Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) (50 page)

“Roger Daugherty, proud owner of a ’95 Tacoma. Sixty-seven years of age, Caucasian, brown, and blue,” she told him, rattling off the statistics without consulting any notes.

Michael would have wagered the fate of the world on the certainty that she could do the same for everyone else on her list. “Then lead on, fearless maiden.”

She snorted, then they were on their way. Daugherty resided on the second floor of an apartment complex. Michael followed her up the concrete stairs, listening to the quick, even beat of her feet—not the same one-two-three she used when going down. Purpose leaked through her shields in an electric hum. Discovering the connection between Brandt and the other murders had added excitement and hope to her determination to find Brandt’s killer. She’d never have given up. But now she had a trail to follow. Not just a detective. A hunter.

Fierce. Clever. Strong.

A few days with her would
never
be enough.

He stood silently through the next interview, his fists clenched and the pain in his chest an open, jagged wound. This time, Michael listened, and when they left he didn’t have to ask why she’d crossed Daugherty off her list: another routine early morning errand—this one to a grocery store.

They spoke little on the walk back to the car. As she opened the door, Andromeda looked across the top of the roof at him. “I have a feeling this is going to be a long day.”

Michael hoped that it was.

But she hadn’t yet parked at the next residence when Michael caught a familiar scent. “It’s here,” he said.

“The demon?”

“No. The vampires. Both male and female.” He waited until they stopped. Still holding on to the guise of federal agent, he left the car, stood on the paved drive behind a sedan. A one-level duplex. Human scents from the unit on the right. The vampires’ on the left. “Unit A.”

“The car’s registered to unit B.” She had her phone out, texting. “All right. I’ve asked Lilith to discover everything she can about whoever is supposed to be living there. Let’s see what info we can get from the neighbors before we search their place.”

Michael nodded. His gaze swept the street, every sense on alert as Andromeda knocked on the door. She adopted the same open, warm expression she’d used with the other humans they’d interviewed. A friendly mask. But with her friends, she never looked so soft, and her responses were sharpened by humor and sarcasm.

A woman answered the knock. Sixty-five to seventy years of age. A strong melody sang through her mind, and she made no attempt to shield it. No fear or suspicion—only mild worry . . . then faint relief when Andromeda showed her badge.

“Good morning, ma’am.” She introduced herself. “Is Henry Larson available?”

“What is this about?”

“You’re his wife?” At the woman’s nod, Andromeda continued, “We’re investigating a robbery near 100th Avenue and Belfair. Security cameras in the area show that your husband’s Corolla went through the intersection at the time the robbery occurred. We’re hoping to speak to any passengers in the car. Just a few routine questions. We’re wondering if they noticed any strange activity, or a vehicle that might have been used to transport the stolen items.”

“Oh, of course.” She stepped back. “Come in. Henry!”

She led them into a kitchen, still smelling strongly of a recent breakfast—fried eggs and potatoes, coffee, and the sharp scent of glue. A human man sat at the table, pieces of a model sailing ship spread out in front of him. He stood as they entered, wiping his hands on his trousers.

Andromeda extended hers to shake. “Mr. Larson, thank you. You own the Corolla outside?”

“I do.”

“We’re trying to locate witnesses in the robbery of a drugstore near Bellevue Village. This would have been last Wednesday, around five in the morning. Were you driving the vehicle?”

He gave a short laugh, shaking his head. “No. At five a.m., I’m still usually in bed.”

“Would anyone else have been driving? Mrs. Larson?”

“Oh, no. I’m in the kitchen by then, but I usually take my Lincoln from the garage. Last Wednesday, I seem to remember that Adam borrowed it.”

Andromeda’s heart thumped, beating faster. None of her triumph showed on her face. “Adam?”

“Next door,” Henry Larson said. “Adam Meers.”

“Just ‘Meer,’” his wife corrected. “No
s
.”

Andromeda looked to the husband again. “And you gave him permission to borrow it?”

