Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  But he didn’t move. And she hadn’t known that getting rid of his body would feel like this—her chest painfully tight, as if filled with sudden pressure. She stared up at Michael. Over her head, the grip of his fingers holding her wrists loosened. His arm dropped to his side but she didn’t fall back to the ground. The pain in her chest became agony. Blood spilled from his mouth . . . and she could taste her own. She looked down between them.

  Oh, God. A long spear impaled the symbol between her breasts, so deep that she couldn’t see the spearhead. Blood coated the steel shaft. Michael’s blood. The spear had stabbed through his back, then all the way through her chest.

  Khavi.

  Taylor couldn’t see the other Guardian behind him, only a familiar muscled form with dark bronze skin and lifeless limbs. His body from her hammerspace, skewered with them. So this had been the plan. No wonder Khavi hadn’t shared it with her. Khavi hadn’t just considered Michael’s nature—she’d known Taylor’s nature, too. Taylor would never have given his body to this dragon, not until he pushed past her limits with his cruelty, not until she was done with him and said her final “fuck you.” Khavi had known. And they’d both fallen perfectly into place. Now the spear connected them all. Michael’s body, his soul—and Taylor, who’d linked them together.

  A thrum resonated through the steel shaft. In front of her, Michael’s dragon form shrank again . . . but not shape-shifting. Held motionless by pain and shock, Taylor watched as he melted back, as if slipping along the bloodied spear—and was sucked into the symbols that Khavi had carved into Michael’s body on the day he’d transformed Taylor, on the day he’d sacrificed himself.

  His soul, returned to his body. And his life . . . ?

  His eyes opened. Amber. Human. His gaze locked on hers and his body surged forward on the spear.

  She flinched back and he froze. His hand lifted toward her.

  “Andromeda.”

  She wanted to tell him not to call her that, he knew she hated that name, but she couldn’t speak past the blood in her throat. But at least that had been his voice. His voice. A harmony. Michael was back. Why wasn’t she free? She felt him in her head, dark and protective, building up her psychic shields and pushing away the agony. His healing Gift slipped along the spear, still impaled through their chests—he wouldn’t be able to heal her, not a wound from that weapon, but he was trying. She was safe, though; she’d survive this. It hadn’t touched her heart.

  His gaze fell to the symbol. Release. His amber eyes darkened to obsidian, realization and denial tearing through his mind and echoing in hers.

  Khavi yanked the spear back.

  Excruciating pain tore a gurgling cry from her, but that wasn’t all that went. Bits of her bone and flesh clung to the spear. Michael’s big hands rose to catch her even as the spear’s head, dripping with her blood, jerked back through his body.

  And her mind didn’t release him. He was ripped away, and she screamed as his psyche tore free with bits of hers still clinging. He caught her as darkness filled the shredded remains.

  No white light, no kiss. Just darkness and pain and the stench of Hell, wrapped up in Michael’s arms.

  CHAPTER 2

  Taylor opened her eyes in a familiar room, lying on her side in a familiar bed. A wooden dresser squatted against the wall in front of her. On its top stood a framed photo of a teenaged Taylor, her brother, and her mother at Lake Tahoe; her dad had been behind the camera. Another picture showed her dad in his dress blues, taken the year before he’d been killed. There was one of Jason before his accident. They hadn’t taken many family pictures after that—just the one of Taylor in uniform standing beside her mom, who was proudly displaying Taylor’s new inspector’s badge.

  Mementos of a human life that had ended. Michael must have brought her here after Khavi had separated them. Back to the apartment that Taylor had shared with her mother and brother for almost a decade—except for when she’d been a Guardian and hadn’t required sleep. When Taylor had needed time alone, she’d taken it in Michael’s temple in Caelum.

  She wouldn’t be doing that again.

  A blue sheet covered her legs. Someone had replaced her shredded T-shirt with a ribbed tank. She slipped her hand beneath the cotton, between her breasts. No symbol. No gaping hole. No Michael lurking in her mind.

  So she was home. She was free. And apparently not a Guardian anymore.

