He dragged his gaze away from Lena and into the goading face of the heavyset woman next to her. The angle didn’t permit a good look at the third female at the table, but it was obvious she was young. And extremely thin.
“The deal’s going down,” he said crisply into his BlackBerry. “You need to get here now.”
“Murdoch should be there already. The rest of us are still twenty minutes away,” MacGregor responded. “Stall them.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Brian hung up, glancing around for Murdoch. No sign of the huge Scot. Christ. Twenty minutes could be a really long time. He couldn’t imagine the demons sitting around chatting for that length of time.
Tugging his blue Dodgers cap down to shade his face, he darted into the bookstore behind the coffee shop terrace. Under the pretext of examining a book, he peered at the group from this new viewpoint. The older woman was possessed; he’d bet his last dime on it. His gaze shifted to the thin girl in the next chair.
His fingers tightened on the book in his hands.
Wow.
If he didn’t know better, he’d swear it was the girl from St. Pat’s. Only shorter and a whole lot worse for wear, if that were possible. She was definitely thinner and paler, but on the plus side, she was alive. Barely. She had the look of a heavy-duty user. And, sadly, he recognized the signs of an imminent crash: agitation, itching, occasional rubbing of the arms that suggested chills.
Lena put a hand on the girl’s arm, trying to calm her.
That was when a big piece of the puzzle fell into place—this girl and the one from St. Pat’s were sisters. And Lena knew them both.
Relief hit him so hard, he nearly fell on his ass. He’d been right, damn it. This had never been about money—Lena was negotiating for a girl’s life. She’d been acting under duress the whole time—even in New York. How had he ever let himself get swayed into believing anything else? On any other day, he trusted his gut above all.
Just not when it came to Lena.
As happy as he was to learn her motivations were pure, he had to admit the timing of this discovery well and truly sucked. If she’d told him a week ago, he could have worked something out, figured out how to keep the coins and rescue the girl. Especially since the kid was so frail. One wound might be enough to finish her. No doubt about it: The last inning of this game was going to be a nail-biter.
How the hell could he pull it off? Not only did he need to keep the girl alive; he needed to protect Lena and keep the demons from frying an unbearable number of innocent bystanders.
He put the book carefully back on the shelf. If he wanted answers, Lena’s table was the place to be.
Right in the thick of things.
Lena gripped the velvet bag with white-knuckled hands.
“There’s really no point in waiting for Maleficus to return,” she said, resisting the urge to look at the time displayed on her phone. How could he expect her to sit there like a tourist on vacation when every minute added to Heather’s discomfort? “He’s just going to confirm his failure to locate the coins.”
Malumos sucked the last of his latte up the straw, slurping around the remnants of ice cubes. “We can afford to wait a bit longer. It’s a very pleasant evening.”
Pleasant? Compared to the fiery tortures of hell, maybe, but not by her standards. Lena decided to brazen it out. “Why wait when I can give you the location and code to access the coins? If you trade me Heather now, you can have them in a matter of minutes.”
He shrugged. “All thirteen coins delivered to our hands or the deal is off. It’s that simple.”
“Aren’t you on some kind of deadline? You wouldn’t have attacked the ranch if your boss weren’t putting the screws to you over this deal. Tick-tock, Malumos. You have only four and a half hours until midnight. Are you sure you want to waste it all waiting for Maleficus?”
She didn’t. Not when there was a very real possibility the other demon would show up with the last six coins. Not when her bluff could be called any second. Indeed, her heart froze when Malumos’s gaze slid over her left shoulder. Sour-mouthed, she spun in her chair.
But it wasn’t Maleficus. It was—
“Brian,” she said on a gasp.
His eyes met hers for only a fraction of a second, but it was long enough to send a flood of warmth through her body. He pulled out the fourth chair and sat, looking every bit the young James Dean in his jeans and T-shirt.
“Any deal you two were working out is off, I’m afraid.” He took off the baseball cap and ran his fingers through his brown hair. Then he quirked a smile at Malumos. “I have the other six coins, and I’m not going to be as easy to please as Lena.”
