Demon Blood

by Meljean Brook

  In her cache, she carried a tie for her son, Vincente. It would take only an instant to pull it from her mental storage space and into her hands. She could approach Deacon and offer to tidy him up.

  To amuse herself, she imagined his reaction. She was still smiling when Deacon’s searching gaze touched her and immediately moved on.

  Well. She’d expected that, hadn’t she? Rosalia swallowed champagne past a throat gone tight. He never recognized her. Not his fault, really. Until six months ago, when he’d led the Guardians to the catacombs where she’d been trapped for a year and a half, an endless fount of blood for a nest of nosferatu, she’d never appeared to him as herself; before that, she’d never approached him with the same face twice. The form she used tonight was new, too.

  His jaw flexed as if he’d clenched his teeth. After a moment, she realized he was no longer searching the crowd. She looked to see who he’d focused on.

  Theriault.

  She should have guessed. A man like Deacon would not rest until he’d avenged his people. The two demons who destroyed his community were dead, but not all of Belial’s demons were. One by one, he would hunt them down and slay them.

  For a vampire, it was an impossible task. Perhaps he might slay two, or ten, or fifty. Eventually, though, one of the demons would kill him first.

  Deacon had to know that. And so he was not only seeking revenge. He still sought death. It just wouldn’t be in the face of the sun. He’d go out fighting, instead of broken.

  Good for you, preacher. Rosalia mentally lifted her glass to him as she took a sip of champagne. She understood the need to avenge her people, no matter how impossible the odds. So she still wouldn’t try to save Deacon from himself—she wouldn’t—but she could help him a little.

  And make sure he didn’t get in her way.

  “Mia piccola bambina?”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  She heard the laugh in Gemma’s response, as she did every time she referred to the young woman as her tiny little girl. In her bare feet, the lanky blonde stood at eye level with Rosalia in heels, and Rosalia’s current fashion-model height was only slightly taller than her natural one.

  “I want to know where he’s staying, his financial situation. Where he’s been in the past six months and who he’s been with.” Rosalia hadn’t looked before, afraid that she wouldn’t find anything. “He came alone, but does he have a new partner? Who is he feeding from?”

  He must have been feeding. After two or three days without blood, a vampire began showing it—pale, tired, and thin. None of those described Deacon. Neither did careless or stupid, so he’d likely already fed that night. His psychic blocks were good, but he wouldn’t risk the demons sensing his bloodlust by coming in hungry.

  So he’d either found a new vampire partner or was using different human women each night. He’d been forced to do that before, while his consorts had been held hostage. Offer the women so much to drink that they won’t remember. Heal the bite, so that even if they do remember, they won’t have evidence. Rosalia thought he must hate that. To her knowledge, he hadn’t been to bed with anyone he didn’t want since Camille had transformed him. Soon after he and Camille parted ways and he’d taken over the community in Prague, Eva and Petra became his lovers and companions. But the bloodlust wouldn’t give him the same choice if he fed from strangers. If the woman was interested, he wouldn’t be able to stop his response. He’d have sex with her.

  The bloodlust wouldn’t always rise and overwhelm his free will, and not every woman he fed from would desire him. So it wouldn’t always happen—but it would happen often enough that he must feel as if the bloodlust controlled him.

  Her gaze fell to his uneven collar again. Maybe that was where he’d lost his tie. Some woman’s bedroom. The restroom in a Parisian bar. An alley.

  Her fingers flexed. She needed to fix that collar.

  Gemma broke in, her voice holding a hint of apology. “It will take me longer to send that information to you than it used to, Mother.”

  Oh, God. Rosalia’s throat closed. Grief hit her so hard that only practice and discipline kept it from showing. Once, a team of vampires would have been in the van with Gemma. More would have been at a converted abbey in Rome, which they’d all shared and called home. She’d trained all of them, had raised most of them, and had known some for more than a century.

