Angels of Darkness

CHAPTER 1

A demon had moved into Riverbend.

Judging by the amount of anger and despair that Marc Revoire could sense ravaging this community, the demon intended to rot the small Illinois town from the inside. A lot of work, a lot of whispers, a lot of doubts to sow. The demon might gain the pleasure of watching a few humans die in the process—but from Marc’s vantage point, it seemed easier to wait for a cold snap and watch the male half of Riverbend’s teenaged population freeze to death instead.

Though a good four inches of snow had fallen since noon, most of the boys coming out of Riverbend’s high school and into the parking lot wore T-shirts and cargo shorts. Some had the sense to pull on a stocking cap and a long-sleeved shirt, but they still shivered and hunched while scraping the snow from their windshields. Apparently, the girls had less to prove. Bundled in coats and scarves, only a few wearing short skirts bared their legs to the cold.

Marc expected the foolish clothing. He also wasn’t surprised that they completely ignored his presence, as if a man in a dark suit and with a badge tucked into his belt waited at the building’s rear exit every day. After fifty years of watching over the Midwestern states, he’d become accustomed to seeing all kinds of teen behavior, from shy to rebellious, ignorant to insightful, clever to outright stupid.

He was less accustomed to watching a bunch of kids leave school on a Friday afternoon, and not a one of them projecting relief or anticipation for the coming weekend. Instead, Marc sensed resignation, dread. Where those emotions hadn’t taken hold, a heavy dose of apathy resided.

Demons usually didn’t bother with kids. Teenagers didn’t have much power and rarely possessed any money—and though some demons destroyed human souls simply for the pleasure of it, most preferred to gain influence or wealth on the side. If the emotional rot in Riverbend had trickled down to these high schoolers, the bastard had gotten his claws in deep.

As a Guardian, Marc was on a mission to rip those claws out. As a man who’d seen too many lives ruined by too many demons, he’d enjoy every second of it.

One and a half centuries ago, a demon had destroyed the community where he’d lived, too. Sixteen years old and human, Marc hadn’t been able to psychically detect the festering seeds the demon had sown, but he hadn’t needed to—he’d seen the hate and distrust tearing everyone apart, splitting the community into factions. At the demon’s urging, resentment had eventually erupted into violence, and Marc had died after taking a bullet meant for his father. Later, he’d learned that his death had shocked the community so deeply that they’d all taken a step back, tried to untangle all of the lies the demon had been spreading. Not every rift had healed, but they’d begun to move forward again.

Marc had gone on, too. His sacrifice gave him a chance to become a Guardian, a warrior given angelic powers, and it was a chance that he’d taken. After a hundred years of training in Caelum, the Guardians’ heavenly city, he’d returned to Earth and begun hunting demons. Some were easier to find than others, their arrogance shining like a psychic beacon through a town—but this demon was proving to be the clever, hidden variety.

Eventually the demon would reveal itself. They always did, but Marc didn’t plan to wait that long . . . and maybe he wouldn’t have to.

One hundred and fifty years of combined training and hunting demons had taught Marc to listen to his instincts, and right now they were telling him that something had just changed. Something he was seeing, hearing, or smelling wasn’t as it should be, but his brain hadn’t figured out what his senses had already noted.

Tense now, expectant, he cocked his head. No unusual scents floated on the air. He could account for every footstep he heard, every voice, every heartbeat. He glanced up at the roof, the school windows, scanned the parking lot again. Everything appeared all right, no one moving too fast and everyone breathing, unlike a demon who might have forgotten himself. His gaze skimmed the snow, slipping over the drifts, and stopped.

The play of darkness and light was wrong. Cloud-diffused sunlight cast a faint, long shadow of the school building over the parking lot, but the long edge didn’t match the straight lines of the roof. Marc looked up.

No one. But now he saw the depression in the snow at the roof’s edge, as if someone had recently crouched there. Perhaps he’d heard the snow crunch—and even as he watched, the depression deepened slightly, as if shifting beneath someone’s weight.

As if someone was still crouching there. Tricky as demons were, they didn’t possess any powers of invisibility, and Marc only knew of one person who could project such a powerful illusion.

Though that person was also a Guardian, his tension didn’t ease. Of the few people in the world who might seek him out, Radha was the last woman he expected to see.

Of course, he wasn’t seeing her yet.

“Your shadow,” he said quietly.

A frozen puff of air betrayed her exasperated huff of breath. When he’d known her, Radha had been frustrated by any holes in her illusions, had constantly striven for perfection. Apparently those small mistakes still irritated her.

Marc knew that if he turned to look now, those shadows would appear exactly as they should. He continued to watch the roof instead. “And you breathed. If I wanted to shoot your head, I’d know exactly where to aim.”

“Now you’re just rubbing it in,” she said, and the illusion concealing her dropped away, revealing her narrowed brown eyes, her wry smile.

He should have looked the other way. He should have given himself that break. But it would have only been delaying the inevitable punch to his chest, the sensation of staggering while standing in place. It didn’t matter when he saw her, or how often—which wasn’t often. A few minutes every few years. Never speaking with her, only hearing the lilt in her voice from afar, a lilt that bespoke of English learned over two centuries ago and half a world away.

But she was here now, rising from her crouch at the edge of the roof. Thick black hair tumbled to her waist. The long, curling strands and a few wisps of orange silk formed a scanty covering for her breasts. Scarves knotted at her left hip flirted with her inner thighs, hinting at but never revealing anything other than smooth expanses of skin that she’d dyed indigo.

Behind her, white feathered wings arched over her head. She must have still been concealing herself from everyone else. Even apathetic kids would stop and stare at an almost-nude blue woman with wings standing atop a school building.

He couldn’t stop staring, either. Couldn’t stop remembering that he’d once unwrapped those scarves. That he’d buried his hands in that impossibly thick hair before burying himself in her body.

She’d left without a word the next day. When he’d tried to discover why, the door he’d knocked on remained closed. The note he’d sent returned unopened.

He hadn’t tried again. He’d been young, and damn stupid in those days, but her message had been unmistakable: Leave me alone.

So he had. And afterward, he’d realized that Radha hadn’t been the woman who’d gotten away, but the one who should have never been his in the first place. Friends, yes. During those early years of training in Caelum, she’d been a companion he valued and trusted, until he’d given in to lust that he never should have felt. That had been the end. A friendship ruined, and Marc had never been certain whether he’d been blessed for simply having known her or cursed for having lost her.

But he’d done his best to put his feelings away after she’d put him aside, and Radha hadn’t spoken to him in almost a hundred and forty years.

Yet now she sought him? Not without reason—and that reason likely had nothing to do with him or one awkward sexual experience when he’d been an overeager virgin.

Spreading her wings, Radha stepped from the roof. She gently glided to his side and landed soundlessly. God, she hadn’t been this close to him in so long. He’d almost forgotten how small she was, the top of her head only reaching his shoulder, a waist small enough to span with his hands.

A thin gold chain circled her bare belly instead, with a ruby pendant filling her navel. More gold ringed her slim fingers, and the tip of her right forefinger was capped in a sharp gold claw.

Her gaze lifted to his. Flecks of gold lightened the brown of her eyes, outshining the rows of gold loops in her ears, the small diamond stud piercing her nose.

“Hello, Marc.”

“Radha.” Putting her aside had also taught him to put everything else away, to focus. “Has something happened?”

“To whom?”

“To anyone that would explain why you’re here. Do you have news from Caelum?”

Bad news, probably. It seemed that the only news from Caelum of late had been of that kind, beginning a little over a decade ago when thousands of Guardian warriors had chosen to ascend to the afterlife, leaving far too few of them left to fight demons. Half of the remaining Guardians had been killed by the bloodthirsty nosferatu, and a year later, one of their only remaining healers had been slain after a vampire betrayed another Guardian. To save them all—to save everyone on Earth—the most powerful Guardian, their leader, had sacrificed himself and had been trapped in Hell. There had been victories along the way, too, but nothing seemed to make up for the loss of so many . . . and the bad news just kept on coming.

The last time he’d seen Radha had been a week before, during a gathering in Caelum when they’d all finally seen the crumbling ruin the realm had become in their leader’s absence—temples shattered, every dome and spire nothing more than piles of marble rubble. Radha had stood on the opposite side of a broken courtyard, weeping as she’d taken in the devastation.

So different from the first time he’d ever seen her, in another courtyard in another part of the once-beautiful, shining city. Ten years after his transformation, he’d stumbled across a public orgy. The realm was all white marble and the Guardians were of every color—but Radha had been the only blue, and she’d been the first in the mass of bodies that he’d truly seen. Once he had, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. With a man’s head between her thighs and while kissing another woman’s belly, Radha had looked over and spotted Marc watching from the edge of the courtyard. Her gaze had met his, she’d smiled—and crooked her finger.

It had taken all of Marc’s strength to walk away. Though many Guardians pursue pleasure, that wasn’t a route he planned to take. He’d decided to become a celibate warrior, one of God’s chosen, as seemed to befit his transformation and honor the gift of life he’d been given.

So he’d left. He hadn’t expected that a curious Radha would follow him—or that she’d so easily accept that he didn’t want sex from her.

But he had. God, how he had. The following year was one of torment and bliss, spending hours of each day with a woman who fascinated him in every possible way, who’d quickly become closer to him than any friend he’d had as human or Guardian, and who he wanted so desperately. A year of constant trial, every moment a test, reminding himself that a Guardian who fought demons had to learn to resist temptation, and that a celibate warrior would never touch her.

Then he had. He’d failed the first test he’d given himself, and he’d paid for it with the end of their friendship.

He’d dedicated himself to his training after that, determined not to fail again. One hundred and forty years, he’d kept his eyes open, his mouth shut, and done his job.

But lately that hadn’t been enough, and it seemed as if the Guardians were on the losing side, as if everything was crumbling, ending. The week before, when he’d looked across the ruined courtyard and witnessed her tears and devastation, he’d wished things were different. He’d wished they were still friends enough that he could hold her, that he could say something to make her happy—because God knew, the way things were going, he might not have another chance.

Her friends Rosalia and Mariko had been there instead. Women who, in their own way, shone as brightly as Radha did.

She hadn’t needed him, so he’d remained where he was. It was easy enough. For a good portion of his life, he’d done nothing but stay in one place. He didn’t do it so much lately, but whenever he saw Radha, he seemed to recall the skill effortlessly.

“Oh, I see. You think that someone else has died or is trapped in Hell or that Caelum has been swallowed by the sea.” Smiling slightly, Radha shook her head. A darker blue than her skin, her lips glistened as if she’d slicked gloss over them. Nothing fragranced, of course. Nothing that might give her presence away to a demon, nothing that would give her an odor to conceal. “No one has been hurt, and nothing has happened. I am taking a holiday.”

Bullshit. “In southern Illinois?”

“Oh, you say that as if there is nothing to be done or seen here. You cannot convince me of that, not when this area has been part of your territory for five decades and you have been living here happily for all of it.”

Marc wouldn’t have said happily. He’d had a job. He’d done it. “For a vacation, the Midwest doesn’t have anything like your territory does.”

Nothing at all like the beaches of Southeast Asia or the mountains of Nepal—or the cities in between.

“That is why I am here. It is not the same at all.” Her gaze swept the parking lot. “Look at them. Each with their own vehicle, well fed, clothed.”

“If you’re hoping to escape to a place without any poverty, it won’t be here.” And Riverbend was well off, compared to other nearby towns. No open sewers, maybe, but plenty of people were having a rough time.

And desperation of any sort made a demon’s job easier.

“That is not what I’m trying to say.” With a hint of censure in her voice, she looked to him again. “I have sensed more happiness from those living in slums than I do at this school. Why is that?”

Radha had been a Guardian longer than Marc had—and long enough to know very well why this town felt like this. Was she trying to deflect his questions about this vacation nonsense? He knew she wasn’t here for the demon.

“What’s going on, Radha? Are you in trouble?”

“If I was, would I need to come to you?”

No, and that was the damn point. He couldn’t figure out why she’d come. As a warrior with half a century more experience than Marc, her skills probably exceeded his. With her ability to create illusions, she possessed one of the most powerful Gifts of any Guardian. Marc’s own Gift allowed him to haul dirt and stone around, but unless she’d lost something in the mud, there was little he could do that she couldn’t do herself.

Not that he’d send her packing. “I hope you know that if you did come to me, I’d do whatever I could to help.”

Her lips flattened. She looked away from him before she replied, “Is that so? Thanks so much.”

Her doubt struck like a slap. What the hell? Marc stared at her profile, at the sudden rigidity of her posture. She truly didn’t know that? Didn’t believe it?

Did she think he harbored ill will toward her for leaving one hundred and forty years ago? What kind of men did she know that held a grudge so long? Hell, he hadn’t held a grudge at all. He’d understood that he simply hadn’t been what she’d needed—and damn him if he didn’t agree with her. He sure as hell hadn’t expected her to seek him out now.

He could only think of one reason for it: another Guardian had told Radha that there’d been a threat to his life. Whatever her feelings toward him, whatever doubts, she was a Guardian first.

“Did Khavi use her Gift and foresee something happening to me? Something that you need to stop?”

“No.”

“She had a vision of something happening to you, then.”

Radha slanted him a sideways glance. “Marc.”

He knew that look, that tone. It meant Don’t say stupid things. When they’d been friends, she’d given him that look rather often.

They weren’t friends now, yet she’d still come. With no threat behind it, that left one possibility: she was running from something. Maybe not something dangerous, not something she could fight, but something that had sent her to the least likely place anyone would come looking. Hiding, for some reason.

He’d help her hide, then. If whatever she was running from caught up to her, he’d protect her, give her anything she needed. He’d watch over her until she left again.

“All right,” he said. “You’re on vacation.”

He expected a dazzling grin in response, the one Radha always gave when she got her way. He only got a long, considering look followed by a slow nod, and that hit him harder than her doubt had.

What the hell had he done that laughing, dancing, singing Radha responded to him with such wary reserve?

A familiar pattern of footsteps from inside the school prevented him from asking. He gestured toward the door and said quietly, “Tell me what you sense from these four girls.”

Guardians couldn’t read thoughts, only detect emotions—and only if the person didn’t possess strong psychic shields. Most humans didn’t, because they weren’t aware of a need to block any mental probes.

These girls had strong enough shields that he couldn’t sense anything from them. With enough force, he could break through those shields, but that would bring the demon’s attention to the girls, too.

They came through the door, each with a cell phone in hand and a backpack slung over one shoulder. He knew their names by now: Jessica and Lynn in the front, Miklia and Ines in the back. As far as he could tell, Jessica was the leader, but maybe just because she owned the car they all rode in. Focused on their cell phone screens, only Miklia glanced up as she passed Marc. She looked quickly away—but not back at her phone. For a long second, her gaze found Radha, before the girl finally dismissed them both.

Radha’s brows lifted as she watched the girls cross the parking lot. “Walking and texting. That takes skill.”

“Easier than talking and walking? Half the time, I’m convinced all these kids are just texting the person next to them.”

She gave a short laugh, shared her amusement with a glance. Of course she laughed now. He remembered very well that Radha couldn’t resist an absurdity. It was probably what had drawn her to him in those early years. Marc could think of few things more absurd than he’d been.

“I thought you’d made yourself invisible,” he said. “But Miklia saw you.”

“She saw this.”

She changed in a smooth, quick transition. No blue skin, just Radha as she might have looked as a young human woman in Bengal—though she’d certainly never worn a conservative black trouser suit, a badge, or a long wool coat that matched his.

“Everyone who sees me will assume I’m your partner,” she said.

“Why didn’t I sense your Gift?” A Guardian’s power typically felt like a small burst of psychic energy against his mind, and the use of a Gift usually exposed a Guardian’s presence to nearby demons. Hers wouldn’t—though that hadn’t always been so.

When he’d known her, she’d only recently begun using the indigo dye. Her illusions had been strongest when a crack opened in her opponent’s psychic shields—and even a demon experienced a moment of surprise when under sudden attack from a blue woman. She’d used that surprise to force her illusions through.

Now, she apparently didn’t require a weak spot—Marc knew his shields had remained strong, even though she’d been invisible to him—and she could hide her psychic presence, too.

“It’s another illusion, but a psychic one. I just create an illusion of not feeling my Gift.”

Impressive. “When did you learn to do that?”

