Nate had never, in all his years as a human or a Guardian, felt a look as potent—as profound—as the one Jessie had just given him.

He was using all his strength to bear down on a fragile human child, who bucked and screeched beneath him, but all he wanted to do was take Jessie in his arms and bind her to him in the ritual that would make them one for all eternity.

Her lips had formed words of love. Unashamed. Unafraid. Unequivocal.

He’d never been more elated, nor more terrified, than this moment.

The demon inside the child—Asmodeus, he was certain—had witnessed it.

Alexios had told him just this morning that even though archdemons didn’t require human hosts—because they had their own physical forms—they could leave it and possess a human if they so desired.

The results of which were always unspeakably vile.

Indeed.

Asmodeus roared inside the child, the power of his evil so mighty he was able to slam furniture, including the cots of the injured, into walls. Nate’s muscles strained against the now bleeding flesh of the girl. He couldn’t think of the damage he was inflicting on the child. Little Jane wouldn’t survive much longer as the Hell Prince’s vessel. He looked at Katherine and Father Angus. “Hurry!”

Jessie stood, the chrism oil bottle steady in her hand.

A terrible feeling rushed through him.

“…qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem!” The priest shouted the final words of the exorcism rite. The child opened her mouth in a bone-chilling scream. Her body convulsed, spewing Asmodeus’s blood-red colloidal form out of her mouth, nose, and ears. The archdemon launched from Jane’s body, swirling like boiling, molecularlized smoke two stories above the dance floor before shooting straight down again.

“Jessie!” Nate lunged, then swiveled as he fell, shifting Jessie on top of him, absorbing the crush of the hardwood floor. The red substance zinged past them, leaving the thick odor of black licorice. “Rosaries repel possession, get yours out, then get to the injured!”

They ran in a crouch to the bar where the extra bottles of holy water and chrism oil lined up like IEDs. He grabbed three off the self, tossed one to Jessie, then hustled to the pileup of cots and bodies against the west wall. Jessie pulled her rosary necklace out from under her t-shirt while she ran. Her eyes were fearful, but controlled. “It’s him, isn’t it? Asmodeus?”

Nate nodded, calling upon the floor to slide three more of the injured to where he and Jessie stood shoulder to shoulder.

“I thought you said he took his own form instead of having to possess a human.”

“He can do either.” He met her shell-shocked expression with what he hoped was a confidence-boosting smile, then turned to the priest. “Father Angus!”

The priest caught the bottle of chrism oil, removed the stopper, and flung it at Asmodeus’s smoke when it shot straight for him. The anointed emulsion punched the colloidal substance like a frozen turkey hitting a pot of boiling oil. Tongues of flame leapt from the red smoke, a bray so high-pitched it shattered the high-tech windows of Nate’s loft, but not the wall panel. Asmodeus was trapped since the club had no external windows besides the front door.

Another plus to operating a bar, Nate thought darkly.

Jaws pulled Jane’s limp body to the east side of the building where Dorian guarded another injured group of humans. When the red smoke shrieked again, Jessie paled and clutched her ears. Her gaze followed the red smoke’s increasingly erratic path as it was repeatedly repelled by rosaries. “Where’s your rosary?” she asked, lowering her hands from her ears.

“Guardians are incapable of being possessed.” As far as he knew, anyway.

“Well, can’t he just reform as himself?”

“He left his corporeal form somewhere when he decided to take Jane’s body. He can’t just reshape organically from nothing but his smoke. He either needs to find a human vessel, or his own form.”

The smoke twisted into a tall, tight funnel, creating a moving wind tunnel, decimating the salt lines, leaving the exits vulnerable. Blast!

I’ll reform the salt lines when the smoke moves on, Dorian said. Nate nodded from his position.

Jessie grasped Nate’s hand. “Can we lead it to a Devil’s Trap?”

He shook his head. “Devil’s Traps only immobilize demons when they’re using a human meatsuit. They don’t work on their shade forms.”

“Will it work on his true form?”

Nate didn’t know. Unfortunately, this was uncharted territory for him.

Alexios, I think I might be amenable to suggestions right now.