  Her body seemed heavy—weak in comparison to what she’d been the last time her eyes were open. So strange that she could feel the difference in strength between human and Guardian now, when she hadn’t immediately noticed it after her transformation. But Michael had been in her head then; he’d made supernatural strength and flying and teleportation all feel normal.

  Now she felt human, and human was a real normal. So the hollow ache opening up in her stomach was stupid. She hadn’t wanted to become a Guardian; she’d only accepted the transformation because she didn’t want to die. And though being a Guardian had grown on her, human was okay, too. This sick ache just came from having the choice taken away from her. That was all this feeling was—along with a hefty dose of rising anger. Jesus. No wonder Khavi hadn’t shared the details of her plan. First, I give you a surprise spear through the chest! Then I turn your life upside down.

  Again.

  With a sigh, she rolled onto her back. What were her options now? She couldn’t return to the San Francisco Police Department. She’d burned too many bridges before she’d been transformed. No doubt she could arrange something, though. The Guardians ran a law enforcement division sanctioned by the U.S. government, and Special Investigations often provided vampires and Guardians with false identities and backgrounds. They could do something similar for Taylor so that she could find a job at another agency. It didn’t matter where, as long as it wasn’t under Michael’s leadership, and as long as she was working. She’d never been good at sitting on her hands.

  Or lying in bed. Taylor sat up, tossed back the sheet. Underneath, she was wearing navy blue sweats with SFPD written in orange down the right leg. Real clothes, not a Guardian’s create-a-wardrobe-with-a-thought clothes. She’d miss that ability. A lot easier—and cheaper—than shopping.

  Expecting sore muscles, she carefully swung her feet to the floor. She moved easily. No aches or pains, but everything seemed muffled. She could hear her mother’s quiet breathing from the adjoining room, the hum of the refrigerator, the engine of a car passing on the street outside—but nothing like when Michael had been in her head.

  The sharp odor of disinfectant hung in the short hallway. She stopped at Jason’s room. His eyes were open, his unfocused gaze roaming the opposite wall. A light blanket was tucked around his chest. His thin arms lay at his sides, his once-wiry muscles soft from lack of use. Even the frequent exercises that their mother put him through couldn’t combat almost a decade in bed.

  Alive, but not fully alive. Michael had known exactly where to stab.

  “Hey.” She brushed her fingers through his dark blond hair. Already time for a cut? It seemed only last week that she’d held him while her mother trimmed. “It’s been a few days since I’ve been in to see you. I hope you aren’t giving Mom too much trouble.”

  Even after nine years of silence, it was so easy to imagine his grin, his reply. “I live for trouble.”

  But that had been before he’d hit a pothole while riding his bike, and his helmet had cracked along with his head. A freak accident, and all the superpowers in the world couldn’t fix the damage. She’d asked Michael if he could, but healing Gifts simply didn’t work that way. A vampire friend gave him regular transfusions—as long as Jason didn’t ingest the blood, it wouldn’t transform him. The transfusions improved his overall health for a while. But he hadn’t woken up.

  I’m so sorry that I couldn’t do more, Jason, she wanted to tell him, but he wouldn’t have wanted to hear it—and he might be able to. So she said instead, “I’ll be around a little more to help out now. Maybe we’ll
get out of here. Go to a new city.”

  She’d been in San Francisco her entire life. But that life was over. Maybe it was time to start everything over. Her mother might want to as well. It would be hard—money was always tight. Her mother’s job barely covered the day nurse’s wages, and Taylor’s salary barely made up the rest. But they’d get through it. They always did.

  She administered drops to moisten Jason’s unblinking eyes, then left him with a kiss to his cheek. In the kitchen, her mom’s teacup sat in its usual lonely spot on the drying rack, but the two plates and the pair of wineglasses waiting in the sink eased Taylor’s worry. Her mother must have had company for dinner. Good for her.

  Though not hungry, Taylor realized she should probably eat, too. Humans needed food. She grabbed cereal and a bowl from the cupboard. The breakfast of champions . . . and former detectives who were too lazy to cook.

