, Colin in her arms, her hands clamped tightly together over his chest. Blood covered them both.
“Oh, Jesus.” Taylor rushed forward. “My God, Savi—what happened?”
“She got in.” A bubble of hysterical laughter burst from the vampire. “Anaria was in our base, killing our dudes.”
Colin made a soothing sound, though his eyes were closed and he was in some obvious pain. Savi gathered him somehow closer, burying her face in his hair. Tears slid over her cheeks.
“Where is he injured?”
Taylor glanced to the side. Wren knelt beside them, stripping out of her jacket. She folded it, obviously planning to make a compress, and Taylor thought now was probably not the time to tell her that, if Colin wasn’t already dead, he’d be fine within an hour or two. Less, once Michael got his ass over here.
She looked at Savi. “This is Wren. Let her help you, okay? Whatever she does might make it easier for him.”
Not really, but it gave them all something to do.
The vampire pulled in a sobbing breath, nodded. She unclamped her hands, and Taylor had a second to see the deep gash in his chest before Wren covered the wound with the jacket.
“Just hold that tight,” the butler said, her lips thinned into a pale line. She touched his arm, apparently searching for the source of the blood there.
“It looks worse than it is,” Taylor told her before rising to her feet. At the end of the gymnasium hallway, she saw Michael crouching beside a still form.
Her stomach rolled over. Oh, damn. She knew that one. Dru.
The body vanished. Michael stood again as Irena came out of the gymnasium doors, her hands fisted. The tattoos on her arms seemed to constrict, like rattlesnakes coiling before they struck. They stared at each other for a long second, until Irena’s breath hissed through her clenched teeth.
“We could do nothing.”
Her accusation didn’t appear to touch him. He said simply, “You kept the others alive.”
Irena turned her face away. Her chest rose as she took a deep breath. “It is not enough.”
“No. It never is.” He sounded as if the weight of the world pushed out his reply. “But it is what you have.”
Irena nodded. She touched his arm as she passed him, continuing down the hall. Michael looked after her. Taylor thought the expression on his face might have been surprise, but it shuttered when he met her gaze. He strode into the gym.
When he emerged a second later, his face had set like stone. “Any others?”
“No.” Though Cordoba spoke to the Doyen, he watched Irena, who was walking toward him. “We’d sent the team out to Buenos Aires. No other vampires were here.”
Michael disappeared. She heard his voice a second later—behind her.
A young woman, her black hair in a bowl cut framing her tear-streaked face, kneeled beside Lilith. SI’s director sat holding Castleford’s hand. The hellhound lay on his belly next to her, licking blood from her cheek.
Michael touched the young Guardian’s shoulder. “Well done.”
He left the corridor, stopped next to Colin and Savi. Taylor felt something, like a compression of air through her chest. His healing Gift, apparently. Colin’s grimace of pain vanished on a sigh. With a murmured thank-you, he pushed away the compress Wren held against his wound.
Wren stared at the now-healed skin showing through the tear in his shirt. The poor woman. Taylor wouldn’t have blamed her for running out of here, screaming mad. Maybe Wren had been planning to before she glanced up at Colin. She reached forward, caught herself, and sat completely still. Her gaze didn’t move from his face.
Taylor had felt like that the first couple of times she’d seen him up close, too.
“Did she take your blood?” Michael asked.
Colin nodded. “Two or three pints.”
Michael glanced at Wren, then over to where Irena stood beside Cordoba. “Deacon is with Rael. The vampire completed a job for him.”
Irena’s face whitened. The serpents on her arms seemed to shrivel, drawing out into long, fragile lines. Cordoba closed his eyes, as if struck by a sudden, deep pain.
“That is all we know,” Michael continued. He looked to Taylor. “You will stay here.”
She didn’t consider arguing. “Maybe Savi can—”
“Dig up Deacon?” The vampire’s normally friendly smile was cold and sharp. “His computer is upstairs. We have his cell number. He’s mine.”
“No. He’s mine.” Irena pushed forward. Her knives appeared in her grip. Obviously, she meant right now. “Michael, can you teleport to him?”
“No. He is shielded.”
Wren shook herself and glanced away from Colin. “They should be at the airport.”
Irena frowned. “Why would Rael need an airport? He can fly.”
The butler seemed to take that information in stride. “Then they are flying to Prague. That’s where Deacon will finish the job.”
Irena turned to Michael. “You will take us to Prague.”
“Deacon would not be there yet, Irena,” Cordoba said. “Whether by airplane or if Rael carries him, it will be several hours.”
“Wait,” Michael agreed. “We will see what Savitri can find.” He glanced down at Colin—who, Taylor thought, seemed perfectly content to continue sitting on the floor with Savi’s arms around him. “If Anaria took your blood, she is looking for access to Chaos. You will need to monitor the realm.”
Colin clenched his jaw, but nodded. He stroked his hand over Savi’s arm. “Go with Taylor, sweet. I’ll watch the mirrors in the chamber upstairs.”
“But—” Savi stopped herself. She sighed. “Okay. I’ll be up soon to help y
ou. Take this first.”
A glass appeared in her hand. She gave it to Colin, held her arm above the rim, and sliced her wrist open with a dagger.
Taylor looked over at Wren, whose expressionless features still managed to convey horror and shock—and the curiosity Michael had mentioned earlier. Taylor realized that she was likely going to be the one stuck with the explanations.
She hoped Wren was ready for them.
Dawn had just begun to lighten the eastern sky when Olek found her standing on the building’s edge. She heard him land behind her. When he slipped his arms around her waist, she leaned back against him, grateful that he could be a quiet man, and that he could leave her to her thoughts without leaving her alone.
Savi had been brilliant. Within an hour, the vampire had found within Deacon’s computer an e-mail about Ames-Beaumont’s oddities, and another describing the location of Irena’s forge. She’d recovered his phone records, too—including a text that had requested Irena’s info, Deacon’s terse reply, and a photograph of Eva.
By then, discovering that Anaria had used Deacon’s keycard to enter the warehouse hadn’t mattered. She could have broken in, anyway.
Irena hadn’t let herself think after Savi had laid out everything she’d found. The pain had been too sharp; she’d been too angry. She’d walked up to the second floor of the warehouse, and watched from a darkened observation room as Ames-Beaumont fought his terror in a chamber of mirrors.
The images of Chaos he’d projected still festered behind her eyes. Rivers of molten rock twisted across a bleak landscape of black stone. Wyrmwolves raced in packs, tearing pieces from one another as they ran, and swarming like a plague of rats when carrion fell from above.
Ames-Beaumont hadn’t looked up often. When he had, he’d flinched as if the enormous dragons darting through the air passed within feet of him. He’d projected iridescent scales, gaping jaws with shreds of putrid flesh caught between serrated teeth, but couldn’t project the scent that made him gag and retch. And although she couldn’t hear the screams of the damned, she saw them clearly—their bodies dangling from a frozen ceiling, as if Chaos was a cavern beneath the bowels of Hell.
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