Not without him—but it was too late anyway. She heard a light thud from outside, followed by a second. A flutter, a flap. The sound of wings.
Feathered wings.
Her chest tightened. “Nicholas. The Guardians are here.”
For a moment, there was only silence. Then a footstep from the porch seemed to break it, and Nicholas roared her name. The hellhound’s heads swung around. Ash’s heart stopped.
Nicholas was attacking the thing. Trying to get to her. Oh, God.
She sprinted forward, and though Nicholas’s heart was between beats, she saw that the hellhound reacted just as quickly, that he’d already noticed her coming around and so she shouted, “I’m just protecting him!” before sliding beneath those enormous gaping jaws, across the floorboards and up. Nicholas seemed frozen, his expression contorted by fury and determination, and he’d found the only stabbing weapon the hellhound hadn’t taken: the heel of her boot. Clenched in his raised fist, he was trying to protect her, but this would only hurt him, and if she didn’t slow down, she’d hit him while going too fast and hurt him, too. She slowed, and caught his wrist as he stabbed down. She hadn’t slowed enough. As her body hit his and they went flying, Ash managed to react, to twist, and take the impact.
She slammed back into the wall next to the bedroom door, holding on to him. It took him only a blink to realize what had happened, and then his arms were around her, shoving her behind him and putting himself between the hellhound and her.
Between the Guardians and her.
Ash slipped her hands around Nicholas’s waist, ready to carry him away. She looked over his shoulder as the footsteps came nearer, as the resonance of their steps against the wood changed when they crossed from the porch into the cabin. “I hear two,” she whispered. “One with heels.”
The hellhound gave a happy chuff, an unmistakable sound of greeting. His giant, slithering tail wagged. A woman answered him.
“Such a good boy. I love it when you look so mean. But you’re taking up all of the room. Hugh can’t even fit in here with me.”
With a noise like a sigh, the hellhound suddenly diminished—looking almost like a Labrador again, but twice as big, and still with three heads—and revealing the man and woman standing near the door.
Tall, with a long black wool coat that buttoned to her throat, and a tangle of long dark hair, the woman regarded them with arched brows and a sharp amusement. The man gave less away, but Ash couldn’t miss the calluses on his hands, the bulk of his shoulders. A man who had his own obsessions, was driven by some deep purpose.
That purpose was to kill her, Ash supposed.
“Just turn around,” Nicholas said. His arms came back and his palms flattened against the wall on either side of her, as if to protect her from every side. “She’s not like most demons. She’s not evil.”
The woman smiled and came farther inside. The man—Hugh, she’d called him—shut the cabin door.
“Different, yes. I know better than anyone,” she said, her gaze narrowing on Ash’s face. “You are new.”
Easier to kill, Ash thought.
“And those symbols . . . Taylor was right. Those aren’t for the transformation. They’re a spell to create a new Gate. Fuck.”
Ash trembled. A spell. The demon who’d attacked her in Duluth had said something similar, and there was a memory there, something she needed to know, but she couldn’t trace it now.
The woman turned to look at Hugh, who seemed to shake his head without moving at all. She focused on Ash again. “I see you’re all naked and cozy here, shacked up in the middle of nowhere, but unless the demon you’re bound to is dead, you’re not safe. Nobody will be safe if Lucifer opens that Gate. So you need to come with us.”
Okay, that was easy. “We’re safe then,” Ash said, and since she didn’t have a bargain with these Guardians, had no problem telling them, “The demon is dead.”
Hugh spoke. “Lie.”
She felt Nicholas’s tension increase. The woman looked to him and grinned.
“You know what he is, don’t you? He had a Gift to see the truth for eight hundred years, and he can still see it. So don’t even try to lie.” She glanced at Ash. “Or try, if you want. It’s a lot more fun that way.”
“Or maybe he’ll lie even when he hears the truth,” Nicholas said. “How can we know?”
“That’s your first thought? Your mother really fucked you up, didn’t she?” The woman studied him for a long moment. “He won’t lie, not when he’s here to see the truth. And not when I depend on him to tell me when you’re lying.”
“If he sees it, then he knows I told the truth when I said she wasn’t like other demons,” Nicholas said.
“Well, I don’t need Hugh to tell me that. It’s written all over her face . . . and from the little I can see, it’s also written all over the rest of her. Lucifer named you Ash, is that right? Because after you sacrificed yourself to save St. Croix’s life, you’re not Rachel Boyle anymore.”
Through his own shock, the immediate denial, Nicholas felt Ash tense behind him.
“I’m not Rachel.”
“Not anymore,” the woman agreed, but her gaze moved between them, and Nicholas could almost see her calculating, weighing. “You don’t know. Neither of you know.”
“We know she’s not Rachel,” Nicholas said.
The woman’s eyes flattened. “No, because Lucifer stripped most of Rachel out of her. Didn’t he? Not everything, because she’s talking, and I’m guessing she didn’t have to relearn her ABCs, but the rest is gone, isn’t it? Relationships, emotional connections, and the deeper they were the harder he dug. Then he ripped them right out, and took everything that made Rachel Rachel with it. And he made you with what was left.”
Ash made a soft noise—of pain, of terror. The sound tore at his heart. Nicholas spun, caught her in his arms.
Behind him, the woman continued speaking. “You might not remember all of that, because it was Rachel who’d have made the decision. She’s the one who’d have agreed to the transformation, the bargain. But you . . . you’re the one who is stuck with it. The one with the spell on your face and the fate of the world on your shoulders.”
Ash began to shake. Almost convulsing, her teeth rattling. Tears stood in her eyes. “I remember. I remember him tearing me apart.”
Jesus. Nicholas wanted to rip the woman’s tongue out. Couldn’t she see what this was doing to Ash? Was this what the Guardians did? Fuck them. Fuck them all.
“What the fuck are you doing? What kind of Guardians are you? Just get out. Get the hell out.”
“We’re not Guardians. Or rather, Hugh isn’t anymore. He used to be. But me, I used to be a halfling like her.”
Ash’s breath caught. “A halfling.”
“We start out human, but are given the powers of a demon. Lucifer didn’t take as much from me. Just my name. Now I’m Lilith. Even though I’m human again now, I’m still Lilith.”
“Human again,” Nicholas repeated, looking into Ash’s eyes. “How?”
“Lucifer did that, too.”
Her footsteps indicated her approach. Nicholas half turned, trying to shield Ash with his body, trying to make certain he could watch for any attack.
“So you see why we sent Sir Pup in here first to determine exactly what sort of demon she was and to take your weapons. It would have been a shame if Ash had shot either one of us. That would be breaking the Rules.”
And that meant Nicholas couldn’t use the Rules to his advantage, either. Fuck.
“I heard wings,” Ash said.
“We needed a ride.” Lilith looked up, as if through the roof. “Now they’re up there, a full phalanx. Waiting. Because that spell on your face means that you are a danger to everyone. Ideally, we’d hide you in Caelum, but a demon—even a halfling—can’t be teleported to that realm. So we’ll take you to Special Investigations, where we can protect you until we hunt down the demon who holds your leash. Your choice is simple: Either you leave with us, or you don’t leave this cabin alive.”