She was coming closer.
Terror gripped his heart. He didn’t dare turn his back on Lucifer but he teleported beyond the demon’s reach. Khavi jumped in beside him as he glanced toward the sound.
A sentinel had Andromeda. Flying toward them with its talons digging into her throat, locking her arms behind her back. Eyes glowing fiercely blue with rage, she met his gaze.
Quickly, he looked at Lucifer again. The demon hadn’t advanced on his and Khavi’s position. Instead he waited. Smiling.
So this would be how Lucifer intended for it to end. Not at the point of a sword, but with Michael’s heart torn from his chest. Lucifer would not even have to touch him. He’d rendered Michael helpless, as he had in the frozen field. And anything that happened to Andromeda would destroy him.
The sentinel brought her closer to Lucifer. Not within arm’s reach—but even teleporting, Michael couldn’t be certain he could get to her before Lucifer did.
“Don’t hurt her,” Michael said. A warning now. But he’d beg if necessary.
“That will be up to you.”
A bargain, then. He glanced at Khavi, wrapping a bandage around the stump of her arm. Preparing to fight again. Would there be a trade? His life for Andromeda’s. If so, Khavi would protect her and get her away from here.
Michael nodded. “What are your terms?”
If Andromeda would be freed and unharmed, he would accept them.
She struggled in the sentinel’s grip, her psychic song pealing a denial. She knew that he would offer his life.
To the south, a dragon roared. Behind him, worry and horror projected from several Guardians’ minds as they realized that Lucifer had Andromeda. That worry sharpened when Colin’s psyche pressed an image against his shields.
Another dragon was coming. And Irena had not yet killed hers, though it would not be long until she did. But it might be too long. Jacob had teleported Alejandro back to the portal to divert the fire, but they didn’t have the weapons to destroy it.
Eyes gleaming, Lucifer said, “Teleport with Andromeda—and only Andromeda—to Caelum within the next thirty seconds, and remain there for twenty-four hours. If you do this, she will live.”
But Michael would have to let the world burn. He would have to let Khavi die. He would have to let his friends die. Millions of people in this city, including Andromeda’s mother and brother, and billions more across the world in danger when more dragons came through. In twenty-four hours, Lucifer would devastate the world.
And Michael would do it.
He looked at Andromeda, her eyes wide, trying to speak past the grip on her throat. Desperately trying to tell him to reject the bargain. Because if he did, that would destroy her, too. She would never forgive him.
Either way, he would lose her. If he took Lucifer’s bargain, she would be alive—but Michael would know the agony of losing her heart.
It was the perfect bargain to destroy him.
So Lucifer did know something of love. And he apparently knew everything about Michael.
But he didn’t know anything about Andromeda.
Her teeth dug into her bottom lip in that way she had when she was concentrating on something she couldn’t see—as if she were twisting threads around her fingers, trapped behind her back.
“I would destroy the world to save the woman I love,” Michael said, looking to Lucifer again. “But I think she’d rather save herself.”
And that was one of the many reasons he loved her.
Andromeda grinned. Joy burst from her psychic song, and she yanked.
The sentinel behind her dropped dead, wings stopping, body falling—and pulling her with him.
Michael teleported, intercepting Lucifer when the infuriated demon dove for Andromeda. The demon’s strike against his blade shattered his bones. He fell away from the demon’s fury, but this was what they’d needed. Lucifer, enraged. He’d be careless.
He and Khavi would find a weakness. She bore the next blow, and Michael dared a quick glance below.
Falling into the water wouldn’t have hurt her. But he should have known her friends wouldn’t let her fall. Jacob teleported beneath her, caught Andromeda in his arms, and teleported her to safety.
With a triumphant roar, Michael advanced upon Lucifer again.
* * *
“Holy shit!” Jake was shouting as he caught her. And “Holy shit, you got away!” as they teleported—
—back to the shipyards, and Taylor didn’t wobble this time, either.
