Angel of God, my guardian dear.
The demon let out a basso bellow that shattered my eardrums, deafening me more thoroughly than a gunshot at close range.
To whom God’s love commits me here.
I opened my eyes to see a huge, black dragon, like a living shadow, towering at least forty feet above me, razor-sharp claws raised to strike. When I didn’t stop praying, he turned toward Okalani.
I screamed, “No,” and threw myself down on top of her, protecting her body with mine. I wrapped myself around the spear that bound her to this world. I closed my eyes and waited for the blow that would end my life.
Fire flared around me, I could smell it, feel it. But it did not burn. The dragon shrieked in impotent rage. I couldn’t hear it, but I could feel it, an actual physical pressure beating against me. I opened my eyes wondering what could possibly be stopping him and saw light, bright searing light, illuminating everything, making the demonic monster hold back. Words echoed in my mind, and though they were in a language I did not know, I knew full well what they were saying.
They are mine. The demon’s voice, filled with honey and putrefaction.
The other voice held power and love stronger than anything I’d ever felt. Were that so, I could not be here, and well we both know it. Begone.
A dark laugh bubbling with evil pleasure filled my ears and made me cringe. I wanted to look again but that was the way to madness. True evil would corrupt my eyes, blind me. One is a traitor, the other a tainted thing. They are mine!
The sound of steel on steel filled the air, like a blade being unsheathed. No. The betrayer has repented and is forgiven. And while the other has yet to choose her final path, it is she who called me forth. Again I say, begone.
I felt the power surging and risked a peek. The dragon shimmered, changing shape, becoming something more humanlike, but huge, and somehow both hideous and soul-searingly beautiful. He reached forward and grabbed the spear that I was wrapped around. I relaxed fractionally just in time as he pulled it free with no visible effort. Blood and flesh sprayed across me. But still I protected Okalani’s ravaged body.
A flurry of sound and motion outside the circle drew my attention. Through a wall of flames I saw Bruno, Creede, Igor, and a priest in full regalia pouring through the doorway into the room.
I couldn’t hear the priest speak, but I saw his lips move. He was performing the ritual banishment. He looked so terrified—they all did—and I realized with a shock that they thought I was alone and unprotected.
As I should have been.
My faith, while real, is shaky at best. And the demon had been right about my being tainted. It wasn’t just that I was part vampire; I’d been marked by a demon once before.
The voice in my mind was patient, kind, and loud. No one is perfect. But you do have faith. You hold truth dear. You hold loyalty sacred. And some days, that is enough.
The demon snarled and paced around the parts of the circle he could reach, eyes blazing with hate every time he reached the invisible boundary line created by the light. I began to think I might survive.
As I watched, the priest dipped the sprinkler into the bucket of holy water and flung a spray of liquid into the air above the circle. The drops passed through the barrier as if it weren’t there. The demon howled his defiance even while he dodged frantically, trying to avoid being hit. Drops splattered to the ground. When the water hit the being of white fire, the flames soared, turning it whole and perfect. Nearly too perfect to look at.
Again and again the priest repeated his actions, until the floor of the casting circle was covered in water and there was nowhere left for the minion of hell to hide.
As the priest raised the sprinkler one last time, the fallen angel called out. Jan’s corpse levitated up from the floor and flew into his clawed hand.
He turned to me with a chilling smile. I will see you in your dreams, dear one. We are linked, you and I. For all eternity.
Then he was gone.
34
“I would like a private word with the princess.” Igor stood just inside the door to my private hospital room. It was 4:00 A.M. but he looked as fresh as if it was the beginning of his day. He’d showered and changed clothes in the hours since I’d last seen him. Looking at him now, you’d have no clue that he’d been up all night dealing with the fallout of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. His black suit was immaculate, the crease in his pants sharp enough to shave with. The white dress shirt he wore almost gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
Bruno, on the other hand, was a wreck. Slumped in the chair at my bedside, he wore the same clothes he’d thrown on in a hurry yesterday morning; his hair was rumpled and he had more than a shadow of a beard. Still, he was alert and wary as he sat up straighter in his seat. The look he gave me said as clearly as words that he didn’t think I was up to this.
He might have been right.
I am a fairly tough cookie, but everybody has a limit, and I was coming perilously close to mine. It wasn’t the violence, or even the demon—although I wondered if I’d ever relax enough to sleep soundly again. No, it was the memories. The things I’d seen in Mexico had cracked the protective magical shield that had blunted my memories of Ivy’s death and my torture. Seeing what had happened to Okalani had shattered that barrier entirely.
I remembered every cigarette burn, every cut, the threats and the terror. But most of all, I remembered my sheer helplessness as I watched my sister die a hideously gruesome death because she couldn’t control the ghouls her talent had raised. Each memory was as vivid, as raw, as the day it had happened.
I looked at Igor, who was standing silent and patient, then took a deep breath and shoved the memories into a box in my mind. I slammed down the lid and hoped it would hold. “I’ll be fine,” I said to Bruno. “Let us talk.”
Bruno didn’t argue, he just stood. He bent down to give me a tender kiss. Still leaning close, he whispered, “Whatever he wants, say no. You’ve done enough—more than enough.”
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t Bruno’s decision to make. It was mine. But I had to admit that I was leaning toward having the doctors give me enough sedatives to knock out an elephant, in hopes that I would be too deeply unconscious to dream.
Bruno straightened and shook his head. Walking past Igor, he gave the older man a very unfriendly look, but didn’t say a word. Only after the door was fully closed and we were alone did Igor come over to stand beside the bed.
“You are stronger than he knows,” Igor observed.
And more fragile than you think, I thought. What I said was, “What do you need?”
He looked down at me, his expression so utterly bland that it was at odds with his words. “We interrogated Princess Olga thoroughly.” I winced. He didn’t say torture, but I couldn’t help thinking it. “While the man you knew as Jan Mortensen was one of their top men, he was not the head of the organization. That man is still in place. So long as he lives, the movement will continue.”
I didn’t speak, just waited. There was more. I could tell.
“They have one final plan in place for during the wedding tomorrow.” He sighed, sounding weary. Either the strain of the last few days was showing, or he was a superlative actor. I couldn’t tell. But the regret in his voice when he spoke next sounded sincere. “Unfortunately, the oath she had taken killed her before she could give us any details. But we have a plan.”