“Sure, he can. He’s got his own set of keys. If I’m awake, he checks in before he uses it, but if it’s too late or early, he just lets us know afterward. And he always fills up the tank.” Pity and fondness warmed Larson’s psychic song. “I don’t drive at night. My vision isn’t what it was. And Adam’s never out during the day. So the arrangement works for us.”

“He has a skin condition, the poor boy,” his wife put in. “Allergic to the sun. Can you imagine? It’s all those hormones they put in food. Pesticides.”

Larson nodded. “Both he and his girl have it. So he’d be the one you need to ask about seeing anything. They’re not home, though.”

Nor would they return. Both were piles of ash in Michael’s cache.

And though Michael didn’t have Hugh’s ability to read truth, he believed this couple were telling it—and that they had no idea that their neighbors had been vampires.

Andromeda gave nothing away. “When do you expect him back?”

Larson lifted his hands. “We didn’t expect him to be gone.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Four days or thereabouts. We don’t see much of them during the day, anyway, so I’m not sure. I don’t think we saw either of them after . . . I don’t know, Saturday?” He glanced at his wife.

“Saturday night,” she confirmed.

“I hoped you were here about them, actually,” Larson said. “And I was hoping you weren’t.”

“Because you thought their absence meant that something was wrong?” When he nodded, Andromeda asked, “Have you filed a missing persons report?”

The Larsons exchanged a glance. “We talked about it,” Mrs. Larson said. “But we thought we’d wait another day or two. They’ve taken short trips before, have been gone weekends. They always told us, though. So we thought maybe they just forgot this time.”

“How common is it for them to go on these trips?”

“I don’t know. They’ve gone nine, ten times? It seems like every one or two months since they’ve been here.”

Almost imperceptibly, Andromeda’s mouth tensed. Nine or ten trips meant that, if Adam Meer had pursued his vigilante justice each time, the seven murders they knew of didn’t account for all of the possible victims.

“Both of them went?” she asked.

“Yes.” Mrs. Larson smiled softly. “And when they came back, Dina was always so happy. After being locked up inside all day, I think that getting away did them good.”

Worry creased Harry Larson’s face. “Do you think that they saw something last Wednesday, and the robbers came after them?”

“It’s not likely, but I’ll check on their status, just to be certain,” Andromeda said. “Have they ever mentioned having a problem with someone? Have you ever heard an altercation, raised voices?”

Larson shook his head. “They kept to themselves. I can’t ever remember them inviting anyone over.”

“You get a sense of people,” his wife said. “And though they never talked about it, I think they were coming out of some bad situation. Probably down south. Their accents stood out a bit.”

“Have they lived here long?”

“They moved in about a year and a half ago. Adam does some kind of computer work. They had good references on their rent application. I worried a little about letting the place out to a couple so young, but it turned out all right. We couldn’t ask for quieter neighbors. Or more polite.”

“So they rent the unit from you? Do you know of any money troubles that might give them reason to go?”

“They’ve always paid on time. Cash, even.” A defensive note hardened Larson’s reply. “They’re good kids.”

Smoothly, Andromeda nodded. She reached inside her jacket and pulled a small notebook from her cache. “You said her name was Dina? Did she have the same last name, Meer? M-e-e-r?”

“That’s right.”

She jotted that down. “Do you have a photo of them that we can use for reference?”

They frowned and looked at each other, as if uncertain. Then Mrs. Larson’s face brightened. “From my birthday a few months ago. It’s on my computer.”

“Will you e-mail it to me?” At their nods of agreement, Andromeda wrote her address on a card. “Have you been over to check on their residence?”

Faint guilt whispered through Larson’s psychic song. “I went in. I know I shouldn’t have, but when they didn’t answer our knocks or the phone, we got worried.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate your concern,” Andromeda reassured him. “And as the owner of the residence, do you mind unlocking their door, letting us take a quick look? We might find plane ticket receipts, or some indication that they’d planned to be gone for a few days. If we check for those before we put in a report, it might save us all from red faces later.”

“Of course.” Larson selected a cluster of keys from a small pegboard on the wall.

