Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES)

by Meljean Brook

  By the time she said her thank-you and good-bye, he couldn’t remember any of what Stacy Williams had said. He’d heard every word, watched Andromeda’s every response. He hadn’t listened.

  That was . . . unlike him. He’d never had trouble focusing. He had been focusing. But only on Andromeda.

  Leaving the home, he waited until the door closed before asking, “It wasn’t her vehicle?”

  “No.” Andromeda paused in the middle of the paved walk and looked up at him. “She showed up on the surveillance because she was driving to a gym class. Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  She studied him for a second longer. “So what’s informing Agent Smith’s personality today? You just heard about your dead grandmother? Someone poisoned your dog?”

  There was no backstory here. Just that, even while playing Agent Smith, knowing he would never have her filled him with the same agony.

  But a story would have been easy to create. Michael Smith didn’t have a piece of his soul missing because he clung too hard to a woman who wanted to be rid of him. A thousand other diseases might kill a human, though. He could pick any one. Make up a visit to a doctor, a grim prognosis.

  Now Michael Smith was wondering how to tell the woman he loved. And although he hoped to hold her every response close for after he was gone, he also knew that any possible response would rip his heart to shreds. Her tears would destroy him. No tears would do the same.

  He preferred her anger to hurting her. He would prefer her hate. But he couldn’t bear any of them—as Michael, or as Michael Smith.

  He shook his head. “The next address is nearby?”

  “Yes. Just two blocks over.” With a lift of her chin, she indicated the direction. “Walk or drive?”

  “Walk.”

  “You don’t like the car, do you?” Her teasing glance was followed by a quick grin. “I would have thought a guy like Agent Smith would love a car like that.”

  “I enjoy taking the time to walk with you more.”

  She gave him a knowing look. “And walking doesn’t confine you in a steel can?”

  “That, too.”

  Her soft laugh echoed through him and sparked his smoldering need to a burning roar. She started down the street at an easy pace. Michael remained still, his hungry gaze fixed on her retreating back.

  She had so many vulnerabilities. The sway of her backside. He could grab her hips and haul her up against him, rip down her trousers, and slide into her. The bounce of her hair. He could wind the thick braid around his hand and drag her in for a taste.

  Take her. Make her mine.

  Instinct raged that tempting refrain. Michael closed his eyes. It could not happen. He was hers. She couldn’t be his. He could only have her trust, her friendship. Her kiss and her touch. Maybe her bed.

  He had no time for more.

  And it was best this way. The dissonance would kill him. That would be difficult enough for his friends. His only consolation was that Andromeda would endure. She might grieve when he died. She wouldn’t be destroyed.

  As Michael would be, if he lost her. And Michael didn’t know how he would have endured these final days without her. But instead of despair, he had joy. He had warmth and laughter. He’d fallen in love.

  With a woman who realized that he’d also fallen behind, and who turned to him with concern warming her incredible psychic song. Andromeda.

  Her gaze on his, she returned to his side. “You’re sure you’re okay? Because your eyes are black.”

  The façade of Agent Smith slipping away, along with his control.

  Michael didn’t want to be the man in this suit. He wanted to walk behind her with his wings spread and his weapon on fire, so that she would never feel threatened, never afraid, never hurt.

  But if his control slipped much further, he might be the one to hurt her.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I was just watching you. And I wanted you.”

  Though he didn’t even have to look at her for that.

  Color tinged her skin. Not embarrassment. Heat. But she didn’t lose focus—she only did when she touched him. She only did when the need overwhelmed her. He loved it when she lost control.

  He loved it when she didn’t.

  “Just keep it tucked in for now, Agent Smith.” She tilted her head down the street. “Shall we?”

  “Yes.” He scraped the persona back together. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he drooped his shoulders and altered his voice. Every person had a song, a rhythm to their movements. He only needed to hum along and dance to it. “Who’s up next?”

  “Roger Daugherty, proud owner of a ’95 Tacoma. Sixty-seven years of age, Caucasian, brown, and blue,” she told him, rattling off the statistics without consulting any notes.

  Michael would have wagered the fate of the world on the certainty that she could do the same for everyone else on her list. “Then lead on, fearless maiden.”

  She snorted, then they were on their way. Daugherty resided on the second floor of an apartment complex. Michael followed her up the concrete stairs, listening to the quick, even beat of her feet—not the same one-two-three she used when going down. Purpose leaked through her shields in an electric hum. Discovering the connection between Brandt and the other murders had added excitement and hope to her determination to find Brandt’s killer. She’d never have given up. But now she had a trail to follow. Not just a detective. A hunter.

  Fierce. Clever. Strong.

  A few days with her would never be enough.

  He stood silently through the next interview, his fists clenched and the pain in his chest an open, jagged wound. This time, Michael listened, and when they left he didn’t have to ask why she’d crossed Daugherty off her list: another routine early morning errand—this one to a grocery store.

  They spoke little on the walk back to the car. As she opened the door, Andromeda looked across the top of the roof at him. “I have a feeling this is going to be a long day.”

  Michael hoped that it was.

  But she hadn’t yet parked at the next residence when Michael caught a familiar scent. “It’s here,” he said.

