Heart of Stone (32 page)

Detective Michael “Sorry I Didn’t Mention I Was Evil” McQuaid, and …

“Shitshitshit,” Ella whispered. “Patrick Stanley.”

Kees grunted and gave a brief nod. “I had forgotten his name. But rest assured I remember his words. And his actions. He was the man you struggled with in the gardens the night I awoke.”

“Yeah. I mean, I knew he was a slimy asshole, but I never thought he might be a demonic servant.” She paused, remembering her words to Bea that night. “Okay, I didn’t seriously think it. But it turns out he’s
nocturnis
? That’s just … It’s almost too obvious. He should have pretended to be nice, like the cop did.”

“Not every human who looks good is, and not everyone who looks evil isn’t.”

Ella rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Yoda.”

He looked at her oddly, but didn’t comment. She was guessing he hadn’t seen a movie in a while. Or, you know, ever.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Stanley called out the order in a creepy singsong voice that raised the hairs on the back of Ella’s neck. It sounded full of glee and madness, like the maniacal killer in an old Hollywood horror flick. Which, she admitted, made a lot of sense.

It also explained a bunch of things. Stanley’s determined arrogance and implacable belief in his own irresistibility made a lot more sense when you factored in a nice dose of insanity.

“Come on, Ella-bella,” the voice cajoled. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He cackled. “Well, actually, I am, but I might hurt you a little less if you don’t make me come in there looking for you.”

Kees growled so low and fierce, he seemed to vibrate above her. Ella laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“Ignore him,” she whispered. “The bad guys always try to piss off the good guys, right? It’s like a distraction technique.”

*   *   *

And it was damned well working.

Despite her reassurance, Kees could feel his human’s unease. Stanley made her nervous and the surprise of learning him to be one of the
nocturnis
had knocked Ella off balance. He wanted to knock the Dark mage’s head off in return.

He had hoped the Order would have a harder time finding them. He’d wanted at least a few days to prepare for an assault. A week or two would have been better. He knew that every moment until they woke another Guardian or located more Wardens equaled another day of vulnerability, so the goal had been to hide out until Ella’s friend sent word on the location of the first of his brothers. Then he and Ella would immediately travel there and attempt to wake him. They would find strength in numbers.

A single Guardian was a formidable opponent for any mortal and the lesser demons as well, but if the
nocturnis
attacked him in numbers, he could still be taken down. Worse than that, if he had to fight off too many at once, he would leave Ella unprotected, and that was unacceptable. Without him, she could too easily be hurt or even killed.

She needed more training. As impressed as he had been, as he continued to be, by her talent, she still knew no more than a handful of the most basic spells. Up against an experienced Dark mage or even a warded human, she would stand little chance in a confrontation. One day, he knew, she would make her enemies tremble at the thought of her abilities, but that wouldn’t happen today. Today, she needed him to do his job.

“Well, five isn’t so bad,” she said, her voice rising up to him from where she still half-lay on the floor beneath him. “We can take five, right? Especially if I can disable a couple from a distance. I mean, you could probably handle them yourself if I wasn’t here.”

He could have, but he didn’t confirm her supposition. He didn’t want to tell her he would prefer that she wasn’t here, because she might misunderstand. He didn’t ever want her near danger, but he thought he would always want her.

“I can fight a number at once, but I am suspicious they bring only five, especially when we knew the detective is not a magic-user,” he told her. “He must have informed his friends that you had a Guardian by your side. They should have brought more to fight me.”

“You mean there might be more? But why didn’t you see them when you looked out front?” Her eyes narrowed and she swore. “Be right back.”

Before he could stop her, she was scuttling across the floor on her hands and knees, carefully keeping out of sight of the windows. She made it into the bedroom and back in less than five minutes.

“You were right,” she panted when she returned to his side. “They’re trying to surround us. My vision may not be as good as yours, but I saw at least three more around the back of the house. For all we know, they might have brought a dozen or more
nocturnis
after us.”

