Warders, Volume One Read online

  I moved the spatha so she could really see it, how long the blade was. “I promise.”

  She nodded fast.

  I stood up with her tucked against me. “Okay, cute stuff, let’s take a look at this memory of yours and see who took ya.”

  Small whimper.

  “Oh no, sweetheart,” I sighed, pointing. “See, it’s a dream, yeah? This is all over. It’s all happened already. None of this can hurt you; we’re just looking at it together, me and you.”

  “Okay.”

  She didn’t question me. She was six, so her mind could accept a hell of a lot more than an adult could. I said it was a dream and she calmed because that meant it wasn’t real, none of it, and that made sense. She could accept the Twilight Zone; it was being away from Mommy and Daddy that was freaking her out.

  I walked slowly, and the longer we strolled, the calmer she got. We moved in between and around people frozen in action, some looking as though they should have fallen over, so incapable of holding the pose they now held. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flutter, move, shift, but instead of stopping I increased my stride, feeling the weight of my weapon in my hand.

  “There, see?” I pointed, and Sophie was suddenly looking at herself.

  We came to a stop, both of us staring.

  “Look.” I pointed again, and the little girl’s eyes went to where I guided them.

  She saw, just as I did, the woman lifting her up into the arms of what looked like a huge, hooded bird. It was like a vulture cloaked in a cowl, and it had talons, which was how Sophie’s chubby little arms got scratched up.

  “Watch.”

  Sophie stared as the creature slowly flew, frame by frame, like a movie we were fast-forwarding through. The dark wings flapped and the robe blew back, as though air were rushing by. Sophie’s hands were over her face and she was fighting, twisting, sobbing, absolutely terrified because the woman had given her to the creature.

  “Who was the lady, honey?”

  “My nanny, Nanny Lisa.”

  Nanny Lisa was going to jail if I didn’t get to her first.

  “She wants to kiss Daddy, but he said no. He said she had to go away.”

  And that fast I understood the whole scenario. The nanny wanted the husband, and he, in turn, wanted only his wife and child. So she was on her way to being fired for hitting on him when she came up with the plan to get rid of the little girl and make the demon give her the man of her dreams. And even as I wondered how regular people even knew how to traffic with demons, I also thought, what a waste. Why hadn’t the nanny just gone to one of those online dating services and gotten hooked up that way? Why did some people feel that they could just take what they wanted from others? Even I wasn’t that selfish.

  I continued to watch, and Sophie with me, as the demon flew her up the stairs to her bedroom and through the open door of her closet and in and down into the dark.

  “I don’t like it here.”

  It was the understatement of her young life. “No, me neither,” I agreed, speeding up, back toward the stairs.

  “Where do you run to, warder?” The eerie singsong tone, drawing out the word “warder” for an endless moment, made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Just from the sound of its voice I knew what it was.

  I hated all demons, but blood demons, the ones who centuries ago had given rise to vampire legends, those I simply reviled. The little girl knew what she was talking about—he wanted to eat her and drink her blood, but he wouldn’t be satisfied with just that. He had to scare her first and hurt her. He would tear her limb from limb.

  “I was waiting for the one who gave the child to me. I have to pay her too.”

  Apparently the nanny was not getting her reward; she was going to be a snack before the demon tore up the little girl. You had to be very careful when bargaining with demons; there was always fine print.

  I tucked the little girl’s head down into my shoulder. I had more history with demons than the nanny did. I didn’t trust him. I had no idea if he was alone or not; they usually were, but there was no way to tell. If he was alone, I could put Sophie down and have her close her eyes, stick her fingers in her ears and sing “Jingle Bells” for me at the top of her lungs. But I couldn’t be certain, so I needed her safe in my arms. There was no way he was getting her from me. None.

  The demon went through its first shift, transforming into a monster; claws grew where hands should have been, and enormous vacant eyes with a jaw that was now hawklike, with a jutting beak filled with razor-sharp teeth that snapped open and shut. What looked like drool was actually blood that dripped into a small puddle at the creature’s feet. It was disgusting, and even though Sophie could hear it, she also heard my whispered words of comfort and felt my hand on her head. She was holding onto me tight.

