Demon Marked

rest of her. A woman this powerful didn’t walk around in ripped jeans and a powder blue tank top featuring a glittery unicorn prancing across her breasts. Yet Khavi did.

She said softly, “Who is it that you’ve met, Andromeda Taylor?”

“You don’t know?”

“Not yet. Only that something has changed. Doors have opened.” The beads at the ends of her small black braids tinkled when she shook her head. “But I cannot see what I do not already know. So tell me: Who have you met? Show me.”

It could only be the demon, Ash. Taylor had met St. Croix and Revoire before. Closing her eyes, she pictured the blonde in her head, the vermillion tattoos along the side of her face, and projected it into Khavi’s psyche.

The grigori’s breath stopped. “Who is she?”

“St. Croix called her Ash.”

“No. That is not her name. She hasn’t found it yet.” Khavi tilted her head a little, as if examining the image in her mind. “When she does, it all begins to end.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said, which Taylor knew just meant that Khavi didn’t want to tell her. “Where is she?”

“Minnesota. For now. What do you see in her future?”

“Not hers. I haven’t met her. I only see yours.”

“And I’m doing what?”

The black cleared from Khavi’s eyes, leaving them dark brown. Human, except that no human ever had eyes that looked so ancient. “Sacrificing her.”

No. Taylor really couldn’t imagine herself doing that. “I don’t think so.”

“Not even to save Michael?” Khavi smiled when Taylor’s breath caught. “It is so amazing to me, the lengths to which people will go for love.”

“I’m not in love with him. You said I never would be in love with him. You saw it.”

“But I didn’t say that I was speaking of you now.”

No . . . she hadn’t. Khavi had said “people.” God. Taylor hated talking to this woman, sometimes. “And what about Michael? I—”

“Want to ask me to teleport to the frozen field to check things out. I know. I already did.”

Oh, thank God. “And?”

“And Lucifer found him.”

The psychic reaction to that softly spoken announcement reverberated throughout the warehouse. Guardians, all with perfect hearing, all listening—a practice that most would usually consider rude, but not when the Doyen and the grigori were discussing Michael. Now they began to appear at the top of the stairs, at the edge of the hub. Leaving the gymnasium, gathering around. But all silent, all waiting for more.

Their horror echoed Taylor’s. “So what’s happening to him?”

Khavi closed her eyes, but not before Taylor saw the moisture glistening in them. “What do you think? No, no—that is the wrong way to put it. You can’t think of what is happening, because you are not a demon. Because you are not Lucifer.”

“So maybe I’m imagining worse.”

But no. The truth was, she wasn’t sure what could be done to him. Only his face was exposed, and that was a block of ice. Would they scratch him? Poke at him? Try to stab him? He was frozen solid.

She looked to the faces of the other Guardians. She was not alone, Taylor realized. They, too, knew it would be horrible. But they didn’t know exactly what that meant. Only . . .

Taylor turned toward the director’s offices—and yes, there was Lilith, standing at the end of the hallway. Her hand rested on the scruff of Sir Pup’s center neck. Shape-shifted down to the size of a Labrador, he was rubbing his left head against the former demon’s leg. Comforting her, though it was almost impossible to tell by her face that she needed it. But the hellhound knew.

So did Hugh Castleford. He’d come up behind Lilith, slid his hand around her waist.

“Lilith?”

Taylor’s voice cracked when she spoke her name. She didn’t want to know. But she had to. Michael had made this sacrifice for them. They would all bear it, too.

Lilith’s hand found Castleford’s at her waist, and she threaded her fingers through his before she began. “An ice pick would be first, because it’s instant gratification. The eyes are open, so Lucifer would focus on those at the beginning, digging all the way in, but then he’d realize that pain was pain, and it didn’t matter where it came from, so he’d start in on the rest of the face. Hammers, maybe to finish shattering the ice, and he’s strong enough to do it. And when the face and eyes regenerate, he can do it all again.”

Oh, God. Taylor covered her mouth, uncertain whether she’d scream or begin crying. A few of the novices already were.

“You go easy on them,” Khavi said, and Taylor couldn’t determine whether there was appreciation or accusation in her voice.

But how could there be more? How could there be worse?

She looked to Lilith, and knew that it was true. “How?”

“For fuck’s sake, Taylor—” Lilith stopped, glanced up the stairs at the novices. “He’s being eaten by dragons in Chaos. Over and over, chewed and devoured, and then torn apart and eaten again. Do you really think that an ice pick to the eye is worse? Lucifer knows it’s not. Especially to someone like Michael. The pain is fun for Lucifer, but it doesn’t really hurt Michael. It doesn’t get to the heart of him. So he’d wait until Michael’s eyes healed, and then he’d drag up humans from the Pit. Now imagine your favorite torture, then imagine it a thousand times worse, and then imagine it being done to those human souls. That is what Michael’s watching right now. And once they’re down there, it doesn’t matter so much that they’re murderers, that they are the shit of humanity. Down there, they are only people, they’re in agony, pointless agony, because they aren’t burning so they don’t give Lucifer power and they won’t find release, and Michael can’t help them.”

Taylor stared at her. Yes. That helplessness would hurt him more than any pain. But, of all people, Lilith knew that? Lilith, who never had a word for Michael that wasn’t dripping with sarcasm or disdain for the “golden boy.”

“I thought you hated him,” she said.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed on her. “Fuck you, Taylor.” Her focus shifted to Khavi. “And fuck you, too. Why didn’t you warn him?”

“I did. Before he made his sacrifice, I told him exactly what it would mean.”

“Then why the fuck can’t you see how we get him out?”

“I cannot see what I do not already—”

“Oh, fuck you again.”

The grigori tilted her head. “No, I do not see fucking in our future.”

Khavi vanished. Lilith shook her head, met Taylor’s eyes.

“You, my office.” She looked around at the gathered Guardians. “All of you. Every spare moment, I want you at the archives in Caelum, in the libraries wherever you can find one, searching for any damn little thing that would help get Michael out of there. So move your asses now, or I’ll have Sir Pup come bite them off.”

Taylor loved her a little bit right then. She followed Castleford and Lilith back to the office, grateful that Sir Pup stayed behind in the central hub to carry out Lilith’s threat. Once inside, Lilith ripped her hands through her hair and sat heavily in her chair.

“Fuck.”

Castleford smiled a little and sat on the edge of her desk, crossing his arms over his massive chest. Without the glasses he typically wore, he looked less like the scholar and more like the warrior—an eight-hundred-year-old warrior who, even though he was human again now, could still see the truth in a person’s answers as clearly as if he read them. Luckily, whenever Taylor lied in front of him, he usually didn’t call her on it.

“‘Fuck’ again? Now you’re just teasing me, Lily.”

Lilith glared at him, but even Taylor could see that he’d just pushed Lilith out of her temper. With a sigh, she