by Larissa Ione
Yeah, he was a poster boy for hot doctors, but the memory of her mother, writhing in pain beneath the demon that raped and killed her, raked her brain like the back end of a claw hammer. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and shook her head, willing the memories away.
Only to have the fresher memories of being naked with Eidolon crash into her head.
Stop. She could tell herself that his incubus sorcery was still affecting her, but a tiny part of her, the part that had come closer to finding the ultimate pleasure with him than with any man, didn’t care why she kept thinking about him. In any case, she needed to be stronger.
Eidolon had to die.
When the door finally opened, Kynan stepped out, graced her with one of his killer smiles, though his blue eyes darkened with concern. He didn’t miss much, always appeared to be reading a situation about ten seconds into the future. Before she’d laid eyes on Eidolon, she’d thought Kynan was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice a gravelly mix of Afghan battlefield vocal cord damage and sexual afterglow. “We sometimes forget to lock doors.”
Sometimes? Lori had once confessed that when she and Kynan got into it, things ignited so quickly that they’d started up while people were in the room with them. Only when they’d finished and found the room empty did they realize how carried away in each other they had become.
Tay couldn’t even imagine being so into someone. Especially not someone like Eidolon, who wasn’t even a someone. He was a something.
He held the door wider and motioned for her to come in. “Where have you been? Where’s Janet?”
Tears unexpectedly stung her eyes. Guardians died all the time. But guilt over Janet’s death plagued her . . . if only Tayla had come clean months ago about her strange symptoms. If only she’d taken herself off active duty status. If only, if only, if only.
Her self-lashing was pointless, but it was a family trait, an addiction as powerful as any other. When she’d been clean, Tayla’s mom had beat herself up daily for the things she’d done while under the influence.
The self-abuse had been as damaging as the drugs.
Tayla collapsed into one of the two overstuffed chairs, glad to rest the shaky noodles that were her legs. “Janet and I ran into some problems.”
Lori hurried over, squatted at her knee. “Tell us,” she said gently, her comforting, maternal presence at odds with the warrior-woman who could wipe out a den of man-sized Croix vipers with nothing more than a hatchet.
Her nickname, June Cleaver, definitely had its roots.
Kynan ran a hand through the spiky brown hair she knew from pictures hadn’t changed since his Army days. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Goddammit.” He sank onto the couch and sprawled backward, legs spread, head back as he stared at the ceiling fan that spun in lazy circles. “Where? We need to retrieve what we can.”
“We went into the sewers at the Aspen entrance. She’s a few blocks north of that.”
Her stomach churned. The Guardians wouldn’t find much, if anything. Janet’s body had probably been taken or eaten by now. Every Guardian knew and accepted the risks of dying in demon territory. But it was the survivors who suffered when their comrades fell.
“We’d flushed out two Cruenti doing the nasty behind a Dumpster. We killed the female, but the male tucked tail. We gave chase, tangoed with a Croucher demon, and the Cruentus ambushed us.”
Lori and Kynan exchanged looks. It didn’t take a Velma to figure out what they were thinking. A Cruentus shouldn’t have been able to take out two experienced fighters. No way could she mention the truth of what had happened, how she’d lost the use of the right side of her body during the battle. The Aegis had doctors in their service, and Kynan, a former Army medic, performed most of the patch-up work, but despite her feelings of guilt, deep down she knew she had to keep her strange symptoms a secret. If the truth came out, she might be taken off the streets and relegated to training or paperwork. Or worse, kicked out of The Aegis altogether.
This was the only family she had left, and she wouldn’t lose it. Couldn’t. An ex-Guardian with no job prospects and without the tools and protection of The Aegis could measure her life expectancy in days. No, she’d keep her condition to herself, and she’d continue to hunt, but from now on, she was a solo act. No way would she risk another Guardian’s life.
“I’m not sure how it all happened,” she said, “but I saw her die. The Cruentus attacked me. That’s all I remember until I woke up in a hospital.”
