Key of Solomon: Relic Defender, Book 1 (7 page)

“Yeah, we want to have fun an’ you’re going to help us.”

The leader’s slurred words gurgled from his mouth as if he spoke through mouthwash. His lips firmed, and his chin jutted out slightly. He took another step closer, hanging right at the edge of her personal zone. Lexi resisted the urge to retreat, knowing such a move would only encourage him. Just like in the movies, on the streets, prey ran and predators attacked.

She had no intentions of being anyone’s dinner.

“You need directions?” she offered.

He froze, but his gaze flitted from side to side as if he searched for an escape route. The perplexed expression furrowing his brow clearly said he had anticipated a different response. Maybe he thought she’d start whining and pleading. So not her style.

God, she hoped Devyn would keep quiet. As long as the situation stayed calm, there was a chance the two of them could make it out of this. Taking advantage of his confusion, Lexi smiled and this time, she did step back, keeping her palms outward in a non-threatening sign.

“Listen,” she cajoled. “I really think you’ll like the Kitty Kat. The girls there are much prettier, and they have bigger boobs.”

Like a side step of movement, a stygian shadow fluttered over him, settling over his head like a crown. She squinted. Nebulous as smoke, the shadow blended into the night. A mere flicker of pitch-black slithering against the normal dark of the night. She shouldn’t even have noticed the difference. Yet she had.

He shuddered and shifted from a regular, albeit, shit-faced drunk, to something that resembled one of those staring mannequins stores were fond of using. All expression on his face was wiped clean. A human Etch-a-Sketch. Nothing on his face. Nothing in his eyes. No white gleaming in the dusk half dark. Only huge, light-swallowing pupils.

Except for his initial comments, he made no sound. His shoes padded against concrete with a dull thump. As he closed in, the freaky dead look and roiling shadow gave her serious heebie jeebies. A chill rippled through her body, goose bumps popping up on her arms and legs.

Worse, as he advanced, his buddies followed. Lexi cast a quick glance over her shoulder, and then snapped her eyes forward. Double damn. Another man had slipped up behind them and had Devyn restrained, her arms pinned to her side. Quick, panting breaths echoed through the conspicuously quiet night like a chainsaw, but the girl didn’t scream. At this moment, Lexi couldn’t do anything for her. The realization twisted her insides. Why the compulsion to protect Devyn’s ass when she should be worrying about her own?

Plastering a mollifying smile on her face, Lexi focused on the leader and the rest of his gang. Some instinct warned her, and she threw up her left arm, blocking the upper punch aiming for her chin with the flat side of her forearm. Nerve endings throbbed with the force of the blow, and she bit off a curse. If not for her instincts, the strike would have connected in a vulnerable spot and the fight would have been over with before it had even begun.
Not too bright, Lex. Pay attention!

Nonplussed, she went on the offensive and slammed him with a side thrust to his midsection. He staggered, but didn’t fall. One of his buddies, a tall, Ichabod-Craneish man with tight black curly hair, lunged for her. A forward roll of her hips and a front snap kick striking Ichabod’s chin sent him crashing to the ground. One down. Too damn many to go.

Lexi danced back, fists raised. No way could she handle all six. But, before she went down, she’d make sure a lot of them would be nursing some serious hurt. And if she was lucky, a couple of broken bones.

The welcome wail of an approaching siren echoed through the quiet streets.
Ah, the cavalry comes
. She’d never been so glad to have the cops come. The leader’s buddies, in a strangely coordinated move, spun and made for the deep shadows, dissipating into the alleys and side streets.

Her assailant didn’t move. Uncertainty twitched at the corners of his lips. He started to turn away, a wobbly twist of his body but turned back. A shudder in the darkness around him told Lexi the shadow was back. Earlier, she’d joked about McKay controlling her boss like a puppeteer, but with this guy, it was apparent that something was jerking his strings. What the hell was it? And how could it be controlling him?

When he moved, it was to pull out a gun from behind his back. The bottom fell out of her stomach. A slam of fear pierced her chest, leaving behind a racing heart. Oh fuck. He held a 45-caliber semi-auto Colt pointed directly at her chest.

