Demon Forged

temples and arches and minarets. Incredible . . . and yet still nothing compared to the reality of Caelum.
    He studied the painting until, after a few more stuttered attempts and interruptions, Lilith disconnected the phone.
    “Fuck me,” she said quietly.
    Alejandro faced her, lifting his brows.
    She walked by the door to kick it closed with the toe of her boot. The soundproofing silenced the noise from outside the office, though the psychic scents of the Guardians in the building were still present. Lilith removed her black suit jacket as she stalked to her desk, and tossed it over the back of one of the chairs she’d offered him.
    “Auntie,” she said with a slight glare, as if daring him to laugh.
    Ah. After Hugh Castleford had become human again, he’d been taken in by an Indian woman and her granddaughter. Auntie had become Lilith’s grandmother by association—a seventy-year-old woman who’d apparently just ridden rough-shod over the two-thousand-year-old Lilith, who’d once stared down and out-lied Lucifer.
    Practice and diplomacy kept Alejandro’s lips from twitching. He gestured at the closed door.
    “Is this regarding something you don’t want the others to hear?”
    “No.” Lilith dropped into her chair and began swiveling back and forth. “I just know it’ll piss Irena off if you’re in here with me, and she can’t hear what we’re saying.”
    This time, practice and diplomacy prevented his anger from showing. “You don’t need to use me to piss her off.”
    She grinned. “No, that’s true. It’s just the quickest way to do it.” Her dark eyes regarded him closely before she said, “There’s a vampire upstairs. Tell me about him.”
    “Irena knows Deacon. I do not.”
    “All right, I’ll ask her. And she’ll tell me to fuck myself, I’ll tell her the same, and at the end of it I still won’t know anything. So I’m asking you.”
    No, she wasn’t. Not asking about Deacon, at any rate. The vampire had been the leader of a large community for decades; even if Lilith had never met Deacon, she’d have heard enough to take his measure. This was about Irena.
    Stiffly, Alejandro said, “She’s never made a secret of her dislike for you, or the way in which SI was created. But she would never bring in anyone she thought might endanger the novices and vampires training here.”
    “Just one who will endanger me?”
    His hands were heating. “No. If she comes for you, she’ll come from the front.” But Irena wouldn’t go for Lilith, because she knew how much those same Guardians and vampires depended on SI. Despite her anger, Irena wasn’t blind to SI’s value. Alejandro wouldn’t tell Lilith that, however. “She doesn’t think like you.”
    “Or like you?”
    “No.” He had to admit that truth. He preferred subtlety. Preferred to undermine his target, discover their weaknesses, so that their fall came as an almost gentle collapse . . . but by that time, an inevitable one.
    It’d been centuries since he’d worked that way. The battles a Guardian fought were better suited to Irena’s methods. Irena smashed and hit her enemies until they toppled.
    Did Lilith think he was one of those enemies? Was her concern not because of Irena’s hatred toward her, but because Lilith hadn’t expected antagonism between Guardians?
    Lilith knew demons well; she wasn’t as familiar with Guardians.
    He pushed the heat back and said evenly, “Despite my . . . friendship with her, I wouldn’t hesitate to put my life in Irena’s hands. There’s no one I’d rather have at my back, no one I trust more.”
    “No one?” A wry smile curved her mouth. “Was that true before you learned that Michael is the son of a demon?”
    “Yes.”
    Her gaze thoughtful, Lilith continued to swivel back and forth in a short arc, tapping her fingers on the arms of her chair. Finally, she looked up at him. “I had to be sure. Finding out that Michael is Belial’s son has created enough tension, even among the novices. We can’t afford to lose anyone.”
    She didn’t need to tell Alejandro that. “What have you heard of Deacon?”
    “That he’s a scary motherfucker.”
    She looked amused by the description. But then, “scary” had a different meaning for Guardians than it did for vampires—and for Lilith.
    “That was not my impression. Irena, however, thinks Deacon only needs to regain confidence, and then he’ll be an asset to our cause. I trust her judgment.”
    Apparently, so did