Jake set her down at the front of the third line. “Sorry to dump you and go, but another dragon’s coming through and Irena’s still busy with that first one—”
“So you’re going to drop me onto the dragon’s back,” Taylor said.
“Ha, yeah. What?” Jake looked at her as if she’d gone crazy.
She couldn’t blame him. Taylor thought it was pretty crazy herself. But she’d lost her chance to focus on Lucifer’s threads and yank his, because that fucking sentinel had been holding her hands. Now the demon was moving around too much to get a grip on one from a distance.
But while her Gift had been open, she’d seen something else to yank.
“The dragons have threads.” As black as Michael’s, thick and dense. “Get me onto the one coming through, and I’ll yank the shit out of it.”
His mouth dropped open. He glanced at the portal, indecision warring across his face. “Michael will kill me,” he said.
“Only if I die.”
Jake barked out a laugh. “Oh, God. Just don’t do that. Please.”
He grabbed her hand and the next second they were hovering beside Alejandro, facing the portal. “Listen, listen,” he said, and his voice sped up so that if she hadn’t been a Guardian, she wouldn’t have been able to distinguish a single word. “Dragons know when we teleport. They’re always ready for us when we pop in. And my lightning frightens it a little, and I can use it to force it in one direction or another, but it doesn’t really hurt it at all. So I can’t stun it or slow it down when we jump in. So to keep it from chomping you, I’m going to drop you from above the portal, then I’m going to pop in just ahead of it, so it’ll go for me.”
“Okay,” Taylor said, and she realized that this was possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever done.
Except maybe playing bait in Hell. But that had turned out all right.
“Whatever you do after that, if something goes wrong, hold on. It’ll try to shake you off and as soon as you drop, it’ll eat you. And I can’t pop in and grab you off its back, because then it would just eat both of us.”
Jesus. This was such a bad idea.
She nodded like it wasn’t, then glanced back as a thud pounded through her chest. Her heart clenched. Enraged, Lucifer seemed to be hitting Michael and Khavi harder, faster, driving them back across the bay toward the shipyards again.
“Here we go,” Jake said.
They teleported in front of the mirror, and her stomach roiled, but not because of the teleportation. Below them, the open pit swam with crushed demons. She could smell it with every breath, mingling with the acrid burned-hair odor of the charred spiders.
A few demons had continued escaping the portal—not getting far. One sped through now. Rosalia fired her crossbow, the bolt laced with venom. The demon tumbled into the pit and Icarus crushed it.
Lava would have been far less disgusting, Taylor thought.
Jake let her go and vanished.
She fell. Yellow scales flashed below as the dragon dove through the portal. Taylor slammed onto its back feetfirst, boots sliding until she vanished them and her bare feet gripped a surface as hot as an oven.
The dragon shrieked and Taylor thought her head would explode. Oh, God, this was so crazy. She flattened herself against the scales, desperately tried to orient herself. On her belly, she lay above its shoulders, just ahead of the base of its wings. Heavy muscle undulated beneath her. Ahead, the thick neck twisted as if the creature were trying to get a
look at her, then lightning flashed and the dragon rolled into a backward somersault and Taylor screamed and grabbed the threads and held on.
Hunger and chaos and darkness and destruction burst through her mind. Her belly slid sideways across the burning scales, then she was dangling from the anchor of the dark threads. She fought the urge to yank now. If she killed the dragon while it was upside down and the body fell to the ground with her beneath it, she wouldn’t be any better off than the demons in the pit.
The dragon leveled out. Taylor yanked.
The threads didn’t go. They stopped her short, as if she were a human trying to yank a chain out of stone.
The dragon’s roar deafened her to everything but the panic blaring through her head. Bracing her feet, putting her back into it, she yanked again.
The threads didn’t budge.
Oh, fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck.
Heat blasted her face as the demon belched fire ahead.
“It didn’t work!”
She screamed the warning into the air, though she couldn’t see Jake or any of the Guardians now, but Alejandro must have been down there because flames suddenly shot upward.
