Jessie stood beside Nate on the heaved sidewalk in front of TERRA, trying to comprehend that the sun was actually starting its daily ascent when the orange light breaking between the tops of the battered skyscrapers made it actually appear mid-afternoon.

Crazy how being dropped in a five thousand square mile sinkhole changed your perspective.

She stepped over a downed streetlight to better see the fleeting rays. They wouldn’t last much longer. Soon they’d be swallowed up by the growing cluster of ashen clouds that hugged the edge of the jagged building tops.

The streets felt so empty. No cold-weather, hardy mums in pots. They’d all been smothered by heavy layers of dust or crushed by falling debris. No traffic. No people. No noise.

“No birds.” Maybe she missed them most of all. She looked over her shoulder when Nate approached.

“For you, I will bring them back. For now, the safest place for them is far from here. And the safest place for people—even emergency responders—is inside their homes or places of business. Sometimes compulsion is for the best, Jess.”

Though she hated to concede, he was probably right. The Guardians and the humans in their inner circle had taken the injured they’d rescued back to the club or to various hospitals across the metro, which were fully staffed with compelled doctors, nurses, and support staff who’d been on duty when the city dropped and would continue to be on duty in a continual loop like nothing was amiss until either the Guardians released them from compulsion…or the compulsion failed.

Please let it be the former. What human could possibly best a demon? Until their eyes changed to black when they lost the battle for their souls, the possessed humans looked completely normal. They could usually get close to their next target without raising any red flags—until it was too late. Nate had told her that if she focused, she would be able to detect a demon’s faint black licorice odor.

Not that she ever wanted to get close enough to one to confirm or deny this.

“How much longer are you going to be able to compel the people to stay in their homes or workplace?” she asked.

“Not much longer, unfortunately. Not if I’m going to have enough energy to put down Asmodeus.”

“If you’ve managed to keep everyone inside, does that mean the demons have nothing to do but hunt animals?” If she’d gone to sleep while Scourge was being ripped apart by demons, she’d never forgive herself.

“Scourge is going to be fine, you’ll see. We managed to keep most people inside some form of shelter, but not all. We don’t know why certain humans—psychics, for one—are immune to Guardian compulsion. The demons would have found them first.”

She rubbed her arms as her chest warmed with shame and relief. Someone had likely stood between her dog and certain death last night. “Are we any closer to figuring out how he’s able to keep outside government and military emergency responders from entering the city?” What must they think beyond the force field? Was the national news covering this, their press helicopters circling Minneapolis? She imagined it like a big bubble encircling the city and suburbs, imprisoning them under glass like specimens under a microscope.

“The other Unholy Inc club locations haven’t had the devastation Minneapolis has, but four other archdemons were released on Halloween night. We think they’re marshaling their legions and feeding Asmodeus some of their power to maintain a force field over our city and to compel everyone outside to unconsciously stay away.”

The power required to do something of that nature was mind-boggling. “So the archdemons are helping each other?”

“According to Alexios, it’s unheard of. Chilling, isn’t it?”

Wow, understatement. “What happens if people start leaving their homes?”

Nate frowned, and not just with his eyebrows. With his whole face. “Even if they’re impervious to possession, they’ll be at the mercy of those who aren’t.”

“Meaning?”

“Anyone out after dark will be preyed upon.”

Horrors. She almost wished she hadn’t asked. “What can I do?”

“Obey me without question.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

Oh, she loved his eyes. Right now they were twinkling to ease her fear when only moments before they’d been burdened with responsibility. She could mine his blue eyes for hours and still discover new dimensions, little nuances. How much had he seen in his decades as a Guardian? How many layers of the veil he occupied could humans perceive? Without knowing what she knew now, would she have ever believed what she’d witnessed?

Were humans even supposed to?

Last evening, she’d been caught up in a web of shock, panic, and terror. In the quiet hours before dawn, she’d allowed herself to be lulled into a cocoon where Nate had sheltered her from the monsters. She’d accepted his promise that her grandparents would be safe. She’d been so weak, so ready to pawn her grandparents’ care on him. This morning, it made her neck and cheeks prickly hot. She breathed slow and deep to forestall a burgeoning sense of despair, and turned to Nate before her nerve deserted her again. “I’d like to see my grandparents now.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed. She dropped her gaze and toed a fallen newspaper stand, the supple leather of her boot a smooth contrast against the debris-strewn, broken concrete.

“Perhaps you should stay to help my security staff prepare the demon bombs. I’ll bring Walter and Tillie back to the club,” he said.

“I’m going. I need to go.” To check out their neighborhood. More so, to prove she wasn’t a total coward.

He nodded. “Alright then. We’ll stream beyond the outskirts of downtown, then try to find a vehicle and drive the rest of the way.” His gaze softened, eyes crinkling at the corners as he pulled her in for a hug. “The shorter the distance you have to demolecularize, the easier it will be for you. Now kiss me. I could use a shot of JBlaze.”

Her stomach was still doing somersaults ten minutes later when they arrived on the outskirts of her grandparents’ suburb and found a truck to ‘borrow.’ The further they traveled from downtown Minneapolis where the Seam rupture originated, the less destruction there was. Minus the twenty foot wall of exposed earth and tree roots that defined the sinkhole’s perimeter, of course. If a structure had been anywhere near that when the world dropped…

Stop thinking about the casualties. She needed to focus on helping those who still had a chance.

“Think your grandmother has any of those caramel rolls your grandfather was going on about the other day?”

