Meljean Brook: Demon Marked

“Stop!” Her tears burned, and Nicholas pulled her back against his chest. She felt his own shuddering horror. “And you want me to be there? How can you do this? How can you say this?”

“That is not what I want now. I just wanted you to see. You have a different role—” Khavi stopped suddenly, her head cocked. “I know this moment.”

She ducked.

Taylor appeared in front of her, fist jabbing the air over Khavi’s head. Faster than Ash could see, Khavi was up again. Her arm swung, a backhand that caught Taylor full on the side of the head. A resounding crack—Taylor vanished.

She reappeared directly in front of Ash and Nicholas, blood spilling from her mouth. She reached for them.

Khavi teleported between, smashed her foot into Taylor’s chest, knocked Nicholas’s arm aside. Ash leapt at her—leapt into nothing. Unprepared for Khavi’s disappearance, she sprawled on the sand. A growl froze her in place. Khavi’s hellhound. A clear warning not to attack again. Ash looked for Nicholas.

God. He’d been knocked back into the frozen field. Already making his way out, his bare feet on those icy faces, and not even the flat determination in his expression could hide the pain of those screams that echoed in his mind, that awful silence.

He crossed over onto the sand, ran to her. Ignoring the hellhound, he crouched beside her, half shielding her body with his. “Just keep out of their way, or we’ll be smashed. We’ll try to get to Taylor if we can—and hope that someone else is coming, too.”

A shriek pierced the air. Khavi’s. Ash looked around the hellhound as an impact shook the ground. Taylor lay on her side, her head bleeding, her eyes dazed, but quickly regaining focus. Only ten feet away. At the same time Ash reached for him, Nicholas grabbed her hand, began to rise. They just had to—

Black wings extended, Khavi landed beside Taylor, stroked a lock of bloodied red hair from the woman’s forehead. “Michael,” she said softly. “You have to make her go now. Lucifer’s coming. And if he finds her . . .”

“Michael, no! ” Rage filled Taylor’s voice. Her eyes opened wide, filled with black. She began to shake. “No! You fucking liar! You promised you’d never force—”

She vanished.

Forced away by Michael. And now Ash could feel Lucifer approaching, too, like a dark pressure on the edge of her mind, a stain scudding across the sky.

In horror, she turned to Nicholas. “Taylor will tell someone else. They’ll come.”

Holding her tight, he nodded. Kissed her once, hard. Looked into her eyes. “Do everything you can to survive. Promise me, now.”

“I will. Promise me, too.”

He kissed her hard again, and she took that as his vow.

Lucifer came alone, which told Nicholas everything he needed to know about their chances of escaping without help. It could have been that the demon was just too arrogant to bring backup against a Guardian like Khavi, but Nicholas didn’t think so. Given that Khavi’s elephant-sized hellhound began to shudder in silent terror as Lucifer approached through the frozen field, he thought that arrogance might be well deserved.

At his side, Ash shook, too. Waiting with him behind Khavi and her hellhound, Ash stood tall, her eyes dry, and her fingers all but crushing Nicholas’s hand. The dark figure , she’d called Lucifer. Though big, much bigger than any other demon Nicholas had seen, Lucifer’s scales weren’t any darker than the crimson of Ash’s scales. His eyes glowed the same red, his wings the same leathery span. The same obsidian horns wrapped back from his forehead. But he was darker, as if even the light avoided him, and instead of Ash’s beauty, Lucifer’s appearance only suggested that a great, horrible power lay beneath his scales.

More darkness seethed in the power pressing against Nicholas’s psyche. This demon could crush his mind with barely a thought, he realized. Not just tear apart his body, but tear apart the rest of him, too.

And Nicholas should have been terrified. He knew that. The fear lurked within him, he could feel it—but he didn’t feel it. Just as he’d always done when something stood in his way, he’d discarded it. This time, he’d frozen his fear into a hard, immobile chunk, and tossed it into the back of his mind.

He couldn’t let anything get in the way of his protecting Ash, helping her. He’d withstand anything that Lucifer had to throw at him—starting with fear.

The demon landed on cloven hooves and knees that jointed backward. Not the same as Ash, then. Even fully changed, her body maintained a human shape. His gaze swept over them. Ash’s trembling increased. In front of them, Khavi’s hellhound whimpered with three heads.

Lucifer focused on Khavi, spoke. Nicholas didn’t know the language. When he glanced at Ash, she gave a tiny shake of her head. She didn’t know, either.

“I want Michael out of the field,” Khavi replied in English. She reached out to her hellhound’s shoulder, soothed the trembling beast. “The halfling refuses to exchange places with him, so I’ve brought her to you with the intention of making a bargain.”

Lucifer’s laugh chilled Nicholas to the bone, started the pounding of his heart. Not fear, but survival instinct warning him of the danger, urging him to flee.

Lucifer spoke again.

Khavi shook her head. “She isn’t worthless to you. She has your Gate on her face—which I understand you needed because Michael won a wager that forced you to close your other Gates. You needed her because of Michael; now I need her because of Michael. Her worth to us is equal.”

Ash’s tremors ceased. Though her eyes didn’t glow, the look she gave Khavi was nothing short of murder. Furious, Nicholas saw. Suddenly so angry that it had smothered her terror.

Because she hated being the puppet, he realized. Just as she’d hated the Rules that prevented her from acting of her own will, she would hate anyone who jerked her around like a marionette on strings . . . and that was what Khavi did now.

Lucifer didn’t seem to mind Khavi’s use of a demon, however. After a long, considering look at her, Lucifer gave a short reply.

Khavi responded, “The bargain I propose is simple: If you release Michael from the field by sacrificing one of your demons, when it is done and Michael has been released from Hell—completely away from this realm—then before one day passes, I will sacrifice this halfling on Earth and open the portal for you. It is a sacrifice for a sacrifice, and we each receive something of value to us.”

No. Rage pushed Nicholas forward. Before he’d gone a step, Ash stopped him with a hard squeeze of his hand. Her lips moved.

Opportunity.

Waiting for an opportunity. She was right. Though almost impossible not to race forward, to tear both Khavi and Lucifer apart with his hands, it would be suicide. Surviving was more important than acting on his anger right now.

He hardened his rage, fought to toss it away. Fear, anger. He would not be controlled by either. Not when it risked their lives.

“Yes, with Michael’s release, you also lose something of value to you,” Khavi said to Lucifer. “So it is not completely equal. To balance that loss, I would also offer this novice Guardian. You lose one Guardian to torture, and gain possession of another.”

Him, Nicholas realized, and then it was his turn to clamp his hand around Ash’s wrist, to prevent her from reacting.

“No, he is nothing like Michael,” Khavi agreed. “But it will be an exchange of the oldest Guardian for the newest one. There is something elegant about it, is there not? His transformation offered hope and strength to the Guardian corps, belief that our future could be strong. I am giving you the opportunity to destroy that; even Michael’s return will not heal that injury.”