  “I have her now,” I told the demon, “and I’m going.”

  “I think not, warder.” He smiled slowly, coming closer. “I think I will let the child see the blood run all out of you. I want you to remain here with me for a bit, and we shall see all there is to see. You need to find if there is an end to suffering. Do you imagine an end?”

  If the demon got his hands on me, there would be no end. Caught here, kept here, undead in this limbo, I would learn what true terror was. I glanced around his hall and saw sights that were familiar. He was powerful, much more so than I had thought when I came down to bring Sophie home—he could kill me.

  There was a bridge at one end of the huge room that ended at a wall, suspended in air as it touched the stone; it showed nothing unless stepped upon. It revealed where you belonged, where your acts on this plane said you deserved, either leading to a life after death of reward, repentance, or reincarnation, a bridge of renewal, offering comfort or… hell. It was a place, for all intents and purposes, that was hell, a realm of fear and fire and punishment. If I wanted to get out, I had to either roll the dice and cross over to another domain or go back up the damn stairs the way I had come. Since I was not ready to be judged on the bridge, and because both me and Sophie had a lot more living to do, I took a step back and slowly brought the spatha around in front of me.

  “What do you hope to do with that, warder?”

  “This child is mine, not yours,” I said defiantly. “She’s bound to this world, not yours.”

  “No,” he said evenly, “you will stay, for her life ebbs even as you defy me. Soon she will be done, and you will have no way to return. As long as she lives, you can journey back; if she dies, so goes your passage.”

  “Her life is not ebbing,” I assured him, “and I’m not a demon; I don’t need to be tethered by a living soul promised as sacrifice to move between the planes. I’m a warder, and I have dominion over you.”

  He took a hissing breath and stepped away from me, but as he did, he yelled Sophie’s name.

  Her head snapped up, and she turned.

  “No!” I ordered her, grabbing her head, shoving it back down fast. “You keep your eyes closed!”

  I did not let her see the demon’s true form.

  He threw back the cowl he wore to reveal a face with empty sockets where his eyes should have been. The face was withered and drawn, gray and ashen. He looked as though he was decaying, and I winced with both revulsion and pity. The demon was in pain, it had to be, and I wondered, even in that second, what it had started out life as. Everything had a start; it didn’t just blink into existence. What had it been?

  “Warder!” His voice, when he spoke to me, was booming even as it came out of a rotting, decomposing face. “You will die because you are alone!”

  I was thrown back hard into the wall, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. My spine felt like it had shattered.

  Sophie was crying hysterically as I clutched at the rock wall, trying hard to keep my balance, shielding her, having no choice but to drop either my weapon or her. I would not lose her, and I had to hold onto the stones at my back to remain vertical. I was scared for a second, because he
was advancing and I was unarmed, before I felt the rush of cool air blow through the hall.

  “Thank God,” I groaned, taking a quivering breath. If I hadn’t been sliced up earlier in the day, if I was at full strength, I would have been okay. It would have been hard, just his presence was draining me, but if I was healthy, I could have held him off long enough to make a run for it. Hurt, I was in trouble, and I had been on my way to being scared. But now I didn’t have to be, because now I had help.

  The thick fog rolled toward us. “I’m not alone,” I yelled back.

  “No!” The demon roared, advancing on me, raising a hand to strike me.

  A low, menacing growl came from the direction of the fog before it was suddenly all around us, enveloping the demon, the child, and me. I released a deep breath even as I watched the demon shrink back away from me.

  “Leith,” I breathed out. “She has a wolf; it’s black and white and it has blue eyes like hers.”

  “I can’t,” came the disembodied voice. “This is her house.”

  “No,” I corrected him, “it’s not. Look again. Change and look. You followed me and so you can’t see it yet. Wait a second.”