“Hospital?” Kynan shot forward like he’d hit a brick wall doing ninety in his Mustang. Tayla half-expected him to rub his neck from the whiplash. “What hospital? We’d have heard.”
Lori stood, and ice formed in the room. “You know, Tay, you don’t look worse for wear.”
Yeah, as family-oriented as The Aegis was, a healthy dose of suspicion kept everyone alive. Tayla understood that, but the Regents’ reactions stung. The Aegis was all she had, and she’d felt secure in the knowledge that she soldiered on a team where everyone relied on each other, where everyone put aside personal differences while in battle. You might hate your partner on a personal level, but at least he or she was human, and in a fight with a demon, that was all that mattered.
But now a crack had formed in the brittle bubble in which she’d been living, and a frisson of insecurity shivered through her veins.
Slowly, Tayla lifted her shirt, revealing her well-healed scars and the one wound that still festered. “It was a demon hospital.”
Lori and Kynan said little as Tayla told them what she knew about Underworld General. She left out the fact that she’d knocked boots with a demon.
Twice.
And a niggling sense of . . . something . . . told her to, for now at least, leave out how said demon was tied to her bed, his big body dwarfing the twin mattress.
“That’s just what we need,” Kynan said, as he pushed off the couch. “Demons treating the wounds we give them. Infiltrating our medical schools. Learning our physiology and weaknesses.”
“We’ve got to destroy it.” Lori paced the hardwood floor so quickly Tay expected to see sawdust fly. “We can appeal to the Sigil for help. They won’t ignore something this big. Maybe they can ask the government for assistance, as well.”
The government might help, indirectly, of course. From what Tay had gathered, officials in very high places knew of the underworld threat and worked closely with the Sigil, twelve Aegis members who prevailed over all cells worldwide. And in every city, ex-Guardians and Aegis sympathizers could be found working as doctors, cops, taxi drivers . . . all willing to lend a hand.
“We can try appealing to them.” Scowling, Ky ran his hand over his hair, his frustration evident in the abrupt move. The Sigil was famous for refusing requests for assistance, forcing Regents to contact other Regents from nearby cells for help. “Tayla, can you hazard a guess on a location for this hospital?”
“New York, maybe. But really, it could be anywhere. Another realm for all we know, with the parking lot exit at a gateway between our world and theirs.”
Kynan cursed and checked his watch. “You two hammer out a battle plan. I’m going to assemble a team and retrieve Janet’s remains before it gets dark.”
He gave Lori a peck on the lips and left, and Lori continued to pace. “How did you get out of the hospital?”
Well, a demon doctor gave me a lift to a vampire nurse’s apartment, where we fought demons together, and then he took me to my place, where we had sex and chatted like old friends. Yeah, that would go over well. She thought she’d been prepared to give up Eidolon to them, but the truth could only go so far, and until she knew she wasn’t going to be shipped off to the Sigil for interrogation, she was going to keep the fine details—and Eidolon—to herself.
“I convinced one of the doctors to let me go.”
“And this doctor just . . . let you?”
<
br /> Tayla fought the urge to squirm. “I told him I was a Screamer, that if they killed me, my spirit would call out to all Guardians until they found the hospital and destroyed it.” She licked her dry lips and hoped Lori bought the story. “You know how stupid demons are. He believed me. Figured it was safer to let me go than keep me and risk my death.”
To her relief, Lori nodded. “Good thinking. They can’t know how rare Screamers are.” She pivoted in midstride. “What was the doctor’s name?”
Tayla didn’t think it mattered, but what the hell. “Eidolon.”
“And do you know what kind of demon he was?”
No way was she going to reveal that little detail. Lori would assume, and rightly so, that an incubus would use its powers on a weaker human, and Tayla couldn’t afford to be thought of as compromised. Even though she had been.
Her body heated, because yeah, she’d been very compromised.
