Demon Unbound

by Jenn Stark

  “No,” he whispered, though he couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. Someone had placed a noose around Warrick’s neck and was even now pulling it tight.

  “Only now it isn’t one of your own you loved, but a human—a human who truly sees you, Warrick Zarnaah, sees you in all your ugliness and rage. Sees you for the creature that you are.”

  “No—”

  “Look into her eyes, and know the truth.”

  Warrick tried to tear his face away, tried to keep himself from staring at Maria—Maria, so clear and full and bright, it was as if she wasn’t an illusion but standing right before him, staring at him in mute horror. Her beautiful face, her strong, hardened body, her internal fire and the light that burned mirror bright around her. But he could no more look away from her than he could become a creature who was worthy of her. And still he could do nothing but wish, wish he could be the person she believed him to be. Wish that she didn’t see the hulking creature, but that she saw—something else. Something that wasn’t him. Something he could never be.

  Another muscle-rending bolt of energy scored through him, and he felt his body succumbing to the darkness, the emptiness of the Nothing.

  “Warrick!” Maria screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Maria didn’t object when Nikki Dawes pulled her limo up to the Palazzo Hotel, though that was neither Paris Las Vegas, where she’d said Warrick and Finn were staying, along with the rest of their team, or Treasure Island, where she’d said Warrick was at that very moment.

  “Sorry for the brief detour, but I got a deal now with the Palazzo, and the less money I have to spend on parking, the more I can spend on being fabulous,” Nikki said. “Plus, as it happens, Treasure Island is right across the street, so this will actually be faster.”

  “I—sure,” Maria managed, staring out at the throngs of people gathered in front of the hotel. No, not gathered. They were simply thronging, a knot of tourists who pushed forward as one motion along the holiday-themed Strip. “Is it always this busy?”

  “We do pull in a lot of people for Christmas,” Nikki said, flipping her platinum hair as she rummaged for something in the front seat. Outside their car, a respectful valet stood waiting to take the limo off her hands. “The weather is to die for, everybody’s in a good mood, and hey, it’s Vegas. There’s no telling what might happen. Okay, here we go.”

  Maria turned her attention from the crowd outside back to Nikki, blinking to see her straightening again in the front seat. The hat, jacket, and white blouse had disappeared, and she now wore a spangled tank top that perfectly matched her sequined skirt. Her sunglasses were now in her hair, and her grin widened as Maria stared at her. She looked like she could breeze out of the car and hit the runway.

  “Am I underdressed?” Maria asked.

  “Not for your job you aren’t,” Nikki said, winking at her. “But for this gig, I’m merely eye candy. It doesn’t happen very often, so I like to take advantage of it when it does. Let’s bounce.”

  Nikki meant that most accurately, as she propelled herself out of the limo and onto her platform shoes with a springy grace that didn’t at all resemble Maria’s clamber to get out of the vehicle. Still, no sooner had they exited the limo than Nikki was striding quickly across the walkway, joining the mass of tourists and heading toward, sure enough, Treasure Island.

  Maria stared at the building as they approached, from the lagoon strung with Christmas lights not yet in full glittering display, to the curved cream-and-dark-tan façade of the building, instantly recognizable for all that she’d never been to the city.

  “That’s where Warrick is?” she asked, taking it in. “And the, ah, archangel?”

  “It certainly is. More or less on the top floor. If you look close, maybe you can see them.”

  “What?” That made absolutely no sense, of course, but Maria found herself looking up to the absolute top floor of the building nevertheless. She craned her neck, squinting as the light hit the building exactly right, creating a dazzling reflection that almost made it seem…that nearly gave her the impression…

  “Um…that’s weird,” she muttered.

  “What’s weird? Hey, let’s go in here.”

  “I…” Maria shook her head. What she’d seen in the flashing sunlight before stepping into the shadow of the casino’s front entrance almost looked like an extension of the building. But an extension that couldn’t be possible, not even with today’s construction techniques. It almost looked like an enormous white tower stretched up from the walls of Treasure Island, soaring up into the sky so high, she could almost imagine it touching the heavens themselves.

