Читать книгу Nevermore - Maureen Child - Страница 8

Chapter 2

Santos stalked through the night, keeping his legendary focus directed solely at his target. The demon who had shimmered away from their fight early that morning. Better than trying to understand how that mysterious woman had suddenly appeared before him. Again.

He hadn’t seen her in more than five hundred years. Hadn’t experienced that flash of something molten sliding through his system. One look into her green eyes had thrown Santos off his guard—just as it had the night he’d died so long ago.

Who was she?

What did she want?

And where the hell had she gone?

“No matter,” he said, willing himself to believe it. She was nothing to him. No more than a distraction, perhaps arranged by the very demons he fought.

As an Immortal Guardian, Santos, like his fellow warriors, possessed powers gifted to them by the beings who had first created them. It was the duty of every Guardian to guard the portals leading from the demon dimensions and to capture and return to their personal hell any demon who managed to escape into this reality.

And like Guardians, all demons were different. Each might have powers that others lacked. The demons were motivated to stay free of their dimension in order to kill, to spread dissension, to infiltrate humanity and create chaos.

The Guardians were all that stood between them and the mortal world.

Santos could not afford to be distracted from the job at hand. The small demon had escaped him earlier—after Santos had captured the demon’s master. And though the small one was no great threat to humanity, its presence in this world was unacceptable.

“Little bastard,” Santos muttered, slipping through an alley, barely noticing the stench of garbage spilling from one of the industrial-sized trash cans pushed flush against a brick wall. “What honor is there in running from a fight?”

But even as he thought it, Santos could admit to the irony in that statement. Demons? Honor? The two words had no business being in the same sentence.

And yet, in the more than five hundred years he had been fighting the underworld, he had found that even the most vicious of demons had their own “code.” Not one that he or any of his fellow Guardians would ascribe to, but a code nonetheless.

Centuries of life and a steady stream of battles had taught Santos to never discount an opponent. So he was here, in the back alleys of downtown San Diego, following the trace energy patterns of the demon that had escaped him. He’d never failed to capture his target and he wasn’t going to fail now.

His quiet, careful footsteps were lost in the noise of the city. A rat scuttled out of his way. Traffic hummed on the main streets and tourists laughed and chatted as they meandered along the sidewalks. None of those in the light could even guess at what was happening in the shadows.

But that was as it had always been. Those safe in their own comfortable little lives rarely took the time to glance around them at the darkness. Which ordinarily made his job that much easier.

He stopped suddenly at the mouth of the alley and lifted his gaze to the night sky. The moon was partially covered by clouds, allowing peaks of silver to shine through as brightly as diamonds. The stars were nearly invisible, lost in the harsh glare of the city lights. But did it matter? Humans so rarely looked outside themselves, he doubted many of them ever bothered to glance upward. Shaking his head, Santos stared down the sidewalk and looked past the crowds, searching for the demon’s trail.

He could see nothing from his vantage point though, and moved to enter the crowd. But first Santos waved one hand, creating a wall of energy around himself that would hide him from all eyes. Now he could move through the people of this perpetually damp city without concern. No one here would ever know that an Immortal Guardian had walked among them. Had tracked and captured a demon bent on trouble. No one would have any idea that life was anything but ordinary.

He shook his head and took a deep breath of the sea-scented air. He’d had enough of this place. The damp, cold air seeped into his bones. The never-ending crowd of tourists choked him. The tangle of homes and cars annoyed him. He longed for his home in Barcelona. There, even though he lived atop a cliff overlooking the ocean, the air was cool without the ever-cloying sense of wet. His blood was made for Spain. The heat, the searing sun and the sense of openness that was denied him here.

He averted his gaze from a homeless man staggering along behind his shopping cart and looked instead out at the night. San Diego might be thought of as a nice place to live but to Santos, it was merely another city, with a dark, dangerous underbelly like any other.

The moment he could, Santos would be taking his jet and flying home.

He’d only meant to remain in San Diego briefly. He had come up from Mexico, where he had followed a demon, expecting to go directly to the airport to fly his jet to Spain. Instead, Michael, the being who directed the Guardians, had asked him to stay.

The Guardian who had long protected San Diego, had finally chosen to end his existence. Pain whipped through Santos like a lash and then dissipated again. That Guardian, Stewart Marsh, had been a friend. A stalwart fighter. One who had held the demons at bay for three hundred years. Santos frowned at the loss, then let it go. There was no time. For pain. For remembrance. There was only battle.

Until Michael could assign someone else, this area was undefended. So it was Santos who must stand between the city and the dark.

“First, there is the matter of the demon.” His dark eyes flashed as he scanned the motley crowd near the downtown bus station, searching for that soft pulse of colored energy that would lead him to his prey.