“About forty years ago. If I’m fighting, I can’t hide it as well, but for work like this, it’s easy.” She let the illusion fade—but only for him, he realized. Everyone else would still see the federal agent. “I’ve heard that you finally discovered your Gift when you came back to Earth.”

“There was no dirt in Caelum to move around.”

No dirt, period. Just a lot of marble, and nothing for his Gift to work with. After he’d left Caelum, though, the pure strength beneath his feet had staggered him. Fifty years on, and his Gift had barely tapped it.

“It fits you. Who has a deeper connection to the earth than a farmer?”

“The dead who are buried in it.”

She smiled a little. “Aside from them.”

Maybe no one. Even now, though he could plow a field with just a thought, there was almost nothing he liked better than working his hands through the soil—and on any other day, she might have run into him with dirt beneath his fingernails and mud on his boots.

He’d seen Radha come from Earth to Caelum with dust on her bare feet, but it had never seemed to touch her, and it was never what a man noticed. Not when he could remember her dancing, slow and deliberate, her fingers rigid yet as graceful as bird’s wings, every movement as precise as a word in a story, every step another tale. Though he couldn’t see her feet now in the snow, he knew that instead of mud squishing between her toes, more gold rings circled them.

He’d kissed them once, and all the way up to her smooth, blue thighs. And he’d wondered whether he was blessed or cursed? Looking at her legs now, the answer was obvious. He’d been blessed.

Blissfully, undeservedly blessed.

“So why these girls?”

It was a long story, but he’d try to make it short. “There’s a community of about two dozen vampires spread through the towns in this area—a few of them have lived here for almost a hundred years now. They’re quiet, take care of themselves, deal with their own problems.”

And Marc kept his nose out of their business. As long as vampires weren’t feeding from humans or exposing themselves, Guardians left them alone.

“But a couple of months ago, Abram Bronner—the community leader—contacted me for help. There’d been a couple of vampires killed, and except for one, they’d all been exposed to the sun and turned to ash before anyone found them.”

Radha nodded, catching on. “A demon?”

“That’s what I thought—and in this area, there was one demon, Basriel, who kept giving me the slip. He’d move around, killing other demons, establishing most of the Midwest as his territory.”

“And that means taking control of the vampire communities, too. Or crushing them.”

“Yes. But a little over a month ago, I caught up to Basriel in Duluth.”

“And killed him.” It wasn’t a question. Of course he had.

“Yes. And I thought that might have been the end of it . . . until I came through the town again a few days ago, and felt this.” The anger and rot, spreading from person to person. “I checked in with Bronner, but they haven’t had any more trouble, so they hadn’t called me in.”

“They didn’t sense this?”

“They did.” Marc shrugged. “From inside, though, it’s not as easy to see. There’s a plant in the next town that just shut down, people lost their jobs. A big blaze brought down an apartment building—killed half the county fire department—about a month ago. Open up the paper, and all you see is talk of budgets being cut, schools shutting down, unemployment rising, prices going up.”

“So with all of those things adding up, there’s no reason to assume there’s a demon involved. People are understandably stressed and angry.”

“Yes. And there might not be a demon,” Marc said. “I haven’t seen evidence of one yet.”

“But . . .?”

“My instincts are telling me otherwise.”

“So are mine.” Radha glanced toward the parking lot again, where the four girls had packed themselves into Jessica’s old Cherokee. “So how are they connected?”

“The little blonde, the one who looked at you—her brother, Jason, was the first vampire killed. Unlike the others, he wasn’t ashed. According to Bronner, his parents—who still don’t know he was a vampire—found him with a stake through his heart in their home, even though he wasn’t living there at the time.”

“God,” Radha said. “That sounds like something a demon would do. Did you have to come in and cover that up?”

“No. Bronner’s got the county coroner in his pocket. I didn’t hear about it until later.”

“Did the family truly not know he was a vampire?”

“I’ve spoken to the parents.” Using the same line he always did in unsolved cases like these—that the murder resembled a similar one somewhere else, and could he have a moment of their time? “The parents didn’t shield their minds and were speaking the truth. But Miklia, she won’t talk to me.”

“Will the other girls?”

“Not at all.”

“And their minds are shielded. So they know something, and they know to hide away what they’re feeling.”

“Yes. Whether they just know the truth about Jason or saw more than they let on, I’m not sure. But there’s something they know, and if it helps me get a bead on the demon, I need to find it.”

Radha’s crafty, conspiratorial smile appeared. “So, which one do you want to pretend to be? I’ll distract the real one while you talk to Miklia.”

He had to laugh. “I’m not shape-shifting to look like a girl.” Not yet. He would eventually, though, if it became necessary. “Because if there’s one thing true about small towns, it’s that someone always knows something—even if they don’t realize they do.”

“What? Riddles aren’t any fun, Marc.”

“But seeing me as a girl would be?”

She blinked innocently.

Shaking his head, he looked to the school doors again. “One thing that everyone in this town knows is that Miklia didn’t always hang out with those girls—and that there’d been a rivalry between them up until Jason was killed.”

“So something apparently happened to bring them together.”

“I think so, yes.”

“Then why aren’t we following them? Who are we waiting for?”

We? He didn’t question it.

“The former best friend,” he said. “The one Miklia left behind.”

“Oh.” Radha suddenly grinned. “Teen drama. I can’t wait.”

CHAPTER 2

Radha should have been gone already. Or better yet, she shouldn’t have come in the first place. And she definitely shouldn’t have cared how he was doing—not Marc Revoire, the bastard who’d once asked God to forgive him for fornicating with her. For a hundred and forty years, she’d determinedly pushed Marc from her heart and thoughts, except for when she wondered how she could have ever fallen for a man who thought of her as something that should be washed off. And she’d done a good job of pushing him from her mind.

Until the week before, when she’d been stupid enough to look his way during the gathering. When she’d been stupid enough to care that he’d seemed so alone.

Assholes didn’t deserve friends. But still . . . She’d been shocked by the changes in him.

He looked older. Not old, but not a youth anymore, either. Physically, he resembled a hardworking human in his midthirties, sunstreaked brown hair, broader through the shoulders than he’d once been, and just as lean through the hips—like the man he might have become if he hadn’t sacrificed his life first.

But that wasn’t what had surprised her. Many Guardians changed their appearance over time, either to match the demands of their current mission or to blend in with a population. Even Radha had chosen a younger form than the fifty-year-old woman she’d been upon her human death, because after her transformation she’d felt younger. Guardians often took a form that reflected what they wanted to be, rather than what they’d once been.

So what the hell had Marc been through that he appeared to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders? Radha didn’t know, and she hadn’t heard of any terrible loss that he’d suffered, or any soulbreaking trial that a demon might have put him through. And she would have heard of it. The Guardians’ gossip mill was as strong as any small town’s.

Yet it hadn’t just been the loneliness or his apparent age. As he’d taken in Caelum’s destruction, he hadn’t seemed devastated as so many others were. He hadn’t seemed afraid. He’d seemed resigned.

As if everything that had happened in the past years had left him little to hope for. As if it had left him little to live for. As if he were tired of fighting.

As if he’d lost faith.

She hadn’t believed it. Not Marc, not the man determined to be God’s chosen warrior at the cost of everything else. But the memory of his weary resignation had nagged at her, and even after the gathering ended, she’d worried for him.

Like an idiot, she’d talked herself into coming here, to watch him in secret and determine whether there was truly anything to worry about. Not that she cared. But she was a Guardian, and Guardians took care of their own.

Too bad that she’d forgotten how capable he was of sussing out the holes in her illusions.

So she’d been found out, but Marc seemed all right, anyway. At least, he wasn’t flogging himself or crying in a bathroom somewhere. She could have gone.

Except, maybe he wasn’t all right. He’d always been good at concealing his true feelings from her. After all, she’d spent thousands of hours with him over the course of a single year and never realized that he considered her the biblical equivalent of a diseased whore. So she’d wait a little longer and make certain.

If she helped him track down a demon in the process, all the better. Slaying one was always fun—except for when it was difficult and horrifying. If that happened, it was best that she was here to back him up.

He didn’t need the backup yet, though. The kid who came out of the school possessed a wide-open mind, and as soon as he spotted Marc, he trembled with uncertainty and excitement.

So cute. Tall, a bit thin and awkward, with a mop of curly dark hair and determinedly nerdy glasses—but as soon as he grew into his body, Radha suspected the girls in the area would be in trouble.

“Sam Briffee?”

Marc held up his identification, and Radha took a quick look at it. Special Investigations. A legitimate federal law enforcement division, and a legitimate identification, thanks to an arrangement the Guardians had made with the United States government. Radha rarely operated in this country, so she didn’t have one.

But then, she didn’t really need one. When Marc introduced himself as Special Agent Revoire, she held up a piece of paper. Surrounded by her illusions, the blank paper would feel and look like a real wallet and identification, even if the boy examined it up close. To her disappointment, he didn’t—but she had to grin when Marc glanced back at her and paused before saying,

“. . . and this is Special Agent Bhattacharyya.”

Impressive. He pronounced it correctly. It wasn’t really her surname—Radha didn’t bother with that ridiculousness—but she liked the rhythm of it.

“I’m Sam.” Wary, the boy looked from Radha to Marc. “Why are you looking for me?”

Marc kept his tone even, friendly. “Just to ask a few questions. Another investigation has opened up new leads in Jason Ward’s murder, and so we’re looking at a few details. We understand that you’re Miklia’s friend?”

“Yeah,” the boy said. Then more strongly, “Yeah, I am. So his murder is connected to someone else’s?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Do you have a few minutes to talk? Not out here,” he added, when the boy hunched in his light jacket and looked up at the sky. “The diner across the street. Our treat.”

“Yeah, all right.”

Oh, teen boys and their stomachs. Too easy—but it might have been anyway. Curiosity filled him now, and anticipation. Maybe at having a story to tell his peers the next day, or simply at the possibility of learning some grisly detail about the crime.

Maybe she’d show him fake photographs from the fake investigation into that other murder. It would support Marc’s cover story and give this boy a little something extra to talk about—and maybe confuse the demon enough that he’d ask questions about the supposed murder, revealing himself.

Though Marc turned and waited, politely gesturing for her to start off first, she shook her head, indicating for him to go on ahead with the boy. This was his show. She’d take up the rear and listen to the other ways the demon revealed himself.

From farther down the street, two people in one of the offices had begun arguing. Only snippets of the fight reached her ears, but it was exactly what she’d have expected.

—You stood here yesterday and told me that! Are you saying now that you didn’t?—

No. Whatever that person was being accused of lying about, he probably hadn’t said it. That was often how a demon worked: shape-shifting to resemble a real person, making promises to loved ones, spreading lies, destroying trust.

And it was what made some demons so difficult to locate. Arrogant and vain, many demons chose to create their own human identity and form, often in the guise of a rich, handsome male, and hunting them was merely a matter of making certain he was a demon and finding an opportunity to slay him. But a demon who made a practice of shape-shifting posed a different challenge: though it often kept a default, day-to-day human identity, the demon could be anyone, at any time, and appearing in the form of a person that the Guardian had already determined wasn’t a demon. The low-level psychic sweeps Guardians performed wouldn’t differentiate human from demon—yet any stronger probes would reveal their own nature, which might send the demon running from Riverbend and starting again elsewhere.

Losing him, unless Marc happened across another town at the right time. They wouldn’t want to take that risk.

At the diner’s entrance, she vanished her wings rather than trying to maneuver them through the small space. Marc held the door open for her, waiting for her to pass through. Did federal agents bother with such niceties? Radha didn’t know. Assholes usually didn’t bother, and she wished that it was easier to remember that Marc was one. She wished that it was easier to forget how much she’d loved being with him, the conversations they’d had, and how well they’d fit together. She wished that he didn’t look at her now with the quiet concern that she knew had to be false—and she wished that he made his opinion of her overt instead of hiding it behind polite human rituals.

A different sort of illusion, but one she didn’t appreciate.

Inside, her own illusion was simple to maintain, creating a lighter echo of Marc’s footsteps to cover her lack of shoes. As they crossed to a booth in an empty corner, the wet tracks she left behind on the linoleum had to appear as if they came from leather soles rather than bare feet. The whisper of her scarves became the heavy sound of a wool coat sliding across a vinyl bench seat. Perhaps she missed a few small reflections in the spoons she passed, in the silver carafe of syrup, in the shining wire that made up the baskets holding the jellies, but she altered the reflections in the windows and in the gleaming tabletop.

No one but Marc would look any closer. No one but Marc would know to look any closer—and that likely included a demon. If she felt a sudden burst of confusion from one of the people in the diner, she’d know that some part of her illusion needed attention. After she fixed it, humans were usually satisfied, convincing themselves that whatever they’d originally seen had probably been a trick of the light.

Neither Radha nor any other Guardian ignored those feelings. Demons couldn’t cast illusions and didn’t possess Gifts, but if something seemed wrong for any reason, appeared impossible, or just something to dismiss as a trick of the light . . . it probably was wrong.

Those little things were often what gave shape-shifting demons away.

Marc slid in next to her, facing the boy. The diner wasn’t busy, and the waitress came as soon as they settled. Sam ordered a plate of fries and a soda. Radha liked both and ordered the same, hoping that Marc intended to pay for it. She didn’t carry American money, liked her jewelry too much to give it up, and would probably feel a niggle of guilt for passing a piece of blank paper off as a twenty-dollar bill.

Marc requested a black coffee, but let it sit in front of him. He focused on Sam. “How long have you been friends with Miklia?”

“Eighth grade.” The kid wriggled out of his backpack, let it flop onto the bench beside him. “Her family moved in from Topeka.”

“Almost four years,” Marc said. “So you must have met her brother, Jason.”

“A few times, yeah. Not at her house, not after he graduated and moved out, but I saw him at the video store some nights. It’s not there now, though. They just put in one of those vending machines at the grocery.” He shook his head. “No good movies at all.”

“I watch mine online,” Radha said, though it wasn’t at all true. There were few better illusionists than moviemakers, and films were best enjoyed on a large scale. She preferred theaters in the cities, dark and cool, surrounded by a crowd of humans.

“My connection at home sucks, and the library isn’t any good for that, not with old Mrs. Carroll always looking over my shoulder or cutting me off after twenty minutes, so . . .” The kid shrugged. “I’m out of luck.”

Their sodas arrived, with a paper-wrapped straw dropped next to each glass. Marc thanked the waitress and waited until she’d moved away before asking Sam, “But you’re over at Miklia’s house often, aren’t you? I noticed they have a big collection of DVDs.”

“Yeah, they’re all movie buffs.” Sam stabbed his straw past the cubes of ice. “But I haven’t been over there so much lately. It’s been a rough time for her. For all of them, I guess. So, you know, I gave her some space.”

The resentment suddenly boiling from him didn’t echo the concern and support in his voice—and was probably what Marc had been aiming for. People often talked for two reasons: because they wanted to help or because they needed to air a grievance.

Radha hadn’t expected this boy’s reason would be the second. “I imagine that losing her brother affected her. Any sudden death is a huge change for a family. Did she change, too?”

“Oh, yeah. She started hanging out with Lynn, Ines, Jessica. All of them, they’ve been in her face since she moved here. We called them the Brainless Bitches. Now she’s their BFF.” He rolled his eyes. “But she needed space, time to think. She’s going through stuff.”

And more resentment. Marc obviously didn’t miss it, either. “But you’d have given her more support.”

“I’ve been there since eighth grade! I understand her better, could help her out. Instead it’s a waste of four years.”

Selfish little twit. “Your friendship was a waste?”

“What would you call it?”

He probably didn’t really want to hear Radha’s answer. But since the fries plonked down in front of her, she reached for them instead. Let Marc take this. He glanced at her, tilted a bottle of ketchup her way.

Yuck. “No, thanks.”

He looked to Sam. “A waste, then.”

“Yeah.” The boy shook half a bottle of tomato goop over his fries and dug in. “All these years, I’ve been waiting for her to see that I’m not like them, not like any jerk. I treat her right—listening to her, being her friend—and she turns to someone else.”

“But it should have been you?”

“Yeah. I mean—Whatever. But, yeah. It should count for something.”

Maybe Marc agreed with him, maybe not. Radha couldn’t tell. But since he hadn’t taken a drink of his coffee yet, she floated an eyeball in it.

It was always the little things that gave them away. Not eating or drinking was one of them.