  The refrigerator light almost blinded her. Taylor blinked and squinted, looking for the milk—then realization struck.

  She’d been walking around in the dark. All of the lights in the apartment were off, yet she saw everything as if in broad daylight.

  She wasn’t human. Even though she could feel the difference of before Michael and after Michael all the way down to her bones, that difference wasn’t between Guardian and human. It was the difference between the thousands-of-years-old Michael and a new Guardian who was no longer boosted by her link to him.

  Jesus. Was Michael really that much stronger than the rest of them?

  From her mother’s room came the rustle of blankets and sheets, the shifting of weight on a mattress. God. She should have realized. She’d heard her mother breathing from behind a closed door. That wasn’t normal. And now she detected the whisper of clothing, light steps on carpet—and the beat of her mother’s heart.

  It was racing.

  Standing in the light from the fridge, Taylor glanced into the hall. In pink flannel pajamas and tousled blond hair, her mother came out of her room and stopped dead, staring.

  “Andy?”

  “Hey. Sorry I woke you.”

  She started to close the refrigerator door, but her mother’s expression made Taylor pause and remain absolutely still, afraid of spooking her. Uncertainty and fear had tightened her softly lined face. At her neck, she gripped a pendant in one hand—not the silver cross that matched the necklace Taylor always wore, but one of the Guardians’ emergency alarms disguised as jewelry.

  “Mom? What’s going on?”

  Her mother’s mouth firmed. “Tell me something that only you would know.”

  Ah. So that was it. Demons and Guardians could shape-shift to look like anyone. Taylor had told her mother to ask this if she was ever unsure.

  “You gave me Dad’s badge while we were sitting on that old, ugly brown plaid couch. And we got rid of the couch after Barney peed on the cushions.”

  Her mother’s hand dropped away from the pendant. On a shuddering breath, she came forward and wrapped Taylor in a tight hug. Surprised, Taylor carefully squeezed her back. A Guardian could crush a human. Thank God she’d realized that she still had superstrength before the hugging started.

  “It’s definitely me. Do you want something to eat?” Taylor turned to the cupboard for another bowl. Though a Guardian didn’t need food, she liked it—and she liked the idea of a meal with her mother even more. “I can— Mom?”

  Keening, her mother buried her face in her hands. Sobs wrenched up from her belly. Taylor’s chest tightened, and she slipped her arms around her mother’s heaving shoulders. She’d seen this kind of crying before, the kind that came from sheer, hysterical relief—from a young mother whose kid had fallen out of a high window but got up without a scratch. From a cop who found the bullet embedded in a wall a few millimeters from his head. From so many drivers who’d walked away from a totaled vehicle. It was the kind of sobbing that came from a near miss, of seeing their lives destroyed and then—miraculously—everything was fine.

  “Hey, now. Everything’s okay,” Taylor soothed. Then, finally realizing that she was the reason for her mother’s relief, added, “I’m okay. I’m here. I’m all right.”

  Except she could barely get the words past her aching throat. God, her mother was so solid, so unflappable. It was devastating to hear this. And if Michael had brought Taylor to this apartment before she’d been healed and her mother had seen the hole through her chest, she would kill him.

  Her mother’s shudders slowly eased. Taylor rubbed her shoulders and steered her toward the small table in the kitchen corner that passed for a dining room.

  “Let me start some tea for you, all right?” She hovered until her mom sat and began mopping her cheeks. Taylor put the kettle on, dumped cereal into a bowl, and dropped into the opposite chair. “I’m surprised that I woke up here, actually. Did they bring me right away?”

  Shaking her head, her mother said, “No. After I heard . . . I asked the Guardians to bring you. Joe helped me convince them.”

  Joe Preston, Taylor’s former partner—and who worked for Special Investigations now. She studied her mom’s face, wondering about the sweet inflection that she’d given Joe’s name, remembering those two plates in the sink.

  Her mother . . . and Joe? When had that happened? And how far had it gone?

  On second thought, Taylor didn’t want to examine that right now.

