Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors

by Tes Hilaire

  His lip curled up in a sly grin. “You flatter me. Though it’s Valin, not God. He might object to such presumption.”

  “Why are you naked?” There was a hysterical quality to her voice that she couldn’t seem to control. This was too much. Positively too much.

  Valin continued to smile, as if that were answer enough.

  Who the hell cared why he was naked? What she should be worrying about was getting the heck out of here. She couldn’t jump. Not without collapsing at the end, and if he’d managed to follow her here—how the hell had he followed her here?—then it was a futile move anyway.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked as she started to edge around him. The hooker probably wouldn’t help her, but maybe if her pimp was nearby…

  “I thought that obvious.”

  A curl of horror slid through her system. Naked man chasing woman. Obvious indeed.

  “Not going to happen.”

  “You certainly have spirit. I shall enjoy looking into that head of yours.”

  “My head?” Okay, that was a far cry from what she’d been thinking.

  She didn’t blink, knew she hadn’t, but the next instant he was on top of her, his left arm braced around her back, clamping her right arm to her side, and circling around to hold her left wrist immobile.

  “Your mind.” His free hand caressed her sore throat, circling the base in the same way Logan had back in the hall. His gaze lifted, dark brown pools of midnight sliding over her like an oil slick, threatening to suffocate. “Once my mark is upon you, I can not only find you wherever you are, but I will have great insight into your mind.”

  “You can read my mind?” The question, coupled with the skin-to-skin contact, brought with it a flash of intent. No, he couldn’t read her yet, but he would be able to soon. First to mark her. Then…

  Hell…“No.”

  “Relax, Karissa. This won’t hurt a bit.”

  For the second time that night, she was held against her will as he muttered some sort of foreign tongue like a madman. She tried to jerk away but got nowhere. She made a feeble attempt at raising her knee, but her legs were so weak all she managed to do was graze his knee with hers.

  “Hush,” he murmured then picked back up the tumbling chant.

  She squeaked, squirming in his surprisingly powerful grip. This was wrong. She wasn’t meant for him. He was not her mate.

  Wha—? Mate? Karissa didn’t know where that strange thought had come from, but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t let this happen. She shook her head; she was not beneath pleading. “Please. Don’t do this. This isn’t right.”

  He seemed to hesitate, as if he too knew it was wrong. But then he shook his head, his eyes shuttering, the lines of his face etched by his determination. “You’re wrong. This is right. I am the dark, you are my complement.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes you do. I need your light,” he said, and beneath his hand her neck began to tingle.

  Karissa winced as her throat began to burn. No way in hell. Nuh-uh. She wasn’t going to go through this again. Scream, head butt, then pop out. She’d take her chances in that white slate of nothingness than remain here and become a victim.

  “I can’t believe this. Idiots, all of you,” a voice, feminine, said just before Karissa could let loose the scream. There was an audible huff, then, “Don’t you guys know better than to let your women out at night?”

  Must be the hooker.

  The burning hand lifted from her throat. Valin spun Karissa around behind him, but not before she got a good look at the girl standing beyond him. Hip thrust out, hair flipped back over her shoulder, she looked to be thirteen or fourteen at most. Except she wasn’t. She was far, far older. The proof wasn’t in the detached coldness of the eyes, nor in the husky timber of her voice. It was the fangs.

  ***

  Roland tossed back the last of his scotch, then glared at the bottle sitting on the coffee table. Empty. There wasn’t enough liquor to burn away the taste of the blood he’d spilled.

  Ninety-four years of bloodlust. Ninety-four years of trying to hold onto his humanity. The first few had been a lesson in abject failure, the bloodlust overriding everything else. Possibly if he’d been turned by a master who cared, one who would help his new charge past the cravings and teach him how to temper his needs…but Christos was not that sort of master. He’d encouraged the mindless violence, had egged Roland on, and Roland had been more than pleased to oblige.