  “The demon?”

  “No. The vampires. Both male and female.” He waited until they stopped. Still holding on to the guise of federal agent, he left the car, stood on the paved drive behind a sedan. A one-level duplex. Human scents from the unit on the right. The vampires’ on the left. “Unit A.”

  “The car’s registered to unit B.” She had her phone out, texting. “All right. I’ve asked Lilith to discover everything she can about whoever is supposed to be living there. Let’s see what info we can get from the neighbors before we search their place.”

  Michael nodded. His gaze swept the street, every sense on alert as Andromeda knocked on the door. She adopted the same open, warm expression she’d used with the other humans they’d interviewed. A friendly mask. But with her friends, she never looked so soft, and her responses were sharpened by humor and sarcasm.

  A woman answered the knock. Sixty-five to seventy years of age. A strong melody sang through her mind, and she made no attempt to shield it. No fear or suspicion—only mild worry . . . then faint relief when Andromeda showed her badge.

  “Good morning, ma’am.” She introduced herself. “Is Henry Larson available?”

  “What is this about?”

  “You’re his wife?” At the woman’s nod, Andromeda continued, “We’re investigating a robbery near 100th Avenue and Belfair. Security cameras in the area show that your husband’s Corolla went through the intersection at the time the robbery occurred. We’re hoping to speak to any passengers in the car. Just a few routine questions. We’re wondering if they noticed any strange activity, or a vehicle that might have been used to transport the stolen items.”

  “Oh, of course.” She stepped back. “Come in. Henry!”

  She led them into a kitchen, still smelling strongly of a recent breakfast—fried eggs and potatoes, coffee, and the
sharp scent of glue. A human man sat at the table, pieces of a model sailing ship spread out in front of him. He stood as they entered, wiping his hands on his trousers.

  Andromeda extended hers to shake. “Mr. Larson, thank you. You own the Corolla outside?”

  “I do.”

  “We’re trying to locate witnesses in the robbery of a drugstore near Bellevue Village. This would have been last Wednesday, around five in the morning. Were you driving the vehicle?”

  He gave a short laugh, shaking his head. “No. At five a.m., I’m still usually in bed.”

  “Would anyone else have been driving? Mrs. Larson?”

  “Oh, no. I’m in the kitchen by then, but I usually take my Lincoln from the garage. Last Wednesday, I seem to remember that Adam borrowed it.”

  Andromeda’s heart thumped, beating faster. None of her triumph showed on her face. “Adam?”

  “Next door,” Henry Larson said. “Adam Meers.”

  “Just ‘Meer,’” his wife corrected. “No s.”

  Andromeda looked to the husband again. “And you gave him permission to borrow it?”

  “Sure, he can. He’s got his own set of keys. If I’m awake, he checks in before he uses it, but if it’s too late or early, he just lets us know afterward. And he always fills up the tank.” Pity and fondness warmed Larson’s psychic song. “I don’t drive at night. My vision isn’t what it was. And Adam’s never out during the day. So the arrangement works for us.”

  “He has a skin condition, the poor boy,” his wife put in. “Allergic to the sun. Can you imagine? It’s all those hormones they put in food. Pesticides.”

  Larson nodded. “Both he and his girl have it. So he’d be the one you need to ask about seeing anything. They’re not home, though.”

  Nor would they return. Both were piles of ash in Michael’s cache.

  And though Michael didn’t have Hugh’s ability to read truth, he believed this couple were telling it—and that they had no idea that their neighbors had been vampires.

  Andromeda gave nothing away. “When do you expect him back?”

  Larson lifted his hands. “We didn’t expect him to be gone.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Four days or thereabouts. We don’t see much of them during the day, anyway, so I’m not sure. I don’t think we saw either of them after . . . I don’t know, Saturday?” He glanced at his wife.

  “Saturday night,” she confirmed.

  “I hoped you were here about them, actually,” Larson said. “And I was hoping you weren’t.”

  “Because you thought their absence meant that something was wrong?” When he nodded, Andromeda asked, “Have you filed a missing persons report?”

  The Larsons exchanged a glance. “We talked about it,” Mrs. Larson said. “But we thought we’d wait another day or two. They’ve taken short trips before, have been gone weekends. They always told us, though. So we thought maybe they just forgot this time.”

  “How common is it for them to go on these trips?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve gone nine, ten times? It seems like every one or two months since they’ve been here.”

  Almost imperceptibly, Andromeda’s mouth tensed. Nine or ten trips meant that, if Adam Meer had pursued his vigilante justice each time, the seven murders they knew of didn’t account for all of the possible victims.

  “Both of them went?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Larson smiled softly. “And when they came back, Dina was always so happy. After being locked up inside all day, I think that getting away did them good.”

  Worry creased Harry Larson’s face. “Do you think that they saw something last Wednesday, and the robbers came after them?”

  “It’s not likely, but I’ll check on their status, just to be certain,” Andromeda said. “Have they ever mentioned having a problem with someone? Have you ever heard an altercation, raised voices?”

  Larson shook his head. “They kept to themselves. I can’t ever remember them inviting anyone over.”