“And I’ll send that picture right on,” his wife promised.

“That will be helpful. Thank you.” Andromeda closed her notepad. “In most cases like these, when a couple leaves for a few days and there’s no indication of trouble beforehand, it just means they forgot to let you know. But I’ll run their names, make sure nothing pops up. And we’ll take a few fingerprints and put them in the system, so if there is any cause for concern, we’ll have a way to identify them and link them back here.”

“Bless you.” Her eyes shining, Mrs. Larson touched Andromeda’s sleeve. “Please let us know what you find.”

Though anger and pity leaked through her shields, Andromeda’s warm smile didn’t betray any of her turmoil.

“We will.”

And that was the one problem with identifying the fuckers. Taylor had been totally pumped, finding out who Mark Brandt’s murderer really was, and finding herself one step closer to the demons.

But it also meant finding the people who would be hurt by that discovery.

With Henry Larson looking on, their cursory search of the unit didn’t turn up anything, but Taylor hadn’t expected it to. Later, she’d return with Michael and teleport directly inside to toss the place more thoroughly. For now, she said her good-byes to the Larsons and promised to file the missing persons report, all the while pretending she didn’t know their neighbors had been murderers and that their bodies were ash in Michael’s hammerspace.

And of course Michael read her in an instant. When they returned to the car, instead of opening the passenger side, he walked around the hood and leaned back against her door, arms crossed over his broad chest. Still Agent Smith . . . except his amber eyes had darkened.

“Will you file the report?” he asked quietly.

God, she didn’t know. “If we do, and the local cops get Meer’s picture, they’re going to put two and two together really quick, and the Larsons are going to discover that the nice young couple killed a nice young man. But they’re going to find out anyway. The news is all over that video of Brandt being killed. The only reason they probably haven’t seen it yet is because there’s no TV in their house.”

But they’d see it eventually. A picture online or in a newspaper, and they’d learn their friendly neighbor had ripped out a man’s throat and snapped his neck. And that made Taylor want to kick something. She loved this job. But there was always a shitty side.

“Why not just leave them alone?” she asked. “How many people never talk to their neighbors? If you go around killing people, don’t fucking go around making friends at the same time.” She blew out a hard breath. “Though if you’re going around killing people, I guess you probably don’t give a fuck if you’re hurting someone.”

“It’s never that simple.”

She knew. And she felt bad for the Larsons. But she felt worse for Mark Brandt. “I’ll file it. I already fucked over the official investigation into Brandt’s death by taking the body. But if the locals identify Meer, maybe someone can put it all together down the line. Not the whole truth, but at least enough to point fingers in the right direction.” She sighed, looked up at him. “What do you think?”

With a slight smile, he took her hand, tugged her up against him. Still Agent Smith, casually leaning back against a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car. Taylor didn’t know who she was. Never in her career had she stood against her partner like this, so close that she would just have to shift forward a little bit and she’d be riding his thigh and her mouth near enough to kiss.

But she liked this version of herself. She liked his warmth and that he understood all of the crap in her head. And she liked his reply even better.

Callused thumb rubbing across the back of her hand, he said, “I think we need to slay the demons who pulled Meer’s strings.”

And then murdered Meer and his girl. “I can get behind that idea.”

“I also think that you can’t protect the Larsons from discovering what Meer did to Brandt. The only question is whether to let the Larsons know they are dead.”

Because, eventually, the vampire would be recognized. But except for the Guardians, no one knew what had happened to Adam and Dina Meer. After they were identified from the video, almost everyone would just assume that they’d fled to escape arrest. No one would suspect they’d ended up in a stranger’s bed in a burning house eight hundred miles away.

With a sigh, she shook her head. “When someone you care about is missing, is it better to know for sure they’re dead or always be wondering if they’re still alive?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m the worst person to ask. Because it’s my job. Guardian or detective, it’s my job to find out. So I always want to know. I’m always looking for answers. And I hate it when I can’t find them.”

“Why does that make you the worst person to ask?”

