Evade. “I didn’t remember them.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Well, my effort wasn’t for nothing. They screamed so well. Your father tried to protect your mother and failed. It was so very lovely.”
The edge of the desk cracked under her hand. Beneath her, Ash’s seat trembled with the force of the rage shaking her body. And she’d thought she’d hated being a puppet? It was nothing to the hate she felt now.
She hoped Madelyn told her to get up, to go to her. Ash’s boomstick was in her cache, and by God she would use it.
“I don’t suppose you know where Nicky is? Answer me truthfully.”
“He was in Montana a few months ago. I don’t know for certain now where he is,” she said, managing the truth. Might be heading toward New York wasn’t certain.
“Oh, that’s too bad. A pity, but we can do this without him. Now, listen carefully to me. Shield your mind, so tight that no one can sense any emotion from you.”
God. Fuck. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Every Guardian and vampire in the warehouse would have felt her terror, her rage, would have known something was wrong. Now they wouldn’t.
“That done? Good. Now, at no time are you to attempt to kill or injure me, or encourage anyone else to do the same. Understand? Answer me.”
Ash dragged in a ragged breath between her teeth. “Yes.”
“All right. Now dump all of the weapons out of your cache. You will not collect any others, or vanish them back into your cache.”
Oh. A mistake. With relief, Ash set her shotgun on the floor. Everyone knew that she wouldn’t go anywhere without her boomstick. The moment they checked her room, they’d know something was wrong.
But how long before they checked?
“Now, do exactly as I say. When I give you the order, leave the warehouse and walk directly to the café that you were at with the hellhound today. Do not tell anyone that you’ve spoken to me. You will not give any indication that something is wrong. If they ask, you will only tell them that you talked to Nicky, and now you are going for a walk, that you need to be alone, because you need to think. You will not ask anyone to accompany you, and you will discourage anyone who offers. You will not stop for any reason, you will not write any kind of message, you will simply leave. Do you understand? Answer me truthfully.”
“Yes.”
“You will be at the café in one minute. Hang up and go now.”
Ash cut off the call, stood up. Think. She’d leave the door open, but it was possible that no one would look into her room to see the boomstick until much later. Lilith expected her to leave SI after Nicholas’s call, so she wouldn’t believe that Ash was truly just going for a walk, but she’d also have no reason to think that Madelyn had been the reason Ash had left.
All right. Okay. Ash couldn’t leave a message . . . but she could let everyone know that this was a very special occasion.
She vanished her clothes, walked out of her room. The low murmur of conversation died when she passed through the novices’ common area. They stared at her in surprise, jaws dropped, eyes wide.
No one said anything until she’d almost reached the stairs. “Ash? You okay?”
“Fine,” she said. “I’m just taking a walk. I just finished talking to Nicky, and I need to think.”
“You want company?”
“No, thank you. I want to be alone.”
Down the stairs, her breasts bouncing at every step. Come on, someone. She needed to run into an older Guardian. Any older Guardian. Even now, the novices were buzzing between themselves about her strange behavior, a thread of unease in their voices, but they wouldn’t act quickly enough.
She didn’t meet anyone through security, just answered the same questions when the novice at the desk saw her. Are you okay? Do you want me to call someone to go with you?
God, she wished.
Ash formed her clothes again just before stepping outside—no need to tip Madelyn off that someone might be quickly coming after her. And just before the door closed behind her, she heard a novice’s voice—
“We need to let Lilith know.”
Yes. Yes.
A minute had almost passed, but it only took her a second to run the three blocks to the café, already closed for the night. Her heart jumped into her throat. Nicholas sat at one of the darkened tables, but it was a poor version of Nicholas—handsome and slick, but not pared and hardened by his obsession; amused, but not burning with cold intensity. He’d crossed his legs at the ankles rather than his knee, tucked his legs beneath his chair. How strange. How strange and awful to see Madelyn in his shape.
