by Jenn Stark
“Ah…not exactly.” With a startled laugh, Finn fished in his pocket until he found his phone. He held it up for Warrick to see. “No bars.”
Warrick lifted a brow, and Finn grinned. “No bars, no service, no way to track our way back home. I guess we’ll have to—”
The call came with the same brutal force that it always did, sweeping them up in the maelstrom of urgency, need, power. Not a human call, not this time—there was nothing plaintive or desperate about it. Instead, it was a cold, soulless demand, as ancient as it was impossible to ignore.
Warrick turned. Finn was already falling back, his body still solid, still substantial, but still definitely remaining behind.
Screw that, Warrick decided. Where he went, so went his brothers. If not to fight with him…then to mourn his death.
He stuck his hand out, and Finn dove for it, the power of their connection giving Warrick a jolt of unexpected strength.
A second later, they disappeared from the clearing in a bolt of pure white light.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Maria clutched her tote bag as she walked through McCarran International Airport, already amazed by the number of slot machines she’d passed since she’d exited the boarding ramp. Festooned with Christmas decorations, the machines jangled and rang, nearly every one of them occupied by gambling hopefuls. Some of them having just landed as she had, posing for laughing, high-energy selfies as they eagerly started their preholiday sojourn in Sin City, the rest with the wry, rueful smiles of those having gambled their way through their vacation already, and who now were facing the return to reality.
It was Tuesday morning, and the place was jam-packed. What must it be like on the weekend?
As close as Maria lived to Las Vegas, she’d never visited the gambling paradise. She’d never had the money to lose, for one, and she simply hadn’t fallen in with the kind of friends who could take off for a few days and ramble around looking for ways to go broke.
She twisted her lips, eyeing the crowds of people thronging toward baggage claim. She hadn’t fallen in with friends, period. She’d always been too focused on the larger picture. The ultimate prize. Even Jack, with whom she’d been so comfortable, had been a means to an end.
While Warrick…
Maria sighed. She skirted the baggage carousel—she had nothing but her carry-on, and that was barely half-full as it was. It’d taken her a day to get a flight, collect her real ID, her credit cards, spending cash and at least check in on her apartment in Sylmar. But now she was here. In Vegas. With nothing but a hotel name to go on.
“Stay focused,” she muttered. She didn’t know what Warrick would say when she found him—if she found him. But she couldn’t stay in LA and not at least try. As it was, she seemed to be drifting along like a ghost without him. And maybe that was because of his ridiculous assertion that she was swept up in his demon thrall, but…
She wouldn’t know if she didn’t see him again.
Maria had begun searching the overhead signs for directions to taxis and public transportation, when her gaze fell on a woman so startling in her appearance that Maria nearly stopped dead…would have stopped dead, actually, except for the crowd of people pushing her forward.
The woman was tall—easily six foot four, with a boldly platinum swing of hair beneath a sharply cut chauffeur’s cap. She wore aviator sunglasses, even though she was inside, and her lips were painted a shocking cherry red. The black jacket and deep-cut white blouse that made up her chauffeur’s uniform stretched tightly across her ample breasts and skimmed her long waist before flaring out over her hips. At that point, things got even stranger, as the uniform devolved into a glittering sequined skirt barely reaching to mid-thigh. Beneath, miles of long legs ended at shiny black platform stilettos with four-inch heels.
But perhaps most shocking of all was the sign the woman held, which contained a single word: WARRICK.
The chauffeur spotted Maria almost at the same time Maria saw her, but allowed her an extra moment to catch her breath. Maria got the impression she needed to do that a lot.
“Maria Santos!” The woman finally called out, her wide, mobile mouth splitting into a grin as Maria managed a nod. When Maria still didn’t move, however, the chauffeur strode over with her sign and her platform heels and her sequins.
“I simply could not be happier to meet you. Do you have any bags?” The woman’s gaze fixed on Maria’s overnighter, then her shirt. “Sweet Mother Mary on a shopping spree, we have work to do with you, child.”