Marc glanced down at his cup. His lips curved a little—why did that have to be sexy instead of making him look like a smarmy asshole?—but he took the hint, and took a sip. He didn’t choke when she added the sensation of the floating eyeball bumping into his lip, just smiled a bit more, this time directing it at her.

Next time she’d just tell him to take a drink. That wouldn’t be any fun, but maybe that was the problem. She remembered all too well how fun he’d been—so unflappable, so solid, no matter what she threw at him. It made her want to forget how a few of his words had stabbed through her heart.

She never liked dwelling on anything that had once hurt her. She liked to forget it. With Marc, she had to remember, or she’d probably find herself in the same situation again.

When Marc set the cup back down, no eyeball looked up at him. Whether that disappointed him or not, she didn’t know. He simply asked Sam, “But you were still close friends when her brother died?”

“Yeah. Well, mostly.”

Marc’s brows lifted. He hadn’t expected that. “Mostly?”

“Not so much. She’d already started hanging out with them.”

“But I thought the change came because he’d died.”

“Well, yeah. That was after. I mean, it was really obvious after that.” A flush started up the boy’s neck. “Homecoming, right? That’s the night he was killed. I remember, because I asked Miklia to go with me. Just as friends, okay? But I thought, maybe if she saw how I treated her well, how I was a great date, something more might finally happen. Four years, man. But she said homecoming was silly—and then showed up at the dance with the Brainless Bitches.”

“That had to sting,” Marc said.

“Yeah. But her brother was killed that night sometime.”

“Did she seem upset at the dance?”

Radha shoved another fry into her mouth, reminding herself to keep silent. No doubt this kid had been keeping an eye on Miklia that night. Resenting every second.

“No, she wasn’t upset. She just sat at a table with the other three. They left early. I don’t know where they went.” He shrugged and swiped through a pool of ketchup with his last fry. “Maybe to Perk’s Palace. That’s where they always seem to be now.”

“The coffee shop?”

“Yeah. Because that’s where Gregory works.”

A little sneer accompanied the name. Marc didn’t let it pass by. “Gregory?”

“Yeah. Gregory Jackson. Not Greg, of course. Gregory.” Sam shook his head, disgust clear. “New kid this year. He’s supposed to be some big shot quarterback from a school in Chicago, right? Except he tore his knee up or something, and they moved here, his mom opened that shop. But he thinks he’s better than all of us.”

Radha’s interest piqued. Marc leaned forward, expression intent.

“Better? How so?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just an attitude I get from him. Last fall he partnered with Miklia a few times in chemistry, and someone caught them sucking face in the weight room, and that’s when she started backing off from me. Like she’s comparing us. And I came out on the bad side, even though he’s not there half the time now.”

“Not there . . . ? Class, or Perk’s Palace?”

“Class. And even when he is, he’s just half asleep through most of it.”

“But does he do well anyway? His grades are all right?”

“I guess so, yeah. He doesn’t seem to try hard at anything, but he still gets everything. Even Miklia. And now she’s doing the same thing. Her parents never notice anything, so they wouldn’t notice that she’s skipping half her classes or that she’s coming in late to first period—like this morning. She was probably with him all night.”

Oh, now that was bitter. Radha hoped he was wrong about Miklia being with him—though not for Sam’s sake. A lot of what he’d just described sounded like a scaled-back version of a demon. They didn’t usually take a kid’s form long term, but a high school quarterback might have just enough influence within the school to be appealing, and it wouldn’t be the typical place for a Guardian to look for one.

But in the wake of the kid’s rising frustration, Marc returned to their supposed investigation. Good call. They had the info to seek out this Gregory. No need to alienate Sam in the process by forcing him to talk about someone he obviously considered a rival.

“After Jason died, was Miklia the one who told you?”

“No. No, my mom did. I tried to call Miklia right away, to see if she was okay, but I couldn’t really get through. And when I finally just went over to her house about a few days later—I thought she might need me, you know?—the Brainless Bitches were in her room with her. It was weird, so I left without really saying anything.”

“You didn’t see her at school?”

“No, she missed the whole week. And after that, she was just . . . cold.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, I’m done with her.”

Radha couldn’t stop herself. “Because you already wasted too much time.”

“Yeah. I know, right?” He let out a heavy breath, checked his watch. “Anyway. Anything else? I gotta get home.”

“No, thank you.” Marc slipped a card across the table. “Call me if you remember something else, any little detail that you think might be relevant. Someone hanging around her house, something that seems out of place.”

“Okay. Right. I will.” He slid out of the bench, hefted his backpack over his shoulder. “Thanks for the grub.”

Marc inclined his head, waited until Sam had walked out of earshot before opening his mouth. Radha beat him to it.

“The quarterback? Really?”

His grin eradicated the weariness that seemed to hang over him. Okay, that was proof enough. No matter how resigned and lonely he seemed, he was all right—and she really needed to go soon.

“We’ll talk to him next.” His gaze lifted to the window. Outside, Sam was walking past, head down and earbuds in. “Do you think he’ll grow out of it?”

“Out of being a stalker, pretending to be a girl’s best friend for years, just so he can get into her pants?” At least with the more aggressive creeps, a girl knew exactly what they were after. They didn’t pretend to care about anything else. Sam was the insidious kind of creep. Could that change? “I don’t know. For now, she’s well rid of him. He’s the one who wasted their friendship. Maybe she caught on.”

Marc nodded, but she sensed a slight hesitation in him. Now that was unexpected. She’d never known him to hesitate over anything.

“What?”

“Is this what you thought I did back then?”

Back then. She knew very well he hadn’t. “No. You made it clear that you weren’t after sex.”

She hadn’t been after it, either, not at first. She’d been older, maybe too old for him—living a lifetime as a human, and then the span of another human life as a Guardian by the time she’d met him. But she’d liked him so well, and he’d been so fun. Serious and driven, yet smiling that sexy smile every time she’d gone to visit him, abandoning whatever he was doing to spend time with her.

And before too long, age hadn’t seemed to matter. It rarely did with Guardians, not when they could appear however old they wanted to. They were all adults, after all. But maybe, with Marc, their age differences should have mattered. She’d known he was still finding his way, adjusting to his new life. But they all had done that. She’d known he’d settle in, eventually, discover who he was, who he wanted to be.

Maybe she’d pushed too hard, though. Maybe he hadn’t been old enough—mature enough—to resist her when she’d finally given in and kissed him. He certainly hadn’t had the experience.

He’d made up for it. All of that seriousness, all of that focus, suddenly turned toward pleasing her. She’d told him what she liked, and he’d applied himself to it very, very determinedly—and with an intensity that all but burned her alive.

And for all of her experience, she hadn’t known how much she’d wanted that intensity. No surface passion, no going through the motions seeking some fleeting pleasure. With Marc, it had been all fire.

But only because his control had slipped, and he hadn’t been able to resist.

He hadn’t wanted to be her lover; she’d known that. She didn’t know whether he’d pretended to be her friend, though. Maybe he’d just tolerated her. All of those polite human rituals coming to the fore, stopping him from telling her what he really thought of her.

The bastard.

Though Marc nodded in response to her answer, he still had that slightly faraway look, as if trying to work something out without actually asking her. And she realized—his question hadn’t been about their friendship. It had been about her leaving, about being rid of him.

Did he not know? Did he truly never realize? Disbelieving, she shook her head. “You thought that was why I left? That I thought you’d just been my friend until you got what you wanted? Or maybe—did you think that I had gotten what I wanted?”

His jaw tightened, and a slight flush rose beneath his skin. “Or that you realized that I couldn’t give it to you.”

A hard, bitter laugh shot from her. Oh, God. “Marc, you left me in bed and went to pray. You asked for forgiveness for having sex with me.”

“Ah.” He closed his eyes as if seeking out the memory, and his uncertainty became chagrin. Mildly embarrassed, but not sorry. The asshole. “I prayed a lot in those days, didn’t I? Everything I enjoyed, later I asked forgiveness for. What can I say? I fell in with a bad crowd.”

A bad crowd of Guardian religious fanatics. No surprise there. Many Guardians went searching for answers after they were transformed, and those who seemed the most certain and the most vocal about those answers were also the most extreme. Radha had tried out several different belief systems, too, though she was over it by the time she met Marc. And she’d known that he’d been influenced by the fanatics—they’d debated several times. But she’d thought he was still looking for answers, not internalizing the ones that had been given to him.

By calling them a bad crowd, he probably meant for her to laugh, but it still hurt too much. Far too much. And he still didn’t get it.

She’d understood him, though. Even back then, she hadn’t been surprised that he’d gone to pray. Of course he was conflicted. He’d just broken a vow he’d made to himself. She’d understood that perfectly, and she sympathized with it—that was why she’d followed him. She’d intended to lend her support.

Instead, she’d discovered exactly how deeply that bad crowd had gotten to him.

“Marc, you prayed for forgiveness for fornicating with an unclean woman.”

His big body stilled, his face suddenly rigid as he stared at her. Would he come up with an excuse now? There was no excuse. She didn’t care what he’d believed. A heathen, an infidel, okay. She absolutely was. Unclean? No friend thought that.

“Radha . . .” His voice was hoarse, and his throat worked, as if clearing an obstruction. His gaze searched her face before he closed his eyes. “I did say that.”

At least he didn’t deny it. “I know. I heard.”

“So you left.”

“My choices were either to cry in front of you, kill you, or leave. I chose the one I could live with.”

“God. I can’t . . . God.” He looked at her again, expression tormented. “I can’t take that back. But I’m sorry. I’m damned sorry, Radha. It’s not what I think now, and it was unforgivable to say it then.”

“Yes.” Unforgivable. It didn’t matter that his horror and remorse were genuine, that she could feel them pouring from him. It didn’t matter that he’d opened his emotions and lowered his shields in the most vulnerable manner a Guardian had, just so that she could see the truth of what he said now.

“It’s not enough, but I’m sorry. I had a lot of stupid thoughts then, let a lot of stupid things come out of my mouth, seeing everything as a test of my faith, my dedication—and sex with you as a failure, because I succumbed to temptation. It doesn’t justify anything. It doesn’t excuse anything. But I’m sorry that my stupidity hurt you, and I hope you know that the thought only came then, when I was hating myself for my weakness and trying to find any reason to punish myself a little more. I never thought it before that moment, or after, and I sure as hell don’t think it now.”

She knew. With his emotions wide open, she could feel his sincerity. But after what he’d done, what he’d said, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t that stupid boy now. Did it?

Silent, he waited. Just before he built his psychic shields again, she sensed the pain slipping through the sincerity, the resignation through the remorse, the despair through the horror.

God. What the hell was he carrying around with him? There wasn’t anything good in there. No hope, no joy—and he wasn’t all right. How could he live like this?

But she knew the answer: because he was as solid as the earth, unflappable. Because he’d keep going, even if he ran out of reasons to.

She couldn’t read his face or emotions now, but his voice was low and rough.

“Is this what you came for, then? An apology, reparation? To have my head? I’ll give it to you.”

No, that wasn’t why she’d come, though she appreciated the apology. She’d been around long enough to know that it was a rare man who fully accepted responsibility for his actions, who didn’t offer any excuses. Marc had apparently become the good man she’d always thought he might be . . . and she should leave now. He wasn’t all right, but he wouldn’t do anything stupid. Not Marc. He wouldn’t give up.

But she couldn’t leave him. Not like this.

“I’m still on vacation,” she said. “But I’ll take the apology.”

He nodded, his gaze holding hers. “I am sorry. And if I’d known that I’d hurt you, I’d have apologized long ago.”

“It wouldn’t have meant anything if you still believed I was unclean.” God, even now the word stuck in her throat, made a painful hitch in her chest.

He heard it. His eyes darkened, and his voice thickened, as if he spoke past a constriction in his own throat. “I didn’t. And I should have apologized for thinking it even for a moment, even not knowing that you’d heard. I’ve been sorry and ashamed since I realized what a fool I was, believing half the things that I did. But that doesn’t even touch how sorry I am, knowing that I hurt you with it.”

So he hadn’t been an asshole all of this time. “How long ago did you realize you were a fool?”

“About a hundred and forty years ago. About the time that I knocked on your door and you didn’t answer—and I thought to myself that you were the best woman I’d ever known, and anyone or anything that tried to convince me differently had to be idiocy. And I realized that I hadn’t failed a test of faith when I took you to my bed, but one of arrogance and blindness when I’d asked to be forgiven for it.”

“So I’m still just a test, then.” Not a woman, but a lesson to be learned.

“Not now,” he said. “I stopped believing shit about you and seventy-five percent of the Guardians in Caelum right away. But it took me a little while longer than that to pull my head out of my ass and realize that not everything is about me proving my worthiness as a Guardian, or a trial to pass or fail.”

“How many years did that take?”

“About a hundred and thirty.” He gave her a crooked grin. “I can be slow.”

Not slow. Just immutable. Solid. Good qualities, sometimes. Not always at other times. But it looked as though he’d figured that out. She might have saved herself the hurt if she’d waited, and become friends with this man instead of the boy he’d been.

And though she’d been pushing aside and ignoring the hurt his carelessness had caused for so many years, only now could she finally feel it cracking, as if the pain might crumble to dust. It hadn’t yet. She could still feel the pain there, right around her heart, but she was suddenly very glad she’d come.

She gave him a smile, and a nudge against his shoulder. “Shall we go find this demon quarterback, then?”

CHAPTER 3

So she was still here. Still hiding from something, obviously, since his apology hadn’t been her reason for coming—but he wasn’t going to question her about the why. He’d just do what he’d planned to do before, and watch over her until she left.

And in that time, he’d try to repair some of the damage he’d done. Try to rebuild a friendship that he’d always valued over any other, and that he’d had to force himself not to miss after he’d destroyed it. If he couldn’t do that, if that was too much to hope for, Marc would just make damn certain he didn’t do anything so careless and hurt her again.

Right now, that might just mean catching her if she slipped on the icy sidewalks. A Guardian’s feet wouldn’t freeze, but he couldn’t imagine walking barefoot across the slush and snow as she was.

“It’s bothering you,” she said.

“What?”

“My feet. You keep looking at them.” She wiggled her toes, gold rings winking. “You’re not alone. It bothers Mariko, too. She thinks I do it to be like Michael.”

The Guardians’ leader—who didn’t need shoes now anyway, trapped as he was in Hell. “Why do you?”

“Partially because I want to be like Michael.” Her grin invited him to laugh with her. Probably every Guardian had admitted such a thing at some point. “But it also helps me build illusions. The better I know how something feels or tastes or looks, the more convincing I can make it. And I like the feeling, too. Cold doesn’t hurt us, so why would I protect myself from it?”

“You could cut your feet.” God knew how many broken bottles or sharp stones were hidden beneath the snow.

“And heal in less than a minute. You weenie. Afraid of a little blood?”

God, he’d missed her teasing. “Maybe. But you wouldn’t like the look of my feet anyway, so I’ll spare you the sight of them bare.”

“I remember perfectly well how they looked, thank you—and they were nice. Long and lean, just like you. Every part of you was long. That was nice, too.”

Was she still teasing him? Probably. But all that he could think was that her feet were just like her, too. Small, delicate, soft—and that when he’d touched them, kissed them, she’d gasped and shivered.

She wasn’t shivering now. “Is that the girls’ Jeep?”

He forced himself out of that memory, spotted the Cherokee parked in front of the small city library—about a half block down from Perk’s Palace.

“That’s theirs,” he confirmed. “Let’s hope we don’t have to slay the bastard in front of them.”

Radha slanted that Don’t say stupid things look at him, and he realized that with her Gift, the girls wouldn’t see anything that Radha didn’t want them to.

But the girls weren’t at the coffee shop—and he and Radha wouldn’t be slaying Gregory Jackson unless they planned on breaking one of the most important rules that a Guardian had to follow: not to hurt or kill humans. One psychic touch told Marc that the kid behind the cash register was human, through and through. The demon might have taken his shape at some point, but it wasn’t here now—and so Gregory Jackson probably wasn’t the demon’s default identity, the form the demon used when it wasn’t shape-shifting and stirring up trouble.

“It figures,” Radha murmured. “Finding him after one conversation would have been too easy.”

She’d had one conversation since coming to Riverbend. Marc, on the other hand, had talked to about thirty people so far, starting with the county sheriff and his deputies. Still, he had to agree. It would have been too easy.

