Demon Blood

jeans, Khavi stood clutching a ten-pound bag of potatoes to her chest. Taylor didn’t even ask. After spending two millennia in Hell with only a hellhound for company, Khavi’s forays into the modern world had revealed a personality that swung from eccentric to batshit crazy.
    As far as Taylor knew, however, that hadn’t included necrophilia.
    Taylor opened her mouth and Khavi said, “You want to know if the nephilim have become like their hosts. They have.”
    Ah, yes. At least a conversation with a prophetic grigori was never boring. And despite knowing that Khavi had probably let her die, Taylor kind of liked the woman. As frustrating as Khavi was at times, holding back information and never making any sense until whatever she’d predicted smashed into a person from behind, Taylor never felt the urge to punch her in the face during a conversation, unlike the time she’d spent with Anaria.
    Well, okay. Taylor had threatened to shoot Khavi in the head once. But Khavi hadn’t ducked, so obviously they’d both known it wasn’t going to happen.
    “I found her island, too.”
    Khavi dumped the potatoes onto the worktable and began sorting through them. By what criteria, Taylor couldn’t fathom. “Yes, yes. Anaria has always loved the sea.”
    Something in Khavi’s easy reply told her, “You knew where she was?”
    “Of course. But what good is it? If we move against them—separately, or all together—we will be slaughtered.” Khavi stopped sorting spuds long enough to meet Taylor’s eyes. “That is not conjecture. I have seen it.”
    Well, shit. “Rosalia’s got her plan, whatever it is. She’s intending to kill all of the nephilim. Have you seen that?”
    “I cannot see what I do not know.”
    “Any hint?”
    Khavi’s mouth tightened. She began stuffing one pile of potatoes back into the sack. “I have seen that we do not lose the balance.”
    “Uh-huh,” Taylor said. Because that made so much sense.
    Frowning at her, Khavi hefted two spuds, one in each hand. “A balance. There is light”—she lowered her left hand, raised her right—“and there is dark. There is action and consequence.” She evened their height again, like a set of scales. “They all must be kept in balance, and that is why the Doyen must punish a Guardian who breaks the Rules, and Lucifer must enforce the Rules for his demons. It is why the nephilim are here, because he cannot enforce the Rules with the Gates closed.” She lowered both potatoes. “We do not lose the balance.”
    Her heart sank—for Rosalia, for the London community. “So the nephilim don’t die.”
    “I cannot see.” But she shook her head. “I do not believe so, however.”
    Dammit. Taylor pushed her hand through her hair. She wouldn’t tell Rosalia that, though. The woman was so sweet, and so determined. And maybe she’d slay enough of them, even if she didn’t get rid of them all. Maybe enough to save London.
    “Now you are going to ask, ‘What of the vampires in London? ’ ” Khavi shrugged. “I have seen them slain; I have seen them live.”
    “So how do I weigh the scales toward the ‘live’ side?”
    “Find the nephil who drank the community leaders’ blood before he shares the resonance with his brothers.” Her gaze flicked to Taylor’s desk. “I know you have already started.”
    Holy shit. “Do I find him?”
    “No.”
    “But—”
    “No.”
    All right. Sometimes she did want to punch Khavi in the face. But knowing this was useless, she backed up. “What does that mean, sharing resonance?”
    “It is simple. A leader knows all of his people, almost always by psychic scent. That knowledge is stored in the blood—and when a nephil takes the blood, and looks for the right sounds, he can hear all of the vampires in the community.”
    “All of their psychic scents?” Which never felt like scent to Taylor, during those odd times when she recognized another person’s emotions. She only heard sound.
    “Yes. And nephil are not like Guardians, or grigori, or demons. They are connected. So when the first nephil separates all of the sounds from one another, he can pass that knowledge through his blood into the other nephilim. When they attack a city, there is nowhere for the vampires to hide. The nephilim can hunt down an entire community in a single night—and clean up any strays that they find along the way, vampires who don’t belong to the community.”
    Strays . . . like a family of vampires in an abbey. God.