“I’m sorry?”
Maria glanced down. The woman did too.
“The jeans are primo, but the rest—” The chauffeur sighed heavily. “Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll get you taken care of. But right now, we’ve gotta motor.”
“I—what?” Maria’s brain suddenly kicked into gear, and she shook her head, even as the chauffeur turned and gestured her toward the open sunshine of the Las Vegas morning. “Wait. Who are you?”
The woman’s manicured brows leapt behind her glasses. “My apologies, you’re absolutely right.” She slipped her sign under her left arm, whipped off her glasses, and tucked them into her…well, her bra, then held out her right hand. Maria found herself drilled with eyes the color of whiskey, thickly lashed with expertly applied makeup. “Nikki Dawes, your official chauffeur and tour guide for the magical mystical wonderland of Las Vegas,” she said, grinning even more broadly when Maria still hesitated. She winked. “And, more to the point, your ticket to finding the lovely and eternally cranky Warrick. We’re ever so slightly in a time crunch on that, however, so choppity choppity.”
Nikki Dawes waggled her fingers, which were long-fingered and ungloved, the flash of her bright red nail polish flawlessly matching her lips. Maria shook her hand, and the woman’s smile only deepened, her eyes going wide and appreciative as she held on to Maria a little longer than was strictly necessary.
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Nikki breathed, and Maria pulled her hand back. Had she just revealed too much, somehow?
“You mind telling me how you know me?” Maria asked, but she saw no reason not to follow the woman. Whether or not this Nikki Dawes was friend or foe, she knew more about where Warrick was than Maria did. That was all that mattered right now.
“I’ll give you the short version, sweet pea,” Nikki said, striding out into the heat of the day. Since it was December, it was remarkably comfortable—though Maria could sense the dryness of the desert around her. Nikki pulled a key fob out of her bra, extracting her glasses as well and resettling them on her face. “There’s my car.”
They approached a beautiful Lincoln Town Car, and Maria blinked as she saw someone sitting in it—then blinked again. “Oh.” She said. “I thought…”
Nikki waved the fob. “Hologram. One of—well, never mind. A tech geek friend designed it for me, and let me tell you, it makes pickups at McCarron a hella lot easier. Hop in the back, and I’ll give you the 411.” She glanced again at Maria’s bag as she opened the back door and tsked as she gestured Maria inside. “We have got to get you a new tote, minimum. Or at least get you a Members Only jacket to match it.”
“Hey,” Maria retorted, clutching the bag close. She’d had it a long time, but not that long. Still, she obligingly slid into the back of the cab. Nikki trotted around to the driver’s side and hopped in. Then she threw the car into gear, ripping out of her parking space and into the flow of traffic with a move that seemed more at home on the streets of LA than in a city in the middle of the desert. Slammed into the corner of the car, Maria finally felt herself relax. Insane cabbies, she was used to.
But Nikki’s next question had her sitting up short. “Okay, so whaddya know about what Warrick’s doing in Vegas?”
“I don’t know anything,” Maria protested. “It was only a guess that he was here, a bag his friend Finn gave us that had Paris Las Vegas on it.” She’d looked up the casino online, and it was definitely one of the nicer bits of kitsch on th
e Strip. “Is that where we’re going?”
“That would be negative, though it would’ve been a good place to start. The rest of the Syx are staying there right now.”
“You mean Finn.”
“I mean six of the hottest damned demons you’ve ever seen in your life, baby doll, and Warrick is right there at the top, if I say so myself.” She grinned at Maria in the rearview mirror. “We had a thing for like, a minute. But ultimately, I wasn’t his type. And now that I’m meeting his type, I totally agree.”
Maria’s face must have registered her confusion, because Nikki cackled as she cut the wheel hard, slewing across two lanes of traffic and into a sharp turn. “So, let’s get you squared away. You got that Warrick’s a demon, and you’re down with that, right?”
“I saw him.”