But it wasn’t a wasted trip. Gregory might have seen something that homecoming night, especially if he was with Miklia. He might not know what he’d seen, but that was Marc’s job—to figure out what fit and what didn’t.

On the other hand, he could imagine quite a few places where Gregory Jackson wouldn’t fit. Marc wasn’t a small man by any measure, and it wasn’t often that he had to look up at someone, let alone a seventeen-year-old kid who must have weighed the equivalent of him and Radha put together, all muscle. A small monitor hanging in view of the front counter played a classic football game, and Jackson kept an eye on the television while Marc showed his identification and asked for a few minutes.

“I have a break in five,” Jackson said.

Marc glanced at the screen. “The ’84 Orange Bowl?”

“Yeah.” Jackson flashed a big smile. “Nebraska’s about to go for the two-point conversion instead of the tie, and lose it all.”

In other words, he’d talk when the game was over. Standing near the glass case of pastries, Radha narrowed her eyes on Marc, but whatever she intended to say had to wait. A black-haired woman in a flour-dusted apron emerged from the back of the store, drying her hands on a towel. No question where Jackson had gotten his height from. Her eyes were level with Marc’s.

“Are you here to talk to my son?”

“With your permission,” Marc said. “We need to ask him a few questions.”

“Is he in any trouble?”

“No, ma’am. We’re just gathering information.”

“All right, then. And since you’re here on the government’s dime, you make sure you order something.”

Radha tapped her claw-tipped forefinger against the glass case. “I want that.”

A four-layer slice of white coconut cake. Jackson’s mother retrieved the plate and slid it across the counter. “Forks are at the station by the window. Gregory will bring your coffees out to you.”

“In about four minutes,” the kid said, watching the game again—but even distracted, he made the correct change.

“Pfft. Worthless boy.” She flicked his bottom with the towel, but it was easy to hear the affection in her voice—and easier to feel her pride.

Definitely not a demon, either.

The shop held a mix of mismatched tables and chairs, centered beneath long striped curtains hanging from the middle of the ceiling and drawn back to the corners of the room. A few big pillows and long benches along the walls provided more comfortable seating areas. Pop music piped through the speakers, and Radha danced her way across the floor with small steps and long swings of her hips. With a twirl of blue skin, orange scarves, and black hair, she chose a sturdy square table and sank gracefully into the wooden chair. Less gracefully, Marc sat opposite her, then watched her scrape off half the frosting before digging her fork into the cake.

Before taking a bite, she asked, “You follow American football?”

“This is the Midwest,” he said. “I remember that game, and when Nebraska lost. I don’t know if a thousand demons descending on a city would have caused the same amount of rage and despair coming from those fans.”

“Ah.” Radha nodded. “You should visit my territory during the Cricket World Cup.”

Maybe he would. “But you follow the matches a bit, don’t you? Soccer, too. Because not everyone in your territory follows them—and up north in my territory, it leans toward hockey—but every once in a while, you run across someone who should know the language of the sport, but doesn’t.”

“And it’s either a demon or a liar. You’re a clever man, Marc.”

“Well, I enjoy it, too.” He liked the strategy involved, the endless play variations. “And—”

He broke off as, beneath the table, a slight weight fell across his thighs. Radha’s icy feet pressed between his legs.

She grinned at him. “I’m trying to warm them up.”

God. Her toes wriggled, as if she were snuggling in deeper. Suddenly rock hard, he waited for them to wriggle higher, to torment him a little more. They didn’t.

“And what is everyone else seeing?” he asked.

She didn’t even glance at the few other people in the coffee shop. “My feet are firmly on the floor. I’m wearing black pumps. Boring black pumps. And your muscles are so tense.”

Her toes rubbed against his inner thighs. Biting back a groan, Marc caught one of her feet. Still cold, but to a Guardian, that wasn’t necessarily unpleasant. Not unpleasant at all.

“What are you doing, Radha?”

Making him pay for that long-ago hurt? A little friendly teasing? Something more?

He’d take anything she dished out, but he damn well wouldn’t respond until he knew what she wanted in return.

“I’m having fun.”

“Working me up?”

“Am I?” Her eyes began to glow, the gold flecks brightening, casting their own light. Not an illusion at all. A Guardian’s eyes did that when they were affected by a deep emotion. “Can a celibate warrior be worked up?”

By Radha? She could probably get a rise out of a stone.

“Marc.” It was a soft warning. “I’ll cover your eyes.”

She drew her foot back. Reluctantly, he let it slip from his grip—realizing that his eyes had begun to glow, too, but that she’d cast an illusion to conceal the green light.

Jackson set two frothy cappuccinos in front of them, swiveled a chair around, and straddled it. “So, agents. It’s my turn, huh?”

Word had obviously been getting around. Marc wasn’t surprised. But he did wonder what had been spreading. “So you know what we’re here for?”

“Somebody died, and you think it’s connected to Jason Ward. So you’re here hoping that someone remembers some little detail, like a stranger hanging around.” He rested his crossed forearms on the table, leaned in. “So, fire away. I can tell you now, I barely knew the guy.”

“But you met him a couple of times?”

“Not officially met, but I saw him. He never came in here, at least not while I was working, but he was in the bleachers at a few games. I was benched, so I had time to look at the crowd.”

“Was he at the homecoming game?”

Jackson’s eyes narrowed, as if looking backward. Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah. I remember him there. But I didn’t see him the rest of the night.”

“You knew Jason was Miklia’s brother?”

“Nah. Not then.”

“You knew him from the video store?”

Jackson shook his head. “That was closed by the time we moved here.”

Strange. Why recall one stranger in a crowd? “Why did you notice him, then? And remember him?”

As if uncertain, Jackson looked from Radha to Marc, before sighing. “All right. It’s not like this is a secret anyway, right? Everyone knows that Ward had those fangs made. Cosmetic dentistry or what-ever.”

That had been the explanation the coroner had given. “Yes.”

“Well, I saw him up in the stands once, cheering. I saw those teeth”—he glanced toward the counter where his mother stood, then leaned in and lowered his voice—“and it creeped me the fuck out. You know what I’m saying? The next game, he wasn’t there at first. Then, in the fourth quarter, he suddenly shows up and I thought he was the devil or something. Stupid shit my mom would slap me up the back of the head for. So when I heard about those teeth, that there was a real reason behind them, it was kind of a relief.” He sat back again. “I felt sorry for Miklia, though. That was rough for her. A stake through the heart—what is that?”

Probably the least efficient way to kill a vampire, so it was all about setting the scene, and the impact it would have on the family who found him. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. Did you see Miklia the night of the dance?”

“For homecoming? Yeah. They came in once, wearing those dresses. I think before they went to the dance, because they asked if I’d be there.”

“Did you go?”

“Nah. Dances aren’t my thing. I worked that night, just so that I had an excuse to get out of it.”

So far, then, Sam had been the last to see them. “You were friends with her then?”

“Not really.” The kid shrugged, but his emotions skittered about—a little uneasy.

“But you know her well now.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t say that. I see her a lot—she comes in here practically every night—but we don’t talk much.”

That uneasiness was still there, but Marc didn’t think the boy was lying to him. He glanced at Radha, saw the confusion creasing her brow.

Delicately, she said, “We were told that you were bumping uglies.”

“Truth?” Surprise and amusement sent Jackson rocking back with a laugh. “No, nothing like that. I don’t have time for that. Moving here, the injury—it set me back. But I’ve already got a postgraduate year at a prep school lined up back East, so I’ll have a chance to get in front of the recruiters again. I don’t have time for girls, especially not ones into the crazy shit they are. Who said that we hooked up?”

Crazy shit? Marc met Radha’s eyes. “We can’t divulge—”

Jackson waved it off. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. Maybe someone saw us together in the gym last fall, back when she was looking for advice about getting into fighting shape, building up her endurance.”

What the hell? “Fighting shape?”

He nodded. “That’s what she said. I was like, whatever. It’s all the same to me.”

“Was this before or after her brother died?”

“After,” he said immediately. “I mean, that was the only reason I agreed. I’ve got work here, correspondence classes, my own workouts, regular classes . . . I don’t have time to be a personal trainer. But she asked, and her freak brother had just died, so what the hell was I supposed to say? She and her friends are a little freaky, too, but at least they aren’t going to the dentist for fangs. Oh, bam!—I just got it. Did this other guy killed have fangs, too? Is that the connection?”

“Yes,” Marc said. He’d told the sheriff the same thing, so the lie would be consistent. But at last they were getting to the reason for Jackson’s uneasiness. “What do you mean, freaky?”

“Not the good kind of freaky, you know what I mean? No, they bring in all kinds of books, sit around here reading them.” He leaned forward, lowered his voice again. “And I’m not getting into their business, but after a while, I see a page here, a drawing there. It’s all demon shit. What is it called? Occult. Occult shit. They’ve been coming in for months, reading that stuff.”

How many months’ worth of reading would the city library have on their shelves? “All of it from that little library?”

“No, that old librarian there wouldn’t carry something like that. Check this. I went in there once to pick up The Lightning Thief for my little sis, and that old lady told me to be careful, that the Greek god stuff might lead to practicing voodoo—then she called my mom, in case I didn’t pass that warning along. The old lady got an earful then.” Jackson laughed, sat back again. “Nah, Miklia and the others have some volunteer thing worked out, and they use the library loan system. She told me that once when I asked how she could stand volunteering for the old bat—it’s just so that they have easy access to the books they want.”

“Do you overhear what they talk about here?”

“They don’t talk. They just text each other.”

Marc’s gaze shot to Radha’s face. Her grin appeared, widening to the edge of a laugh. He could barely stop his own.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Yeah. I asked her if she thought the music in the shop was too loud for a conversation. She said, ‘You never know who is listening’—all serious and shit.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway. If you want to stay and talk to them, they’ll probably be here around five thirty, just after the library closes. I should probably get back to work. There’s a rush that comes in right at five.”

It was almost that now. Marc didn’t have anything more for Jackson, not right now. He looked to Radha. She shook her head.

“Thank you, Gregory,” Radha told him. “Good luck with the knee and the recruiters next year.”

“Thanks. If all goes right, in five years you’ll see me throwing in a championship bowl.”

“I hope it does.” She watched him walk back toward the counter, then looked back to Marc. “Some days, I really like people.”

“You don’t usually?” Marc didn’t believe that.

“Oh, I do. But there are some who make me wonder why the hell we’re doing this: always fighting, seeing our friends killed by demons, always seeing so much crap we can’t stop—and most of it stuff that humans do to each other. Not to mention outliving every human around us. And then someone comes along and you think: I’m going to get that bastard demon just so he can’t touch this one.”

“But that’s not your only reason.”

“It’s never my only reason,” she said. “But it feels good. Doesn’t it?”

Marc glanced at the front counter, where the kid was behind the cash register again, one eye on the television. “It does.”

Though she’d gotten her way, once again, she didn’t grin as he expected. Instead, her eyes filled.

Crying? Tension and uncertainty took a freezing grip on his gut. “Radha? You all right?”

She shook her head, pressed her lips together, and turned her face away. After a long moment, she looked back to him—tears gone.

Or were they? With her, it was impossible to know.

But her voice was even and light as she said, “So, what next? Do we wait for Miklia and friends to show?”

No point. They weren’t more likely to talk now than they had been before. At least, not until he had something concrete to approach them with. “What do you make of the physical training, the books?”

“Probably the same thing that you make of it,” she said. “Miklia and her friends saw something the night Jason was killed—they probably saw the demon who killed him. Now they fancy themselves demon hunters. Maybe for revenge, maybe some other reason. So thank goodness for the Rules, yes?”

Yes. Those same rules that forbade Guardians from harming or killing humans also applied to demons, but with harsher consequences. Any Guardian who hurt a human or impeded a human’s free will—even with an action as simple as shoving an unwilling human out of danger’s path—would have to decide whether to ascend to the afterlife or become human again. A Guardian could break the Rules and live, but every demon would be slain. After a demon broke the Rules, there was no escaping the Guardian Rosalia and the powerful vampire Deacon; psychically bound to the demon from the moment it hurt or killed a human, the pair would find and slay the demon within minutes.

Even in the unlikely event that the girls did track down the demon, it couldn’t hurt them. They probably wouldn’t be able to hurt it, either, but Marc cared less about the demon’s chances of surviving than the girls’.

He checked the sky. Ten minutes of daylight left. The vampires in the area would be waking up at sundown. “Let’s talk to Bronner. If these girls looked for information about demons, and if they knew Jason was a part of the community, they might have tried getting it from him or another vampire first.”

“And they might have mentioned what they saw.”

Marc nodded. “Something sent them looking in the right direction. Maybe it was Jason himself, maybe he mentioned demons or Guardians to them. But if they saw something, the questions they asked might give us an indication of what happened that night.”

“How far away is Bronner?”

“Halfway between here and the next town over.”

With a grin, Radha formed her wings. They arched behind her, the white tips sweeping the floor. “So we fly?”

He usually waited for dark. “You can cover mine, too?”

Her hand flew to her chest, as if she’d been wounded. “Your doubt kills me. Oh, Marc. I can make you feel like you’re wearing wings when you aren’t. Of course I can cover them.”

“All right, then.”

He rose from his chair. She did the same, albeit more slowly, and with a glint in her eyes that could have been dangerous or mischievous. She dabbed her forefinger against her cake plate and brought it to her lips, her smile forming beneath the tip.

“You should ask what else I can make you feel.”

She didn’t give him the chance. Her tongue swept across the pad of her finger—and he felt a warm lick against his. He tasted sweet coconut.

Need rushed through him, the ache of arousal. He stared at her, his fingers tightening on the back of the chair, using all of his control not to snap the wood in half—then crash through the table after her.

Her smile widened. “So?”

“It’s good cake,” he said.

Her laugh was light—and so sweet. He’d suffer through any teasing for it.

“No.” She came around the table, letting her fingers trail across the surface, her gold-tipped claw dragging out a long, rough note. “I meant to find out earlier, but we were interrupted. Can a celibate warrior be worked up? Now I’m coming over to see whether one can be.”

To touch him—in the middle of a busy coffee shop, and yet hidden from them all. His fingers clenched on the wood as she stopped beside him. Her gaze dropped to the front of his pants, and he heard the catch of her breath.

“So. They can.”

“I don’t know,” he said, voice rough.

Glowing again, her gaze lifted to his. He gritted his teeth to stifle his groan when she boldly cupped him through his trousers, then slid her palm up his hardened length.

“This is an illusion, too? I don’t think so, Marc.”

His head fell forward. Though everything in him strained toward her, he struggled against the urge to thrust into her hand. “No,” he managed. “I meant: I’m not a celibate warrior. I gave up that idea a while ago.”

Her fingers stilled. Her eyes brightened, shining fiercely gold. “Truly?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

With a grin and a sharp rasp of her claw up his rigid length, she turned for the door, orange scarves swirling around her indigo legs. Marc watched her go, hurting in the best—and worst—possible way.

Good. He had no idea what she meant by that.

He hoped to God he’d find out.

Good, because she’d hate to ask him to break his vows again. If that was where they were headed.

Radha didn’t know if they were, or if she should. She wanted to.

But a hundred and forty years had passed, and he was a different man than she’d known. All good, it seemed, but a few hours couldn’t really tell her. For all she knew, he might be shacked up with a vampire somewhere. He might be in love with someone. She might get hurt again. Or worse, throw herself at him, and discover that she’d been a fool.

Solid, unflappable—but under it all, he was just a man. And a man’s cock hardened when a woman fake-licked coconut icing from his finger. His arousal didn’t mean anything except that he was alive and possessed a healthy libido.

And even if he did want sex, that wasn’t all she wanted. Not anymore. She’d done the pleasure-for-pleasure’s-sake thing. It had been fun while it lasted. But she’d changed, too. Now she needed more . . . and it could never be just fun with Marc.

So rushing would be idiocy. And they were Guardians; they lived a long time. No need to rush anything.

Unfortunately, Radha knew that she was very, very bad at resisting something that she wanted.

At least searching for this demon provided a distraction. Bronner lived along one of the rural roads, and they followed it west, flying under the sliver of a moon. Gently rolling, snow-covered hills passed beneath them. In the distance, the Mississippi snaked southward. Pretty. When the bare trees dressed in their leaves for the summer and green covered the hills, it was probably gorgeous.

Maybe she’d have reason to come back again, and find out.