Brian expected some sort of reaction. Just not from the emaciated teen. She abruptly sat up straight, her chest bones visible even beneath layers of cotton tank tops, her breasts almost nonexistent, and glared at him. “Give us the goddamned coins,” she snarled.
The fury of her response could simply have been prompted by drug-induced desperation, but her use of the word us told a different story. She was possessed.
His stomach knotted.
Any hope of saving her had just come tumbling down around his ears. He had no way of evicting the demon from her body. He didn’t know a single exorcism ritual, even if he’d had the luxury of time to perform it. Which he didn’t. In a few minutes, when MacGregor and the others arrived, the creature inside her would be fighting for its life without care for what happened to the girl. Just like the pizza delivery boys back at the ranch. The ones he’d been prepared to skewer in order to win. Her death was inevitable.
Sure, he’d do everything in his power to keep her alive, even sacrifice his own life if necessary, but bookies didn’t even have a number for odds as bad as these.
Cool fingers slipped around his elbow, and he glanced left to meet Lena’s gaze.
“You need to give him the coins,” she said.
“I can’t,” he responded softly.
She sat back in her chair. The shadows in her eyes were full-scale eclipses now. Although there was no sign of it on her smooth face, she was hurting. Deeply. And he was powerless to stop it.
“You should have told me,” he added a little desperately, willing her to understand, yet knowing that she wouldn’t. “I could have done something.”
She shook her head, the tip of her ponytail twitching. “No, you couldn’t.”
“I could have—”
“Do you think I didn’t try?” she interrupted. “Do you think that I didn’t agonize over the consequences of this arrangement? That I would agree to give Satan a powerful dark relic without any attempt to resist?”
She reached for the girl’s hand, squeezing it.
“Heather’s father is dead because I tried to secret the girls away, to keep them safe and stop the triplets from using them as weapons against me. Graeme O’Shaunessy and Amanda”—she stumbled over the name, but found her voice again—“are dead because I actually believed I could outwit Malumos and escape the nightmare. But I couldn’t. I failed them.”
Her red-rimmed gaze drilled into his.
“I know you think you could have come up with a plan that would have saved Heather and kept control of the coins. Maybe you could have. But I couldn’t take that risk. Heather is all I have left.”
A lump the size of a baseball had lodged in his throat.
How like Lena to have survived all that and still appear strong and sure. No one would ever guess the extent to which she was bleeding. Brian had never wanted to hug anyone as badly as he wanted to hug her right this moment. But she would never forgive him for weakening the walls of her defense. And this was hardly a good time.
The older woman leaned across the table and extended her hand. “In case you were wondering, I’m Malumos. We met briefly at your ranch, and again in the desert in Egypt.”
Brian ignored the outstretched hand.
“So Lena kept her deal with us a secret, did she?” Malumos said silkily. “Did she kee
p Heather’s true identity from you, too?”
Brian’s stomach tightened. Of course she had. Lena had never told him a damned thing. Not one personal detail.
“Heather is Lena’s granddaughter,” Malumos explained. “Actually, several generations removed from that, but you get the picture. When Lena died, she left a seven-month-old baby behind, a delightful little cherub who she named Lily. Heather is a direct descendant of her daughter, and she’s the only living relative Lena has remaining. If the girl dies, the last piece of Lily dies, too. Isn’t that so, Lena?”
Lena didn’t need to answer.
The truth was written on her face. In stark, well-defined lines around her eyes and mouth.
The last dredges of hope filtered away from him like water into sand. This was an unwinnable battle. There was no way he could let Satan get his hands on those evil coins, yet if he refused, the demons would orchestrate Heather’s death ... and Lena would never forgive him.
Hell, who was he kidding?
He’d never forgive himself.
Lena’s hand tightened around Heather’s.