Kees nodded grimly. He wasn’t surprised. He also wouldn’t place any bets on a dozen
nocturnis
making up the full extent of their forces. Ella had told him how removed this cabin was from her life. She hadn’t visited in fifteen years, had left its deed in the name of the trust that had managed it until she came of age after her parents’ deaths, and the only people who ever came here were workers from the company that was paid to maintain it and keep everything in working order. For someone to have found them this quickly meant that their pursuers were not stupid. They would know that even with a dozen Dark mages, they would have a hard time bringing down a Guardian, especially one with something to protect.

No, he suspected they had something more up their sleeves, but he didn’t voice the concern. His little human had been so brave and determined so far that he couldn’t bring himself to frighten her. They would simply have to be careful.

“Kees, what do we do?” she whispered. “We can’t just sit in here forever and wait to see if they go away. Sooner or later, they’ll either find a way to make us come out, or they’ll get tired of waiting and come in. You are the warfare expert. I kind of need you to tell me which of those options gives us a better chance.”

Neither, as far as he was concerned. Both gave the advantage to their enemies. With the cabin surrounded, none of the options were good ones. If they left it, they exposed themselves immediately, but if they waited for the
nocturnis
to breach the walls, the wooden structure would be too easy to burn down around their ears. The bonfire out front demonstrated they knew how to use fire, and the man behind it showed they were crazy enough to do so.

“We go out,” Kees finally said, his voice grim. “But first, you need to get to work.”

Chapter Seventeen

Ella worked quickly and hard. Setting wards wasn’t difficult work, but it did take energy. Rather than risk using her own magic when she might need it later, she tapped into the Source to build the boundaries that would keep the
nocturnis
from using the cabin as cover to sneak up behind them. If they tried to enter the structure through any means other than sliding down the chimney, they would get a nasty magical shock, and Kees and Ella would get an advanced warning.

If they went for the chimney route … well, the fire was blazing, so they’d damned well better be dressed in red and packing presents.

She sealed the last ward at the front door, making it the strongest because at least at first, it would be the one directly at their backs. Using the dagger Kees provided, she blooded it with pricks to both their palms to ensure either of them could pass it easily without disturbing the spell. Blood magic wasn’t big with the Wardens, but it had its uses, provided it wasn’t abused.

The
nocturnis
had a particular fondness for blood magic, and they did nothing but abuse it. No way did Ella want to go down that path.

She tried to hand the dagger back to Kees.

“Keep it,” he told her gruffly. “Don’t use it unless you have no other choice. Remember that a weapon is no more than a danger if it can be taken and used against you. You’ll need a lot more practice before you can be confident of holding on to it in a real fight.”

“I know. I remember the lessons. I fight to get away and get to you. If I can’t get to you, I use magic. If I can’t use magic, I run. If I can’t run, that’s when I fight.”

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

Ella pulled up the hem of her baggy T-shirt and hooked the knife sheath to her belt. She also tucked the small pouch of leftover salt into her pocket with an absent gesture. She really hoped she and Kees won this one. She was wearing her “I’m going to get worked really hard, sweat like a pig, and want to kick Kees in the nuts” clothes, not her “It’s okay if I die in this because at least I look hot” clothes.

A girl had her pride.

She followed close on Kees’s heels as he opened the door and stepped onto the porch. The clear area in front of the cabin was so small that she clearly felt the heat of the fire on her face. It burned just three feet or so beyond the front steps, its base nestled into a small crater that hadn’t been there this afternoon. That must have been part of the explosion they had heard. One of the
nocturnis
had thrown a fireball, so big it had carved a divot in the earth before settling in to burn like the centerpiece of a Boy Scouts jamboree.

It almost made Ella wish for some marshmallows.

“Ella, you brought a friend to the party. Did your invitation say plus one?” Stanley laughed, his smile illuminated by the red glow of the fire into something hellish. In the flame-lit darkness, his aristocratic features took on the cast of a devil, handsome but cruel and hard. “No matter. As it turns out, your guest is someone we would have invited out sooner or later. I could almost thank you for bringing him to us. But I won’t.”

