Demon Forged

Castleford left quickly—they would teleport back to SI before Rael realized they’d been here.
    Fifteen minutes later, she stepped out of the building with Joe and Cordoba, and pulled her coat tight around her. She almost wished she’d teleported with Michael; the wind was cold enough to make her forehead ache.
    And what fun—the demon was making his way across the plaza toward them.
    Joe harrumphed, as if she hadn’t noticed. Cordoba watched Rael’s smiling approach without expression. The Guardian didn’t talk much. Not unless he had to—or unless Irena was in the room with him. Other than that, he seemed the quiet, deadly type.
    Not the demon. He effused warmth, and instead of dark and brooding, he was handsome in a clean, rugged kind of way—tanned but not too tanned, with a few wrinkles next to his eyes for character, and sprinkles of gray through his sandy hair. In Hollywood, he’d be the kind of actor who only got hotter as he aged, the kind who looked at home in a suit and private jet or on horseback trekking through the mountains.
    He stopped. The wind whipped at his dark wool trench and his red scarf. “Detective Taylor, Detective Preston. It’s nice to see you again.”
    Taylor frowned. “Considering your recent loss, Representative Stafford, I’m sure that can’t be true.”
    His sad smile managed to show off his perfect white teeth. “I always try to find the good in every situation, detective.”
    Taylor actually felt chastised, like she shouldn’t be a surly bitch. Her badge entitled her to that, at least. So did the fucking wind.
    “I didn’t expect you to be done with Maggie so quickly,” he added. “I was just taking a walk to clear my head when she called me. It’s easier to think without the distractions in the office.”
    So he’d been walking and not listening? Right. “I bet,” Taylor said.
    He smiled again. “And I like to see our new building from all angles.” His face tilted up, and he stepped back as if inviting them all to turn and look at the federal building. “She’s quite a feat, isn’t she? An amazing architectural accomplishment. Beauty and efficiency, in one package.”
    “It’s great,” Taylor said and glanced at Cordoba. His face was still unreadable—and the demon hadn’t addressed him or acknowledged his presence. Was Rael trying to piss him off?
    Joe didn’t look back at the irregular building. “I dunno about great . It looks like a parking structure after a quake to me. And every time I walk out, I get this feeling someone’s going to follow me home and yell at me for living in my little place made of wood that probably came out of some slashed-and-burned forest.”
    The demon smiled. “Our responsibility for our future should not mean we have to denigrate the past. We couldn’t have built what we have now without taking those early steps—even steps that we later discovered were destructive.”
    Joe shrugged. “I don’t care about that. I just want to put some butter on my potatoes without clutching at my chest.”
    “Ah, yes.” The demon laughed quietly, as if he thought Joe had been joking, and looked to Taylor. “You must be pleased to be working with your partner again. I suppose yesterday’s team up with Irena did not work out.”
    It’d worked out fine, but why tell the demon that? “Not really.”
    His expression became a picture of sympathy. “It’s a pity she didn’t make it today.”
    What did that mean? Was he trying to wheedle out her take on the interview with Wren? As if she’d give him anything.
    “Yeah, it sucks to be her,” Taylor said.
    “Yes. Good day, detectives.”
    As soon as the demon’s back was turned, Joe gave her a What the hell? look. Taylor shrugged and shook her head. But Cordoba, she noted, was staring after Rael with eyes that had darkened to black.
    He waited until Rael had disappeared into the building. “Please excuse me while I make a call.”
    Quiet, and so polite. She gestured toward the plaza. “Knock yourself out.” They’d just hang around and freeze.
    He strode away. She watched him lift the phone to his ear, then squeeze his eyes closed and tighten his mouth in the universal sign that he’d been dropped into a voice mail instead of reaching the person he’d wanted.
    Free will or not, sometimes Guardians seemed very human.
    She thought of Michael, and waking up to him at the end of her bed. And sometimes . . . not.
    She glanced at Joe and asked before she could stop