“More on that later. In addition to the demons of the world, and sweet Jesus, are there a crap ton of them these days, there are humans with psychic abilities. You familiar with those?”
“You mean like telephone psychics?”
Nikki barked a laugh. “We’ll start there, and we’ll call them Connecteds. We got a whole mess of Connecteds here in Vegas, including the granddaddies of them all, a group called the Council.”
“The Council.” Maria nodded, though her mind was starting to fray at the edges.
“The Arcana Council, if we’re being exact,” Nikki clarified. “Think of them as a board of directors for Magic, Inc., responsible for keeping the company going. Only, they’ve mostly been a pain in the ass up to this point, but that’s another story. What’s important now is that one of the Council members, a guy by the name of Michael, as in Michael the Archangel—”
“Michael the Archangel?” Maria blurted, her gaze snapping sharply to Nikki’s face in the rearview mirror. “As in the real archangel of God? He’s on this Council?”
“He is. And all the members of the Council are embodiments of the Major Arcana cards of the Tarot—please tell me you know Tarot.”
“Ah…a little?”
“Well, brace yourself. You’ll get to know it a lot, you hang around here for long. Michael is the Hierophant, and that means he can drop the hammer on the demons, including—especially—the Syx. He’s the guy who says who among them stays on this earth and who goes.”
“Wait a minute.” Maria frowned. “You said there was an influx of demons recently, but if Michael can say who stays and who goes, can’t he simply wave his magic sword or whatever and send all the demons away?”
“You’d think that, but he’s more interested in humans dealing with the issue. Which is generally the case with anyone on the Council.” Nikki waved off Maria’s grimace. “Like I said, they can be a pain in the ass. But what we’re now figuring out is that Michael can absolve a demon of his sin, if he so chooses. And that’s sort of like a get-out-of-demon-jail-free card.”
Maria felt her eyes go wide. “So that demon becomes an angel again?”
Nikki lifted her right hand, waggling manicured fingers. “Sorta kinda. He’d still be Fallen, but with this special sanction, he can stay on Earth. Which means he can keep fighting the demon hordes but also have someplace to crash when he’s done. Being a Fallen is a totally different kettle of whack from being a straight up demon enforcer, however, and it requires more of a—commitment, I guess you would say. A Fallen can stick around, but he’s got to really want to stick around. For a better reason than because he wants to do his job. He’s got to long for something that is on this earth, something that will tether him to it.”
Nikki looked up at the rearview mirror. It was once more impossible to see her eyes through her shades, but Maria could feel their intensity anyway.
“Something like you.”
Maria made a face. “You might have noticed Warrick left me behind. I—I saw him in his demon form, and he decided that I couldn’t possibly want him after that.” She scowled, shaking her head. “He’s wrong.”
“Of course, he’s wrong.” Nikki snorted. “Demon or not, he’s a dude, and dudes can be idiots sometimes. So that means we gotta help him get a clue. And by we, I mean you, baby doll. And we don’t have a lot of time.”
Warrick staggered under the weight of so much pain, he’d already fallen to his knees.
“You alone were summoned,” Michael said again. “You alone stand trial.”
“I am a Syx. We fight together.” It wasn’t the first time he’d uttered the words. They came back on him in a horrific cacophony of noise, the words running over, around and through each other, the trick of the demon mind trap obviously still a favorite of the archangel’s. And he could see that, despite Michael’s fury, Finn still stood guard at the front of the chamber, for all he could no longer see Warrick. Because Warrick was trapped in a hell of the Hierophant’s making.
Another blast of energy knifed through him, another memory unlocked. So much death. Every one of his banishments coming back to confront him with wing and talon and claw, every banishment where he’d allowed his rage to get the better part of him, where he’d left a mark not only on the demon he’d imprisoned beyond the veil, but on the humans that demon had left behind. Over and over again, he’d seen the damage he had wrought—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. Even in his work with the Syx, in his commitment to do his worst solely against the worst of his kind, he was not blameless in his actions. He’d never remained behind long enough to see that damage, to suffer the guilt of its effects.