Desperate, Taylor yanked again. Nothing, except that the dragon’s back humped upward, as if trying to dislodge her. But maybe it was the wrong spot.
The dragon’s wings pumped. Wind whipped tears from her eyes. Flying. Taylor could barely see anything as she army-crawled through the thick mass of threads as if they were tall grass. The threads didn’t block her vision but the dragon’s body did, and she looked out as she reached the back of its neck.
Heading out over the bay. She caught a glimpse of Jake popping into the air ahead, his face ashen, Alejandro at his side.
The dragon shrieked and the talons of a foreleg raked the scales near her thigh. Trying to scratch her off like a dog with fleas.
Jesus. Taylor desperately crawled higher along the neck to the back of the head, where the giant horns curved back and offered shelter from its talons. The dragon whipped its head back and forth. Gripping the threads, she held on as Jake threw electric sheets ahead of the dragon.
His shout reached her through the rush of wind and the crack of thunder. “Jump, Taylor!”
While he distracted the dragon with the lightning. So that it wouldn’t eat her.
She felt a tiny bit safer here.
Giving it one last try, she grabbed handfuls of threads and hauled back as hard as she could. The dragon didn’t die. It flipped into a backward roll.
Ready for it this time, Taylor held on, dangling again as the world spun around her. The bay above. The sky below.
And was she just nuts, or had the dragon flipped because she’d yanked?
Probably nuts, but she yanked again, jerking the threads to the right. Roaring, the dragon turned that way, wings pumping, shaking its head to dislodge her. She yanked to the left and the furious dragon turned its head in that direction and belched fire.
Holy shit. She was jerking it around like a puppet.
Which, okay. Not super helpful since they needed to kill it. But she could keep it away from people until Irena could get here with her knife.
Or Michael with his sword.
Sitting up, she peered over the dragon’s head. There he was. Both Michael and Khavi were falling back as Lucifer slammed his blade against their sword and spear again and again. Their weapons all created from a dragon’s heart.
But Taylor had more than a heart available. A warrior like Michael would use anything at hand as a weapon, and here she was, riding the biggest freaking weapon she could imagine.
She yanked the dragon in Michael’s direction and screamed, “Jake! I’ve got reins!” Kind of. “Push this thing closer to them!”
Lightning flashed behind her. The dragon roared and the rush of wind became a battering hurricane against her face as the dragon flew faster. It began to turn and she yanked it back on course, and the dragon roared again as if pissed, belching fire as it flew.
Fire that had vaporized a demon.
And she didn’t need to steer anymore. The dragon had seen the battle just ahead. Three yummy people, one already bleeding from her arm. A little snack before destroying the world.
“Alejandro!” she yelled. “The next time, divert the fire to them! Khavi and Michael can teleport out of the way!”
A moment later, Jake and Alejandro were hovering a hundred yards beneath the fighting three. Taylor thought Michael saw her over Lucifer’s shoulder between the flap of the demon’s wings, but he was so quick, it might have just been her imagination.
Unless it wasn’t. He’d been falling back, but now he returned Lucifer’s blows without retreating.
Keeping Lucifer in place and his back to the oncoming dragon. Lucifer had to know the beast was there, but the demon probably wasn’t worried about being eaten by one—which was what the dragon seemed intent on, heading straight toward them.
Taylor yanked its threads to the left.
The dragon roared, fire jetting to the left. Alejandro’s Gift seemed to draw in and explode outward.
The flames shot upward, engulfing the demon.
And Michael and Khavi? Oh, Jesus. Taylor desperately searched the sky. Had they gotten away?
The fire cleared. Lucifer was still there—his flesh burning, but still alive. Crimson eyes glowed with hatred as his gaze fixed on her.
Oh, shit.
The dragon’s threads vanished.
Taylor screamed as the beast fell and—
Thud.
Michael. His sword aflame. He struck Lucifer’s weapon and the demon shot backward from the impact, a trail of smoke and charred flesh across the sky.
