In two steps, she found herself emerging from the side of a building in the South Bronx. When she turned around, there was no evidence of any sort of gateway or opening in the brick. Eidolon hailed a cab, and within fifteen minutes they were at her apartment.
She still hadn’t said a word, and her mind still wasn’t working.
“You’re coming home with me,” he said. “We’re here to grab your weasel and some belongings.”
“I can’t.” Her voice sounded rusty and unused and on the verge of breaking. She was on the verge of breaking, trapped inside a nightmare that wouldn’t end.
The demon in you is going to rob you of everything that makes you human.
“You don’t have a choice, Tayla. You gave up that right when you blew up my hospital.” He paid the cabbie and walked with her into her building’s musty lobby, shaking his head in disgust when a hypodermic needle crunched under his boot. “You’re going to need help as your body changes. We have a lot to talk about.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, as they mounted the stairs, because denial went a long way when it came to keeping her marbles together. “I don’t know if I believe—”
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Instinct kicked in, along with a burst of adrenaline, and she crouched. Her eyesight grew sharper as she took in the entire area . . . below, above, even the ceiling. Demons had a nasty habit of dropping from rafters and ceiling pipes.
Her hand went reflexively to where she’d normally keep her stang, and she cursed when she felt nothing but cool skin beneath the scrub top Eidolon had given her to replace her bloody one.
He eased up behind her, lowered his mouth to her ear. “What is it?”
“Something’s not right,” she whispered. She crept up another step to peer over the top of the next landing. “My door is open.”
Menace rolled off Eidolon in a wave that was almost palpable. He started up the stairs, but she threw out an arm to block him.
“I can handle this.” Heck, she needed this. She needed to beat the hell out of someone or something, if only to get rid of the numbness that gripped her.
Through the opening in the door, she caught a glimpse of movement. Humans. Guardians.
Two, from what she could see. Cole and Bleak . . . the two who had been involved in the werewolf battle that had killed Michelle and Trey. They were sitting on her couch eating McDonald’s.
Territorial rage spun up . . . humans, in her lair, uninvited . . . Closing her eyes, she tried to get it together. She was behaving as if she’d truly accepted her demon fate, that the Guardians were the enemy. These two hadn’t been the ones who’d sent her into a demon hospital with a bomb, and rushing in like a rabid hellhound wasn’t going to help anything. Besides, their version of what had happened the night Michelle and Trey died was different from Luc’s, and she wanted to believe them. Guardians were the good guys. Saviors of humanity. They did not betray each other. They didn’t lie. They didn’t try to kill their teammates.
But her internal alarm wouldn’t stop clanging.
“Don’t let them see you,” she said to Eidolon. “I don’t know why they’re here, but they’re more likely to talk if I’m alone.”
“Slayers?” he asked. At her nod, he inhaled sharply. “If they so much as touch you—”
“They won’t.” Before he could argue or she could analyze the possessiveness in his voice, she stepped inside.
Cole leaped to his feet. “Tayla. Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?”
“I live here.” She moved fully inside, her heart growing cold at the panic on their faces telling her these two had to have known about her being sent to the hospital as an exploding chump. How many other Guardians had been involved? A chosen few? The entire cell?
No. She refused to believe everyone had turned against her.
“We were told you were dead.”
“Obviously, I’m not.”
Cole and Bleak exchanged glances, and yeah, apparently the fact that she was breathing wasn’t great news. “That’s awesome,” Bleak said.
“So if you thought I was dead, why are you here?”
“To clean out your apartment.” Cole shrugged into his jacket, and she didn’t miss how he’d loosened the snap closure on his stang holster. “Let’s take you back to HQ.”
Bleak moved behind her. “Yeah. Everyone’ll be stoked to see you.”
The unmistakable whisper of a blade slicing the air broke the oh-so-fake happy reunion. She struck hard and fast, knocked Bleak’s dagger out of his hand. Cole’s roundhouse kick to the hip spun her into the wall, and then Eidolon was there, tearing Bleak away and leaving her to concentrate on Cole.
Bleak’s scream pierced her eardrum as she nailed Cole in the face with her fist. “Don’t kill him,” she shouted.
“Fuck that,” Eidolon snarled.
“No!”
The dull thud of flesh striking flesh told her he wasn’t listening.
Cole swung, an uppercut she blocked, and she could no longer pay attention to what Hellboy was doing. Cole was hammering her with blows, and it was time to return fire. Spinning low, she swept her legs in an arc and knocked him on his ass. She leaped on him, straddling his waist as she slammed her fist into his cheek. His legs swung up, catching her around the throat, and suddenly she was struggling to stay on top. They were closely matched in skill, having trained together for nearly the same amount of time, but with the loss of her strength and her injury, what should have been an easy take-down now became a fight for her life.
Gasping, she reached for a candle jar that had fallen from the coffee table during the struggle. Her fingers closed on the rim. His fist drove into her belly.
Pain slashed at her, but she ground her teeth and brought the candle down on his temple. Cole groaned and went boneless.
Holding back her own groan, she rolled off him. Eidolon’s low snarl vibrated the room. He lunged away from Bleak, landing on top of Cole, one knee in the Guardian’s gut, one hand wrapped around his throat.
“Okay, asshole,” Eidolon growled. “Time for you to sing.”
She glanced at Bleak’s crumpled, bloodied form. He wasn’t moving, but his chest rose and fell with regular breaths. Thank God.
“You bastard,” she said to Cole. “What the hell was that all about?”
He glared up at her, and Eidolon must have squeezed, because Cole clawed at his hand. “Demon bitch,”
he gasped. “You’re a spy. You murdered Janet.”
Oh, Jesus. They knew. “I-I’m not a spy. I didn’t kill Janet.” Her denial came out in a rush she didn’t even believe because in a way, she had killed the other Guardian.