“Some sort of corporate hellspawn, looks human. But he gave me a way to get in touch with him. He was stupid, but smart enough to try to gain my trust,” Tayla said, knowing neither was true. “I’ll bet he thinks I’ll give him info.”
Lori’s bright green eyes grew brighter. “Excellent. You’ve done great, Tayla.”
The door opened, and Jagger, a life-hardened Guardian with an extraordinary number of kills under his belt and a string of demon teeth hanging from said belt, sauntered inside.
Her gaze locked with his dark one, the battle of wills never-ending. They had been rivals for years before either one of them had even heard of The Aegis, bumping into each other in the revolving doors of the foster care system and then later, on the streets where they’d lived like rats. A police raid on one of their mutual hangouts had sent them scurrying into an alley together, where demons had ambushed them. Fortunately, Kynan and two other Guardians had been there, and Ky’d taken Jagger and Tayla back to HQ, later saying that he’d seen promise in their lack of fear and their fighting abilities. She and Jagger had been sworn in as Guardians together, but nothing had changed. She trusted no one, but him least of all. Damned Scorpios.
“You’re getting sloppy,” she said, taking note of the twin punctures in his throat. “Got yourself tapped.”
So did you, by a demon.
Jagger shot her the finger, his Aegis ring flashing. Cocky bastard was the only Guardian who didn’t bother to hide the shield symbol on his jewelry. No, he liked to show it off, to strike terror into the hearts of the demons he encountered. Idiot didn’t care that it made him a target for demons, said he welcomed the challenge.
“Ky said you might need some brainstorming help. Some BS about a demon hospital.” He stroked his chin, his fingers rasping over whiskers he kept trimmed into a permanent five-o’clock shadow, while she brought him up to speed. When she finished, he glanced at Lori. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Tracking spell?”
“Yep.”
How interesting that Jagger was so plugged into the cell’s leaders. Tayla really needed to start hanging out at HQ more. She’d gotten an apartment to maintain the emotional distance she required, but she definitely didn’t like being kept out of the loop. And sure, she could admit to a little jealousy where Jagger was concerned. He was such an ass.
The ass turned to Tayla. “If you can contact your demon and tag him, we can track where he goes. We might be able to locate the hospital.”
Your demon. Eidolon wasn’t her demon. He was her captive. Visions of him chained to her bed clouded her brain again. She shivered and tried to tell herself it wasn’t from pleasure.
Liar.
“Sounds good.” She smiled, but her joy felt half-hearted. The hospital needed to be destroyed, and Eidolon with it. All for the good of mankind.
She repeated that to herself as she hoofed it to the weapons room to replace those Hellboy had confiscated at the hospital, but for some reason, “for the good of mankind” didn’t ring as true as it had just a few days before.
Nine
Tayla arrived at her apartment as darkness began to swallow the red glow of the sun on the horizon. Hardcore executives were just now leaving their Wall Street offices. Drug dealers were hitting the streets. Vampires were waking from their sleep and getting ready to suck innocent humans dry.
Her own blood sang, ran like a wolf pack through her veins as the hunt called to her. Oh, how she wanted to be tracking and destroying hellspawn. But her wound ached, and she had a demon tied to her bed.
She entered her apartment cautiously, in case he’d pulled a Houdini. Once inside, she peeled the tracking sticker—nothing more than a spell-saturated black paper dot—from its backing and concealed it in her palm. She eased around the door frame to her bedroom, and her jaw dropped at the sight of Eidolon lying on the bed, one arm nearly free from the chain still attached to the twisted mass of metal frame. He’d obviously gone on a rampage to get loose, but what shocked her was how Mickey lay curled on Eidolon’s washboard abs, looking content as the fiend petted the traitorous animal.
“Oh, hey, Tayla,” he drawled, as though he were lounging on a beach and not being held prisoner. “I hope you picked up some Taco Bell while you were out. I’m starving.”
She dropped the bag of weapons she’d taken from HQ. “You eat fast food?”