Michael teleported after him.
Thud.
And Taylor was still falling. She formed her wings and leapt from the dragon’s head, flapping wildly as she looked down.
Khavi yanked her spear from the dragon’s chest and glanced up. A second later she was at Taylor’s side, grabbing her hand.
“Let’s go! Lucifer isn’t dead, but the fire weakened him!”
Thud.
Like another beat of her heart, each blow pounded through her chest. Then Khavi teleported to the shipyards and Michael and Lucifer were right overhead, each clash of their weapons like a bomb exploding, but now also the heavy thud of bone and flesh as Michael rammed his fist and feet into the demon’s body between swings of his blade.
Faster. Taylor could barely follow the tangle of feathers and leathery wings. The warmth of Michael’s healing Gift rose to a continual burn against her shields.
Because his body or his bones broke with each hit, she realized in horror. He had to keep healing himself.
But still he fought on. Though each blow must have been agony, he blocked Lucifer’s every strike and pummeled the demon with his sword and fist in return, not individual thuds now but a rapid drumbeat of flesh and steel.
Then a flaming sword spun through the air and flared out—whose was it?—and she cried out in terror as Michael and Lucifer plummeted toward the ground, still fighting.
Shouts of warning rose from the Guardians. A crowd of three thousand vampires parted like the sea as they sprinted out of the way.
Michael and Lucifer streaked out of the sky. The earth quaked when they hit, knocking vampires to their knees. A plume of thick dust mushroomed up.
Desperately, Taylor searched for any sign of Michael. She couldn’t see anything. Then Khavi teleported closer and a silhouette appeared through the swirling dust. Just one winged figure standing.
Oh, my God. Taylor stopped, her heart pounding in her throat. She would know that figure anywhere.
Covered in blood and dust and soot, Michael stood with his foot on the back of Lucifer’s head and the tip of his flaming sword through the demon’s spine.
Paralyzing him. And Taylor would have said something, like, “This is for Joe, you bastard,” or just a good old “Fuck off, you fucker,” but the demon looked back at her with glowing crim
son eyes.
And Lucifer was smiling.
Still not believing he could lose. Even with Michael’s sword impaling his back.
And Taylor realized there was nothing she could do or say that wouldn’t please him. Every scream of anger and triumph would stem from her hate and her pain, and Lucifer would savor them. She could shoot or stab him, but the injury wouldn’t hurt Lucifer; instead he would enjoy knowing that the grief of losing Joe still felt like a raw, jagged hole in her heart.
She would not give him another moment of satisfaction. Neither, apparently, would the man who’d defeated him.
Without a word, Michael chopped off Lucifer’s head.
THE BEGINNING AGAIN
As the cheers erupted around them, Michael’s amber gaze rose to Taylor’s. Heart thumping, she stared at him. His black wings arched high over his head, and blood streaked his skin and armor. Impressions of Lucifer’s fists dented the steel.
His bare foot still pinned the demon’s head to the ground.
Another cheer drew her gaze to the mirrored wall. The shimmer had vanished, along with the view of the frozen sky in Chaos. A red X marked where the portal had been.
She glanced back at Michael. His gorgeous grin flashed and Taylor flew to him, flinging herself against his armored chest and holding on. His arms wrapped her tightly, and suddenly she was laughing and crying.
They’d done it. The portal closed. The dragons and demons dead.
The world saved.
Michael’s arms stiffened around her. Taylor followed his gaze.
Khavi was on her knees, head tilted back, eyes glowing with hellfire. A song erupted from her, of pain and horror, but she trembled and seemed to fight it and the melody changed, became warmer, remorse and acceptance so deep that more tears filled Taylor’s eyes.
Then the grigori vanished.
When Taylor glanced up at Michael, his grin was lighting his face again.
“She did it,” he said.
“Did what?” But Taylor realized what it had to be even as she asked. Lucifer was dead. And Khavi hadn’t told her a few spoilers. “Hell linked itself to her?”
Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) Page 62