The vampire’s one-level house was situated among a small scattering of homes—mostly humans, Marc told her. Best not to let them see two winged people landing in Bronner’s backyard. To conceal their arrival, she concentrated on the illusion of complete invisibility: no sound, no evidence of their footsteps through the snow, no lingering scent of coconut from her mouth.

Another scent hit her almost immediately: blood. Not surprising, given that this was a vampire’s home and that they usually fed from each other just after waking—but, given that it smelled like human blood, disturbing.

And a moment later, another scent: human death.

Marc smelled it, too. His jaw tightened, gaze searching the windows of the house. “Can anyone see us?”

“No.”

He vanished his wings. A sword appeared in his left hand, called in from his cache of weapons. Radha brought her crossbow in from her own psychic storage. Their tips poisoned with hellhound venom, the crossbow bolts wouldn’t badly injure a demon, but the venom would paralyze one. It was a hell of a lot easier to decapitate a demon if it couldn’t run away.

They reached the back door. Marc cocked his head, listening for noises from inside.

“I’m concealing our voices, our footsteps,” she said. “And I’ll conceal the noise when you break open that door.”

He nodded, then glanced down at her feet. “Put your shoes on. Something that won’t leave a mark.”

“What?”

“If a human is dead, I have to call in the sheriff. They’ll look for prints. Unless your illusions can cover up real physical evidence, you can’t go in with bare feet.”

That made sense. In her own territory, she didn’t bother—but she also rarely worked with local law enforcement. This was Marc’s territory, though, so she’d follow his lead. A pair of flip-flops wouldn’t confine her toes. She hated shoes that did.

Marc picked the lock instead of breaking the door down. The scent of death intensified. Quietly, they slipped into a darkened mudroom, then a tiny, bare kitchen. A bucket of cleaning supplies sat on the counter. No plates, pans, or evidence of food. There never was in a vampire’s house. Marc’s psychic sweep pushed against her shields.

“Do you sense anyone?”

She sent out her own soft probe, searching for any sign of life. “Nothing.”

“They sleep in the basement.” He entered the hallway leading to the front of the home, passing a bathroom, an empty bedroom. He paused at the edge of the living room, vanished his sword. “God damn it.”

Oh. Radha stopped next to him, her breath escaping on a long, heavy sigh. A woman lay between the end of a sofa and the low coffee table, eyes open, her features already locked in the waxy rigidity of death. Middle-aged, dressed in khaki pants, tennis shoes, and yellow latex gloves, she looked like a housewife going about her daily routine. Blood stained the beige carpet beneath her head, a dark pool that must have been congealing for at least a few hours.

As Marc started toward the body, Radha glanced around the room. Nothing broken, nothing disturbed. The front door hadn’t been forced. The heavy drapes over the south-facing picture window were wide open. Strange, that. She didn’t know any vampires who weren’t careful about closing each curtain in the house every morning, even if they slept in a windowless room. Frowning, she walked around the sofa—stopped behind it. Oh, no.

“Marc.”

Crouched beside the woman, he looked up. “What did you find?”

“Vampire ash. Two piles, I think. Jewelry.” She bent, sifted through the sandy remains, selected a man’s signet ring and showed it to him. “Did Bronner wear this?”

Jaw clenching, Marc nodded.

“A woman’s ring is here, too. A set of earrings. No clothes.” Sick to her stomach, she glanced toward the center of the living room again. Hairs and blood clung to the nearest corner of the coffee table. “What happened here? Did this woman drag them up here into the sun, and then . . . trip? Hit her head?”

“I don’t think so.” He slid up the woman’s short sleeves, revealing the faint discoloration ringing her upper arms. “I think she was grabbed, pushed.”

Pushed. Not the most efficient way of killing someone. Her gaze settled on the woman’s gloves, and she recalled the cleaning supplies in the kitchen. “Maybe she was here to work and surprised someone. But when? A demon couldn’t have done this to her, not without Deacon and Rosalia being called to slay him—and you’d have sensed them coming.”

If not a demon, then a vampire or a human. Vampires didn’t have to follow the Rules forbidding demons from killing humans, though most knew better than to try. And in many vampire communities, leadership was determined by strength; Guardians didn’t interfere with vampire power struggles. If another vampire wanted to take Bronner’s place, no Guardian would slay the vampire for killing him. Marc and Radha would slay any vampire who killed a human, however.

But if she’d been killed after the sun had risen, a vampire couldn’t have done it.

Gently, Marc tested the woman’s joints. “She’s cold, and almost in full rigor. At least this morning, maybe earlier.”

So maybe a vampire, maybe not.

He rose to his feet. “Stay here, make sure no one sees anything through the windows. I’ll check out the basement.”

It only took him a few moments. Radha had time to vanish all of the ash and jewelry into her psychic storage before he returned, his mouth a tight line of frustration.

“Blood on the bed, the stairs. They were killed down there, dragged up here—the blood trail down the hall was ashed by the sun. The basement door locks from the inside. A reinforced door and lock, but it was bashed down. A human couldn’t have done that. Most vampires couldn’t. You or I could.”

“And a demon could,” Radha finished for him. When he nodded, she said, “Do we contact the other vampires in the community, tell them about Bronner?”

“Not yet. You vanished the ash?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I left the blood. There’s nothing in the DNA that looks different from a human’s, and if a human did this, maybe there’s a fingerprint, a hair, or something for the courts to nail them with. Did you touch anything?”

She mentally reviewed her steps. “The jewelry, but that’s in my cache now.”

“All right.” He called in a cell phone, began typing out a message. “I’m going through Special Investigations, asking them to leave an anonymous tip for the sheriff. I’ll call the county coroner myself. He knew Bronner, knew what he was and was able to keep quiet about it, so I’ll let him know I’ve got the ash, that I need to know the result of the exam as quickly as possible. The sheriff will probably list Bronner and his partner as missing, though.”

“You think a human did it,” Radha realized. “Despite the bashed-in lock.”

“I’m leaning that way. If he was awake, Bronner wouldn’t have still been in bed, naked, while someone broke into the basement. But we’ll have a better idea whether a vampire could have done it if the coroner can give us a time of death. That’ll take him a couple of hours tonight, so I’ll arrange to meet with him as soon as he’s done with the autopsy. The vampire community can wait until then.”

“Do you know the coroner?”

“No. But Bronner trusted him.”

“Do you?”

“No. I haven’t met him. And Bronner said he had the coroner in his pocket. That says‘payout’to me. How many demons with money have you known?”

“All of them,” Radha said. “You think they got together and did this?”

“No. But I do wonder about any man that can be bought, even if that money comes from a good man like Bronner.” He snapped the phone shut. “Ready? We can’t let anyone see us leave.”

“I’ve got that covered. What are we doing until we meet with the coroner?”

“We’re going to let the sheriff do his job. My place is a fifteen-minute flight away. We’ll wait there. I want to step back for a few hours, do a little research and see if anything anyone told me today doesn’t fit. Then take another look at everything, see if there’s anything I haven’t been seeing.”

His gaze fell on the woman’s body, her sightless eyes. Finally, shaking his head, he turned away.

“God damn it,” he said again.

CHAPTER 4

About a hundred miles north, Marc’s modest, cottage-style house sat atop a wooded rise overlooking the river. Though small, the two-level home had more space than many of the apartments Radha had shared with Mariko over the past century, but Marc apparently used it in exactly the same way they used theirs: as a private location where they could be themselves, no illusions or lies needed.

They all had private quarters in Caelum—or they had before the city crumbled—but to Radha, those rooms had never felt like a home, had never felt like her space in the way that even a rented apartment on Earth could. Nor did Guardians need the space. They didn’t need to sleep, eat, or bathe, and they could carry everything they owned in their cache. Yet Radha liked to shower. She liked to curl up on a comfortable chair that hadn’t already been used by half the people in the city. She liked to display little items that she’d collected, rather than hide them away in her cache.

She looked forward to seeing everything that Marc displayed, too.

He vanished his wings immediately after landing on his front porch, then removed his jacket and tie. He led her inside, rolling his white sleeves up his forearms.

“I’ll be upstairs at the computer.” Though they could see perfectly well in the dark, he switched on a lamp, casting a warm glow over the hardwood floors and sparse furniture. “I’m putting in a few requests for info from Special Investigations. They can access and compile data faster than I can—and I want a transcript of those texts the girls are sending to each other. Is there anything you need?”

For Marc to keep taking off his clothing. That was rushing it, though. She needed to get to know him again first. She needed to learn all the ways he’d changed before she could risk her heart again.

Then he unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, exposing the tanned skin of his throat, and she decided to speed up that learning part a bit.

“I don’t need anything,” she said. Just a little time to look around.

“All right.” He headed for the narrow staircase leading to the second level. “I’ll be down soon.”

She watched him take the creaking stairs two at a time before making a slow circle of the room. A blue sofa with clean, contemporary lines faced a brick fireplace. On the walls hung a few oil paintings—all pastorals in bold colors. No pastels for Marc.

Radha wasn’t fond of them, either.

In the corner, a recessed bookshelf held a mixture of histories and political thrillers in English, a smattering of works in other languages, and a large collection of essays and poetry in French. His native language, she remembered. He’d died in America, but he’d been born in a village in northern France. His family had joined a group of French emigrants who’d settled together in a small farming commune—and she supposed that even in America, French had been the language they’d primarily spoken and read.

A hundred and forty years ago, his accent had still been strong. She barely heard it now and had only just realized that it was all but gone. She’d expected it when he played the federal agent—like the suit, the right accent became part of the role—but even now, while entering his home, his native France played only a faint note in his speech.

Another change, but not a surprising one. How long had he looked over this territory? He would have to adopt a Midwestern accent more often than not. Eventually that would become more natural to him than the only language he’d spoken for sixteen years.

She thumbed through a volume before replacing it. No little keepsakes or baubles cluttered the shelves. On a table at the end of the sofa, a glass bowl held a variety of coins. Odd. Why keep them here? It would be far more useful to keep them in his cache. She had all kinds in hers, in different denominations and currencies—and some old enough to hold more value than they’d started with.

She picked through them. Euros, centavos, reals, rubles, yen, rupees . . . taka. He’d gone to Bangladesh? And recently. With few exceptions, all of the dates on the coins were recent. But why have them out? This wasn’t the carefully itemized and mounted display of a serious coin collector. Did he just like to look at them? Be reminded of his travels?

If this bowl gave any indication, he’d traveled a lot recently—and he’d traveled widely, including her territory.

And that was fine. It wasn’t as if Guardians had to let each other know where they went or ask permission. But he’d been so close . . . and she hadn’t known.

Rubbing the coin between her fingers, knowing that he could easily hear her through the ceiling, she said, “When did you go to Bangladesh?”

The tapping of a keyboard stopped. His answer came, as softly spoken as hers. “A year ago.”

Why didn’t you let me know? But of course he wouldn’t have. And she wouldn’t have wanted him to. Not then. She’d thought he was still an asshole.

“Were you by yourself?” Such a weenie question. What she really meant was, Were you with someone ?

“I was alone.”

Her throat closed. Of course he had been. One look at him a week ago, and she’d known that.

She picked up a handful of coins, let them clink back into the bowl. “All of these places—New Zealand, Russia, the Congo—you went by yourself?”

“Yes.” He paused. “Why is my going alone more interesting than where I went? Don’t you go anywhere by yourself?”

“Of course.” All the time. But when she came back, Radha knew friends would be waiting for her. “But I thought you weren’t celibate anymore.”

“Ah.”

That was all? Ah?

“So?” she pressed.

He moved quickly. Across the floor above, down the stairs—within a moment, he stood at the bottom of the steps, regarding her with a penetrating stare. “So?” he repeated. “So . . . what? I don’t know what you’re getting at. You want the list? It’s not long.”

Violent rejection speared through her. No, she didn’t want a list. She didn’t want to know.

“I just don’t understand why you’re alone all the time. Working, okay, we all do that alone. But here? When you travel somewhere? Why then?”

“I don’t mind my own company.”

“That’s the point! Who would mind it? They’d have to be an idiot.”

Some of the stiffness left his shoulders. “And you aren’t an idiot.”

Sometimes. She sighed, lifted her hands. “I just don’t understand it.”

“And I don’t understand who you think I’d be running around with. A human? There’s a town up the road where I’ll go have a drink sometimes, talk with some of the locals. I’ll play a game of pool now and then. But if I plan to stay in this area, and not go around shape-shifted most of the time, I can’t show my face too often or people begin to wonder why I’m not aging.”

Okay, there was that. She’d had to move several times, too. No one truly minded a blue woman living in their neighborhood, because it wasn’t worth getting out the pitchforks and torches for an eccentric who dyed her skin with indigo. But an eternally young one? That would cause more concern. So moving to a new apartment every few decades was preferable to shape-shifting every time she went home.

“And if you mean a woman. . . Hell, I’ll just show you why.” He crossed the room, pushed open the door separating the living area from the kitchen. At the refrigerator, he pulled a pint of ice cream from the freezer. “I bought this at the grocery a few months ago. There was a long checkout line, and a pretty woman in front of me who let me know she was interested in the dessert. Probably more.”

Radha couldn’t blame the woman. “Were you?”

“I was tempted. I’d just slain Basriel after chasing him for years, and I didn’t have a single person to share that with.” He set the ice cream on the table, met her eyes. “But I couldn’t share it with that woman. I couldn’t tell her anything unless I wanted to lie. So I wasn’t all that tempted anymore.”

And that was why she didn’t want a list, Radha realized. Marc wouldn’t be tempted just by sex. There had to be more, and so every woman on that list had meant something more to him.

Starting with her. “So what did you do, instead?”

“I flew east and spent a day walking along the Great Wall.”

“That was better than sex?”

“It was better than feeling like shit afterward.”

She’d had a few of those. “I suppose I’d rather have spent it walking along the Great Wall, too.”

“Then you can go with me next time.”

It wasn’t really an offer, she recognized. He was just trying to settle this issue, to give a solution to his solo travel that would satisfy her. She knew he didn’t expect her to take him up on it.

“That’s a good idea.” She circled the table, stopped directly in front of him. “Next time, give me a call. I’ll join you wherever you decide to go.”

Except for a slight clenching of his jaw that betrayed his doubt, he didn’t respond—but he didn’t back away or laugh in her face, either. In the silence, she reached for the ice-cream pint, pulled in a spoon from her cache, and scraped away the ice crystals that had formed at the top. Vanilla. She wasn’t surprised. Simple, not too sweet, with the rich vanilla bean adding such wonderful depth. The perfect flavor for him.

She settled against the table’s edge and scooped out a bite. “Why not a Guardian, then?”

He gave a tired laugh, rubbed the back of his neck. Done with this conversation—but she wasn’t.

“Well?” she pushed.

Frustration flattened his mouth. “Who? Who’s left after the Ascension?”

After thousands of Guardians had gone all at once, choosing to move on to their afterlife? Not many.

So he had a point there, too. “What about before?”

“No. That was about the time I pulled my head out of my ass.”

What? She swallowed the ice cream she’d been melting on her tongue. “With the ‘God’s celibate warrior’ thing? Only ten years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Was it because of the Ascension?”

“Radha—” Now his frustration had an edge to it. “I don’t know what you want from me. Are you trying to set me up with another Guardian, couple me off? Because I’m sure as hell not interested in that.”

Neither was she. That was the last thing that interested her.

“I’m trying not to rush,” she said. “I don’t want to be hurt again, and I need to know what kind of man you are now. The problem is, I’m not good at going slow or at resisting something that I want. So I’m trying to find out as much as I can before I jump all over you.”

His eyes lit like green flame. With a single step toward her, he leaned forward and flattened his hands on the table on either side of her hips, caging her between his arms.

Bringing his lips within an inch of hers.

The ice cream seemed to evaporate from her tongue. Oh, yes. This was what she wanted. This intensity, this focus, this heat—and Marc.

Glowing brilliantly green, his gaze searched hers. “So you want answers first?”

“Yes.” Though right now, waiting seemed a more foolish choice than rushing.

“And it’s a test to see whether I’m good enough.”

Oh. “When you put it that way, it’s not what I meant—”

“I know it’s not. And I don’t want to hurt you, either. I’ll do everything I can to keep from doing it again.”

And with that simple statement, uncertainty slipped away from her, as easily as a breath. I don’t want to hurt you. That was all the reassurance she needed, wasn’t it? Either she believed that he’d try not to hurt her or she didn’t.