He could feel the ancient Guardian struggle to make the connection, but at that moment, Katherine yelled out for Stark, who was attending one of the sick. Nate hurled his bottle of holy water at the roiling red smoke as it sliced through the air, knocking Katherine down on its way toward her human friend. The smoke split and fractured widely around the bottle, the arcing water spraying harmlessly in the air until gravity took over, pulling the bottle down to land with an empty clang.

“No!” Katherine yelled as the smoke coalesced at Stark’s mouth, violently funneling down his throat. Father Angus ran to Stark and pressed his crucifix to his forehead. Nate heard the singe, then Stark’s arm shot out, flinging the priest thirty feet across the dance floor where he landed in a heap by the bar. Nate grabbed Jessie’s arm when she lunged.

“He’s bleeding!” she yelled.

“As will you, if we don’t deal with the problem first.”

Katherine stood before Stark’s possessed form, the Latin rite of exorcism begun anew. Stark laughed at her efforts. “You blazing idiots. It’s your human emotions—your connections—that make you so weak. You know that, right?” His eyes swept over Nate leaving him with a sense of rage. He inhaled slowly. It was a demon trick. Trying to pull out the worst in you. It’s what they wanted.

“And because that’s the case, I know you won’t hurt one little hair on the vessel who looks so much like my father.” Stark turned to look at Katherine. “Isn’t that right, boss?”

What were the best options to kill Asmodeus? Think fast. Katherine was fuming at his comparison of Stark’s looks to Lucifer’s, and he couldn’t even use telepathy to talk her down from doing something stupid since the Hell Prince had obviously blocked their telepathy once he’d sensed Nate reach out to Alexios.

Nate could implode this whole place. That might put Asmodeus out of commission for a while so they had more time to regroup. Unfortunately, he wasn’t strong enough to stream everyone—the healthy and injured—out of here at once. Think, Temple. Shit. Katherine was weak from her efforts to exorcise Jane, and Dorian, Cruz, and Jaws were busy guarding the sick.

Stark stepped toward Jessie and an unfamiliar fear pounded through Nate’s veins. He stepped in front of her, pressing a hand back against her belly to feel her warmth against his palm.

“I can hear your heart going pitter pat, Guardian. You like this human woman so much that mayhap you’ll trade your relic for something of hers. Maybe that nice elderly couple, eh?”

Nate’s heart sank as he felt Jessie’s comprehension dawn.

“Oh my God. You have my grandparents! Let them go, please.” Jessie’s form was rigid beneath his fingertips.

He should have guessed the Prince would try to barter this way. “Jess, he’s a demon. Demons lie, all the time.”

Turning his full attention to Jessie, Stark clasped his hands in front of him, solemnly. Which was total bullshit. “Your grandparents are safe, Jessica of the lovely kinky, brown and pink hair. They will be returned to you, unharmed, the moment your fly-by-night boyfriend turns over the nice little trinket he keeps downstairs.” The demon turned to face Nate and made a sad face. “Unless your hunky boyfriend doesn’t consider two human lives—the two most important people in your world—as important as a man-made object that only has significance because a bunch of senile scholars decided it would be fun to make up their own salvation story and build-in a scavenger hunt for shits and giggles. Give me a fuckin’ break.”

Jessie gasped. Nate stepped sideways to grab her by the shoulders. “Demons lie, Jess. They always lie.”

“Well, not really,” Stark intoned in an upbeat, sing-song voice that sounded nothing like Stark’s real voice. “I actually do have her grandparents.”

Jessie’s blue eyes burned into Nate’s. “I can’t believe you’re not even considering this. It’s just an object.”

An object that his redemption depended on. The archangel had made that painfully clear. “Are you listening to me? This is a prince of Hell, Jess. He’ll never hold up his end of the bargain. We could give him the relic—”

“Nate!” Katherine barked.

He glanced at Katherine and shook his head before turning back to Jess. “He has no honor. Bargains and promises mean nothing to demons. I’ll find another way to get your grandparents.” If they were even still alive.

“I’m standing here not harming anyone. That you should besmirch my honor is unfair, Nathaniel,” Stark said.