  Not just a team. Her family. And they were all gone. Slaughtered by the nephilim, a race of demons that Rosalia hadn’t known existed until six months ago. While she’d been trapped in the catacombs beneath a church, with a spike through her head, the nephilim had killed her friends and family. They’d slain every vampire in Rome, including Lorenzo, and she hadn’t been there to protect them. But Gemma had. She’d been in the abbey when the nephilim had come, and because she was human, she’d been the only one to survive.

  Gemma still woke up screaming from the nightmares.

  “Oh, Gemma, I am so sorry. I was not thinking.” Because she could hardly bear to think about it. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll begin looking together.”

  “Vin’s coming up tomorrow. He’ll help.”

  “And have it all to me before you’ve finished breakfast.” She forced the lightness into her tone. Her son would help, but only because Gemma would ask him to. Ten years ago, he’d left the abbey without looking back. He’d still be gone if not for his relationship with Gemma—and if he could convince Gemma, he’d disappear from Rosalia’s life again. But he hadn’t yet, and she thanked God every day that her son had fallen in love with a woman as bullheaded as he was. “Will he be staying the weekend at the hotel with us?”

  “Yes. He will, and he’ll like it.”

  Gemma’s determined tone brought Rosalia out of her grief, made her smile. She glanced at Deacon, gathering her calm and her courage. “I am on my way to speak to Davanzati.”

  “And I’m turning into a mouse.” Except for an emergency, Gemma would keep radio silence until Rosalia put space between them again. “Give him hell, Mother.”

  She didn’t have to. Belial’s demons had already put him through hell, first when they’d beaten him, then when they’d killed his people. None of those marks were visible, but Rosalia knew they were there. Just as hers were.

  Deacon had remained at his vantage point on the stairs, his posture casual, his elbow braced on the wide marble banister. Though he must have been aware of Rosalia’s approach, he didn’t acknowledge her until she was a few paces away. He glanced down, his eyes the muted green of the sea lying beneath dark clouds. She put on another dazzling smile and directed it right at him. He looked toward the demon again, dismissing her.

  She glided up two steps as if she intended to pass by, then slipped behind him. Propping her hip against the banister, she reached down and rested her hand against his cool fist. Before he could react, she said, “You do not intend to do it here, do you? With so many humans as witnesses?”

  His big body stiffened. She could almost feel him weighing his response. Her skin was warm, not the feverish temperature of a demon’s or the cold touch of a vampire’s. That left human or Guardian. When he inhaled, she knew he was testing her scent—or trying to, beyond the redolence of perfumes and colognes saturating the air. She’d sprayed her own floral fragrance to conceal her lack of odor, and with every breath, she took in the pine and bergamot that masked his. One so earthy, the other a light tingle lifting through her senses.

  To her delight, he raised her hand to his lips and sniffed. The tension leaked from his form. His mouth setting into a hard line, he turned his head, looking at her in profile.

  “Of course you would not,” Rosalia answered for him, though she guessed he was preparing to respond with, Haul off, lady—Guardian or not. She withdrew her hand and touched his back, where she could feel the short swords strapped beneath his jacket. Vampires had no cache to store their weapons. They had to physically arm themselves. “You are just observing him, I think. You plan to finish it later, when the e
lement of surprise is yours. And you will defeat him, because he is arrogant . . . and he could not know how strong and fast you have become.”

  After Irena had slain the nosferatu who had been feeding from Rosalia, she’d given Deacon their blood to drink. It had changed him, strengthened him, as if he’d been given a second transformation. Though he was still not as strong or as quick as one of the rare nosferatu-born, Deacon had a brief, important advantage: A demon expected a normal vampire’s strength and speed from him. He was the only vampire to have been strengthened that way, so as long as no Guardians revealed that a second transformation was possible, Deacon would always possess that moment of surprise against a demon, useful for both defense and attack.

  She watched his eyes narrow. Had he not expected her to know, either? Perhaps no other Guardians but she knew that the second transformation had been successful. Perhaps he’d not realized, until now, who had been speaking to him.