  Until Logan. Logan had brought him back. Helped Roland to sever the master-slave bond that Christos had held over him for five seemingly eternal years. It had been eighty-nine years since Roland had killed. Yet he’d almost killed a man tonight. The blond had looked like Angeline. And in his mind it was Angeline, his sister, that Don Juan Tom had been planning to rape. Roland’s rage had been so great he’d kept drinking. Wanting to punish. Wanting to lose himself to his nature. When the bloodlust was over him there was no pain, no emotion. Empty. Void. Thoughtless creature of the night. God, the blood had tasted so good.

  The phone rang.

  Teeth sinking into flesh.

  Another chiming burr.

  Warm sweet liquid pooling on his tongue.

  Brrrriiinnnggg.

  Coppery taste sliding across the back of his mouth and down his throat.

  With an inhuman growl, Roland grabbed up the phone, punching the talk button. “What do you want?”

  “It’s Karissa. She’s run away.”

  Roland’s hand tightened around the tumbler, the cut glass leaving grooves in his palm. “Are you telling me she’s outside? Alone? Before dawn?”

  There was an audible swallow on the other end. “They’ve sent Valin after her.”

  Roland stood, carefully clicking the off button on the phone, and dropped it in the chair. He raised the tumbler—no scotch left. He started to lower it, then, with an enraged roar, he threw the tumbler across the room where it smashed against the mantel.

  Chapter 14

  “You’re going the wrong way.”

  Roland spun about, his feet slipping on slate tile before his hand caught purchase on one of the decorative copper finials at the top of the peak he was currently perched upon. Gabriella, the little redheaded minx, was about fifteen feet below him, lounging on the back of a gargoyle as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Below them the dizzying lights of the pre-rush-hour traffic whizzed by, intent on their destinations and uncaring of the two vampires who hung precariously to the Jefferson Market Library clock tower a hundred and seventy-one feet above them.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked, trying to keep panic out of his voice. Karissa was out there somewhere. In the dark. With Valin. Roland knew that as long as Valin was close enough he would protect Karissa from the likes of Christos, Ganelon, and Lucifer, but who in the hell would protect her from Valin? Regardless, Roland didn’t need to share his problems with Gabriella. In fact, it was better he didn’t. He thought he knew by now that Gabriella would never purposefully betray him—she hated Christos as much as he—but that didn’t mean anything he told her would remain secret. There was nothing sacred between master and slave.

  He expected Gabriella to pull one of her quippy comebacks, or flip her hair and act haughty and all knowing. The girl had perfected her teenage mask. Instead she looked down at the weathered granite, letting her red hair cover her eyes. “She’s in the Bronx. South.”

  He narrowed his eyes, trying to bore through her skull to see what was going on behind those pretty waves. The Bronx was where Haven was hidden, but Karissa would have naturally gravitated toward the area of the city she’d grown up in, which was Brooklyn. He’d headed south because he’d been sincerely hoping she would use her gift to hop and skip on home. Where he again hoped he could find her before Valin, or someone else, did. Was Gabriella telling the truth? Or had Christos hitched a ride and was using his pawn to try and deceive Roland?

  “How do you know?” he asked, watc
hing her reaction for deception.

  She lifted her gaze, the bridge of her nose pinched with emotion. He saw nothing there but truth and remorse. He was about to ask what was wrong when she opened her mouth and then delivered from between quivering lips, “I saw her there, with Valin.” She dropped her gaze again, and he knew the next bit would be the killing blow. “Only, I wasn’t alone when I did.”

  ***

  “Oh shit.” Valin’s arm snapped out, catching Karissa across the chest. Her gaze settled on the three figures that had just landed in front of them. Two were obviously vampires, but the man they flanked, with his black abysses for eyes and the bloodred cloak that flowed out behind him, was something else…something more.

  Valin and the redheaded vampire had both been right. Tonight was not a good night to be out.

  “Run, Karissa!” Valin hissed, pushing her behind him.