“There you are, love, finally. We don’t have all night, you know. We have places to fly.” Madelyn’s eyes narrowed. “Can you fly? Answer me truthfully.”
“No.”
“After three years? But I suppose halflings cannot help being incompetent and weak. I’m only surprised you came out of your stupor at all.” She stood, uncoiling from the chair. “I will carry you, then, but there is to be no movement from you, no word spoken, no attempt to escape. You understand that you must obey me, no matter the order I give? Answer me truthfully.”
“Yes.”
“Let us see how well you understand.” A dagger appeared in Madelyn’s hand. “Cut off your forefinger, and then give the blade back to me, handle first.”
Which forefinger? Make the cut at which knuckle? Evade, delay. But Ash couldn’t evade everything . . . and she had no odor, not really, but the scent of her blood would leave a trail to follow.
So without question, she took the dagger, and cut.
“So you let her go?”
“I let her go,” Nicholas said, and it echoed through the hollow place in his chest. God. It still hurt to say, to think it. But he had let her go—he’d had to.
Leslie didn’t immediately reply, and he could feel her studying his expression. Trying to read into him. Funny thing was, she didn’t need to look that deep. He’d told her everything that had happened from the night he’d met Ash to the final day in the cabin, spilling his guts right out at her feet; the legs of her armchair might as well be swimming in them. But he waited, sitting on her couch, elbows braced on his knees and his hands clasped loosely in between.
Twenty years, they’d sat talking together like this. The salt-and-pepper in her hair had turned completely gray in that time. She’d moved offices, replacing drapes and soothing shadows with open blinds and pots of leafy flowers. Her two children had grown from gangly teens in a photo into a surgeon and an artist, now with children of their own. For twenty years, she’s seen into him, understood him better than anyone.
Except for Ash.
She drew in a soft breath. “Nicholas, have you been reading the news at all in the past few months?”
“Every day.”
“Then you know that Rachel Boyle has been found. That she suffered some trauma, lost her memory, but has spent the past three years at Nightingale House—just as you say this demon Ash did. Have you spoken to Rachel at all?”
“No, because that’s not her. Rachel’s dead, and Ash is what’s left of her.” And so much more. God, so much more than a woman stripped down to nothing. “The Rachel you’ve seen is a Guardian, drawing Madelyn out.”
“Have you spoken to the Guardians? Have they told you this?”
“No. But I know. She looks exactly the same, but she doesn’t move like Ash does. She doesn’t speak like Ash does. It’s close, but it’s not perfect.”
“I see,” she said.
Nicholas grinned. When she raised her brows to encourage him, he said, “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Tell me.”
“That whatever ‘trauma’ Rachel went through probably first occurred six years ago, the night that she and Madelyn disappeared. And that because I was with them, I probably suffered the same trauma—except that I repressed the events, and my mind created another scenario that seemed so real that I’m convinced that Madelyn shot Rachel, despite the lack
of blood and other evidence. But now that Rachel has returned, I’m trying to fit the story from the news into the version that my mind has created. So I came up with Ash and all the rest.”
Leslie didn’t confirm or deny it. “Do you think that explanation is so impossible?”
“Not impossible. It’s just not what happened.”
“Nicholas, in our first session after you met the vampire who told you about the existence of demons, we discussed the possibility that you had constructed a mythology that not only eased your sense of guilt and responsibility for Rachel’s disappearance, but one that also allowed for her return. A resurrection, of sorts.”
“Yes, but this ‘mythology’ has never eased my guilt, and Rachel coming back never even occurred to me until I met the Guardians. Bringing her back was certainly never a goal. Only revenge was.”
“Now Rachel has returned, and your desire for revenge has shifted into a need to protect her.”
“To protect Ash,” he said. “Not Rachel.”
“Also, your mythology has deepened considerably,” she said. “Once, there were only vampires, demons, and eventually Guardians. But in the time since Rachel has returned, there are now halflings, spells, symbols, and sacrifices that open Gates to Hell. Do you not think it at all possible that this layering of your mythology has simply been a way for you to incorporate Rachel’s return into a form that you can accept?”