  She glanced back to Nikki to find the woman grinning at her with particular focus. “What?” she asked.

  “Not a thing, sugar plum.” Nikki pulled her through the glass doors and into the opulent lobby of Treasure Island, equal parts kitsch and joy, and didn’t stop until they’d passed the reception desk and were approaching a corridor of elevator bays that led to a distant casino.

  “We gotta head to the white elevators,” Nikki continued, her long, lacquered nails flashing as she dipped her fingers inside her camisole once more and pulled out a fully blinged phone—the entire case covered in blue and black sequins that somehow magically matched her outfit. “Can you snag one for me?

  “Um—sure.” Maria swung her gaze to the wall of elevators, squinted. “Except they’re all in—oh.” And, sure enough, sort of shoved in between the ordinary-looking elevator bays, there was a narrow set of white elevator doors. She stepped forward as Nikki typed furiously on her phone and hit the button.

  As the doors shooshed open, she glanced back at her guide. Her guide who was now watching her with an almost gleeful expression. “We just go in?”

  “We just go in,” Nikki confirmed, and she strode forward, holding open the door to let Maria step inside. “You sure you don’t know anything about being psychic?” she asked.

  Maria winced as the doors hissed shut, the noise from the casino suddenly cut short. “I guess I’ve never really given it much—hey!”

  The elevator shot up with so much force, Maria stumbled against Nikki, who braced her as if she’d been doing this her whole life. No more than a blink later, the doors snapped open again and all conversation was forgotten. Everything was forgotten, in fact, except for the man who stood hunched over in the center of the room, his body lit on fire by what looked like a thousand volts of electricity sparking from the wires that bound him tight.

  Maria dashed forward, leaving Nikki behind, but as she neared the center of the room, she crashed—literally crashed up against an invisible wall, a barrier thrown up between her and Warrick. It wouldn’t let her pass but didn’t stop the flow of heat and anger and sheer, unmitigated pain that radiated from the demon’s shuddering form.

  And it was his demonic form, at least in part—flashing with each jolt of electricity between the beautiful, powerful man whose arms had wrapped around Maria, holding her close, protecting her…and the horrific beast that twisted and writhed in sheer, unadulterated agony. Something flashed in front of her, and it seemed to almost catch Warrick by surprise. His entire body went rigid, his eyes rolled back in his head, and Maria’s heart surged in panic.

  “Warrick!”

  With a cry of nearly inarticulate rage, Maria pounded her fists against the invisible wall before her, desperate to reach him. At the first crash, nothing happened, but at the second, it seemed the wall gave a sound, almost. A hollow booming that seemed to emanate from somewhere deep inside the heart of the building in which they were standing, a building that now seemed built to an impossibly large scale.

  Maria banged her hands against the wall again, and this time, Warrick seemed to hear her. His head jerked forward, his body staggering drunkenly, his arms flinging wide to steady himself. Once again, he shifted between the horrific monster of his demon form and the glamour she knew so well, but Maria searched both, desperate for any sign that the attack w
as lessening.

  It wasn’t. If anything, her assault on the wall or Warrick’s sudden awareness of her seemed to throw him into even more agony, his very skin catching on fire as Maria watched.

  “No!” she cried out, and then, finally, she saw what lay beyond Warrick, the being standing at the far end of the chamber, watching Warrick suffer, as if the demon was some sort of gladiator put on display for his captor’s sick, private enjoyment.

  The figure looked almost human, but his skin was so colorless, it appeared translucent, his hair a nearly white blonde. Michael the Archangel—it had to be. Even at this distance, Maria could tell that his eyes glowed with an eerie, soulless light, and he was surrounded by a corona of bright yellow fire. None of this mattered to Maria, though—the only thing that mattered was the expression on the archangel’s face: smug superiority.