  Or perhaps he thought that the Guardian he’d told had spread the information to everyone. If so, she forgave him. He had not known her long enough to understand that she would never rip away a friend’s defenses. Particularly when he had so few.

  “Yes, I know all of this,” she confirmed. “Do you know that two of his brethren, who have just sworn to protect him, are also here?”

  Deacon’s face didn’t give anything away, but his quick, searching sweep of the room did. He hadn’t known.

  “If you struck against him tonight, it would be suicide. Suicide compounded by failure, when you are not able to finish what you set out to do.”

  Even when he spoke softly, his voice had gravel in it. “Why would you care?”

  Some Guardians wouldn’t. They’d prefer to see him dead. Rosalia wasn’t one of them. “I have many reasons. One is that it benefits my kind to keep these three alive . . . for now. Your chance will come again.”

  He didn’t reply. He didn’t ask her reason for delaying the demons’ deaths. Did that mean he didn’t care what those reasons were, or that he was afraid he might care too much and be dissuaded from his course?

  “You at least owe us that, do you not?” she pressed.

  “I owe my people more.”

  A fair point, she conceded. And one she wouldn’t argue with, so she would leave him to it. Intending to rejoin the crowd, she moved around him and down the steps. “I doubt you will find your opening tonight, preacher. But if you do, take it. I will not interfere.”

  He caught her hand, palm to palm. She stopped, staring ahead into the crush of chatting, laughing humans. Her heart jumped against her ribs, pounding. If he hadn’t guessed before, he must be certain of her identity now. She’d once told him that she’d known he was a chaplain on his ship, and revealed she’d taken vows of her own. No other Guardian knew him that well. Not even Irena, whom he had called a friend before he’d betrayed them.

  His grip tightened. His fingers encompassed hers, seemed to draw her into the palm of his hand with that small movement. Rosalia looked back at him. His gaze delved beneath her skin, as if searching for something familiar. She wanted to offer it to him, to wear her own face. She wanted to tell him, I have known you for so long. I have waited for so long.

  But there was no reason to make such a confession. Deacon didn’t want to know her—and she didn’t really know him anymore, either. Thanks to Belial’s demons, he was no longer the man he’d been. He sought revenge and death. And she was done with waiting.

  He glanced over her head. “Tell me who they are.”

  The demons. Of course. They were his only concern. They should have been her only concern, too. Unfortunately, she’d been cursed since birth with an overdeveloped sense of gratitude.

  “Look to the center of the room,” she told him. “The silver-haired woman wearing a floor-length red dress and a fortune in rubies. He is on her left. Very handsome, of course. Do you see him?”

  Deacon nodded. “And the other?”

  “Four meters behind me. He is the only one in his circle who does not hold a drink.”

  He blinked, the only indication of his surprise that she’d come to him with the demon so close. His gaze dropped to hers. “You live dangerously, sister.”

  No. She had never risked enough—and thanks to the nephilim, she’d lost it all anyway. She pulled her hand free. And since she had nothing to lose now, she reached up and tucked his collar into place. She doubted he noticed. “If you need assistance tonight—”

  “I don’t.” His tone implied he’d already gotten everything he needed from her. He looked toward the demon. “So you can haul off.”

  Anger jabbed at her. She’d expected rejection and understood his need to go this alone, but she didn’t deserve that rude dismissal. “Or, as you once told me, ‘Get the fuck out of your face’?” When his startled gaze met hers, she smiled sweetly. “It will be my pleasure. Good luck to you, preacher.”

  To him, and to her. They were both going to need it.