“I’m sure that’s not what happened,” he said, smiling. “And I know you hate it when I say that.”
“Refusing to consider a possibility does cut off avenues of exploration.” But though he recognized the faint exasperation at the corners of her eyes and mouth, she only said, “Let’s continue then. You let her go two months ago. What have you been doing in the time between—when you were not canceling our weekly appointments, that is?”
Nicholas had to laugh. “I wondered when that would come in.”
“I was very gentle,” she said. “I did worry, though, especially when I saw the news about Rachel. You’ve never missed so many appointments in a row, and I assumed it wasn’t a coincidence. Perhaps you can fill me in now.”
“I was hunting demons. Madelyn, primarily, but there have been others, too.”
“Other demons?” When he nodded, she asked, “You said that you had been wrong about Ash. How do you know these demons aren’t like her?”
“Because there are no others like her. Rosalia never mentioned halflings because Lilith had been the last—and they didn’t know about Ash.” When he’d met with her, Rosalia had apologized to him in her soft, motherly way. It hadn’t been necessary. She couldn’t have anticipated the events that led to Rachel becoming Ash. Neither could Nicholas, and that was why he wouldn’t take the risk of being wrong now. “But I won’t take the chance again. So I make certain they aren’t halflings.”
“How?”
“The hellhound venom. Halflings aren’t affected by it, just like Guardians and humans aren’t.” And Nicholas had verified that, too, by injecting himself with the venom. “But demons are, so I shoot them with the dart, and while they are paralyzed, I check their temperature. Then I call in Rosalia.”
“And she takes them?”
“Slays them, then gets rid of the bodies. All but the last one.” He looked down at his hands. “I had him down, paralyzed, but then I couldn’t reach her on the phone. The venom would eventually wear off, so I had to make a choice.”
“To slay him or let him go?”
“Yes. It was harder than I thought it would be. Maybe it’d have been easier if the demon had been fighting me, or threatening Ash like the one in Duluth had. It’s for her protection, so I was going to slay it anyway . . . but her protection wasn’t the only reason. I thought about Ash crying over her parents, I thought about my parents and Rachel. It’s too many people, and if it’s in my power, I’m not going to let any demon hurt even one more.”
Leslie’s brow had furrowed. “What did you do, Nicholas?”
“I chopped his head off with a sword.” And that had been more difficult than he’d realized, too. Not just mentally, but physically. “Then after a while, Rosalia came and cleaned up.”
He saw the slight tremble of her mouth. Maybe a man who hadn’t known her for twenty years couldn’t have recognized the alarm, the disbelief, the horror in her expression. Nicholas could. And he knew what she thought now, too—that despite his delusional paranoia, at least he’d always been functional. But now his delusions had either become a full-blown psychosis, or he’d become a serial killer.
She gathered herself. “Nicholas, I know that you’ve always rejected the idea of medication, but—”
“No.” And because he’d always vowed to be brutally honest with himself in this office—and honest with her—he sat forward, took her hands between his. “Leslie, that’s not what I need.”
She squeezed his hand. “What do you need, then?”
Ash. But that wasn’t possible yet.
“I need you to know that I can’t express how valuable you’ve been to me. I know that I’ve not been the easiest man. You’ve probably saved my life more times than we both know.” He took a long breath. “But what I also need now is someone who believes me.”
She held his gaze, and he watched her struggle, the compassion and the acceptance. Closing her eyes, she nodded. “I don’t know if I can find someone who will believe, Nicholas, but I know a few people who might be better able to help you. I can make some calls, give you a referral.”
“Thank you.”
“And Nicholas, you know that I will always—Oh, dear God!” She lurched back in her chair, her hand flying to her heart. Mouth open, she stared across the room.