He’d never remained behind.
As if the archangel could read his thoughts, a mocking laugh rolled over Warrick. “You say you wish to remain bound to this earth, demon, dedicated to your mission. But it is not so simple as that. You have reveled in the carnage of your role but not its true impact. You have destroyed without discernment, banished without mercy or healing. It is not enough.”
Though he wanted to point out the irony of the archangel accusing him of being merciless, Warrick bore down. “I can serve on this earth or from beyond the veil,” he growled. “But those of the Syx who would stay should not be held accountable for any decision leveled against me.”
“That is also not enough.”
The blow came from nowhere, a searing blast of pain that caught Warrick under the chin and sent him sprawling backward. All at once, there was a demon on top of him, jabbing him with a thousand different jolts of electricity, arms and legs little more than naked filaments of fire. He remembered this guy. He’d been a bastard the first time around.
But this time, he saw more than the writhing, snarling beast. He saw the humans who’d gathered around the demon he’d been sent to destroy—and only now, for the first time, did he realize that they were more than momentary victims. That they’d needed him as much after he’d banished the demon who’d plagued them as before—perhaps more so.
Warrick winced as another wave of pain leveled him, finally able to see a glimpse into the uniquely human torment of being left behind, abandoned.
“You really want a life where you cannot escape the ramifications of what you do?” Michael taunted him. “Where the weight of the lives you leave behind never dissipates but serves as an anchor tying you to the frail, the weak, the desperate? That is your charge, demon. That has always been your charge, though you were too stupid to realize it when you chose to Fall.”
Warrick blinked, bleary as he tried to zero in his attention on the archangel. He could barely see him through the screen of screaming humans, their eyes wide and panic-stricken, their mouths agape, their faces a wet and soggy mess of blood and salt and bile. Something was ripping at his legs now, tearing chunks out of his already abused skin, but he struggled to focus.
“What are you—” he managed, but he didn’t need to complete the question, didn’t even need the archangel to carry on his tirade. A tirade only he could hear.
“You did not Fall from luxury to luxury, you imbecile,” the angel seethed. “You had a job to do. A job accorded you from the Most High, a way to serve when you were so ung
rateful that you no longer thought you needed His grace. He created that opportunity for you, and you—especially you—failed. You believed more in your right for rage than you did your honor, all you owed the Father who brought you life and breath and power over all you surveyed. And with that rage, you fell anew.”
The scales dropped from his eyes as Warrick saw the final insult paraded before him once again. Serena, beautiful Serena, tall and strong and still wrapped in the light and glory of her position as Fallen. Holkeri beside her, already descended into demon form. And Warrick, bound and chained, jabbed at by spears, stunned by rocks and clubbed, his face and body beaten and bloody, until it seemed that only his eyes had been spared, only his eyes that still gazed out to see the defilement of the pure and untouched Serena by the loathsome horror that was Holkeri. She couldn’t see, he’d thought. She couldn’t know.
And then she’d laughed. And he’d realized that she could see. She did know. And that she was already lost to him. Lost because of Holkeri’s own lying tongue.
The archangel’s voice burned across his mind like acid. “Had you loved her—truly loved her—you would have fought in the light of God for her, not succumbed to your rage. But love is pain, isn’t it, demon? Love is so much harder than the cleansing heat of fury. Love is an agony that can break you so badly that nothing will ever put you back together again.”
Warrick roared as the outrage once more overtook him. Beyond the shadows of humans clawing, beating, striking him, piercing him with blades and cudgels and knives, Serena stood once more, seeing him, witnessing his fall, eyeing him with disgust and malice that he who stood so far beneath her would have the audacity to love her and believe she could love him back.
Only it wasn’t Serena standing there any longer. Instead, the Fallen’s cool patrician features were replaced with dark flashing eyes, a tumble of rich dark locks, a body tall and strong and fiery with intensity. Warrick felt his heart turn over, its thuds painful and harsh.