Dorian lifted his arm to aim a line of holy water at Stark. Before the water launched, Stark lifted a hand, blasting Dorian against the wall so hard he crushed through the drywall, landing inside the kitchen. Stark smiled. “There is no other way, Jessica. It’s the relic for your grandparents, or no dice.”

Jessie trembled under Nate’s fingertips. She brushed him away and turned to face the demon. “Are they alive?”

Stark shrugged. “I’m not the make-nice, vomit-my-feelings-to-make-you-feel-better kind of guy, so I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. Honestly, these Guardians belong in Hell themselves, so how do you know you can trust anything they say either? So what’s it gonna be? Going once…”

Jessie whirled to face Nate, the beseeching look on her face making his heart wrench. “Please, I’ll do anything. What object could possibly be more important than a human—two human—lives?”

Guard this sacred relic. Your everlasting soul depends upon it. The entire human race depends on it. The archangel’s words held the finality of death…and worse. “There’s no bargaining with devils, Jess.”

“I can’t believe you won’t even take the chance. They’re my family!”

Stark’s nostrils flared. “Walt and Tillie will have to die, then. I’ll make it quick, Jessica, if you come willingly to my bed.”

Nate leapt, rage licking his amygdala in hues of red, orange, then a pure, brilliant white. He felt Jessie turn and run, but nothing would divert him from his mission.

Kill. Maul. Destroy the threat to his mate.

Nate was mid-air when the last of Asmodeus’ colloid form ejected from Stark’s body. Katherine cried out, blasting Stark sideways with a stream of water to save him from Nate’s Xiphos, which rang through the empty air where Stark had been moments before.

Father Angus ran across the dance floor, a crucifix held high above his head as he headed straight for the red smoke. Nate went down on one knee and slammed a fist onto the floor, sending a ripple across the wooden boards, removing the crazy ass, kamikaze priest from the demon’s aim. Nate spun as the red haze circled high above them, then dove at the group of injured citizens. “Dorian!”

Nate’s warning was too late. Asmodeus reanimated the largest of the injured men, using the vessel’s mass to bulldoze his way through the other bodies toward the club’s front door where he’d earlier blown away the salt line.

“Grab him!” Nate bellowed.

But the archdemon launched his possessed body through the glass doorway onto the mangled sidewalk outside, and was up, running down the block before Nate could even make it to the club’s entrance. Voices called out behind Nate, his boots pounding the floor in pursuit of the Hell Prince until Dorian’s arm shot out to clothesline him. He scrambled to his feet, swinging out in raw frustration. “What the bloody piss? He’s getting away!” The demon had actually threatened his compar. Had made the blasphemous suggestion to take her to his bed.

Never would he let that black scoundrel defile her. Wouldn’t even let him touch a hair on her head.

Wouldn’t—

An explosion of heat split his jaw. His fists balled up, but before he could return the punch, another landed. This time in the gut, followed by two slaps to his cheeks. Unease, not the threatening kind, but the oh-fuck-something’s-wrong type, drifted through him. He shook his head, squinting through the dissipating furious haze to hear the voices arguing around him.

Father Angus was up in his personal space. “Alright lad, enough of your ‘roid rage, we have a problem.”

“I was trying to deal with that before you blighters cock-blocked me.” Nate fingered his broken nose, but it was already mending. He looked around, his limbic system relaunching into warrior mode before he could even process what was wrong. “Where’s Jess?”

The priest shook his head like he wanted to punch him again. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you while you’ve been acting the maggot, you bowsie. She’s gone.”

“Jess!” Nate’s hoarse holler ricocheted around the club. “Jessica!” The walls of the building shook so hard plaster cracked, tumbling down, spilling white all over the floor that Jessie had swept so meticulously earlier today. His heart pounded so hard he felt light headed. “Jessie!”

He raced to the sanctorum, remembering the hurt in her eyes. She thought he didn’t love her. She didn’t know he would give up every last relic for her if he believed the demon would actually honor his bargain. She didn’t know that demons never kept their word.

He’d make her see. Make her believe that he’d been telling the truth.

He opened the door to the sanctorum as Dorian pushed the bookshelf back into place, hiding the reliquary which housed the relic. When Dorian looked up, his face said it all.

“Jessie and the relic are gone.”