Nicholas fought to cover his own shock. Wearing enormous black wings that arched up to the ceiling, a possessed Taylor stood . . . No, he realized. Not Taylor. Unless she’d shape-shifted, this woman with braided black hair and obsidian eyes wasn’t Taylor, but someone more like Michael.
In a low, harmonious voice, she said, “Madelyn has Ashmodei.”
God. Nicholas surged to his feet. “And you stopped to get me first?”
“Of course.”
“You should have just gone after her, saved her.” But since the Guardian was here, he wouldn’t argue. “Where is she?”
“In some Roman ruins near old Fordham Castle in County Essex. There used to be a portal to Hell there—the weak spot makes it easier to open a new one.”
By sacrificing Ash. Not if Nicholas had anything to say about it. “I have no weapons with me.”
“Hold out your hand.”
When he did, an egg-shaped grenade appeared in his palm. “You’re only giving me this?”
“Why would you need anything else?”
He wouldn’t, Nicholas realized. If this woman had half the power that Michael did, he wouldn’t need anything. He probably wouldn’t even be able to track the fight with Madelyn. “All right. Let’s go. No, hold on.”
He had just enough presence of mind to turn around. “Leslie, are you okay?”
Though obviously still astonished, she nodded.
“Oh,” the Guardian said, peering around Nicholas’s shoulder. “You are a psychotherapist? Are you taking new patients?”
Heart pounding, Nicholas stared at her in disbelief. “Ash is waiting—”
“And she won’t be bleeding yet when we arrive, so whenever we decide to teleport, we’ll still be in time.” She looked back to Leslie. “Everyone thinks I’m crazy, just because I spent over two thousand years alone in Hell and I can also see the future. Do you suppose I could come and talk with you at some time?”
Leslie blinked. Her mouth opened, but no answer emerged.
“It’s all right,” the Guardian said. “I already know that you will say yes. Thank you. You will be very helpful to me, especially what you will have to say about coping mechanisms.”
With a shaky nod, Leslie blinked again. “Yes. I—Yes. And Nicholas . . . I think I might qualify
for your new belief requirement. So, next week?”
“No, he won’t be there. Shall I take his appointment, instead?”
Jesus. Whatever got them out of here, now. “Say yes, Leslie.”
“Yes,” Leslie said.
The Guardian smiled brightly, and took Nicholas’s arm. Then the world dived, spun, and spit him out the other side.
CHAPTER 17
Even with his feet planted into the sodden ground, the world still spun. Only steadied by the Guardian’s hand, Nicholas fought not to heave up his lunch, fought the darkness swirling around the edges of his vision, tried to focus. He stood in a large, flat field, with short grass that squelched with the swaying shift of his weight. The ruins near his feet were only distinguishable from any other weathered rock by the straight line of their formation and the ninety-degree angle of an ancient corner. He stood just outside the old building, the walls broken down to his shins.
Still dizzy, Nicholas lifted his head. Though he could focus more clearly now, he had to wait for his eyes to adjust. Twilight was leaching the light from a leaden sky.
Where was Ash?
“Nicky?”
Madelyn’s name for him, but his voice? Nicholas gave his head a sharp shake. There, only ten feet away, in the center of what would have been a room of some sort, stood . . . Nicholas. He held two long, curving swords, and if the shadows playing over his double’s face weren’t misleading him, the demon was regarding the Guardian with abject terror.
The black wings, those obsidian eyes. Madelyn must know she didn’t have a chance, no matter whom she looked like. But where was Ash? He had to make certain Madelyn couldn’t hurt her before this Guardian got a chance to tear the demon apart.
A crimson glow began to shine near Madelyn’s feet, casting red light across the ground. Oh, Jesus. Ash lay on her back behind Madelyn, her face turned away from Nicholas. He couldn’t see her expression or whether she was hurt, but those glowing eyes meant she was still alive.
Thank God.
“If you take a step toward me, grigori”—Madelyn shifted in an instant as she spoke, taking the form of his mother’s dark-haired, elegant beauty—“I will kill her.”
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