Finally, he spotted a pale wash of red stretched across the base of trees lining a postage-stamp-sized piece of green in the middle of downtown. It wasn’t really a park. There wasn’t enough of it for that. It was more an open spot not yet swallowed by the decaying buildings crouched alongside it.

For those who lived here, the empty lot with straggly bushes and a few spindly trees wouldn’t mean much. But the demon was obviously trying to lose himself there.

Stepping out of the alley, Santos rushed into the street, never slowing for traffic. Instead, he simply leaped over the hoods of moving cars, their drivers completely unaware of him.

His blood quickened, and his heartbeat raced in anticipation of the coming fight. This was what made eternity worth living. Pitting his own strength against the demon world, one at a time. This was why he continued in an existence most men would have given up as empty centuries ago.

As his friend had.

To Santos, there was no other world but that of the warrior. He’d lived and died fighting and he would continue on doing so throughout time.

He moved through small swatches of pale yellow thrown from the street lights. He slipped into the tree line, no more than a barren square. This was what passed for countryside in the city. This tiny plot of ground where trees tried to survive and grass was parched and brown. Where straggly bushes bent in an icy wind. Santos sneered and once again allowed himself a brief memory of home.

The brown hills, the craggy mountains scraping the sky. The winding paths a man could wander and taste freedom. The sun spilling out of a brassy sky. The wide open expanse of land surrounding his mountaintop home. And the crash of the waves against the rocks below. Room enough for a man to breathe. He missed it with a soul-deep ache.

A rustle of sound caught his attention and Santos stopped. Lifting his head, he tasted the wind and smiled. Turning right, he crouched, moving along the gnarled bushes until he came to the final hibiscus. Gaudy pink flowers bloomed among the dusty green leaves, but he wasn’t interested in the plant, only in what lay beneath it.

“You try my patience, small one.”

“I’m not going back, Guardian.” The bush rattled again as though the demon were trying to scramble even deeper into its cover of leaves. As if that would protect it. “I’ve done nothing to make you hunt me down this way.”

Santos shrugged. He’d heard desperate pleas from his prey before and hadn’t been moved to mercy. This time would be no different. “You are here, demon. Where you do not belong. That is enough.”

The hibiscus swayed with a violent motion and suddenly the small, dark demon was standing in front of him. Like humans, every demon was different. There were those who were the stuff of nightmares—and there were those like this one. Annoying yes, but hardly evil.

“Your master has already been returned to its hell.” That was a fight to remember, he thought, his blood stirring at the memory. The demon had fought with teeth and claws and a raw desperation. This creature would not provide such diversion. “You must follow.”

“Forget you saw me,” it whispered frantically “and I’ll disappear. I’ll get out of your territory.”

Santos laughed and damn, it felt good. It wasn’t often he ended a hunt with humor. “Demon, this world is my territory,” he said, though that wasn’t exactly the strictest truth. “And you are not a part of it.”

“I’ll fight.”

“Good,” Santos said, reaching for the sword in the scabbard at his side. “I had thought when you ran from me this morning that you had no honor. I am glad to see I was mistaken.”

The demon was a foot shorter than Santos and its long black hair hung nearly to the ground. Its legs were short and bowed and its arms thick with muscle. Its dark red eyes locked on Santos as it mused, “I could shimmer again. You wouldn’t be able to find me. Why not just let me go, save us both the trouble?”

Santos sighed. “You tire me. I thought you would fight like a—” he broke off and let that sentence fade.

“Like a man?” Clearly furious, the demon backed up, one slow step at a time. “You insult me.”

“And you waste my time.” Santos swung his sword out in a wide arc and the little demon tried to shimmer away again. This time though, Santos was ready for it. Attaching a net of finely spun silver webbing to the edge of his sword, he’d dropped it over the demon before it could move. Once caught in a Guardian’s net, a demon was helpless and powerless to escape.

“You should have fought me,” Santos said as he slid his sword back into its scabbard and reached down to tighten the net around his catch. “It would have been the honorable thing to do.”

The demon squirmed and kicked and snarled, but was unable to do anything beyond hurl insults and threats at the man who had caught it.

“I’ll only escape again,” it promised, its voice scraping the night air like broken glass. “And when I do, I’ll find you and kill you.”

“That has been tried before.” Santos swung the demon over his shoulder and walked out of the city’s pitiful excuse for a park. Moving through the shadows, Santos headed for his car. It wouldn’t take long to drive to the closest demon dimension portal.

There were many—each leading to any number of hells. But the energy trace surrounding every demon was a signature of sorts—preventing demons from moving from one hellish world to another. Once returned to a portal, the demon had no choice but to return to the world from which it had come.