She didn’t know everything about him yet, but she believed that. Maybe he would hurt her, someday—but if he tried not to, if he made the effort, that mattered more.

But he was already straightening, turning away. Fine. She’d lure him back. She reached for the knot tying the scarves at her hip.

“So, you want to know what happened during the Ascension?” He repeated her question before facing her again. “I almost went with them.”

Radha froze, her fingers suddenly nerveless with shock and disbelief. “What?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, smiling slightly.

Maybe he could smile about it. He’d had over a decade to get used to the idea that he’d almost chosen to ascend to the afterlife.

“Why?”

“Well, it was the ultimate test, wasn’t it? How much faith do I have?” As if amused by the memory of it now, he shook his head, still smiling. “I wasn’t even in Caelum that often, and I saw the Ascension coming. A movement, sweeping through the Guardians—half of them believing that just by existing, they were an insult to God. After all, if He takes care of everything, what does He need Guardians for?”

“If He even exists,” Radha interrupted. Oh, but she remembered those Guardians. They’d been intolerable. She’d avoided Caelum as much as possible in the year before the Ascension.

The truth was, they just didn’t know. Only their leader, Michael, had ever met any angels, when they’d passed on their powers and Caelum to him, along with the responsibility for protecting the Earth. Those powers had enabled him to create the Guardian corps, transforming humans who’d sacrificed themselves. Demons were fallen angels who rebelled against Heaven—but no one she knew had actually seen Heaven. That some power existed was obvious, but the source of it . . . ? Who knew.

Just to piss off some of the more self-righteous Guardians, Radha used to argue that the angels were aliens. She’d almost convinced a few with her illusions, too.

Good riddance to the lot of them.

“We’ll debate that later.” Marc grinned briefly, as if recalling their old arguments—or looking forward to another. “You know what I think about it. And you know that there were other Guardians saying that the humans needed more faith. That if their belief was strong enough, they’d have enough faith to defeat the demons on their own, that we were getting in the way. That humans didn’t need us.”

“And you believed that?” She couldn’t believe he had.

“No. That was the problem. I’d seen too much, killed too many demons. I knew humans needed us. But I wondered if I should believe it—and I wondered if the reason I’d spent the past forty years being so fucking miserable was just because I didn’t believe it enough.”

Miserable. Her throat tightened. “Forty years?”

“After I came to Earth and became that celibate warrior I’d always planned to be. And I did it well, Radha. If I wasn’t chasing down a demon then I was searching for another. I never faltered. I never stopped hunting. I never did anything else at all.”

How could that be? “Nothing else at all?”

“No. And at first it was all right. I had a purpose, I had a mission. I was happy to be carrying it out.”

But doing nothing else? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. “Not even stopping for a cup of tea. A biscuit.”

“No. I didn’t eat or drink.”

“Passing a few minutes on a park bench.” Or half a day, as Radha sometimes did—especially if there were children about. Using her illusions only as weapons would be such a waste. If demons brought despair, she’d bring a little joy. “Chatting with the old men in a café.”

“No.”

What would he be unable to resist? Singing, perhaps. He’d sung often in Caelum, and he had a beautiful voice.

“Watching a musician on the street.”

He smiled, shaking his head. “No.”

“Did you sing?”

“No.”

She couldn’t imagine. Because everything she’d felt in his emotions a few hours before, that loneliness and despair—that was after ten years of coming back from that low. Despite every illusion she could cast, every silly thing she thought up, Radha simply couldn’t imagine the loneliness and misery that he’d put himself through, the low point he must have reached to even consider ascending.

“No wonder Heaven seemed so appealing. If it’s not really a spaceship,” she said, and his low laugh seemed to break apart the icy pain that clawed at her throat.

“I didn’t care about Heaven,” he said. “I just wanted to be a Guardian—but I didn’t want to live in Hell anymore while being one. And I thought that if I just lacked faith, the Ascension was the perfect way to prove it.”

“But?”

“But then I pulled my head out of my ass, as I said. I took a look around Caelum, at all the Guardians there. Not a single one of them was chosen to become a Guardian just because they had faith in something—they had all done something. I saved my father. You traded your life for your son’s.”

And put herself at the mercy of a merciless vampire. Radha grimaced. Though she’d have made the same choice again, a million times over, she could only recall the teeth ripping her throat open, the horrifying pain—and she didn’t like to think about it. She rarely spoke of it, and then only briefly.

“You remember that?”

“I haven’t forgotten anything you told me—like pointing out that the Rules don’t say a thing about faith. They basically say: Try not to kill or hurt anyone. It’s the same with being chosen as a Guardian: It was never about what we believed. It was what we did. The reward for that was just fine. So I chose to keep on doing rather than ascending.”

“But you decided to keep on doing it differently.” No more celibate warrior. “You changed that.”

“I did. I bought this house, a little land. I took a day now and then to travel. I started stopping for coffee, chatting with the old men, buying ice cream.”

And began taking a few other steps, she realized now. Like working with Special Investigations. He hadn’t always—and not every Guardian did. But it required him to keep in touch with other Guardians. That contact would lead to relationships with people who did understand him. Not romantic ones, but working relationships. Maybe friendships.

She hoped he wanted to cultivate this one again. “So it’s better.”

“Yes.” His expression darkened. Not looking back at himself with humor now, but simply remembering. “A hell of a lot better.”

“I wish I’d known. I’d have looked for you. But maybe you wouldn’t have stopped for me, either.”

“I’d have stopped for you,” he said, taking her breath. “Now give me your next question.”

He’d made this one so easy for her. “Will you come over here and kiss me?”

“Yes.” But he didn’t move, and his fingers clenched on the edge of the countertop, as if holding himself back. “You need to ask me a few more things first, though. Such as, How did I like Bangladesh?”

Oh. Yes, that was important. Bangladesh, and the other regions in her territory. They could easily travel back and forth several times a week by using the portals through Caelum to cut down the flying time. And they didn’t have to spend it all in bed. He could fight at her side while she patrolled her territory, and she’d do the same here with him. Partners, of a sort . . . and she’d love to hunt with him.

“How did you like it?”

“It was the worst trip I’ve taken,” he said, squeezing her heart almost to nothing. “There I was, hot, odors all around me—from the food, the flowers, the people—and color everywhere. I spent three days walking through the jungle, the cities, flying across the plains. I couldn’t appreciate a damn bit of it. Because I’d done a good job of putting you out of my head, but there . . . I only wondered whether you’d walked the same roads before. I wondered what you thought when you saw something, how your perception would be different from mine. I wondered what you’d say. And so I spent the whole trip wishing you were with me.”

Her heart filled again, too fast. She blinked away the stinging in her eyes. “When you come again, I’ll tell you what I see.”

“Good. Now ask if I’ll do much more than kiss you tonight.”

He’d better. “Will you?”

“No,” he said, but disappointment couldn’t touch her, not when his eyes glowed so intensely green. He wanted to. That mattered more. “Because as it stands now, that list of mine begins and ends with you. I don’t mind keeping it that way.”

Only her. Astonishment roiled into fierce possession. Only hers.

And it was stupid, so stupid—but she was glad of it. She’d been the only one to mean something to him. She wished he’d been happier in his life, that he hadn’t been lonely, but if this was how they’d ended up . . . Radha wasn’t sorry that it had been her.

“So I’ll kiss you, but I don’t want to rush to the bed. I want you to be sure of me first. Absolutely sure,” he emphasized when she opened her mouth. “That takes more than a few hours, and I’d prefer to wait than to see you hurt, if you realize you made a mistake. And on my end . . . I want to savor you. I want to find out what you like a little bit at a time, learn every inch of you. Even if that means a year passes before I’m inside you again.”

A year of waiting? Oh, no. She wouldn’t survive the frustration. “I’ll die. You’ll kill me.”

His grin killed her. “It’ll be fun.”

Yes, it would be. Because she’d tease the hell out of him in return, and she loved doing that. She loved the way he took it.

“Now ask me if I’ll see that you’re satisfied tonight, and every night while we’re building up to it,” he said. “Unless I’m misreading you—and after you leave, you don’t plan to come back, and you don’t want me to visit you there.”

Satisfied. Her anticipation mounted. “You’re not misreading me.”

“Good.” Despite the relief in his reply, his tension increased. “Now I’ve got a question. What are you here for? Are you hiding? Tell me how to help you.”

He still thought she was in trouble? And he wanted to fix it for her. God, that was so hot. Confidence, strength, and protection, in one sexy package.

“I’m not hiding. I saw you in Caelum last week, and I was worried about you.”

“You were?” Clearly taken aback, he shook his head. “Why?”

“Because you looked like you thought the world was ending.”

His surprise rolled into a laugh. “Ah. It feels like that sometimes.”

“But you don’t really think it will?”

“Not as long as I’m standing.”

Not arrogance, just an intention to fight to the end and come out on top. God, that was sexy, too. And it was exactly what she planned to do.

He studied her face, as if gauging her through this new perspective. “You know I’m all right.”

“Yes.”

And getting better. A lot better, as soon as he kissed her. If he didn’t soon, she’d take matters into her own hands.

“So you’re done here. You could leave,” he said.

“Yes.”

“But you haven’t.” His fingers clenched on the counter’s edge again, hard enough to crack the tile. “Radha, when I kiss you—I’m assuming you want me to. I’ll assume that’s true until you tell me it’s not. You understand that? I can’t hold back with you. I’m only doing it now because I have to be sure. I have to be absolutely sure.”

So he wouldn’t hurt her again.

“I’m sure,” she said.

He didn’t hold back. But he came slowly, so slowly, holding her gaze with every step. Her heart thundered as he bent his head toward hers again.

“I’m only surprised that you held back,” he murmured.

So was she. Breathless, she said, “I didn’t want to take advantage of you again. I want you to be sure, too. But as soon as you kiss me, all bets are off.”

“All right, then.”

He framed her face with his hands, his callused palms cupping her cheeks. Her breath shuddered. His lips opened over hers, hot, immediately searching. Finally. Joy swept aside the need, sweet and light, and she laughed against his mouth. Marc. She felt his smile, the curve of his lips, then he licked lightly into her mouth and desire came crashing back, stronger, hotter. Moaning, she rose onto her toes, trying to get closer.

No waiting. She needed him now. Now.

Her fingers fisted in his hair. The table skidded back as she pushed off it, leaping onto him. Her legs wrapped around solid muscle at his waist. So long and lean. So hard everywhere. Clinging to him, mouths fused, she rubbed against his aroused length.

His groan fueled her need. She deepened the kiss and tasted him, vanilla and wet heat. Rough hands dropped to her thighs, his fingers spreading over bare skin.

She tore her mouth from his, panting. “Higher.”

His hair disheveled by her fingers, eyes shining with need, he carried her to the table again. “Slower.”

Foolish man. He could try.

He set her on the table, the surface cool against the backs of her thighs. Deliberately, Radha lay back, spreading herself out before him.

She grinned wickedly. “Did you like the ice cream?”

Without giving him the chance to reply, she formed the illusion: a scoop of vanilla at the juncture of her thighs, melting from the heat of her flesh. Marc, kneeling between her legs, holding her open and gently lapping. She made him taste it, sweet and cold.

His body stiffened, gaze fixed on the scene before him. Slowly, his eyes lifted to meet hers. His voice was low and rough. “That’s how I’ll satisfy you this time.”

God, yes. Her back arched, offering her entire body to him, his to feast from.

“But you’ve got it wrong.” He stepped between her legs, through the Marc kneeling in her illusion. “When my tongue’s on you, I could never be so dainty.”

And he wasn’t. Not when his mouth found hers again. Not when he slowly kissed his way down her body, learning every inch and coming back for another taste. Not when he knelt, unleashed his hunger, burning her alive.

But she wasn’t satisfied, not just by that. And not by sucking her fingers into her mouth, casting tactile illusions that made him stiffen and groan while he fed from her. Not until he was solid against her tongue, shuddering as he shouted her name—without a single illusion between them, just pleasure that was perfect and real. Not until he said dazedly, “I’ll never last a year.”

Then was she satisfied. But only for now.

CHAPTER 5

The coroner would have probably been too easy.

Special Investigations hadn’t been able to send Marc everything he’d asked for by the time he’d arranged to meet Dr. Richard Brand at the county morgue, but they’d come through with a substantial background. The info on Brand had been squeaky-clean—not even a speeding ticket to his name, or an indication of a payout from Bronner in his financials. For a man of sixty, that perfect record was a hell of an accomplishment, and enough to raise Marc’s suspicions a little more. Demons with fake identities often kept their backgrounds spotless.

At four o’clock in the morning, no one was around to question how Marc and Radha traveled from Riverbend to the county seat without a car. Silver-haired and robust with health, Brand met them at the morgue’s receiving doors. His mind was shielded.

For a moment, Marc considered blasting through those mental blocks to see if a demon lay beneath. He held out his hand instead.

Beside him, Radha tensed and stepped forward, leaving behind an image of the suited Special Agent Bhattacharyya. Demon or not, Brand wouldn’t see the crossbow she called in, her slick movement, or the bolt she held an inch from the man’s temple when his hand extended to Marc’s. Ready to fire, if Brand attacked.

He clasped Marc’s hand, shook. Warm skin, not hot like a demon’s, not cold like a vampire’s.

Human.

Damn it. Marc glanced at Radha, and with a sigh, she backed down and returned to the position that her illusory double stood in.

Through wire-rimmed lenses, Brand studied Marc’s face. “You’re not cold enough to be a vampire. What are you?”

If the man already knew about vampires, no harm in telling him the rest. Especially since Marc might have reason to work with him again in the future.

“A Guardian,” he said, and when Brand looked to Radha, she formed her wings and added, “Me, too.”

“Guardian,” Brand repeated softly, his gaze tracing the arch of her wings before she vanished them again. “My grandfather always said you were out there. I wasn’t sure whether to believe him.”

“Your grandfather?” Marc asked.

“Abram Bronner.” The man must have seen Marc’s surprise. “He didn’t tell you.”

Some of the lines on the man’s face weren’t just age, Marc realized, but grief and exhaustion. “He said you took a payout.”

“Ah, well.” Turning, Brand preceded them inside and down a short corridor, hard-soled shoes slapping against the concrete floor. “He probably said that to protect the family, so that no vampire could use us against him if they decided to challenge his leadership. We always protected him in return—a Brand tradition, with one of us always in position to help keep the community hidden. My granddaughter would have been next, to her dismay. After tales of Guardians, she was more interested in becoming one of you . . . and especially when she heard that one came to town a few months ago. That was you? My grandfather said you killed the demon.”

He’d slain a demon shortly afterward. He wasn’t convinced it was the demon who’d murdered Jason Ward.

“I was here for a bit,” Marc said. “I took a look into Jason’s coffin, made certain he had been a vampire.”

Brand shook his head. “I’ll admit, the one time I ever really became angry at Jess was when I found out she’d been telling the Ward girl that her brother had been transformed. Teasing her with it, I think, knowing the girl wouldn’t believe her.”

Jess . . . ? Marc put it together. “Jessica—she’s in high school and drives a Cherokee? She’s your granddaughter?”

“Miklia’s friend?” Radha’s surprise echoed his.

“That’s her,” Brand said. “And I was angry at first, but after Jason was killed, I kept the truth from the Wards. By then, though, Miklia knew what he was . . . there was no one else for her to go to but Jess. And Jess was shocked by it, too, needed some reassurance of her own.”

And now his granddaughter was more interested in becoming a Guardian. That explained the training, then, and the books they’d been reading at Perk’s Palace—and how Miklia had become friends with the girls she’d once called the Brainless Bitches. Jessica must have shared the truth with Ines and Lynn, too.

“Not that it matters now,” Brand continued. “They’ve both lost any connection to the community—Miklia to her brother, and Jess to . . .” The lines in the old man’s face deepened. “You saw the remains? You’re sure it was him?”

“We found his ring.”

At Marc’s mention of it, Radha called Bronner’s ring and his partner’s jewelry into her palm from her cache. She carefully wiped them free of ash before showing them to Brand.

With watery eyes, the man nodded. “That’s his. So let’s try to find out who did this.”

He led them into a small examination room. Concrete floors, a long metal table, instruments, and recorders. Paperwork covered a small desk. Brand must have already finished his examination. All that remained was the smell of blood, death, and disinfectant.

