Demon Blood (50 page)

She’d been right about his need to fight back—and that had been against the blow she’d landed last night. But she hadn’t deserved it. She might not love him, but she was a Guardian. And she was Rosalia. Her heart wasn’t his, but it was a good heart. Too big, maybe. He wouldn’t have loved her so much if it wasn’t.

And if she vowed to be there, she wouldn’t give a thought to her plan—her only thought would be of saving him. Deacon believed that, down to his soul.

“I’m a bastard. A sorry one.”

She gave a sharp nod. “Apology accepted.”

She didn’t say it was all right. He was glad for that.

But not so glad when she pulled her wrists from his, and walked away.

Still in his human form as Karl Geier—nondescript and blond, wearing a navy polo shirt and khaki pants—Malkvial arrived an hour early. From an empty apartment in a building flanking the old church, Rosalia watched him leap over the surrounding fence and break the lock at the front doors. Hidden in the high arched ceiling, her cameras covered almost every angle of the interior. Paint-dotted plastic sheets covered the pews, left over from an incomplete renovation. Dust had settled thick on the floor, the altar, on every stained window sill. She’d been careful not to disturb any of it while installing her equipment, but she still held her breath as he crouched to examine the floor, as he quickly checked the chambers beyond the sanctuary.

She checked the time. Taylor had teleported Deacon to Naples after sunset, where he’d caught a flight back to Rome. He’d be arriving within a few minutes.

If
he came. He could take off now, if he wanted to. He had strength enough to complete his revenge, and he thought she’d manipulated him at every turn. And this bargain with Malkvial . . . There were very few things that would be worse for him.

“You look awful, Rosa.” With a sigh, Gemma sat next to her. “Is it this place?”

“It is many things.”

Gemma smiled, watching Malkvial open the door in a chamber floor, revealing the stairwell that led to the underground chambers. “I looked for you here. Not in the catacombs. But I came here.”

Rosalia didn’t glance at the screen showing the ossuary, where her blood still stained a stone column. “Thank you.”

“The others said,
If she hasn’t come back, she’s not going to
. I looked, though. At Lorenzo’s house—”

“You did
what
?” Rosalia burst out, and heard the male echo from her son.

Disbelieving, Rosalia shared a look with Vin. She didn’t know who was more horrified.

Gemma rolled her eyes. “I went during the day.”

“He could have smelled you. Tracked you back to the abbey.”

“I was careful. You’d threatened him; then you went missing. So I had to check. I’d hoped to find you in the dungeon.”

Rosalia shook her head, trying to calm herself. She touched Gemma’s hand. “You looked for me. That means more than I can say. Thank you.” She drew in a deep breath. “I can’t remember any of it. But I remember waking up and learning that everyone was gone. For a while I thought you were, too—and I was ready to recruit Vin and track you down.”

“You knew where I was after I left?” He glanced at her face. “Okay. That was a stupid question. And I damn well would have looked for both of you.”

She’d never doubted that. Smiling, she glanced back at the monitors, and tensed when Deacon appeared. He walked into the church. No hesitation. No bravado. Just confidence.

Malkvial waited, casually sitting back against the altar rail, his hands braced on the top. They stared at each other down the aisle. Rosalia’s heart pounded, terror suddenly digging in. She’d have given anything to do this part.

Gemma leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped in front of her mouth. “What’s the script going to be?”

“I didn’t give him one.” She saw the younger woman’s shock, and the same on Vin’s face. They both knew she hadn’t given up control like that before. She explained, “Deacon has his reasons for doing this. I can’t just give him mine. Malkvial would never believe it.”

Vin stared at her. “You wouldn’t even let
me
go in without a script. And you had vampires with you for a hundred years who still had line-by-line points to make whenever they faced someone.”

“Deacon knows what we need to do,” she said. “But he can decide how to get there.”

She fell silent as Malkvial suddenly smiled. Vin’s hands came over her shoulders, and he circled his thumbs over taut muscles.

“Hello, Mr. Deacon.”

Deacon’s expression didn’t change, but Rosalia knew that bothered him. Caym and Rael’s lieutenant had called him
Mr.
Deacon.

“Hello, Karl,” he replied.

Good. Oh, good. Deacon positioned himself above the demon without a single challenge. Thank God for St. Croix.

“I understand you have a proposal for me.” Malkvial spread his hands. “This
is
a place for making vows. Not for leading friends astray.”

The demon went straight for Deacon’s heart, reminding him of how he’d betrayed Irena. Deacon responded as if it hadn’t touched him. “I have a mutually beneficial business proposition. But we aren’t friends. Let’s not pretend.”

Malkvial straightened up, ripping off a piece of the wooden altar rail as he stood. Rosalia hugged herself, and Vin’s hands tightened on her shoulders. Not just massaging now. Reminding her to stay in place.

“Yes, let’s not pretend.” The demon approached Deacon with slow, measured steps down the aisle. The sharp point of the splintered wood dragged along the stone floor. “Let’s not pretend that a vampire can be of any use to me.”

“ ‘And the blood that heals shall bring the dead unto judgment, and the judged unto Heaven.’ ”
Deacon quoted from the prophecy that predicted that vampire blood would help destroy the nephilim, and send Belial to the throne in Hell. “It sounds to me that we’re of some use.”