“If only the gods had chosen to seal the portals into this world,” Santos mused aloud, then reconsidered. If they had done that, what would a warrior have to do?

“I will kill you, Guardian. This I swear. I will find you and tear out your liver. I will wear your eyeballs on my hat. I will—”

“Cease, demon!” Santos bellowed. “Your threats mean nothing. But should you ever manage to escape again—when you come looking for me,” he said, “come to Spain. There we will have a fight for the ages, small one.”

He was close.

Erin could feel him.

She’d spent the last hour driving up and down the streets of San Diego, letting the ivory-handled knife lead her. There’d been no more visions, but the deeply carved handle was still warm to the touch and still filled her with an urgency she was in no position to argue with.

It was also sort of like radar. Every time she turned the wrong way, she felt a sense of loss. But if she was going in the right direction, a sense of rightness welled up inside her. As if the knife were leading her to its original owner.

Her eyes felt gritty and every bone in her body wept with fatigue. She’d been on the move since leaving Maine the day before for New York City. She’d taken a red eye out of La Guardia, landed at LAX and rented a car. Two hours later she’d arrived in San Diego.

The day was gorgeous. Full clouds sailing across an achingly blue sky. Erin watched late-season tourists headed for the zoo or for Sea World with more than a little envy. She wished she were on a mission of fun. She wished she could have her life back. Heck. She just wished she could lay down somewhere and fall asleep for a day or two. This staying awake for twenty-four hours was nuts.

But she couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t relax her guard. Not until she had some answers. Not until she knew no one was going to attack her in her sleep.

With the knife on her lap, she steered her rental car down a street that led off the Coast Highway. Heat from the knife burned her thighs right through the fabric of her jeans. She was going the right way.

Huge old trees leaned across the street toward each other in a leafy arch that even the sun couldn’t penetrate. He was even closer now. She sensed his presence. Steering her car down the slope, she came to a small private road.

She drove slowly along the tree-lined street, reaching for the knife and keeping it tight in her left hand. The warmth of the ivory comforted her. Odd, but true. The shadowy road wound its way down a steep hill. People were out walking their dogs, washing their cars, enjoying the afternoon.

The houses she passed were amazing. Some were just cottages, probably had been there for fifty years. But others had blossomed and grown into mansions—of every different type. There were Tudors cuddled alongside Spanish style. There were brick homes and clapboard and even one with a conical tower that made Erin think wistfully of fairy tales.

She followed the curve of the road, going slowly, knowing she was close. She’d been so intent on getting here, she hadn’t really planned on what she’d say to the man once she was face-to-face with the mysterious Santos. Her stomach was jittery and the palms of her hands were damp. If he couldn’t help her, she didn’t know what she would do.

With a sudden sense of certainty, she parked her rental car across the street from the house she knew belonged to Santos. Number twelve.

“He will help,” she told herself, taking a quick look in the rearview mirror. She pinched her pale cheeks, fluffed her shoulder-length, dark red hair, and then sighed. She’d been awake and on the run for twenty-four hours. No way was a pinch and a fluff going to make her presentable.

“So stop stalling already.” She nodded. “Right.”

She tossed a quick glance at her goal. The house behind number twelve sat far back from the road, protected by more trees. There were several other houses here and lots of cars parked on the street. So she should be safe enough. Even if her stalker had followed her, he couldn’t have gotten here before her.

“Just do this, Erin. Go see the man. Tell him what’s going on. Make him help you.”

She grabbed her purse off the passenger seat, tossed the knife inside and stepped out of the car. With her gaze fixed on the house in front of her, she shut the car door and started across the street.

From a distance, she heard a car engine fire to life and shriek as the driver gunned it hard. Heart racing, she gulped in air, turned her head toward the sound and froze. A low-slung red car hurtled toward her. Tires squealing, engine roaring, it raced forward.

Erin tried to move. She really did. But it was as if she were hypnotized. Not just by the car. But by the latest in a series of attacks. How many more times could she survive? How much longer could she remain alert?

And how could she defend herself against an enemy that went unnamed?

“Look out!” A man’s voice. Close by.

She’d hardly registered his presence before he was charging into her. His momentum carried them both out of the path of the car as he wrapped both arms around her and pushed her to safety.

She hit the asphalt hard.

Her hip took most of it, but her shoulder, too, screamed with pain. The car raced by them, never slowing, never stopping.

“Thank you.” She turned her head on the street to face her rescuer. But he was gone. Twisting painfully, she caught a glimpse of him—a tall man with blond hair—running down the street and disappearing around a bend. “What the hell is going on?”

“That, madam,” another deep voice sounded out from above, “is what I would like to know.”