  He didn’t have to ask her twice. She ran. Well, she tried. Problem was she and Valin had been running since the moment the girl had disappeared. Karissa still didn’t understand why the adolescent vamp had told them trouble was on the way, or why she’d then let them go, but she supposed it didn’t matter much. The warning had been too little too late; the enemy was too close and Haven too far. Karissa wished she could have jumped—if she could have they would have been safe by now—but the truth was she could barely stand, let alone run. So there they were, five or six blocks away from help.

  She made it a pitiful fifteen feet when she hit an invisible wall. The impact burned and she fell back on her butt with a yelp of pain, landing on something sharp.

  Her eyes locked longingly on the tease of an escape route beyond the invisible barrier.

  “Isn’t that something,” a seductively low voice said from behind her. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled with each grinding step he took toward her. “Looks like Christos was right. Man, he’s going to be pissed at Gabby dearest for trying to hide this.”

  Karissa didn’t know who Christos or Gabby were. Didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to her right now was the scrap of metal she’d conveniently fallen upon. It had torn through her jeans and scratched her thigh, but, blessings of blessings, it could be turned into an excellent weapon. As long as she could stand the heck up. Shaking with exhaustion, she grasped the jagged metal and dragged herself to her feet, then turned to face the man with the cloying voice.

  Oh crap. She thought it was the red cape that had made him seem so imposing. She’d been wrong. He was huge. Gigantic. All of a sudden her piddly piece of metal didn’t seem like much of a defense. Certainly not worth the tetanus booster she was probably going to have to have if she survived this encounter.

  She looked past him toward Valin. Her hopes for help from that corner dashed when she saw the Paladin engaged in battle with the two vampires…and a demon. Valin wasn’t doing so well either. Despite the fact he was able to do his little ghosting trick, he still bore an alarming number of bleeding wounds upon his naked body.

  Her grip tightened around the shard of metal, brandishing the inadequate weapon like a knife.

  “You think to kill me with that?” the black-eyed man asked on a laugh, drawing her attention back to the closer threat. “You couldn’t. You’re weak as a lamb.”

  And damn him for noticing. With a hiss, Karissa lunged forward and found the shield wasn’t only in front of her, but it surrounded her.

  Frantic, she pounded and slashed at the bubble of energy that entrapped her. The metal shard skittered and sparked whenever it met the invisible barrier. Panic clamped down on her lungs. She began to hyperventilate. Have to get out. Need to get free.

  “Karissa!”

  She could hear Valin yelling over the buzzing in her mind, but she didn’t stop.

  Trapped trapped trapped trapped.

  “Leave her alone, you bastard!”

  Pulling on the last of her energy—not sure she could even make the jump if she wanted to—she let it loose, only to find it sapped away into the rolling power of the shield. She whimpered, her vision funneling into a black tunnel.

  The man laughed again, closer this time. She couldn’t even manage the energy to look.

  Her body crumpled, her knees buckling and her head sagging down onto her chest as raking sobs tore through her body.

  Too tired to jump. Too tired to fight.

  Papa, oh, Papa. I’m so sorry.

  She shuddered. Her last thought was that of Papa’s mutilated body as she sunk onto the cold pavement.

  ***

  He’s dead.

  The thought barely had time to cross Roland’s mind before he was plunging off the top of the steel roof of the warehouse, knife singing from his leg sheath, and toward the cloaked merker bending over Karissa’s crumpled form. Red fury, red blood. Immortal or not, the merker was a dead man.

  Roland slammed into the merker, catching him unprepared. They rolled, fists smashing, fangs slashing, knife and gun sliding out of sleeves. Roland’s knife sliced through the tendons of the merker’s wrist and the merker’s gun dropped before discharging. It didn’t stop the creature’s other hand though, or the attached claws that popped through his human glamour and ripped a painful slash across Roland’s shoulder.

  Roland’s roar ripped through the alley, cut off the moment he sunk his canines into the thin flesh around the merker’s trachea. Another muffled growl and a yank and the merker’s throat was hanging from his body. A Colombian necktie, minus the tongue. The merker’s mouth opened in a silent scream, his claws extracting from Roland’s flesh as they flew back to grab at the dangling cartilage. A lesser being would be dead, or dying, but virtual immortality was just another perk of being sired by Ganelon. And birthed by a demon. The only way to kill a merker was to cut out their heart, lop off their head, and burn them both—in His light.

