Demon Forged

closed and he was in some obvious pain. Savi gathered him somehow closer, burying her face in his hair. Tears slid over her cheeks.
    “Where is he injured?”
    Taylor glanced to the side. Wren knelt beside them, stripping out of her jacket. She folded it, obviously planning to make a compress, and Taylor thought now was probably not the time to tell her that, if Colin wasn’t already dead, he’d be fine within an hour or two. Less, once Michael got his ass over here.
    She looked at Savi. “This is Wren. Let her help you, okay? Whatever she does might make it easier for him.”
    Not really, but it gave them all something to do.
    The vampire pulled in a sobbing breath, nodded. She unclamped her hands, and Taylor had a second to see the deep gash in his chest before Wren covered the wound with the jacket.
    “Just hold that tight,” the butler said, her lips thinned into a pale line. She touched his arm, apparently searching for the source of the blood there.
    “It looks worse than it is,” Taylor told her before rising to her feet. At the end of the gymnasium hallway, she saw Michael crouching beside a still form.
    Her stomach rolled over. Oh, damn. She knew that one. Dru.
    The body vanished. Michael stood again as Irena came out of the gymnasium doors, her hands fisted. The tattoos on her arms seemed to constrict, like rattlesnakes coiling before they struck. They stared at each other for a long second, until Irena’s breath hissed through her clenched teeth.
    “We could do nothing .”
    Her accusation didn’t appear to touch him. He said simply, “You kept the others alive.”
    Irena turned her face away. Her chest rose as she took a deep breath. “It is not enough.”
    “No. It never is.” He sounded as if the weight of the world pushed out his reply. “But it is what you have.”
    Irena nodded. She touched his arm as she passed him, continuing down the hall. Michael looked after her. Taylor thought the expression on his face might have been surprise, but it shuttered when he met her gaze. He strode into the gym.
    When he emerged a second later, his face had set like stone. “Any others?”
    “No.” Though Cordoba spoke to the Doyen, he watched Irena, who was walking toward him. “We’d sent the team out to Buenos Aires. No other vampires were here.”
    Michael disappeared. She heard his voice a second later—behind her.
    A young woman, her black hair in a bowl cut framing her tear-streaked face, kneeled beside Lilith. SI’s director sat holding Castleford’s hand. The hellhound lay on his belly next to her, licking blood from her cheek.
    Michael touched the young Guardian’s shoulder. “Well done.”
    He left the corridor, stopped next to Colin and Savi. Taylor felt something , like a compression of air through her chest. His healing Gift, apparently. Colin’s grimace of pain vanished on a sigh. With a murmured thank-you, he pushed away the compress Wren held against his wound.
    Wren stared at the now-healed skin showing through the tear in his shirt. The poor woman. Taylor wouldn’t have blamed her for running out of here, screaming mad. Maybe Wren had been planning to before she glanced up at Colin. She reached forward, caught herself, and sat completely still. Her gaze didn’t move from his face.
    Taylor had felt like that the first couple of times she’d seen him up close, too.
    “Did she take your blood?” Michael asked.
    Colin nodded. “Two or three pints.”
    Michael glanced at Wren, then over to where Irena stood beside Cordoba. “Deacon is with Rael. The vampire completed a job for him.”
    Irena’s face whitened. The serpents on her arms seemed to shrivel, drawing out into long, fragile lines. Cordoba closed his eyes, as if struck by a sudden, deep pain.
    “That is all we know,” Michael continued. He looked to Taylor. “You will stay here.”
    She didn’t consider arguing. “Maybe Savi can—”
    “Dig up Deacon?” The vampire’s normally friendly smile was cold and sharp. “His computer is upstairs. We have his cell number. He’s mine.”
    “No. He’s mine.” Irena pushed forward. Her knives appeared in her grip. Obviously, she meant right now . “Michael, can you teleport to him?”
    “No. He is shielded.”
    Wren shook herself and glanced away from Colin. “They should be at the airport.”
    Irena frowned. “Why would Rael need an airport? He can fly.”
    The butler seemed to take that information in stride. “Then they are flying to Prague. That’s