She hated guns. No, more than hated–she loathed guns. Over the years, too many of her street companions, including her best friend and the sister she’d never had, had lived and died at the end of a gun.

But hatred didn’t mean she didn’t know guns. Stupid to live on the streets and not know about them. The one he pointed at her couldn’t fail to inflict maximum damage.

Several cracks of sound bled into one loud spine-shuddering snap that shattered the unearthly silence. One drawn out crack followed by several breath-sucking punches in her chest. As if she stood outside her own body, she watched him pull the trigger until rapid clicking indicated he’d emptied the Colt’s clip.

Agony filled her chest, spreading outward until all her nerve endings shrieked with pain. She let out an involuntary scream and sank to her knees. A warm, wet sensation cascading down the front of her shirt soothed the fire on her skin. She peered at her chest. Red on red. Except for the dampness, she couldn’t even tell where her blood ended and her clothing began.

A nervous giggle rose then settled into her throat as a big lump. She tipped sideways, hit the pavement then rolled to her back. Starting in her toes, an icy cold crept through her body, following the same path as the pain yet leaving behind…nothing. No pain, no fear, no sensations of any kind. She coughed, catching it with her hand. When she pulled her hand away, it too was splattered with crimson. A light metallic scent, like warm coins; a tangy smell.

Her blood.

Lexi looked upward. The lightening sky showed capering sparks of light, glittering like diamonds. A gurgling sigh escaped her lips. As if from a distance, she heard the wails of the sirens getting closer.

Who the hell was screaming?

Veils of gray oozed across her vision, pulling the dancing pinpoints from her view. A motion out of the corner of her eyes snagged her attention. She rolled her head to the side to look. A light-stealing black mist floated near her. Her mind babbled an incoherent warning and her body tried to recoil from the mist. Nothing worked. Not her legs. Not her arms. She couldn’t move. All she could do was watch her death approach.

Suddenly, the horrible mist spun, whirling into a miniature funnel then disappeared. Footsteps sounded nearby, confident and quick. She blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to focus. For a second, she clearly saw a man approaching her. The dark-haired man from the nightclub, his chin shadowed with the beginnings of a beard, came to a stop at her side. He crouched, looming over her. Coldness continued to creep through her chest, leaving behind peace. She couldn’t bring herself to wonder why, or care, he was there.

He glanced down her body then stopped over her chest. For an instant, his glance sharpened. He mumbled in Latin and passed his hand over her chest. Black eyes overflowed from within by silver light. The vague outline of dark wings filled the space behind him. A sense of the absurd filled her mind as her vision dimmed.

Great.

Her last sight on Earth happened to be a sexy hallucination with glowing eyes and wings.

Chapter Six

“A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.”

Aristotle

Lucifer’s balls! Beliel ripped from the human male’s subconscious, not caring whether he damaged the mortal’s mind. Plague take all humans. Once possessed, no mortal slave should have any thoughts except those of his master. The fact that the puny human had been able to act without Beliel’s direction rested outside his comprehension. A tribute to the human’s strength or the demon’s weakness?

The man staggered a few steps backward. Eyes wide in an ashen face darted around before coming to rest on the woman he’d shot. The weapon fell to the ground, the clatter of metal on pavement sounding like another shot. The mortal rubbed his hands on his pant legs, shook his head and fled.

Beliel choked back the rage and fought the temptation to chase after the fleeing human. To rend flesh from bones. To gulp chunks of tender meat, muscles and tendons. To taste the sweet, warm stickiness of human blood running over his tongue into his gullet. It had been a long time since he’d indulged in the pleasures found dining on humans. Yet even as he hungered, in this form, he could not. He shuddered. This was not the time or the place.

He switched his hungry gaze to the fallen female. Thick blood, pulsing with each beat of her heart, flowed onto the hard, dark surface. She was more important now. And soon dead. He had to act quickly to get the information he needed from her mind. Before the traitor, Mikos, came to check on his ward.

Beliel shifted into mist and moved near. When her eyes tracked his movements, he hesitated. Confusion, followed by fear, filled her death-shaded gaze. Did she notice him? No matter. Her seeing made no difference. Humans were terrified of their own mortality and would do anything to extend their pitiful lives. Defender or not, this woman would be no different.