“Only when there’s a shortage of live sheep and small children.”
Smartass. At least, she hoped he was being a smartass. “I’m fresh out of those things, but I have stale marshmallows and oranges.”
His eyes caressed her, half-lidded and glittering with hunger that had nothing to do with food—or affection, which was something she’d do well to remember. “I can think of something else I’d like to—”
“Don’t say it.” The dark, sultry note in his voice hit her right between the legs, and she gritted her teeth to keep from falling into the incubus trap. “Is that all you think about?”
“Lately? Yeah,” he said, and he didn’t sound happy about it, either.
“Does it have something to do with that s’genwhatever you were talking about?”
“S’genesis, and yes. I’m close to the change.”
He scratched Mickey on the belly, and the ferret rolled onto its back, practically purring. The weasel was in so much trouble, though if she were being honest with herself, she’d admit that Eidolon’s touch had made her purr, too.
The bastard. She moved to the bed and pretended to check his bonds. When she leaned across his big body to test the loose one, she casually applied the sticker to his pager, a necessity since Stephanie’s magic worked only when attached to electronics. Tayla’s breasts brushed his chest, the light contact sending up a violent tingle through her body.
God, he felt good, even when he wasn’t trying.
“You going to release me any time soon?”
Straightening, she peered down at him. “I was thinking I’d hold you prisoner for as long as you held me in the hospital. Why? You have some other patient to screw?”
“I need to feed my dog.”
“You have a dog? To eat?”
Eidolon stared at her.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
He snorted. “My kind has been terrified of you for centuries, and now I realize how stupid we’ve been.”
“Excuse me?” The demon was chained to his mortal enemy’s bed, vulnerable, and calling her stupid?
“Aegi. You kill indiscriminately. You have no idea what you kill or why. You know nothing about us.”
“I know exactly what I kill,” she shot back. “Evil. I don’t need a reason to do that.”
He kept petting Mickey, the silence growing thick until he finally said, “We’ve always assumed The Aegis is all-knowing, highly trained and organized,” he mused, one corner of his mouth turned up as if he’d uncovered a great secret. “But it’s nothing but a cult, isn’t it? The weak and uneducated being led by those with their own agendas. Brainwashed lemmings following orders without question.”
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“So you think I’m brainwashed. That I blindly do the bidding of some David Koresh because I’m ignorant about the underworld?”
Overwhelming rage pummeled her like the fists of foster parents from so long ago. The knife he’d used to cut off her scrubs lay on the floor, and she picked it up, tested the edge with one finger. Hellboy watched her warily, but if he was frightened, it didn’t show.
She suddenly wanted him to be afraid, to hurt as much as she did. But she also knew that what she wanted wasn’t possible. She could skin him alive and he wouldn’t feel the pain she felt on a daily basis. Still, she put the blade to the pulse at the base of his throat.
“I knew the nature of demons long before I became a Guardian.” Her gravelly voice cut out. She had to swallow several times before she could continue, but not before putting more pressure on the knife, until a drop of his blood welled at the tip. He didn’t even flinch.
“When I was sixteen, I watched a demon torture my mom for hours before he killed her. After that, I lived on the streets and fought them when they would have taken me as a meal. Or worse, because I happen to know there is worse. So don’t you dare tell me I know nothing about evil, you sonofabitch.”
“You think you’re the only one who’s experienced loss at the hands of the enemy? Have you heard of a pub called Brimstone? Yes, I can see you have. Two years ago, Aegis slayers slaughtered everyone there, including the brother I told you about, Roag, who had done nothing to deserve death. You haven’t cornered the market on pain, slayer.”
Brimstone. Two years ago. A cold sweat broke out on her skin. She’d been there. She remembered going in through the rear of the secret lair, remembered how the place had reeked of smoke and worse, a coppery, rotten stench like decaying blood. Demons had been drinking, fighting, gambling. In the center of the room, several demons had been involved in an orgy while others placed bets. On what, she’d had no idea.