  “You get a sense of people,” his wife said. “And though they never talked about it, I think they were coming out of some bad situation. Probably down south. Their accents stood out a bit.”

  “Have they lived here long?”

  “They moved in about a year and a half ago. Adam does some kind of computer work. They had good references on their rent application. I worried a little about letting the place out to a couple so young, but it turned out all right. We couldn’t ask for quieter neighbors. Or more polite.”

  “So they rent the unit from you? Do you know of any money troubles that might give them reason to go?”

  “They’ve always paid on time. Cash, even.” A defensive note hardened Larson’s reply. “They’re good kids.”

  Smoothly, Andromeda nodded. She reached inside her jacket and pulled a small notebook from her cache. “You said her name was Dina? Did she have the same last name, Meer? M-e-e-r?”

  “That’s right.”

  She jotted that down. “Do you have a photo of them that we can use for reference?”

  They frowned and looked at each other, as if uncertain. Then Mrs. Larson’s face brightened. “From my birthday a few months ago. It’s on my computer.”

  “Will you e-mail it to me?” At their nods of agreement, Andromeda wrote her address on a card. “Have you been over to check on their residence?”

  Faint guilt whispered through Larson’s psychic song. “I went in. I know I shouldn’t have, but when they didn’t answer our knocks or the phone, we got worried.”

  “I’m sure they’ll appreciate your concern,” Andromeda reassured him. “And as the owner of the residence, do you mind unlocking their door, letting us take a quick look? We might find plane ticket receipts, or some indication that they’d planned to be gone for a few days. If we check for those before we put in a report, it might save us all from red faces later.”

  “Of course.” Larson selected a cluster of keys from a small pegboard on the wall.

  “And I’ll send that picture right on,” his wife promised.

  “That will be helpful. Thank you.” Andromeda closed her notepad. “In most cases like these, when a couple leaves for a few days and there’s no indication of trouble beforehand, it just means they forgot to let you know. But I’ll run their names, make sure nothing pops up. And we’ll take a few fingerprints and put them in the system, so if there is any cause for concern, we’ll have a way to identify them and link them back here.”

  “Bless you.” Her eyes shining, Mrs. Larson touched Andromeda’s sleeve. “Please let us know what you find.”

  Though anger and pity leaked through her shields, Andromeda’s warm smile didn’t betray any of her turmoil.

  “We will.”

  CHAPTER 17

  And that was the one problem with identifying the fuckers. Taylor had been totally pumped, finding out who Mark Brandt’s murderer really was, and finding herself one step closer to the demons.

  But it also meant finding the people who would be hurt by that discovery.

  With Henry Larson looking on, their cursory search of the unit didn’t turn up anything, but Taylor hadn’t expected it to. Later, she’d return with Michael and teleport directly inside to toss the place more thoroughly. For now, she said her good-byes to the Larsons and promised to file the missing persons report, all the while pretending she didn’t know their neighbors had been murderers and that their bodies were ash in Michael’s hammerspace.

  And of course Michael read her in an instant. When they returned to the car, instead of opening the passenger side, he walked around the hood and leaned back against her door, arms crossed over his broad chest. Still Agent Smith . . . except his amber eyes had darkened.

  “Will you file the report?” he asked quietly.

  God, she didn’t know. “If we do, and the local cops get Meer’s picture, they’re going to put two and two together really quick, and the Larsons are going to discover th
at the nice young couple killed a nice young man. But they’re going to find out anyway. The news is all over that video of Brandt being killed. The only reason they probably haven’t seen it yet is because there’s no TV in their house.”

  But they’d see it eventually. A picture online or in a newspaper, and they’d learn their friendly neighbor had ripped out a man’s throat and snapped his neck. And that made Taylor want to kick something. She loved this job. But there was always a shitty side.

  “Why not just leave them alone?” she asked. “How many people never talk to their neighbors? If you go around killing people, don’t fucking go around making friends at the same time.” She blew out a hard breath. “Though if you’re going around killing people, I guess you probably don’t give a fuck if you’re hurting someone.”

  “It’s never that simple.”

  She knew. And she felt bad for the Larsons. But she felt worse for Mark Brandt. “I’ll file it. I already fucked over the official investigation into Brandt’s death by taking the body. But if the locals identify Meer, maybe someone can put it all together down the line. Not the whole truth, but at least enough to point fingers in the right direction.” She sighed, looked up at him. “What do you think?”

  With a slight smile, he took her hand, tugged her up against him. Still Agent Smith, casually leaning back against a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car. Taylor didn’t know who she was. Never in her career had she stood against her partner like this, so close that she would just have to shift forward a little bit and she’d be riding his thigh and her mouth near enough to kiss.

  But she liked this version of herself. She liked his warmth and that he understood all of the crap in her head. And she liked his reply even better.

  Callused thumb rubbing across the back of her hand, he said, “I think we need to slay the demons who pulled Meer’s strings.”

  And then murdered Meer and his girl. “I can get behind that idea.”

  “I also think that you can’t protect the Larsons from discovering what Meer did to Brandt. The only question is whether to let the Larsons know they are dead.”