With no warning, a whisper of disturbance in the ether brushed across his senses. A psychic probe stabbed into his shield. His barrier held. Still, the energy left an impression.

He and the woman were no longer alone.

Beliel watched in impotent fury as the traitor Mikos knelt at the woman’s side. So fucking close.

He could not take on Mikos while his strength was so depleted. Occupying the mortal during the confrontation had used too much. Instead, all he could do was watch. No earth-level immortal, especially a Fallen like Mikos, could return the dead to life. And the woman had died. In the instant before Mikos knelt, Beliel had heard the pounding of her heart trip into silence.

His lips curled. Mikos, and others like him, had chosen to serve God even when He had said many times the Fallen would never be welcome in Heaven. The cowards spent centuries protecting the humans in the slight hope their deeds would grant them a return. None had. Still they served.

That made them fools. Dangerous. But fools.

A faint roseate glow infused the space between Mikos’s hand and the woman’s chest, growing brighter until the pink light cast a soft aura over the woman. Involuntarily, Beliel hissed. He knew that light.

“The
Nativitas
,” he ground the word out, ending on another hiss.

Revulsion rose, filling his throat with bile. The rose-colored light meant the Defender possessed the only thing blessed with the power to bring her back to life. Beliel slanted a glare at the smaller figures shifting near his feet. The ones who had braved his ire and stayed by his side. “Worthless imps.”

His anger and frustration had been for naught. A result of his personal servants’ lapse of judgment in not telling him she possessed the ancient protection. With a flick of his hands, he sent the imps tumbling back into the demon realm. He’d deal with them later.

Despite his repugnance for the ancient talisman, her possession of it set his plan back in motion. He contemplated the supine woman and kneeling immortal. The woman choked and then moaned. Without seeing the results of the
Nativitas
, Beliel knew the female’s wounds had healed, knitting until no sign of her death remained. The roseate nimbus faded. As the piercing scream of mortal transportation echoed in the night, Mikos lifted the limp woman into his arms and strode off down the street.

Beliel clenched his fingers into fists. As the night swallowed their forms, he hissed a summons. A small ghostlight orb hovered over his outstretched fingers. “Follow Mikos and discover where he takes the woman.”

A flash of light and the orb disappeared. The ghostlight would report back the woman’s location. The traitor could only hide her for so long. Satisfaction caused a smile to pull at the corner of his lips. With the woman’s life restored, he’d find it easier to get what he needed from her. Now, at least, he had more time. Not much, but still more. And this time, he’d see to the woman himself.

A muscle twitched in the man’s square jaw yet he did nothing. The early morning breeze caught the edges of his pristine garments, sending the gold fringe dancing. The clothing on his body to the bronze scepter he clutched in his hand and even the reed sandals protecting his bare feet were specifically formed as instructed. For this moment.

A single moment to free the man’s soul or damn it, and his people, for eternity.

Her gaze fell to the polished bronze of the meter-high jar crouched on a fan-shaped base in the sand before him. Protective sigils flared, a golden burst of light. Her eyebrows lifted. Did the symbols know of the man’s weakness? His sin?

Other than a reflexive jerk when the symbols flashed, the man still did nothing except stare.

She eyed the horizon. Dawn tinted the sky with swirls of gold, amber and rust. She inhaled, dragging in the rich earth-scents following the wind before the piquant, musky odor dissipated in the brightening sky. The appointed hour grew near.

Still, she watched. He waited.

Utu-shamshi
rose into the early morning sky, the blazing orb bathing the painted desert in radiant warmth. A movement from the corner of her eyes pulled her attention back to him.

Finally.

As the coolness of early morning gave way to the heat of the day, he pointed at the jar and recited the summoning invocation,

“O Spiritus ego impero tu, O daemons in quicumque partes de ille universum tu existo, ad virtus de haec Sanctus nomen et ad ille Sanctus nomen of Deus quis litterae in sanguis in ille signum de an aeternus societas.”

The invocation, intoned in precise fashion, reverberated throughout the fragrant air. To her fatigued and aching eyes, each word, as if possessed of corporeal form, cavorted upon the temperate wind.