  “How dare you!” she screeched, throwing everything she had inside her into the accusation. With the powerful battering of her fists, Maria flung herself against the wall again, once, twice, her bones compressing, her skin on fire, her teeth rattling inside her skull with every impact.

  “How dare you!” she screamed again. Finally, the archangel seemed to notice her, and with another full-body assault against it, the invisible wall suddenly gave way.

  She fell into a maelstrom of fire, wind, and electricity—and even, somehow, a storm of pelting rain and ice. Warrick stood still trapped in its center, now fully in his loathsome demonic form, his mouth barely a gash in his ruined face, his eyes staring out at her with hollow, desperate horror.

  And Maria ran. She ran toward Warrick with more urgency than she’d ever felt in her life, more desperate need, fully consumed by her desire to reach him, to stand with him, to help him stay strong. She didn’t know what she could do—she didn’t know if she could do anything, but she also couldn’t imagine drawing another single breath if this magnificent creature, this fearless protector, this beautiful child of God could not draw that breath alongside her.

  “You are mine,” she cried as she finally reached Warrick, flinging her arms wide and nearly tackling him. “I will not let you go!”

  Warrick spun with the momentum of Maria’s body crashing into his, his arms grasping for her, his hands once more stretching out with fingers instead of heavy-knuckled claws. He wrapped his arms around her as his glamour took hold more fully, lifting her off the floor as it writhed with a thousand live wires.

  And then suddenly, as quickly as the maelstrom had started, it was over, and a curtain of silence dropped on the room. For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of his own tortured breathing and Maria’s stifled sobs, as she buried her face in his chest and wept upon him, the sound so heartbreaking that Warrick stared down at her in shock, unsure of what to do.

  “Speak, human.” The archangel’s voice rolled out over the space, filling every corner with its rich resonance, and Maria’s head came up sharply. Warrick tightened his grip, but Maria didn’t try to break free from his embrace, merely turned in it, his arms tight around her shoulders and her hands grasping his forearms, the pose reminding him instantly of when they’d stood together in the showers, the first time he’d ever truly touched her.

  Funny. Her hair still smelled like sky.

  But Maria’s words brought him fully back into focus.

  “Why are you doing this?” she demanded, as if she wasn’t addressing an archangel, wasn’t challenging the warrior of God. “He fights for you. He endures every trial for you. And he healed me when I didn’t think anyone could.”

  Warrick stiffened, his gaze arrowing down at Maria, but he couldn’t see her eyes. She stood firm in his embrace, drawing strength from him and giving strength to him in equal measure.

  “Explain,” the archangel intoned. And with that simple word, Maria’s awareness seemed to come back to her of who she was speaking to. For just a moment, she froze.

  “You don’t have to answer him,” Warrick rumbled, but she gripped his arms more tightly, lifting her chin, though her entire body trembled.

  “Yes,” she murmured back, equally soft. “I do.”

  She squared her shoulders, as if she was fully prepared to take on any and all who would listen—the archangel, standing implacable in his judgment…Death, who stared with cool, inscrutable eyes…his brother-in-arms Finn, who fairly blazed with fury and outrage…Nikki Dawes, the first human to remind Warrick in a millennia that he was understood. All of them stood as witness to the woman in his arms, the woman who even now lifted her voice high.

  “I grew up knowing I was nothing,” Maria said fiercely. “Knew it and accepted it as my due. My father hadn’t stuck around to care for me, care for my mother. I grew up poor and alone. An outsider. The one bright light in my life was my cousin, and she died in my arms, the light going out of her even as she begged me to defend her. To call upon the protection of God and save her from those who’d struck her down. But I didn’t make that call. I’d seen things no child should ever see. Not just the violence against my cousin, not only the death of my mother barely a year before, but a darkness that crept ever closer, every night. Things I couldn’t unsee. When Cara died, all that mattered was that I avenge her. But I never realized I needed saving too.”