Her gaze locked with Eidolon’s.
“Yuri must have talked,” he muttered.
Did everyone know? She still hadn’t come to grips with the fact that demon blood ran through her veins, but her own people had obviously tried to kill her for it.
She tucked her leg beneath her and got comfortable, because she had a lot of questions for Cole. Starting with, “What were your orders?”
Cole’s split, bloodied lips made for a grotesque smile. “Go to hell.”
Eidolon dropped one finger to a cut on Cole’s face. He stroked the skin next to it, gently, slowly.
“Funny thing, medical school,” Eidolon murmured. “In the process of learning how to patch someone up—” suddenly the cut sealed “—you also learn the most effective ways to hurt them.” The cut ripped open with a sound like torn wet paper, and Cole screamed. Damn, Hellboy knew his shit. She couldn’t decide if it was sexy, scary, or a little of both.
“Answer Tayla’s questions, or I start slicing my way south.”
Cole swallowed audibly. “We were sent to pack up your Aegis weapons and clothes.”
“And?”
“And kill you if you survived the explosion.”
Though she’d expected the answer, she still felt the ugly sting of betrayal. No, sting didn’t quite cover it. These were people she’d fought with, bled with, risked her life for. They’d shared a mission, a calling. How could they have done this?
“Who sent you?” She cursed the tremor in her voice. “Who gave the order?”
“Jagger.”
“He doesn’t have that kind of authority.”
“He said it came from Kynan.”
She rocked backward as if she’d been slapped. No. Kynan wouldn’t do that. Not to her. Not to anyone. He’d once let a Guardian off the hook for releasing a demon from the interrogation room.
Then again, if he believed she was a demon . . . no, even then, if the information had come from Yuri, Kynan wouldn’t automatically believe it. Information from a demon, obtained under torture, wouldn’t warrant an execution order, and even if it did, the order wouldn’t be issued until an investigation had been completed and the Sigil had approved the action.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
“So you came here to ransack Tayla’s apartment and kill her if she survived the explosion?” Eidolon asked.
“It was supposed to look like a break-in.”
“And if I hadn’t come back here but was still alive?” she asked.
A cold grin turned up his bloodied mouth. “We’d have hunted you down like the demon whore you are.”
“Wrong answer.” Eidolon’s voice was low, deadly, and in a blur of motion, he twisted Cole’s head, snapping his neck. “Justice is served.”
Tayla supposed she should be shocked, maybe upset, but all she felt was an empty numbness. Was her demon side affecting her already?
She stood there for a moment, staring at the two Guardians bleeding on her floor, one dead, one alive. What now?
As if Eidolon heard her thoughts, he stood and said, “Pack some clothes and grab your weasel.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You aren’t safe here.”
“I know. But I can take care of myself.” She’d lived on the streets for years, knew the life, knew the places to hang out.
Then again, so did several Guardians, including Jagger.
He reached for her so quickly she was in his grasp before she could blink. One hand tangled in her hair, and the other gripped her waist. “Tell me,” he said quietly, in a voice that was far more unnerving than if he’d shouted, “what did The Aegis do to Yuri?”
She swallowed. Hard. “I told you. They tortured him.”
“How? Whips? Blades? Fire?” His grip grew firmer, drawing her closer into his hard body as he tugged her head back, not so it hurt, but he wanted her attention. He got it. “Do you think your friends wouldn’t do the same to you if they catch you? I know you can’t trust me, but I think I’ve proven that I won’t torture you.”
“You killed Cole . . .”
“I did it so you didn’t have to.” He dragged his lips across the top of her ear, making her shiver. “He would have killed you. Maybe not today, but eventually. Go. Collect your things.”
He released her, but she didn’t fall for the distraction. “You’re not killing Bleak while I’m occupied.”
“Tayla—”
“No!” She bit her lip and looked at the guy, curled into a fetal position on the floor. “He’s not like Cole. Bleak is a new recruit. He was just following orders. He thinks I’m a . . .”
“Demon?”
“You bastard.”
“Yeah, I know. You can bitch at me later. Right now we have to get you someplace safe.”
She knew he was right, but it was a bitter pill to swallow. “I’ll get my stuff,” she grumbled. “Just one second. Do not kill Bleak.”
Forcing her lungs to fill with a calming breath, she picked up the phone from where it had fallen on the floor during the battle, and then she dialed with trembling fingers. Jagger answered his cell on the first ring. “Your welcome-home squad was a nice touch, Jag,” she said. “But you’ll have to do better than that if you want me dead. Now come pick up your trash.”
She hung up, aware that she’d just signed her own death warrant. But when she turned to Eidolon, his grin was blinding. He said something in a language she didn’t know, his eyes boring into hers. “You are magnificent.”
So was he. Magnificent beyond belief. And she was going home with him. The knowledge that she’d be so close to him in such an intimate environment unnerved her. Terrified her. Excited her.
“We need to go.” They needed to do it quickly, before Guardians showed up to kill her, and as she picked up Mickey, she knew there was no going back.
Sixteen
Eidolon’s apartment didn’t resemble anything even close to the dark, dank lair she’d expected. Then again, after seeing his car and how he dressed, she had no idea why she should have expected anything less than a Manhattan high-rise that probably cost more per month than she’d paid for her apartment in two years.
“This is so wrong,” she muttered, as she set her weapons bag and duffel on the floor.
Eidolon pulled Mickey out of his jacket pocket and closed his front door. “What is?”
“This. You should be living in a sewer or something,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction, because she’d seen more than foulness in him and it was getting harder and harder to hold on to her principles.
Especially since the people she’d believed shared her convictions had tried to kill her. Twice. Oh, and because she was a demon herself. Small details.