“Were you able to identify the woman?”

Brand nodded. “Marnie Weaver. She’s a local. My grandfather paid her to come in twice a week, and she has been for the past twenty years. Nice girl—woman now. I’ve known her since she was just a young one. She never asked questions, but I don’t know. Maybe she’d figured it all out.”

“Were you able to get a fix on the time of death?”

“Not the time you’re looking for. Sunrise this morning was at seven-oh-four. Considering how cold my grandfather always kept the house, I’d put it anywhere between six and eight.”

Damn it. That time couldn’t tell him definitively whether a vampire or human had been responsible. But he realized Brand had more to tell him.

The old man sank into a chair, heaved a sigh. “A neighbor saw her car pulling up to the house this morning, though. At seven thirty.”

After the sun had risen. Marc glanced at Radha, saw the dismay in her eyes. A human, then. Someone that he and Radha couldn’t physically catch or kill—someone they couldn’t even touch if the person didn’t want to be touched. Not without breaking the Rules. Exposing that person, however . . . that they could do. As soon as they knew who the hell it was.

Unfortunately, Marc thought he did know.

“I know what that means.” Brand looked from Marc to Radha. “It wasn’t a vampire hoping to take over the community. Tell me that you’ll catch this demon bastard.”

A demon couldn’t have done it, either. “If a demon killed this woman, he’s already be dead,” Marc said. Rosalia and Deacon would have slain him by now—but they’d also have let Marc know they’d been here. “Do you have any idea who else might have known about the vampire community?”

“Anyone else . . . you mean, people?”

“A human, yes.”

Brand sat speechless for a moment, shaking his head. “No. Everyone who knows, they’re related to the vampires by blood. They have just as much reason to protect any vampires here.”

“All right,” Marc said. If the man didn’t want to see, he wouldn’t—especially if that meant looking at his own blood. “You’ve helped me. Thank you.”

Brand nodded. “I hope you’re wrong about it not being a demon.”

Marc hoped he was, too.

The last time Radha had visited a morgue, she’d been with a novice Guardian-in-training. She’d managed to fill a room with zombies and frighten the poor boy half to death before he’d realized they were illusions. If she told Marc later, he’d probably laugh.

Not now, though. That weary expression came over him again, the burdens of the world. They exited through the receiving door, into the dark, icy parking lot. Without a word, he formed his wings and launched up—but didn’t go far. He landed on the roof of the nearby courthouse, standing at the edge to look down at the empty street below. Radha landed next to him.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.

He didn’t have to explain. She took his hand, loving the strong, warm clasp of his fingers. “Using a stake to kill a vampire is the mark of a demon trying to set a scene . . . or the act of someone who doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. It’s difficult, inefficient.”

“They learned quickly, though. All the others, killed while they were sleeping, then dragged into the sun.” Jaw clenched, as if he still wanted to deny it, Marc shook his head. “Miklia was late to school yesterday morning. You remember Sam mentioning that?”

“Yes.”

“Late because they were killing vampires, killing a woman. And not a one of them walked out of the school looking like they killed anyone that morning, even accidentally. Did they?”

No. And that was disturbing. They’d shown no remorse, no guilt, or any other emotion. With the vampires, Radha could understand it, a little. She didn’t feel remorse or guilt for slaying demons. They were evil, pure and simple.

The girls must have believed the same thing about vampires—even though those vampires had been one of their brothers, their grandfathers.

Somewhere, they’d gotten the truth twisted around. Maybe a book they’d read, something they’d overheard, a movie or television show they’d seen. Maybe they’d heard of a vampire like the one who’d killed Radha, and that convinced them. Maybe when they discovered that the Guardians’ mission was to slay demons and to protect humans, they mixed it all up, thought vampires were the demons, or that the vampires were possessed. Something.

Whatever it was, they’d taken it too far.

She gently squeezed his hand. “We both know how belief can be warped, so that people think they’re doing something good—when in reality, they’re just destroying other good people.” Guardians and vampires were basically the same as they’d been before their transformations. Their personalities didn’t change; only their abilities did. “But to kill a woman, and not feel any remorse—that means they feel justified destroying anything standing in their way. And it’ll happen again.”

“I know,” Marc said. “And if it had just been the vampires—hell, it’s not right—but I’d have just set them straight about vampires, make them understand who they killed . . . and then make them live with what they’d done.”

“Maybe not punishment enough, but still punishment.” And if the other option was turning the girls over to the vampire community, and letting them dispense justice or punishment . . .

That wasn’t even an option. Maybe in some circumstances. Not this one.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But for what they did to Marnie Weaver, that’s not our decision to make.”

No, it wasn’t. That was for the human courts to decide, and he knew this territory and the law of the land better than she did. “What will you do?”

“Most likely, I won’t have to do anything. There will be evidence. Someone will have seen the Cherokee. The girls will have left a fingerprint. There’s no chance that four teenagers got in and out of there without leaving some kind of trace. So I’ll wait. I’ll head back to Riverbend and keep an eye on them, make certain they don’t slay any more vampires. And if it seems like the sheriff isn’t getting anywhere in the investigation, I’ll point him that way. Maybe send him those text transcripts when SI puts them together.”

“That’s probably the best way.” Radha rose up onto her toes, softly kissed his mouth. “This is one of the harder ones. It’s not just the vampires, not just a woman—those four kids threw their lives away, too.”

He nodded, focusing on her lips. Maybe thinking of the kiss she’d just given him so easily. “You have to go back?”

“Not right away. Rosalia and Mariko are covering the news for me. Nothing has popped up yet.”

And that was the most efficient way of hunting most demons. They stumbled across some demons, so regular patrols around a territory were necessary, but almost all of the other demons Radha found came from a mention of something odd in the papers, a detail that didn’t make sense, or a half-heard rumor flying around a city. It was all a lot easier now with computers, and with Special Investigations digging up leads from all around the world. Still, Radha had recently spent two months in London on another mission—and though other Guardians had covered her territory, she wasn’t ready to leave it again for more than a day or two at a time. Anything else felt like ignoring her responsibilities.

So, maybe another day here . . . and then he could come to her in another day or two, when everything in Riverbend had been settled.

She looked up at him. “We’ll work this out, won’t we?”

His eyes sparked with green light. His kiss was hot and thorough. The perfect answer.

Until his phone rang. Marc groaned, held her for another long, scorching second before pulling away. Radha grinned, appreciating his reluctance to break away almost as much as the kiss.

“Hopefully SI with those transcripts,” he muttered, glancing at the screen. He frowned. “Local.”

“Someone you gave a card to?”

Humans, vampires. How many people had he talked with? But if someone called at five in the morning, it was most likely a vampire.

“Probably.” He brought the phone to his ear. “Revoire.”

Radha had no trouble hearing the other end of a telephone conversation from this distance, but to begin, there was only a brief silence. Then a young female voice: “Agent Revoire?”

“Speaking. May I help you?”

“My friend Sam said you talked to him yesterday. About Jason.”

Marc’s brow furrowed. “Miklia?”

“Yes,” she said, before continuing with obvious uncertainty. “I wondered . . . if I could talk to you. About . . . a few things. If you could talk to me and my friends.”

His face stilled, a quietly dangerous expression hardening his eyes. “About what you did yesterday morning?”

Another silence was followed by a long, indrawn breath. “Kind of. No. My friend said . . . said you might be a Guardian.”

Had Brand already told Jessica, and she’d passed it on? Maybe.

She saw the same question in Marc’s eyes, but his voice didn’t betray it to Miklia. “I’ll talk to you. What do you want to know?”

“Not on the phone. Not where someone might overhear.”

“Where would you be comfortable? The library?”

“No. It’s . . . it’s closed.”

Radha met Marc’s gaze. The girl broke into a vampire’s house, but worried about a closed library?

“The football field,” Miklia said. “No one’s here right now. And it’s open.”

Wide open, a public space, free of witnesses—and apparently, the girls were already there. Radha’s instincts were telling her that something was off.

“When?” Marc asked.

“Can you be here in ten minutes?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be here. Thank you.” The girl rang off.

Radha shook her head. “You’re in their way. And you can’t touch them, defend yourself. Not without breaking the Rules.”

Marc grinned. “And they’ll stake me?”

All right. Put that way, her worry was ridiculous. He wouldn’t let them get close enough to stake him—and humans simply couldn’t match a Guardian’s speed. He could run across that football field faster than any of those girls could blink.

His grin faded. “This might be the only chance to set them straight. If not for that, I wouldn’t bother. I’d just wait for the sheriff to catch up to them. But once he does, no one will tell them the truth about vampires and Guardians. It will all be cast aside as nonsense.”

True. “I’m going with you.”

“Of course you are—though I’d prefer they don’t see you. If they brought a gun instead of a stake, and they get lucky enough to knock me out with a head shot, I’d like someone to pull me out of there.”

Because a bullet anywhere else would hurt like hell, might slow him down, but it wouldn’t kill a Guardian. A bullet to the brain wouldn’t kill him, either—but lying unconscious on a football field probably wasn’t how Marc wanted to start the day.

“So I watch over you?” She liked that.

“If you have to. But I think it’s more likely that we’ll just need a few of your illusions to back me up.”

Either to drive a point home to the girls or to scare them straight. Radha grinned. “That sounds fun.”

“I hoped you’d say that.” His own smile faded quickly. He tilted his head back, closed his eyes. “A demon could have impersonated her voice.”

“And that’s what you’re still hoping for?” Radha had to admit that she was, too. “That he’s trying to lure you there?”

“Yes. Or that maybe of all the girls, just one of them is. But if one of them is a demon, he shouldn’t have chosen to face me on a football field. He should have chosen the protection of the library, of concrete and stone.”

Because of his Gift. And when he turned his face toward her again, Radha almost didn’t recognize the change that came over him. That quiet, dangerous look—but intensified. Marc, the Guardian warrior. Hardened with experience, determined to win.

So damn sexy. And, thank the heavens—no longer celibate.

She’d make sure he was even less celibate when they were done with the demon and she got her hands all over him again. Forming her wings, Radha leaped off the building’s edge.

“Let’s hurry, then.”

Marc obviously didn’t intend to mess around. As they flew in over the field, he lashed out with a psychic probe strong enough to pierce even Radha’s shields—but unless one of them was a demon, none of the girls waiting in the middle of the field would feel it.

“All human,” he said softly. “And no one else is here.”

Damn.

But, human or not, Radha wasn’t messing around, either, and she wasn’t taking any chances. Marc could speak to these girls, he could do this his way . . . but he wouldn’t be where they thought he was. Even Marc might not realize that she’d concealed his body and created a perfect double of him, an illusion that immediately mirrored his voice and movements—except that it landed five feet closer to them than he truly did.

Radha settled gently onto the ankle-deep layer of crunchy snow covering the field. This illusion required her to watch Marc continually, so that she could perfectly mimic his actual movements. By standing off to the side and even with Marc’s double, she had a wide enough view to see both him and the girls, standing shoulder to shoulder at the midfield line.

Or what would have been the midfield line in real football, Radha supposed. She didn’t know what they called it in American football.

The little blonde closest to her was Miklia, she remembered. The slim, dark-haired girl had been driving the Jeep—so she was Jessica, the coroner’s granddaughter. The two other girls were Lynn and Ines, but Radha wasn’t certain which one was the tall, dark blond teenager and which one was the redhead with the faint orange tan.

None of them carried weapons, unless they’d managed to stuff some beneath their puffy coats or under their knitted caps. They definitely didn’t have any room to hide something in their tight jeans.

Marc didn’t vanish his wings. With mouths half open, the girls stared at them—or at the double’s wings, in reality. That’s right, Radha thought. Be impressed, you little murderers. She added a subtle glow to the white feathers and his skin, then let a hint of a complex, spicy scent drift toward them. Different, exotic.

And that was laying it on thick, but these girls needed to understand right away that they had no real understanding of anything a Guardian was or did. And that when Marc told them, they needed to listen.

He waited, giving them the opening. If they dared to take it. Tall and strong, arms crossed over his broad chest and legs braced apart, he clearly intimidated them.

And he was clearly so hot.

Swallowing hard, Miklia reached for Jessica’s hand, seeking support. Kind of sweet. Too bad they were deluded murderers. “You’re a Guardian?”

“Yes.”

“And you know . . . you know what we’ve been doing?”

“Yes.” Marc’s expression turned dark and forbidding. “I know you killed your brother. Why?”

Miklia’s face fell. Disappointment and dismay leaked through her psychic shields. “You don’t think we should have?”

“Guardians only slay demons. Not vampires, not unless they deserve it. Did your brother hurt anyone?”

Her jaw set; her lips formed a stubborn line. “He wasn’t my brother anymore.”

“Yes, he was. The body changes, but the soul doesn’t.” His gaze moved to meet Jessica’s. “Abram Bronner, too. The same man. The same good man.”

Jessica’s chin lifted. “Can you prove it to us?”

“Yes.”

She blinked. They all looked startled for a moment. Then Jessica collected herself, glanced at the redhead next to her. “Ines, you and Lynn need to be watching on each side of the field now, making sure no one is coming.”

Ines looked at Marc again, her gaze lifting to the apex of his wings. “But—”

“We talked about this, Nessie,” Jessica snapped, cutting off her protest. Clearly the leader. “You got to see him up close. Now you have a responsibility to uphold—or will you fail us and leave us all exposed, like you almost did when you left your book open for everyone to see?”

Oh, guilt trip, because someone might have seen a book open. This was a hard-core little group.

Ines’s lower lip trembled. “No one did.”

No one except for Gregory Jackson. But Radha noticed that Marc didn’t point that out—probably to protect the kid. These girls would probably go after him if they knew he’d seen a few titles and drawings.

“Only because someone is looking out for us,” Jessica claimed. “The book said a door would open, and it did, didn’t it? We’re on the right path, but only if you take the needed steps—and right now, those steps are not standing here. So, go. And you, Lynn. Now.”

No more arguments. The girls took off in opposite directions, heading for the stands. So they had worked it out in advance—probably using the highest bleachers on each side as a lookout point.

Jessica looked to Marc again. “So where’s your so-called proof?”

“You have it,” he said. “It’s your memory of everything they’ve ever done. Has any of it been evil? Name one thing.”

They apparently couldn’t. Angrily, they simply stared back at him.

“What have they done? Tell me why they deserved to die. Just one thing.”

“They hide their evil.” Miklia found her answer and immediately warmed up to it. Fists clenched, she tossed out, “They lie!”

“They lie,” Jessica echoed. “Just as demons do. Isn’t that true?”

“Vampires aren’t demons.”

“And demons sow doubts. Don’t they?”

Oh, Radha saw where this was going. Marc wanted them to doubt their actions. Therefore, he was obviously a demon. Marc must have seen the direction they were taking, too. With a sigh, he shook his head.

“And they can take any form! Isn’t that right? But you can’t hurt us. So we’re not afraid of you!”

“I’m almost sorry for that,” Marc said, and he glanced at Radha. Debating whether to try something else, she knew, or just leave.

Leaving seemed like the most sensible option. These girls weren’t going to be talked or scared into anything—and certainly not into accepting any truth but the one they already believed. Nothing she or Marc did would change that.

The sensible option wasn’t any fun, but that was sometimes the life of a Guardian.

Jessica crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you really have anything to tell us?”

Was there anything they’d listen to? As if tired, Marc rubbed the back of his neck. Yes, completely done with this whole scene. Radha was, too.

“Just try not to hurt anyone,” he said. “That includes vampires. That’s all I can tell you.”

“That’s all?” As if stricken, Miklia fell to her knees. “Then you can’t be a Guardian. A Guardian would have supported us, no matter what.”

So much for the power of glowing wings and a mysterious spicy scent. She met Marc’s eyes, gestured upward, and concealed her voice from the girls. “Ready to go?”

He nodded, but a movement in the bleachers across the field tore Radha’s gaze away from him. Not long enough to affect the illusion she’d created, but—

What is that redheaded girl doing with a crossbow? Ripping pain slammed through Radha’s wing and shoulder from behind. She cried out, stumbling forward from the impact.

“Radha!” Almost instantly, Marc crossed the distance between them and swept her up before she fell. He knelt, cradling her against him, his big body shielding hers. Face white, his gaze dropped to her shoulder. “God damn them. Are you all right?”

Through gritted teeth, she forced out, “Fine.”