The girl squeezed her hand in return, and Lena glanced at her, hopeful. But the eyes that looked back at her still held that hellish glint of possession. Almost as proof, Mestitio lifted her hand to his mouth and ran his tongue over her knuckles.
Lena shuddered, but did not let go.
Instead, she held Heather’s gaze and said softly, “I’m not giving up. Don’t you give up, either.”
Then she turned to Brian, abandoning the stiff pride that had held her erect for years. Holding nothing back, allowing her heartbreak to invade her voice, she begged him, “Please give him the coins.”
Brian didn’t answer. Not that she really expected him to.
“You’re condemning her to death,” she added, not above emotional blackmail.
He paled. But did not relent.
“There will be other chances to defeat Satan,” she pleaded. “Give him the coins. If you won’t do it for Heather, do it for me. I lived next door to her for ten years, looked after her when her mother died. I watched her grow from a chubby kid to a beautiful young woman, and now to this. Don’t make me watch her die.”
She saw the battle in his eyes and started to hope. But deep down she knew what the end result would be. Brian held his honor above everything. For good reason—he’d fought a very hard battle to win it back. He had to do the right thing, because if he let that go, he’d be admitting defeat. The self-absorbed junkie he’d once been would own him.
She understood that. Even admired him for it.
Which was why she felt like the worst person in the world for hoping he’d give in. And why she forgave him the instant he hoarsely delivered his answer.
“I can’t.”
“This is all quite touching,” Malumos said coolly, standing. “But irrelevant.” A new person joined him, crossing the paving stones at his back. A very large black man draped with gold bling. “Now that Maleficus has returned, the discussion is moot. If you hope to survive, giving us the coins is your only option.”
Brian stood up, too.
“Only if I were stupid enough to come alone. Which I wasn’t.”
From the edge of the crowd, a familiar face appeared—Murdoch. He stood in the telltale stance of a battle-seasoned warrior—shoulders back, knees slightly flexed, focus unwavering. Had Heather not been so thin and frail, Murdoch’s arrival—and the knowledge that he was a berserker—would have given her heart. But the weak were always the first to fall in a battle.
Lena closed her eyes.
Although she couldn’t name a single time when God had eased her trials courtesy of a few whispered words, she prayed.
“You don’t want to battle here,” Malumos said. “Too many witnesses.”
“I don’t want to battle at all,” Brian amended honestly. If he pulled out his sword, the situation would get very messy very quickly. “So how ’bout you guys jump ship and leave us with the coins? That way everybody walks away in one piece.”
The demon’s eyes narrowed. “Not an option.”
Brian scanned the little courtyard. Not as hectic as a Saturday afternoon, but the flow of people was steady and a small crowd had gathered twenty feet away, eager to board the trolley. The only saving grace was that this table was off to one side. They might be able to put a perception ward over it and block it from view. But that wouldn’t stop innocent people from getting hurt.
“Webster.”
He lifted his gaze to Murdoch’s calm face. The big warrior nodded to the left, drawing Brian’s attention to the glass exterior of the shop next to the coffeehouse—the location targeted by a high-end fashion boutique but not yet occupied. The interior was under construction, gutted to make room for signature white walls and chrome furnishings. Its grungy emptiness would make for a perfect battlefield, especially if a barrier spell kept the rest of the world at bay.
“Get up,” he told Malumos.
The demon frowned. “Why?”
“You’re going to get your chance at the coins. In there.” He nodded to the shop.
“And if we prefer to remain here?”
“Not an option,” he said, borrowing the demon’s phrase. “Either you toddle over there under your own steam, or I haul your ass into the store. Your choice.”
Malumos smiled. “That assumes you’re capable.”
“Want to test me?” His hand went behind his head, reaching for the hilt of his sword. He stopped short of pulling it free and sent a bold dare into Malumos’s eyes.
A fat drop of rain landed on his cheek.
That drop was quickly followed by a splash on his sleeve and another on his shoulder. Heavy raindrops smacked the pavement and the umbrella with loud thwaps, sending the sweet summer scent of wet dust into the air. A gentle sigh of wind delivered a wave of new drops and in seconds the rainfall changed from a staccato anthem to an allegro march. Colors sprang to fresh life under a shiny, wet coat of water.