  It didn’t take even that long. My fellow warder was not as fast or strong a fighter as me or Ryan or Jackson, but he was more observant than all the rest of us put together—smoke and mirrors never tricked him.

  “I see it now,” he said, and all at once I had a huge wolf beside me, against my hip.

  In the real world, in San Francisco, California, my fellow warders and I were guys that fought with supernatural creatures with our swords and fists. On alternate planes, in limbo, in between the living and the demons, we had other powers. Leith Haas, who was better at shifting than the rest of us, Leith who used his mind more than his sword, was at his strongest here.

  I could never see myself as fog or a wolf or anything but me. I didn’t have the breadth of imagination. I was thankful that Leith did. He was everything I’d hoped he could be.

  “Oh,” Sophie cried, her eyes huge, the excited sound of her sucked-in breath making the demon cringe. She wasn’t scared, she was happy, and demons had a rough time processing joy.

  I let her slide down my side, and she tripped forward against Leith. He looked like she knew her stuffed wolf did in real life. He was huge. His head, his paws, the tulip-shaped ears, and his teeth. His teeth looked downright vicious. But not to Sophie. To Sophie he was salvation and safety and just… hers. She saw a wolf; she believed it, had the absolute faith that only a child can have. Her face was buried in his neck, her little hands in his thick fur, and she squealed out her happiness. I was a good protector; he was better.

  “Take her,” I ordered him, bending as the smell assailed me, the demon’s breath as he came at me.

  I caught him by the throat, holding him off, shoving him away.

  He drew back, gathering his strength for the next charge. I lifted the little girl.

  “Hold tight,” I ordered, barking out my command.

  “No,” she wailed suddenly, and I realized what a dear sweet girl I had on my hands. With her own safety imminent, she didn’t want to go without me.

  “Go!”

  She clung, and Leith flew forward to the stairs. He wasn’t there for me, he was there for her, and that was all right. If I was done, it would be okay because she wasn’t.

  Knives drilled hard into my chest, and I was slammed back into the rock wall, sharp edges punching through my jacket, sweater, and T-shirt.

  “You die now, warder, and you will bide with me!”

  Not knives, talons, his long, sharp, barbed claws driven deep, so deep into my flesh and muscle. All I could process was heat and pain.

  My girl was gone, so I could use my barroom vocabulary. “Fuck you!” I yelled back, wrapping both hands around his throat and choking him hard.

  He yanked free and the barbs tore out pieces of me. I felt the rush of fluid, blood, but I dove down for my weapon, grabbed it, and rolled to my feet. I twisted around, the spatha extending out in front of me the way I had been taught.

  “I am stronger than you, warder; you will not see another day. I will take you to hell with me.”

  And that was okay, but then I saw the stupid feather. Sophie must have dropped it when she fell in love with her wolf all big as life in front of her. The white angel feather was lying in the dirt, trampled but still in one piece.

  “Shit,” I groaned, realizing that for whatever idiotic reason, I could not get the stupid boy… kid… man, barely man, definitely kid, out of my head. I really wanted to see those big dark-brown eyes again.

  When the demon bashed me into the wall the second time, I felt my skin open, my bones crush, and everything get soggy. It was terrifying. But his howl of pain, in the same moment, comforted me. In his haste to eviscerate me, he had missed that I had changed my grip on the spatha and driven it up like a dagger.

  I ground the point in deep, and since demons had hearts just like everything else, me piercing it and shredding it left him just as dead and bleeding at my feet as anything else.

  I collapsed beside him, our blood mingling in the dirt. I couldn’t even make it to the bridge to see where I was off to, heaven or hell.

  “You fuck,” I was growled at, “don’t you dare die.”

  I opened one eye to see Leith standing above me. “Funny,” I gasped. I coughed, and it hurt. “With a name like Leith––shouldn’t you be, like, Irish or Celtic or something?”

  He scowled at me as he knelt down beside me. “Shit, how am I gonna move… shit.”

  I outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. “I betcha wish you were bigger right about now, huh?”