A bloodied arrowhead and shaft jutted through the front of her right shoulder. It hurt—a lot—but that was what happened when a Guardian was stupid enough not to keep her eye on a deluded human: she got a surprise crossbow bolt.

It didn’t matter. She’d had worse. Still, it would hurt more before it got better. “Tear it out,” she told him.

Jaw clenching, he nodded, broke off the jutting arrowhead. Behind Marc, Jessica and Miklia stared at them, mouths hanging open. Her illusions had shattered, Radha realized. Another unfortunate consequence of a surprise crossbow bolt through the shoulder.

Jessica came out of her shocked stupor. “There’s two!” she shouted. She fell to her knees beside Miklia.

“Bl . . . blue.” Miklia was staring at Radha, stuttering from astonishment. “And wings.”

“Shut up! And hurry!” Jessica shouted at her, ripping off her gloves and digging through the snow. “Ines! Come on, shoot!”

“It’ll hurt.” Marc reached for the feathered shaft still sticking out the back of her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

So was she. But it was the fastest way—she’d begin healing as soon as it came out. “Do it quickly.”

He yanked. Radha screamed.

The ground shivered. Eyes glowing, the power of his Gift slipping through his shields, Marc looked over Radha’s head to the bleachers behind her. Lynn was still back there, Radha realized—the girl had shot the crossbow at her. Aiming for the illusion of Marc, but an invisible Radha had been in the way.

Aiming for Marc. And Ines was still in the other bleachers—

A wet, horrifying thunk. Marc jolted forward. His arms went limp. Radha tumbled from his grip, onto the snow. A crossbow bolt was embedded in his upper back. He hadn’t been struck through the brain, but through the spine.

Almost as bad. He couldn’t walk. She couldn’t fly.

“Grab them, Miklia!” Jessica shouted—and dragged a sword up from beneath the snow. “If you hold on to them, the Rules say they can’t get away!”

They couldn’t. And these girls knew exactly how to slay them. They’d planned it perfectly. Her own sword in hand, Miklia scrambled toward them, her determined gaze narrowed on the back of Marc’s neck. No wooden stakes now, because to kill a demon—or a Guardian—they needed to cut through the heart or chop off the head.

Marc’s power shook the ground. Unable to move, but still able to use his Gift. Yet if he hurt these girls with it—even inadvertently, while taking Radha and himself away from here—he’d break the Rules. He’d break them protecting her.

“No need,” Radha whispered to him.

Rising to her knees, she circled his shoulders with her uninjured arm, easily supporting his deadweight. Miklia and Jessica were almost on them. Not fast enough. Radha could form a hundred illusions before they took another step.

She usually didn’t like to remember past hurts, but Marc had a bolt sticking out of his back—and her illusions were always best when based on something real.

Discovering a demon’s collection, bodies gathered from graveyards and put on display for his sick pleasure.

Radha and Marc burst apart in an explosion of putrid gases, maggots spilling out of rotting flesh. With a shriek, Miklia skidded to a halt, began gagging. Jessica didn’t waver.

Almost falling beneath a demon’s sword.

Too quickly to avoid, a blade sliced through the air, through Jessica’s wrist. Blood spurted, melting the snow. Eyes widening in terror, she stared at the exposed flesh and bone. Then disbelief vanished, and she began to scream.

Her sword dropped from her real—and still attached—hand.

In the bleachers, Ines was reloading her crossbow, but Radha had a brand-new wound to share. Surprise crossbow bolt through the shoulder. The girl cried out, dropping her weapon. A moment later, Lynn did the same.

For thirty seconds, she let them scream and cry—and wanted to cry herself when she tore the bolt from Marc’s back. She gathered him close, then vanished the illusions.

Always fun, except for when it was horrifying.

“Go,” she told them. “Run now, straight to the sheriff, and confess what you’ve done. If you don’t, I’ll hunt you down, and I’ll give you nightmares that a demon couldn’t dream of.”

They only stared at her, sobbing. Enough. She rose up, thirty feet tall, eyes blazing down on them with the fires of Hell. Lightning streaked the sky behind the whirlwind of her hair. The ground shook beneath her steps.

Her voice thundered. “GO!”

They ran.

CHAPTER 6

Radha hadn’t been able to fly, but her one uninjured arm was more than strong enough to lift him, and her legs could run as fast as her wings could fly. Marc couldn’t say that he was proud to have been carried off the playing field and into the empty high school gym, but the tenderness with which she’d held him as they recovered from their wounds more than made up for it.

Her injury had healed within a half hour, but she remained snuggled up next to him on a blue wrestling mat. As soon as Marc was able to, he slid his arm around her. He could have gotten up then. He liked this better—because Radha was there, and because he had plenty of time to think.

“We were almost killed by four human girls,” he said.

“Is that the way you look at it?” She lifted her head from the pillow of his shoulder and peered down at him. “It wasn’t even close. I could still run and carry you. You had your Gift. What were you planning to do with it? A dirt wave to ride us out of there?”

Not quite. “Just a wall to protect us, thick enough that they couldn’t knock it down.”

“Oh. That would have been simple.”

He was a simple man. “I’d have used it if your illusions failed.”

She gave him her best Don’t say stupid things look. “Marc.”

He grinned. “I have to consider the seemingly impossible. After all, we were almost killed by four human girls . . . who knew exactly how to kill us and had a near-perfect plan to carry it out. What are the chances of that?”

Her expression pensive, she pillowed her head on his shoulder again. “Not very good,” she said. “It’s odd, isn’t it?”

Yes. And Guardians didn’t ignore strange things like that.

They also didn’t ignore that no human girl could bash in a reinforced basement door . . . or that one said to another, The book said a door would open, and it did, didn’t it ?

“Which book do you suppose they were talking about?” Marc wondered.

By noon, not everyone in Riverbend had heard about the shocking confession from four high school girls yet, but enough had that the astonishment and disbelief rippled through the town. By noon, Gregory Jackson was behind the counter of his mother’s coffee shop, watching an American football game. Across the street at the library, children’s story hour had just begun.

Radha had to give Marc another look when he held the library door open for her—but she supposed that a library was probably the most appropriate place for an invisible friend. No one noticed his strange behavior, anyway . . . not even the old bat at the circulation desk.

Which was why, in the end, Guardians were always going to win out over demons: Guardians kept their eyes open.

In the corner, a semicircle of three- and four-year-olds sat enraptured while a woman read to them about giving a mouse a cookie. A few adults browsed the fiction shelves. A teenage boy sat at a computer, casting wary glances now and then at the circulation desk.

None of them noticed when Marc called in his sword—no one except Mrs. Carroll, the crotchety old librarian.

But only because Radha let her see it.

Her eyes widened behind horn-rimmed spectacles. Her voice lifted, shrill with alarm. “Who are you? What are you—”

The blast of Marc’s psychic probe cut her off, and beneath the cracks in the librarian’s shields, Radha felt the scaly touch of a demon’s mind.

The demon fell silent, glowering at Marc with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

“It was perfect,” Marc said. “You’re everything a demon almost never appears to be: old, frail, in a position of service—a position that requires you to help people. The perfect disguise to hide from a Guardian, or to hide from Basriel when he was taking over this territory. But hiding just wasn’t enough, was it? You decided to start meddling. And who better to meddle with than teenage girls, who could do any killing for you? Especially if they were trained to kill Basriel—or later, to kill a Guardian that they believed was a demon.”

The librarian glanced at the children before looking back at Marc. “You won’t do anything in here.”

“Yes, I would. Because if you’ll notice, no one is pointing at my sword yet. I could slay you now, and no one would see a thing.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Of course you don’t.” Marc nodded. “Radha?”

With the slightest adjustment of her illusion, she appeared visible to the demon—crossbow in hand, only a few steps from the circulation desk.

“Now you’ll notice that no one is pointing at the naked blue woman,” Marc said.

Naked? Not even. When she wanted to be naked, there’d be no mistaking it. But she’d have to show him later.

The demon stood, calling in a long, curving sword to each hand. No one reacted. As if emboldened by the lack of response, crimson scales suddenly erupted over its skin. Black horns curled back from the librarian’s wrinkled forehead, and the demon shape-shifted— growing taller than Marc, its body heavy with muscle. Its eyes began to glow crimson.

“Come on, then,” the demon challenged them.

Marc shook his head. “I just want to know about the book you used to poison Miklia and her friends. Did you write it yourself?”

“It’s a work in progress.” The demon smiled, exposing long, dangerous fangs. “So were they. And after I kill you both, I’ll just write another one, and find another human.”

Radha sighed. Why did demons always sound the same? Blah blah kill you all blah. Neither Radha nor Marc was worried about the influence that book might have on someone who picked it up, because it had probably been written specifically to exploit the girls’ individual vulnerabilities—but it might have information that would expose the local vampire community.

She guessed, “So you wrote something like instructions or a revelation, then left it for them to find. Or maybe you dropped it out of your cache, and it seemed to appear by magic to them. Did they think a Guardian was doing it? Watching over them, guiding them?”

The demon’s lips drew back in a sneer. “They all loved the Guardians. Pathetic.”

The insult was probably as close to a confirmation as they’d get. Good enough. They’d search the library afterward, just in case, but if the demon kept the book in his cache, it would be destroyed when Marc slayed him.

Not in here, though.

“Pathetic, but they almost took us out,” Marc said. “I have to appreciate that. And since you didn’t do any killing, I’m prepared to let you go. But you have to promise to leave now, today—to fly out of town and never return.”

The demon laughed. “Lies.”

“No. I’m prepared to offer a bargain. If you walk out this door now and fly away, we’ll let you leave, no fighting or blood drawn. Neither of us will fly after you. You just have to agree to go without fighting or drawing blood.”

“Why?” The demon’s wary gaze ran from Marc to Radha. “There are two of you. Though mistaken, you must believe you’ll defeat me.”

“I just want you out of this town,” Marc said. “You’ve done enough damage; I won’t add to it now by destroying half the library while we fight. I’ll hunt you down another day.”

“And you will back this up with a bargain?” The demon all but licked his lips. Anyone who broke a bargain would find their soul trapped in Hell for eternity—and so that meant Marc couldn’t lie. It was a free pass out of Riverbend. “I leave, then. None of us draws blood while I go out. I fly away, and you don’t fly after me. Is that the agreement?”

Marc nodded. “Yes.”

“Then it is done. Fools. I know your scents now, but you will not know mine. I will kill you so quickly that you will still be screaming while your head rolls on the ground.”

Would the bastard ever stop talking and just leave? Demons were even worse than fanatics. Irritated, Radha asked, “Kind of like this?”

Whimpering, a double of the demon’s head rolled across the library floor, bumping along over its black curving horns.

The demon bared its teeth at her. “I’ll hunt you down first.”

“Back off, demon.” Marc’s expression hardened. “If you don’t leave in a few seconds, you’ll be breaking your bargain.”

And the demon wouldn’t risk whatever diseased thing passed for its soul, either—not when it meant eternal torture in Hell. Swords held at ready, it came around the desk, backing toward the door on cloven feet.

“I’ll keep you hidden from human sight until you’re out of mine,” Radha said. “So fly away, demon.”

Its huge, membranous wings formed as it passed through the door. Marc followed it out, vanishing his sword.

As soon as it stepped onto the sidewalk, the demon smiled. “I didn’t draw blood on my way out. I’m out now. I could kill you.”

“You’d be a fool to try,” Marc said. “Because this is all an illusion, and I’m really standing behind you.”

The demon whirled. Radha grinned while Marc shook with silent laughter. No one stood behind the bastard. Still, it wasn’t sure. Carefully, it extended a sword, poking the air.

“He said he’d let you fly away,” Radha reminded it. “So, go.”

It hissed. “This isn’t over, Guardians.”

“’Bye,” Radha said. “Before I remember that his bargain doesn’t stop me from slaying you.”

With another snarl, it flapped its giant wings. Radha watched it climb. When she glanced back at Marc, he’d already left her side, heading toward a small strip of bare earth at the end of the street. She followed him, tracing the southbound flight of the demon.

“We should have slain him in the street.”

“That’s not as fun.” Marc glanced at her, smiling. “And it would never have left the library if we hadn’t said it could fly away.”

She knew. Still, she worried. Marc’s Gift allowed him to haul dirt, he’d said . . . and the demon had already flown high and far. “Do you wait for him to land?”

Marc didn’t immediately answer. His eyes had narrowed on the demon in the distance, and the power of his Gift became a low, gathering hum against Radha’s shields. Strong, overwhelming all of her senses—she could almost smell the fresh dirt. Reflexively, she looked down.

His feet were bare, toes digging into the frozen soil.

“Radha,” he said, “he’s about to fly over an empty field, do you see?”

Flat, covered with snow. “Yes.”

“Create an illusion that duplicates that entire area. The field, the sky, everything in between. Anybody who looks in that direction has to see the same thing they would now. Ready?”

The field, the sky, everything in between. Was he serious?

Her heart pounding, she created the illusion. “Yes.”

The gathering hum of his Gift suddenly wound higher, a controlled thrust of incredible power against her shields. The entire field erupted upward in a long column, as if pushed from below by a giant hand into a rectangular tower of dirt and stone—directly beneath the demon. The field at the top of the tower hinged like an enormous jaw. Unable to avoid it, the demon stopped flying, sword drawn, as the earthen mouth opened around its body. Hundreds of tons of soil and stone snapped together.

Maybe thousands of tons.

“Marc.” She breathed his name, awed. She’d never seen anything like his Gift. “Marc.”

“Keep the illusion up,” he said softly.

The tower receded again, carrying the crushed demon back to earth. The field returned to its proper altitude, but the thrust of his Gift continued, hardening now against her shields, no longer smelling of soil but of molten stone.

Then hotter, and his Gift pressed like a burning, heavy weight against her tongue. “What are you doing?”

“Burying the demon.”

Far enough that it affected the sensation of his Gift? Past the Earth’s crust? But she shouldn’t have been surprised, she realized. She’d believed his Gift had fit him, the young farmer that he’d once been; she just hadn’t known how well. But he was solid, so strong—and he burned within, too.

“How deep?”

“Deep. It’s not Hell, but it’s hot, and—he’s vaporized now. There’s nothing left to keep burying.” He glanced at her, and his eyes were glowing. “Keep holding the illusion on the field.”

This time the thrust of his Gift held a delicate edge, was more than just pure power. The field lifted again, but not in a solid tower. Columned temples formed from dark soil and stone. Elegant domes rose, covered in snow. Thin spires speared into the sky.

A smaller version of Caelum, replicated—and just as beautiful in dirt and snow as it was in marble. She hadn’t realized how much she needed to see the Guardians’ city whole again. Sweet, painful emotion filled her chest, and she reached for his hand.

“Thank you.”

“I hoped you’d like it.” A hint of laughter entered his voice. “Now look away, because I have to bring it down again.”

No, that didn’t matter. It wouldn’t bother her or remind her of how much it had hurt to see Caelum in ruins. The important thing wasn’t that Caelum had crumbled—but that it could be rebuilt again. Like a friendship. Maybe like love.

She looked up at him as the touch of his Gift receded. His arm circled her waist, and he drew her against his hard chest.

“Are you still invisible?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Am I?”

“No.”

“So that’s why everyone who drives by is looking at me like that.”

Radha laughed. Barefoot, and holding an invisible woman. “Yes.”

“Was it fun, at least?”

“Oh, yes.”

And this was definitely like love. Not that she was rushing into anything. No, she’d just put it off for a hundred and forty years—and somehow, she hadn’t lost him in that time.

“All those idiots who ascended,” she said softly, “I’m glad you weren’t one of them.”

His eyes glowed. “I had a bit of Heaven once. It wouldn’t have been half as good without you there.”

“Especially if you’re really being probed on a spaceship,” she said, and while he laughed she leaped up into his arms, wrapping her legs around him. Her lips found his, tasted, before breaking away again. “You look respectable now. No one will know that I’m about to rip off your clothes, back you up against that shop wall, and ride you until we both have our own little Ascension.”

His body instantly hardened. His big hands swept up the length of her thighs. “Not for a month.”

Radha would never be satisfied with that. And neither, she determined, would Marc be. She slipped the tip of her finger into her mouth, lightly sucked, and sent the sensation spiraling down. He shook with pleasure, closed his eyes.

“A week,” he said, and Radha grinned, perfectly satisfied.

Then he lowered his mouth to hers and began to satisfy her again.