“Because that’s just the job. But when it’s close to me? When it kicks me in the gut? I don’t want to know. I mean, look at me. I can’t even look at my brother to find out whether his soul is still in his body. Because if he’s gone . . . that’s it, isn’t it? No hope. And my dad. I’d prefer him to be out there somewhere rather than dead. I’d rather he’d abandoned us, and we never knew what happened to him, if that meant he might be alive instead of rotting in the ground. And I sure as hell don’t want to know why the angels have been sitting on their hands, because I don’t think I’d like the answer. It’s like I can’t even deal with it.”

No Michael Smith now. Just Michael, watching her with obsidian eyes and his body absolutely still. But his voice was as flat as a human’s when he spoke. “So you’d rather not know if someone was dead. You would prefer to think they were still living somewhere.”

“If I cared for them. If it wasn’t my job. Like Katherine Blake. No one has found her body yet, right? And you just know that even as they’re hunting down whoever took her, Savi and Colin are praying that Geoff was wrong. That there’s some other answer, and that she’s not dead. As awful as
not
knowing is, at least there’s something left. A little hope. The problem is, though, if you don’t know what happened, then you can never make the fuckers who hurt her pay for it.”

And for Taylor, it always came back to that. And understanding herself too well. She’d never be able to stop searching for answers, even if she didn’t
want
to know. She’d keep looking until she found them.

She glanced up. His face unreadable, Michael still watched her. Probably seeing right through her. Unsettled by that intense scrutiny, she lowered her gaze. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, but his tie was right there, and she wanted to touch him.

Scissoring her fingers around the flat silk, she slid her hand from the knot at his throat down to his vest. Her knuckles skimming over cotton, she tucked her fingers inside, where the edge of his pectoral formed a ridge of steely muscle under his shirt.

Lucky shirt.
Sighing, she continued, “And of course, the one job I’m best at is to give answers, to take that hope away. To give closure. Because that’s the only way to get any sort of justice. And that’s so messed up, because I’m too wimpy to do it for myself.” Though with Jason, it was different. Just an accident, with no one to blame, and no justice to be found. “But for everyone else? I have to find out what happened, then inform their friends and family that the people they love are dead—and, hopefully, say who killed them. To get justice, I have to destroy hope. Or maybe at that point, justice is all that’s left to hope
for
.”

“It’s not messed up. And you’re not wimpy.” The harmony had returned to his voice. “I think you stand for both. Hope and justice. First one, then the other—whether you are human or a Guardian.”

And Taylor supposed that answered whether she’d Fall or not. Because it was basically the same. As a Guardian, it was the hope of protecting people from demons. But when people were hurt, making sure demons couldn’t do it again.

“I guess being a Guardian is the job for me, then. I’ll be blindly hopeful, yet fierce with my sword. When I learn how to use one.”

With a faint smile, he lifted his hand to her face. His fingertips traced the line of her jaw. “I will teach you a bit of that as well.”

She hoped so. Except she could barely think of weapons now. Not with her heart clenching, because even though Michael smiled, sadness lurked beneath the curve of his lips. The same melancholy had lingered over his expression throughout the morning.

What was going on with him? But she’d already asked. And each time he’d changed the subject or said he was fine.

Whatever it was, he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. So she’d wait until he did.

She gave a little tug on his vest. “I’ll tell the Larsons. Not right away, but eventually. Because otherwise I’m just making the decision of whether they should know or not for them.”

This time, his smile held genuine humor. “You’re making that decision if you tell them, too.”

“I know. But it’s different, isn’t it? Because it’s the job. If I show up and they say, ‘No, don’t tell us,’ I won’t. But I won’t keep the truth from them just because
I
wouldn’t want to hear it.”

“It’s different,” he agreed.

“Is it what you would do?” Though she already knew that it was. And she knew that he’d only asked because he liked knowing what she thought, and why she thought it.

“It is,” he said.