  The merker would heal, unless Roland could kill it first.

  Roland rolled back into a half-crouch and tossed the long-bladed knife from one hand to the other, his gaze following the backpedaling merker. First things first. The heart. He lunged…and was grabbed from behind.

  ***

  So cold.

  Karissa turned her head, wincing at the grind of gritty pavement against her cheek. Her entire body was twitching, the jerky movements abrading her skin wherever it met blacktop. She didn’t care. In this case blacktop was good. It meant no one had kidnapped her while she was unconscious. She was still in the road. And blessed be, alive.

  A muffled scream tore her from her momentary optimism. The fight was still on. Trying not to draw attention to herself until she could determine status, she lifted her head just enough to turn her chin toward the noise.

  She expected to see Valin, and there he was, struggling with one of the two vampires in a cloud of ash. The other was noticeably absent, and hope of hopes, the reason for the dust. What she didn’t expect to see was the other man playing do-si-do with a demon.

  “Roland…” she whispered through her tight throat, watching as he made another thrust with the wicked-looking knife in his hand. The blade was dripping with a black oily substance—demon blood. It would have been another score for the good guys if not for the fact that Roland was similarly dripping—red blood. He was hurt.

  Karissa pushed up on her hands and winced as something sharp cut into her palm. The metal shard. Her eyes narrowed on the hideous demon that was digging groves in the pavement with its razor sharp hooves as it danced in for another slice at Roland.

  Karissa sucked in a breath, something vital dropped two stories from behind her ribs to below her belly, then let the lungful of used air out again as Roland whirled aside, the demon’s clawed hand slashing open space.

  A bit of optimism slipped back in. Roland was here. Everything was going to be all right.

  Then, out of the corner of her eye, a figure lifted from the sidewalk nearby. She hadn’t noticed him before; in the dim light the dark red cloak he wore blended him in with the blood-soaked cement. She felt her heart s
kip a beat. The night, which seemed warm until that moment, chilled the sweat on her skin, making her shiver.

  It was the man with the black eyes, the one who trapped her. He shouldn’t have been able to stand. Shouldn’t even be alive. He had a friggin’ hole in the middle of his chest!

  He didn’t look at her, his eyes fixed on Roland as he lurched forward first one step, then another.

  Uncaring of the sting across her palm, Karissa’s fist tightened around the metal and she pulled her legs under her. The world spun.

  She could do no more than cry out helplessly as the cloaked man lunged at Roland’s unprotected back. In a gravity-defying move, Roland crouched, then sprang up, twisting his body up and over Black Eyes, and landing behind him in an effortless flourish.

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Karissa found the corner of her mouth twitching. The next second her half-smile faded as the cloaked man’s head slid from his body, landed with a sickening thud on the ground and rolled to a stop less than three feet away from her hands, its black eyes boring into her.

  She hadn’t even seen Roland use his knife.

  Bile rose in her throat, a scream stuck behind it. The death, the monsters, the constant running, thinking she was safe then the betrayals, more running, more death. Too much.

  There was an inhuman roar. A demon’s cry.

  “Back up, Karissa!” Roland yelled, his boots scuffing as he rushed to engage the remaining enraged demon.

  She heard him, noted the clipped tone that bespoke a raised level of anxiety. Still, she could not draw her gaze from the unblinking eyes. She swore there was still something there in the black depths. It saw her.

  Dimly, she was aware of Roland still dancing with his demon and at the same time stringing together a series of chants eerily similar in tongue to the one both Logan and Valin had used on her, though different, darker. She started to lift her gaze when the black eyes blinked. They effing blinked! Her jaw dropped open, her eyes riveted on the decapitated head as she desperately tried to convince herself she hadn’t seen what she’d seen.