  With a name like Leith, you expected some highland laird. What you got was a surfer from Malibu, Zuma, who had actually had to live on the beach for a time in his life. Now he was a welder during the day, an artist in his free time whose media of choice was wrought iron, and at night…at night he did what all the rest of us did: he hunted demons. He was amazing and he didn’t know it, and I liked that about him best of all. I was also a fan of the wavy, sun-bleached mass of thick blond hair that fell to the middle of his back. It matched the blue-green eyes, his dark eyebrows, and pale lashes. He had freckles across his nose that made me think he was younger than thirty and a scar beside his right eye that gave him character. Leith was closest to me after Marcus, so if anyone had to watch me die, this man with his quiet strength would do.

  I let out a deep breath, and my eyes fluttered shut. I was falling asleep.

  “No. No,” he barked at me. “Open your eyes.”

  “In a second.”

  “Mal––”

  “Shhh,” I soothed him. “Be still.”

  “I don’t know if… oh, no, I can.” He was talking to himself and I found that comforting. “You’re such an idiot, if no one can go with you, you don’t go, you stupid fuck.”

  He was talking about earlier.

  “Okay,” I said, hoping to shut him up.

  The sound of thunder, and I let out a deep breath. Warders, could, in emergencies, travel in funnels of wind, wormholes, where we basically moved from one place to the other, following the path of other warders. It felt like falling with a tornado whirling around you. I hated it: the cold, the icy rain that came with it, how loud it was. I tried never to use it, and now Leith was moving me that way. It was how he had followed me, but he wasn’t sure he could use it again; it took a lot of energy to wield. But he apparently had it in him for one more shot. Not that I would be awake for all of it.

  “Malic!”

  Everything went dark.

  “LOOK AT me.”

  The tone, the father tone… fuck.

  “Shit,” I growled, opening my eyes just enough to see my sentinel, my leader, Jael Ezran, hovering above me. The man was huge, easily seven feet tall and built like a tank. He was massive, and he looked even bigger as he squatted down beside me, leaning in, looking at me, hand on my chest. I was stretched ou
t on a bed in his enormous guest bedroom that had been decorated in early Middle Ages chic. You would have thought, glancing around, that I was in a castle in Scotland or something, but I was actually at his mansion in Sausalito. I hated his big gloomy house and had never, ever, wanted to be there, especially wounded and unable to leave.

  “When you’re well, I’m going to beat you,” he assured me.

  I let out a breath, my body starting to shake. I was really cold.

  “Only you, Malic, have no regard for your own safety. If you had a hearth, you would.”

  The man was consistent. He never missed an opportunity to tell me that I needed to find a hearth, someone to love, to return to at the end of the day, to make a home for me, to be my anchor. With Ryan having found his hearth, I was the only one who didn’t have one, and apparently that fact was grating on my sentinel.

  “You need a home.”

  But I didn’t. Home equaled jail. What I said was, “Okay,” because I hurt too much to argue with him.

  “Leith spoke to the detectives,” he soothed me, hands open above me, fingers splayed out, tensed.

  “Wait,” I pleaded, because it was going to hurt like a son of a bitch. When Jael knit you back together, it always did. Finesse was not the man’s strong suit.

  “No,” Leith rasped, pacing behind him, “do it now. He’s way too pale even for him.”

  I would have flipped him off if I’d had the strength. I was Swedish, first generation born in the United States; my parents moved from Stockholm three months before I arrived. It didn’t change anything that we lived in California; I was never going to be the guy that tanned. “Sophie….”

  “Is fine. She told her parents about her wolf protecting her, and they feel better thinking that she missed the real horror and focused on the dream part. Her nanny was arrested for kidnapping and giving the child to others to hold hostage for ransom.”

  “That’s what—” I gasped because it felt like something rolled inside me and broke, down deep. “Leith told them?”

  “Yes,” he said, and I saw the faint glow around his hands.

  “No, oh God,” I muttered. “Jael, can’t you just––”