Demon Marked

same as demons.”
    “I know that better than anyone,” Castleford said. “But there’s the matter of her bargain. She’d have vowed to serve and obey Lucifer during the ritual. We wouldn’t be able to trust her.”
    Lilith shook her head. “Probably not sworn to obey Lucifer. Not with the Gates closed. He’d have bound her to someone else, someone who probably was charged to carry through whatever purpose he had in mind.”
    “St. Croix?”
    “No.” Castleford didn’t hesitate. “Not a human. A demon. And he probably bound that demon to him, to make certain whatever he wanted from them was followed through.”
    “So we just have to kill the demon she’s bound to,” Lilith said. “And she’s free.”
    “And Lucifer’s purpose thwarted,” Castleford added.
    “Always fun, the thwarting. So we should definitely bring her in.” Lilith pursed her lips. “Does anyone know where she is?”

CHAPTER 11

    Nicholas thought he’d had enough of snow, but it wasn’t so damn bad when it meant traveling by snowmobile with a furnace of a demon sitting behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist. The view wasn’t a kick in the face, either. Whitecapped mountains thrust into the western sky. White stretched around them, framed by the trees climbing the valley walls.
    Leslie often told him he ought to make an effort to study and enjoy the beauty around him. The land just east of Glacier National Park made it easy.
    Beauty wasn’t his reason for being here, though. This time of year, the only access to the cabin took two hours by snowmobile—unless a man could fly. Considering that most Guardians and demons could, the isolation wasn’t Nicholas’s primary reason for choosing his granddad’s place, either. The old man’s paranoia had been.
    The afternoon sun cast long shadows by the time they reached the log cabin. An A-frame situated in a tiny clearing at the edge of a valley floor, surrounded by a stand of tall firs, the place wasn’t an easy find unless a man already knew where it was. From high above, the snow piled on the steeply pitched roof would blend it into the surroundings. Inside, the main level housed two simple rooms: a living area, and a corner bedroom holding the toilet and a tub. A generator provided electricity if they wanted it. The cellar doubled as a nuclear fallout shelter, still stocked with weapons and supplies. Nicholas wouldn’t need them; he’d brought his own in the snowmobile’s sled. Still, he liked knowing they were there. A man couldn’t be overly prepared.
    The snow was almost level with the top step when he pulled up to the front porch, cut the engine. The sudden silence seemed almost heavy, until the quiet sounds of the forest around them began filtering in.
    He was almost sorry when Ash got off. God, she was warm. Even the best wet-and-cold weather gear money could buy didn’t compare to a demon at a man’s back.
    And her boots were as sexy as hell, but they weren’t doing her any favors. One step, and she sank knee-deep in the snow. She didn’t seem to notice. She only studied the cabin, looking as if she were freezing in that thin jacket and hoodie. A human would have been, but a demon didn’t need to hunch into her clothes.
    Why did she do that? She couldn’t be cold.
    “What is this place?”
    “My grandfather’s. This, and a hundred acres around it.”
    “He’s not here?”
    “Dead. Ten years. It’s mine now.”
    She pushed her hands into her pockets. “Won’t the Guardians find us, then?”
    “No.” Nicholas stripped off his thick outer gloves, began loosening the bungee cords holding the tarp over the sled. “There’s a record of the land, but not the house. He didn’t want the government touching him . . . and he was something of a survivalist. He didn’t leave much of a footprint in paper, and nothing electronically. Just a post office box in town.”
    Ash looked doubtful. “What kind of survivalist?”
    “He didn’t get to the point of mailing bombs, if that’s what you’re wondering. He lived through the stock market crash in the eighties. My grandmother took too many Valium and didn’t. He became convinced the world was out to fuck him over, so he gave it all up and came out here to live off the land.”
    Of course, being a St. Croix, he’d brought a hell of a lot of cash with him.
    “So no one knows it’s here?”
    Madelyn did, though she’d never been here. When Nicholas had been a boy, his mother, father, and he had