The group positioned around the table never lost focus, but the shoppers in the market suddenly galvanized, running for cover—hands, bags, and purses over their heads—hoping to avoid a soaking. A crest of shrieks, giggles, and feet slapping puddles rose and then fell away.
The rain did not ease with the vanishing crowds.
In a rare summer tempest, the handful of droplets became sheets of water tossed in their direction, then yanked away. Gentle wafts of wind became stinging gusts. Rivulets ran down their faces, streamed off their chins, and weighed down their clothing.
Brian repositioned his hand on the hilt of his sword to compensate for the wet texture of the leather wrap.
In the same instant, a faint snap in the air announced the advent of a very powerful perception ward around the group. Brian glanced up and smiled. Stefan had arrived, along with reinforcements: MacGregor, Carlos, Bale, and Atheborne.
“Last chance,” he told Malumos, drawing his blade.
“Really?”
In a dazzling display of coordinated strength, the three brothers backflipped clear of the table and formed a rough circle, facing out at their opponents. A silvery trail of water rose from the ground and swirled around them, drawn in by the first spins of their rapidly intensifying supershield. As the sizzling hum of the triplets’ aligned efforts grew, Malumos grinned.
“We brought friends along, too.”
On cue, the ground rumbled with a teeth-rattling fury and three knobby projectiles pierced the pavement between the demons and the Gatherers, pushing through from the depths below. As chunks of concrete fell away and rain sluiced over red, leathery surfaces and thick yellow talons, the identity of the hulking new arrivals became clear. Martial demons.
The muscles in Brian’s shoulder did an involuntary dance.
Three bone-crushing bastards.
The number wouldn’t have been a big deal if MacGregor had still been immortal. He’d previously downed two of the house-sized horrors on his own. Unfortunately, t
he rest of the team had no idea what they were in for. Brian edged closer to Lena.
“Watch the tails,” he shouted to the group.
The martial nearest him opened his mouth and a wave of furnace-hot heat blasted Brian’s shield. Sweat mingled with the rain on his body, engulfing him in an unbearable steam bath. His clothing stuck to him in clumps.
Not that he had time to dwell on it. From the furious rush of air and water surrounding the thralls, a series of white-hot flame balls shot out, unimpeded by the rain. They struck the shields erected by the Gatherers with impressive accuracy and velocity, forcing the Gatherers back.
Having gained a little breathing room, the thralls then concentrated the bulk of their attack on Lena and Brian, leaving two martials to fend off the other Gatherers. The third martial continued to focus on Brian.
Forced to dodge a series of rapid jabs from its spiked tail, Brian almost forgot about the sapping blue smoke exuded by the triplets. Pressed low by the rain, the whisper-thin tentacles crept along the ground, nearly slipping around his feet before he leapt out of the way.
He risked a glance back at Lena. Asking her to distance herself from him—and his protection—totally went against the grain, but staying together made them an easy target. If he kept the martial’s attack centered on him, she had a better-than-average chance of survival.
“Split up,” he ordered.
He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. A quick nod, and she was gone.
There was no time to ponder her docility. The martial advanced toward him at a slow, ground-trembling pace, unrelenting in its pursuit. A lava bomb hit his shield and ripped it away, allowing one of the thralls’ fireballs to ricochet off the edge of his sword and strike his shoulder.
Pain clawed down his arm.
Roasted by the flames, his blackened flesh writhed as minute fragments of the orb dug deep, driving toward the bone. A ragged gasp escaped Brian’s lips.
“Give us the coins, and we’ll spare you,” Malumos said.
“Fuck you,” Brian responded grimly. Fueled by the demon’s goading, he dove in for a lightning attack on the martial demon. Using one of the tables for leverage and aiming for the bastard’s neck, which he knew from experience was vulnerable, he struck hard.
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