“Your
blood
. Not you, Mr. Deacon.” Malkvial’s eyes flashed crimson. “And let us not pretend to forget that you have shed the blood of my demons.”

“I brought my proposal to Valeotes, but he wouldn’t deliver the message. And the message you tried to deliver in Amsterdam wasn’t what I needed to hear.”

The demon stopped halfway down the aisle. “And what would you like to hear, Mr. Deacon?”

“That you’ll leave the vampire communities alone.”

Malkvial struck quickly. Leaping forward, he swung the rail’s blunt end at Deacon’s head, knocking him sideways. Flipping the wood around, he shoved the point through Deacon’s gut.

Oh, God. It should have been her. Rosalia clasped her hands together, shaking furiously.
It should have been her.

“I can’t see that happening, Mr. Deacon.” Malkvial twisted the rail and stepped back. “I’ll kill all of you, just like this.”

Deacon gripped the wooden shaft impaled through his stomach. He yanked out the rail, tossed it aside. “I’ll trade the nephilim. Our lives, for the nephilim.”

Laughing, Malkvial shook his head. Turning around, he grabbed the end of a pew and swung. The heavy bench hit Deacon in the chest, smashing him back against the stone wall.

Vin was shouting her name. Dimly, Rosalia realized she was dragging him toward the door.

“Mama! You’ve got to let him finish, or it’s all for nothing!”

“Let me go.” She couldn’t bear this. If she had to Fall, so be it. “It should be me.”

He shook her, hard. “You can’t always protect us. Do you
believe
he can do this?”

God, she did. And knowing he could was the only thing that might keep her there. She nodded.

“Then
let
him.”

She’d warned him. Thank God she’d warned him. He didn’t have to prepare himself for the pain—just fight to keep from smashing the demon’s head in.

His stomach burned. He pushed his fist into the hole in his gut, holding everything in until it healed. The pew had taken out a couple of his ribs. Every breath shot dizzying pain through his lungs. But he could talk.

“The Guardians are no help to us. Cities of vampires are dead thanks to the nephilim, and the Guardians haven’t stopped them. And London is next.” Deacon paused to spit out his blood, to take another agonizing breath. “I don’t give a fuck about the prophecy or what Belial hopes to take in Hell. I just want to save our asses.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“You break the Rules. You bring those fuckers in one at a time. You kill them.”

Malkvial blinked. He stared at Deacon for a long moment, before his lips widened in a smile that chilled his blood. “Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Deacon. We absolutely don’t need vampires for that.”

A sword appeared in his hand—to kill him this time, Deacon realized. Faster than the demon, he sidestepped to avoid the swinging blade and said, “You need us to get the humans.”

Malkvial paused with his sword raised over his head.

“If your demons break the Rules by snatching people, they’ll come at you, one on one, and you’re dead.” Deacon backed up a step to give himself more room if Malkvial jumped him again. “You’ve got to bring the humans in—somewhere closed up, so that when the nephil comes he’s got nowhere to run. And you better have enough of your friends with you that you can take them all out, even if the nephilim manage to kill some of you. And you know they will.”

His eyes narrowing to crimson slits, Malkvial remained silent. Considering it, Deacon realized. He pushed home, calling in every asshole thing that might appeal to a demon.

“Hey, I’ll be doing you a favor. You pull this off in front of Belial’s other demons, and the lieutenant position is yours, and Theriault is stuck with his thumb up his ass. And all we vampires want in exchange is to be left the hell alone.”

“All of us, in a closed area?”

“However the fuck you want to do it. I’m just thinking that those nephilim are goddamn fast, and you don’t want them to escape and go running to Mommy.” Deacon shrugged. “I won’t be the one trying to kill them. You choose the place. I’ll meet you here in three days, one hour after sunset. You give me the location, and we’ll have the humans there by dawn. Then we clear out. You do your thing.”

Malkvial cocked his head.
“We?”

“The vampires grabbing the humans.” Deacon wiped his mouth again. The scent of blood around him was overpowering. “My communities will be knee-deep in it, breaking the Rules to help you. Each community leader will deliver a human—and you can bet no one is running to the Guardians.”

“You’ve thought this through.”

Deacon’s laugh was short and bitter. “I got fucked over once by a demon. Then I got fucked over again by Guardians. All I got out of that was a dead community. So, yeah, I’ve thought this through.”

And pulled it all out of his ass.

The demon nodded. “You’ll understand that I won’t settle for a handshake, Mr. Deacon. I can’t afford you betraying me. We’ll seal this agreement with a bargain.”

He hadn’t made one with Caym; he’d just been beaten. And a bargain put his soul on the line, but he felt safer with one—it meant the demon would keep up his part.

“All right,” he said. “Here’s my part: My communities will bring the humans to the location you choose. After that, you let us live and forbid your demons from killing any of us.”

Which didn’t really mean anything. The bargain only prevented Malkvial himself from killing the vampires. With every other demon, all bets were off. He could have asked for Malkvial’s protection, instead—but there was no way in hell Deacon could bring himself to do that.

If Rosalia’s plan went through, all the demons would be dead, anyway.

Malkvial’s eyes gleamed. Yeah, he knew he was getting a damn good deal. “And if they don’t follow my direction?”

“Then I’m talking to the wrong demon.” He let that sink in. “And the humans—no killing them. Slap ’em around, whatever. No killing.”