“Why is that, Patrick?” she asked, projecting into her voice a defiant confidence at odds with the butterflies currently learning to mambo in her belly. “Because you know Kees is going to kick your ass?”

Stanley’s sinister smile didn’t fade, but his eyes flashed with hatred. “Stupid girl. You would have been so better off if you had just given me what I wanted, Ella. After I fucked you, I would have shown you what real power is. If you had behaved, I might even have shared it. I sensed the ability in you from the beginning, and Uhlthor is always looking for a few good men.”

He laughed at his own joke. Right, because his demon boss was like the Marine Corps. At least, Ella assumed that name belonged to the demon. It sounded guttural and ugly when he said it, and the sound made Kees stiffen and hiss beside her.

“Thanks, Paddy, but I have to pass. I’m afraid I don’t like that signing bonus you guys offer.”

“Ah, that.” The
nocturnis
clucked his tongue. “I’m afraid you’re not the first to quibble over such things. Not to worry. You’ll die just as they did.”

Everything happened at once.

Kees shoved Ella to the floor of the porch with a furious roar. The fire blazed and leapt into the sky far above the roof of the cabin, above even the surrounding treetops. Stanley’s voice shrieked out a command, and a bullet whizzed past the spot where Ella’s head had been just a split second before. She caught a glimpse of McQuaid holding his drawn gun just before the impact with the floorboards made her grunt.

“Stay down,” Kees growled, and launched himself into the night.

Literally.

He stepped to the edge of the porch and jumped vertically into the air, spreading his enormous wings and catching the night breeze. A few heavy beats lifted him above the fire and Ella knew he was heading for Stanley.

Before he could fall on the millionaire-slash-demon worshipper, Ella saw a bolt of black energy hammer into him. She traced its path back to the edge of the woods to the right of the track to the cabin and swore. Three
nocturnis
mages had combined forces against her Guardian. That was so no fair.

She turned, intending to crawl to the other side of the porch and let the evil bastards know she did not appreciate anyone attacking Kees, let alone sniveling cowards who thought it would be cool to gang up on him. Even if he could undoubtedly handle it himself, there was a principle to consider here.

The pop of another bullet stopped her. Damn it, how had she forgotten about the gun?

Maybe it was more important to take care of McQuaid first. Bullets might ping right off Kees’s tough hide, but she didn’t think she’d be quite so lucky if she got hit.

“Kill her!” she heard Stanley shout. “Kill her first and then concentrate on the Guardian! She’s weak. Nothing but a human whore. Take her out of the picture.”

Ella didn’t wait for a third bullet. She threw herself behind the cedar trunk her family had always used to store sandbags for when the creek behind the cabin decided to rise. She would definitely prefer not to get shot tonight.

“Damn, I wish the police were coming,” she muttered as she tried to think. Unfortunately, she knew the chances of anyone hearing the shots out here and calling the authorities to investigate were practically nil. There was a better chance of someone reporting the fire, but it had already shrunk back to normal proportions, and at this time of year, it wasn’t dry enough to cause concern unless it flared again.

She and Kees were almost certainly on their own.

Too bad the same couldn’t be said for McQuaid and Stanley.

A high-pitched screeching sound told her someone had tried to open the back door of the cabin. The wards had done their job of alerting her, and she felt pretty confident that they would have thrown the intruder back a few feet for good measure. No one demon-touched was getting into that building, but that didn’t prevent them from coming around the sides.

Movement from the left side of the cabin told her she’d guessed correctly. She also thought she recognized the height and weight of two of the three figures she’d spied earlier out of the bedroom window. Hopefully, the third was still lying on his back in the dirt and trying to remember his name. Both the men approaching were crawling with Dark magic. Mages for certain.

Time for Ella’s final exams.

Drawing on her will, Ella centered the two figures in her sight and gathered up the energy inside her. Quickly, she formed it into a ball, raised her hand, and threw it directly at the two men.