“Good. But I’m not in a rush, anyway. Telling them won’t matter if the world burns, so finding those sentinels comes first. And I’ll wait a few days before filing that missing persons report, too. Because as soon as I do, the cops will be all over it. So we’ll give ourselves a little time to figure out why two nice kids started killing people and how the demons found them before investigators start crawling up everyone’s ass.”

Michael nodded. “We’ll return to the unit as soon as we can. Though I don’t expect we’ll find anything. There were no computers.”

“You noticed that, too?” Despite Larson telling them that Adam Meer did computer work, not a single one remained in their residence. “I’m guessing that the demons came by after killing them, just in case. And covered their asses by taking whatever we might have used to trace them.”

“Yes. So we’ll come back, but before that, I’d like to know where Meer was from. Larson said they lived here for about one and a half years—and that was just before the first murder. That’s likely not a coincidence.”

It probably wasn’t. Maybe Meer had changed location to avoid suspicion—then went back and killed his chosen victim.

“The first was the district attorney in Alabama, Robert Johnson. And that strangulation caused the most damage.” The throat completely crushed. She’d thought the injury indicated a lack of practice, but it might have been more than that. “Maybe Johnson was the one who made Meer the angriest?”

“If so, they probably had a personal connection,” Michael said.

“That would fit.” She pulled out her phone, texted Lilith a request to look into that angle. “A vigilante. So Meer made sure that Johnson got what was coming to him. Probably because someone else didn’t get the justice Meer thought that person deserved, and he thought Johnson was to blame. So we’ll look through the DA’s cases, see if Meer pops up somewhere. Or if Dina does.”

Because love made people do crazy, stupid things.

“Johnson’s widow is on vacation,” Michael said quietly.

“Yeah.” And they both suspected the same thing: It wasn’t really a vacation. Joe and Drifter needed to confirm whether it was, as soon as possible.

His thumb brushed her cheek. “You’re all right?”

Except for the heavy dread filling the pit of her stomach. “I’m glad we’re getting closer. But I have a bad feeling that we’re not going to like what we find.”

“We still have to find it.”

“I know.” She studied his face. Perhaps this was the reason for the melancholy. Maybe he was just worried at how close they were to Lucifer breaking through. “We’ll do this, you know. It’s not going to be the end of the world.”

“I know. I’m determined to see Lucifer stopped.” He gave that faint smile again. “Even if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Well, don’t rush to make it the last thing.” She wanted him around a lot longer than that.

“I won’t.” His amber gaze holding hers, Michael lowered his head. “If I have any luck at all, Agent Taylor, my last moments will be something like this.”

Softly, his lips pressed to hers, warm and sweet.

Her heart swelling, Taylor cupped his jaw and rose up onto her toes, lingering as long as she could. So she was
this
person now—a Guardian kissing her partner in the middle of a street. It was so crazy, so stupid to fall in love at the end of the world.

So it was no surprise that she’d gone and done it anyway.

*   *   *

Though in the car, Taylor hadn’t yet pulled away from the curb when both she and Michael got a buzz on their phones—Lilith had come through with info more quickly than Taylor expected. Adam Meer had been paying his rent with cash, so she’d been sure that he’d covered his tracks financially and electronically. She’d also have wagered Colin’s car that “Adam Meer” was a false identity.

And it had been, but not a deeply buried identity. Lilith hadn’t had to do much digging to find him. Born Jason Adam Webber, he’d lived in Hartselle, Alabama, and had been employed by the city as a social worker until eighteen months ago. Meer was his mother’s maiden name.

Taylor studied the DMV photo. Twenty-nine years old. Blond. He’d dyed his hair to dark brown after moving to Washington, and shaved off the short beard and mustache he’d worn. Both parents deceased. His mother dead of cancer when he was twelve, and his father—chief deputy at the county sheriff’s office—gunned down on his front doorstep while off duty, seven years ago.

Three years ago, Jason Webber had married Crystal O’Dell, a high school counselor—brown hair, blue eyes, and whose face matched the photo Mrs. Larson had sent of the platinum-haired woman offering a tight-lipped smile over a birthday cake. Dina.