  CHAPTER 2

  Deacon returned to his hotel not far ahead of the sun. At his door, he flipped the housekeeping sign to Veuillez ne pas déranger, and listened for sounds from inside before slipping through. An empty room greeted him. Above the headboard of the single bed, a framed photograph of the Eiffel Tower provided the room’s best view. The flower-sprigged bedspread had been straightened; folded white towels were stacked in the tiny bathroom and the damp ones cleared from the floor. Judging by the wet ring on the sink, the maid hadn’t replaced the tumbler he’d used after brushing his teeth, just rinsed it out, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t taste anything that came out of the glass, and if they didn’t wash it for a year, he still wouldn’t get sick off it. All that mattered was that they’d done the housekeeping after midnight, just as he’d requested. This wasn’t the best hotel in Paris—far from it—but it suited his needs.

  Not that he’d ever had too many needs. But he’d whittled them down to a cheap room with heavy drapes and a solid lock, blood, and a mirror. Facing himself every day meant that he’d never forget why he was still going.

  It wasn’t as bad as it had been, though. Six months ago, every time he’d walked into an empty hotel room the punch of grief and failure had almost leveled him, and after he’d regained his feet, was followed by unexpected jabs. But now he automatically hung up his jacket, instead of slinging it across the back of the chair before realizing that Petra wasn’t there to cluck her tongue at him and iron out the wrinkles. The clothes he laid on the bed before showering were always the same as when he finished, not replaced with ones that Eva liked better. He never expected the odor of turpentine and oils from Eva’s studio to fill the rooms anymore, only the scents of strangers. The noise of the television was never punctuated by their laughter, but came through the walls or from another floor, accompanied by the sounds of people he didn’t know, eating and fucking and living.

  Eating and fucking and living. Deacon was still doing all of that, too. But he wasn’t doing enough killing.

  He laid his swords on the top shelf of the closet. This time, he’d left the gun in the room’s lockbox. When he’d had bullets coated in hellhound venom, which could slow a demon, the weapon had been useful. But he’d used two bullets slaying a demon in Madrid, and the rest in London. That one had been close. By the time he’d managed to kill it, he’d bled almost as much as the demon. He’d relied on those bullets too much. He wouldn’t make the same mistake with Theriault.

  Getting to the demon might be harder than he’d anticipated, though. Deacon had been hoping to get his chance on the sixty miles between the chateau and Paris, but the Guardian had been right. Those other two demons had remained with Theriault until he’d reached his residence on the Champs-Élysées—the best Paris had to offer. There, his protection had left him, but Deacon couldn’t take advantage of their absence. The fucker had a human wife. Considering she was pregnant and the baby couldn’t be a demon’s, maybe she wouldn’t care too much when Deacon killed him. But he wasn’t bastard eno
ugh to kill Theriault in their home where his wife might stumble across them. A few more nights of watching, and maybe he’d find his opening. Trying tonight would have been suicide. And although this journey Deacon was on couldn’t end any other way but with him dead, he’d like to take out a few more demons first.

  She’d been right about that, too.

  He stripped off. His shirt and pants went next to the weapons. No reason to have any of them near his bed. If a demon or human came in, he couldn’t defend himself. A bomb could go off during the day and he wouldn’t know it. A Guardian could teleport in . . . or slide through the shadows.

  He crossed the room toward the window, knowing he should hit the bed instead. Sunrise was almost here, and he’d drop where he stood when the sun came up. He pushed back the drapes. Not much to see. Scooters and chained bicycles lined the cobblestone alley. A few potted flowers folded in on themselves against the night. Deacon studied the shadows. Hell, he’d been watching the shadows all night, expecting her to step out of them.

  Rosalia.

  When she’d spoken to him on the stairs, he hadn’t immediately known it was her. Sure hadn’t looked like her. His memory held a vision of long dark hair and crimson lips against pale skin. A fairy-tale princess, locked away by the nosferatu—but she’d been wakened by betrayal rather than a kiss, when Deacon had followed Caym’s orders and guided the others down into those catacombs. But at the chateau, she’d been rail-thin, tanned, and blond, like half the models working the floor. She’d walked like one, too, all knees and shoulders. No lush roll of her hips. And whenever he’d seen her, she’d worn a wide-eyed, vacant look in her blue eyes, instead of a warm, soft brown.