  Maria shifted then, pulling down on Warrick’s arms until he loosened his hold and she could step forward, but she never dropped her gaze from the archangel. “When I summoned the sword of God to defend me, he came. He honored the call. But he didn’t stop there. He treated me, for the first time in my life, like I was something special, something to be honored, cherished, and, yes, protected. And in him, for the first time, I found someone that I could honor too. And, what’s more…” Maria swallowed. “I found someone who was strong enough to stand with me and against every darkness that sought to push out the light. I didn’t realize how much I needed that. How much every human needs it, maybe.”

  She turned in Warrick’s arms, then, no longer facing the archangel, but looking up to him. Her eyes were dark and wet, but her voice was resolute.

  “And you gave me something else, Warrick, something you never wanted to give, something you were horrified that I even witnessed, much less remembered. You showed me the core of your vulnerable self. The image you thought you most deserved when you were struck down and turned into a demon. The creature who is as much a part of you as this beautiful being I see now, tall and straight and true. And I loved you for it. I loved you because in that one flash of vulnerability, in your horror and hatred for me seeing who you are, you still accepted that this was you. This was all of you. That you were mighty and you were frail and you were beauty and ugliness and sin and also forgiveness.”

  Warrick stiffened at her words, but now it was Maria who held on tight. “Yes, forgiveness, my beautiful warrior. You treated me as if I was a singular creature of God, not some castoff who should never have been born, not the little girl who failed her cousin and then spent half her life trying to somehow undo a wrong she could never make right. Not the woman who wondered if maybe she was going insane because she saw men with crazy eyes and shifting skin. You treated me from the first time you saw me as a woman worth protecting, and you gave me a gift that I had never been able to give myself.”

  She lifted her chin, her jaw set, her words defiant. “And I will never stop loving you, Warrick, even if you can’t allow me to be near you. Not because you are a demon. Not because you are powerful. Not for any reason other than that your light has shone so brightly that it has given me a path to follow home…and you, you are that home.”

  For a long moment, no one spoke. Maria continued to stare fiercely up at Warrick, though how she could see anything, he didn’t know, as much as her eyes were swimming with tears.

  “Maria,” he rumbled, his entire heart, his entire deathless life in the word, unsure of what else to say.

  “Yes, Maria.”

  The voice was closer now, bolder, and Warrick blinked up to realize the archangel had left his dais at th
e far end of the room and was now right before them. Warrick looked around quickly. He could no longer see Finn, or Nikki, or Death. Beyond their tight circle of light, a howling wind now raged—a wind that Warrick knew too well. The veil. The Nothing.

  “Maria Santos,” the archangel continued. “You are a child of God who has been specially blessed by your faith and your dedication to others. Through this faith, you can see what you should not, do what most dare not. But you allowed your life to cling to vengeance, anger, seeking a revenge when that would never bring your cousin back. There is such great strength in you. But you chose to live in shadows. You were blind and needed to see.”

  Before Maria could defend herself anew, however, the archangel turned to him. “Warrick Zarnaah, you were among the Father’s brightest stars, and yet you fell. And fell again. And continued to wreak your rage upon the children of God who could not understand, could not see. You were hidden and needed to be seen.”

  Warrick drew breath to protest, but Michael raised his hand, his face as devoid of expression as Warrick had ever seen it. “The horde must be fought, and we need able warriors to defend the earth from the scourge that overruns it. You—both of you—have proven you are up to the task. If you take the pledge to fight for the children of God, the path of Light is before you. You need only to walk upon it.”

  Warrick stared at him, and Michael held his gaze. And there, for the briefest instant, Warrick caught a glimpse of a vast chasm of pain held within the archangel…

  Then Michael was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Maria collapsed to the ground, heaving for air, desperate to be heard, to be known, to be understood…

  Only to realize she was sprawled on the lush pile carpeting of an empty conference room.

  Well, not quite empty. There were no table or chairs in the space, but Warrick lay crumpled beside her, moaning, and two other figures raced toward them seemingly from a long distance away. She blinked, recognizing Finn, then Nikki Dawes, and then—