Demon Blood

open doors.
    Deacon had locked the entrance when he’d led the vampires outside. Realizing he was the nephilim’s target, the demon must have fled before Anaria arrived.
    “Irena, hold him,” Rosalia said. “Don’t let him out.”
    The other Guardian didn’t question her. She took hold of Deacon. Rosalia looked up into his blank eyes.
    And let the darkness of her Gift take her.

    The sun hung low in the morning sky, and the shadows were long. Still, the pain of her Gift was a sharp, hungry bite as she gathered the shadows, wrapped herself in them, and stretched them toward the church.
    Stabbing outward with a hard psychic probe, she felt Anaria, huge and brilliant and bright, like the sun; Taylor, closed and dark; at a distance, Irena, Alejandro, the sleeping vampires, and Deacon’s possessed mind; and farther away, the snakelike touch of a demon’s psyche.
    Her focus narrowed on him. Below her, a thick swath of darkness crawled over the streets and buildings, a long shadow that rose upward in a black ribbon. She caught the shadow, whipped it forward, and rode along. Ahead, the demon’s wings beat frantically, terror spilling from his mind like bitter ash against her tongue.
    She pushed the shadows forward, surrounding him. He shrieked, whirling about, blindly slashing with his sword. She condensed the darkness into a cocoon, silencing his screams from human ears, and let the black carry her closer.
    He had no warning. She erupted out of the dark, her blades slicing through his chest, his neck. She vanished the pieces of him into her cache as they fell, then reached out with another psychic probe.
    Deacon’s mind was dazed, but it was his own.
    But she felt the touch of another mind, brilliant and light, seeking her out. Dismay spilled into her heart, but she’d known that using her Gift would come at this price. She stretched the shadows north again, carrying her back across the city. She couldn’t return to Lorenzo’s home—Anaria would find them all.
    Still enshrouded in darkness, she landed in front of the church. She passed through the doors, wondering if she’d already been noticed on the monitors in Lorenzo’s dungeon.
    She hoped Irena was still holding Deacon.
    On bare, silent feet, Anaria approached from the rear chambers and walked past the sanctuary. Though still soaked with the demon’s blood, she glowed. Her radiance ate away at Rosalia’s Gift, and the shredding pain was like the agony of Caelum’s sun.
    Anaria smiled gently. “Do not hide from me.”
    Oh, God. Rosalia had heard about the effect of that voice, melodic and sweet, difficult to resist. Rosalia proved not strong enough. Obeying, she let go of her shadows and stood trembling, cloaked only in her terror.
    She had to turn her face away from Anaria’s brilliance, and stared at the plastic-enshrouded pews to her left.
    “You have slain the one that fled?”
    Rosalia nodded, a sob working up through her chest. Never had she heard such kindness, such sweetness. Her yearning to reach out to Anaria was almost unbearable. She fought not to drop to her knees.
    But she wouldn’t . Not before Anaria. Her gaze sought the carved figure above the altar, and though it, too, was wrapped in plastic, Rosalia took the strength she needed there.
    “You helped me,” Anaria said.
    No, she hadn’t. A terrible ache filled Rosalia’s heart. However terrible and frightening Anaria was, she’d acted out of love. It was so much easier to destroy a demon, who relished fear and hate.
    But Anaria was no less dangerous, and Rosalia dared not lie. Anaria could see the truth, and so her only chance to survive was to speak it. To always speak it.
    “No mother should lose her children in such a way,” Rosalia whispered.
    “No,” Anaria said sadly, and tears stung Rosalia’s eyes. She wanted to pull the ancient grigori to her breast, soothe the woman’s pain. “You are a mother?”
    Her teeth clenched, but the answer came anyway. “Yes.”
    She hated telling this woman about Vin. Hated giving her that.
    Anaria sensed it. “Do not fear me. I am not the Guardians’ enemy.”
    Rosalia said nothing.
    Anaria sighed, a sound of regret and hurt that almost ripped out Rosalia’s heart. She wanted to leap forward, to take the woman into her arms, to comfort her.
    She stayed where she was.
    “These demons who slaughtered my children, were they all my father’s? Did they all follow Belial?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are there others?”
    “Yes.”