  “How long was I out?” She rubbed her chest. Michael couldn’t heal wounds created by that spear—and he’d said the injury needed to be cleansed with fire. Thank God they’d done that while she’d been unconscious. “At least a few days, I guess.”

  Her mother’s mouth trembled. “Two and a half years.”

  “No.” How was that possible? Taylor stared at her. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  Tears were filling her mother’s eyes again. Taylor had to look away before she started crying, too. She glanced at the wall. A calendar always hung beside the phone, the month and year written in big black letters.

  Two and a half years. She’d lost two and a half years. When Michael had first transformed her, the shock of linking her brain with his had put her in a coma for three months. Jesus. It had taken her ten times as long to recover from tearing him out?

  Horror scrawled over her mind as she realized the rest of it. “I was in my room? In the bed?”

  Weeping, her mother only nodded.

  Two and a half years—with both of her children unmoving, unresponsive. Taylor’s throat swelled with unbearable pain.

  “I’m so sorry,” Taylor whispered.

  “Don’t.” Wiping her eyes again, she gathered herself. The kettle whistled and she briskly rose to her feet. “I was all right. And you were easy. No feeding tubes, no waste, no need to worry about bedsores. I just had to dust you off now and then.”

  Taylor tried to smile and couldn’t. She might have been less work, but she’d never believe that it had been easy.

  At the stove, her mother clicked off the burner. “And they’ve given me help whenever I needed it.”

  “The Guardians did?”

  “Yes. Along with your other friends. Savi and the pretty one.”

  Savi was pretty. Her fiancé Colin was something far beyond pretty—and after two and a half years, he might be her husband, not her fiancé. Taylor glanced at the pendant at her mother’s neck. “Did Savi give you that alarm, too?”

  “I’m to use it if anyone threatens us.”

  “Who does it signal?” But Taylor knew.

  “Michael.”

  “Did you push the button?”

  “No.”

  Good. She didn’t want to see him. Just hearing his name formed a cold knot in her chest, and now she couldn’t stop picturing his scales, his teeth. Couldn’t stop remembering the cruelty.

  Appearances were almost always deceiving. That was the first thing every Guardian learned, because demons so often hid behind kind actions and beautiful faces. Michael had hidden, too. It didn’t matter how gorgeous
he was or how many times he’d saved everyone. She’d seen what lived inside him.

  Her mother returned to the table and filled the pot with steaming water. “He comes every day. And night. Probably more often than I know.”

  “What?”

  “Michael does. I’ll be sitting beside your bed, watching TV—and all of a sudden, he’s there.”

  God. When Taylor had still been human, he’d done that to her, too. She’d woken up to see him standing at the end of her bed, watching over her, a giant warrior with black wings and obsidian eyes. In theory, he’d been protecting her, but by showing up like that he’d almost killed her with a heart attack instead.

  “Does he say anything?”

  “Not much, no. He’ll ask me how I am doing. Sometimes he brings a gift.”

  Taylor frowned. “Like what?”

  Her mother nodded toward the porcelain teapot. Taylor took in the delicate handle, the intricate blue flowers, the pearlescent sheen—then thought about Michael’s age.

  “Holy crap.” She swallowed. “You realize . . . ?”

  “Yes.” Calmly, her mother lifted what was probably a priceless antique pot and poured her tea. “He said that some things are worth more when they serve the purpose for which they’ve been created.”

  “He only says that because he’s never had to pay a bill.” And because her proud, iron-willed mother wouldn’t have accepted the gift if he’d said anything else. “So he doesn’t scare you when he teleports in like that?”

  “No.” Her mother’s smile softened. “He’s like . . . a guardian angel.”

  Taylor choked on a laugh. No, he really wasn’t. But the denial stuck in her throat. Happiness and hope filled her mom’s psychic scent. She truly believed in that image of Michael.

  So had Taylor. Once. Before he’d forced his way into her head. Before he’d threatened her with his teeth. Before he’d ripped apart every shred of trust.

  But Taylor wouldn’t rip that belief away from her mother. She’d already lost enough.