She switched on the radio, but turned it off again when she found nothing but static. Stupid demons. “I’d imagine so.”

“You’re fortunate to have them in your life.”

She glanced over at him in the driver’s seat, her lips curving when she wouldn’t have thought it possible after the events of the last twenty-four hours. “I am. I think about it all the time.”

“That’s why you care for them.”

“Helping them isn’t a burden. You don’t abandon people who’ve shown you love during the hard times.”

He finally glanced at her, his eyes hot with desire and something else. “I admire that, Jess. You’ve told me a little about your mom. Did you ever know or have contact with your father?”

She inhaled slowly, then exhaled, blowing at a clump of corkscrew curls. “All I know for sure is he’s black. I imagine I saw him in many tabloids back in the day. Take your pick, my mother slept with all of the celebrities you’d find in them and probably half the women, too.”

His palm squeezed her left thigh. “You never asked Aurora?”

“Of course I did. I told her that’s all I wanted for my thirteenth birthday—to know who my father was.” Her chest tightened. “She rolled her eyes, took another drink straight from the crystal decanter that held her favorite vodka, and told me she had no idea. That there’d been ‘dozens of gorgeous and attentive black men’ in her life around the time I was conceived.” Jessie remembered every nuance of the exchange like it was yesterday. “Then she laughed until she began to cry. She cried for two days straight.” So had Jessie.

Nate leaned over to plant a quick kiss on her temple. “My sweet Jessica, you are fortis in arduis. Strong in difficulties. I admire you greatly.”

She blushed and placed her hand over his. “Do you have any living family members? You know, like great-great-grandnieces or nephews that you know about?”

She caught his surprise in the slight widening of his eyes, though he kept them focused on the road. “I appreciate your interest in my backstory, but it’s not a happy tale.”

“Well, mine isn’t all roses as you just learned. I want to know yours.” She swiveled in her seat to face him.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. “I murdered my father when I was thirteen for violating my four sisters. My mother was killed by one of her johns a year later. Two months after that, I left my six siblings at the orphanage because I was tired of providing for them. On my own, I honed my extortion skills, blackmailing people with secrets they didn’t want others to know. Mostly older women who didn’t want their illustrious husbands to know they were fucking a boy. I died never knowing what became of my siblings.”

Jessie kept her hands still, forcing herself not to react. What could she say? It was a terribly bleak situation for an adult, much more so for a child. “It was too much to ask when you were only fourteen. You did the right thing by leaving them with the authorities.”

He laughed humorlessly and brought both hands to the steering wheel, his knuckles white. “The orphanage was a miserable, loveless place for children. More children died from neglect than were emancipated from that place. I never checked back. Not even once. Guardians are what we are because we were disgusting human beings.” He tore his gaze from the street to pin her with haunted blue eyes. “Don’t ever forget that.”

“But you’re different now.”

He shook his head. “I speak for most of us when I say that we struggle with ethics more now than we did before. Sure, we protect humans, but we only do so because we know the consequences of not doing our jobs. We still fight the same vices, the same temptations we had when we were mortal. Yet now we’re more powerful, and therefore, more able to take advantage of and force our will on others. I fight the urge to do so every day. You should know that by now.”

Meaning, his frequent attempts to manipulate her. To take away her choice like he had several times already. “Point taken, but the difference is, now you’re actually fighting to do the right thing. Before, you didn’t even consider it.”

He pulled up to the small house where her grandparents lived, frowning. “Stay here.”

“No way, I’m coming, too.”

He shut the driver’s side door and hit the locks before she could get her door open. She tried to release the lock from the inside, but he was obviously using his mind skills to keep them closed. When he came around to her side of the truck, he was damned lucky he wasn’t smiling.

“Nate! This isn’t doing the right thing.”

His warm breath fogged the window. “That’s a matter of opinion, Angel.”

He turned away and walked up her grandparents’ sidewalk as she yelled and pounded on the truck window.

* * *

Nate shut down the little voice castigating him for leaving Jessie spitting mad in the truck and instead focused on the slow slide of unease in his gut. He reached out with his Earth element for fingerprints of evil—those radial slivers of incongruous cold that made his skin want to fold in upon itself.

The evil essence wasn’t there, and his protection wards were still in place. Yet something was off. He went around to the back of the house, ignoring Jessie’s yells and banging from inside the truck. There was no way he was letting her out until he was sure—

Someone grabbed him around the neck and took him to the ground. The immediate black licorice olfactory punch meant demon. Nate rolled around with the devil in the litter of crunchy, fallen leaves until he finally pinned it beneath him. Roots of a large maple tree pushed out of the ground and wound around the demon’s extremities, holding it immobile but hissing while Nate waited to see if its black eyes would flicker any other color. After several moments with no change in the black, he beheaded it with his Xiphos.

Nate re-sheathed the sword at his thigh, brushing off leaves as he stood. He inhaled the dry fall air and made the sign of the cross over the body. The demon had possessed a male, mid-forties, graying, but in good shape. Probably one of Jessie’s grandparents’ neighbors. He should have warded the whole neighborhood. But regrets were a waste of time and energy. He had bigger things to worry about. Like had Walt and Tillie Jacobs voluntarily left their house in spite of his wards? And why was a lower order demon out and about during the day?

He called upon the earth to dispose of the demon, then focused his senses. He did a quick scan of the Jacobs’ house, looking in windows and touching the walls to sense minute vibrations. He couldn’t pick up on anything. Nor had he sensed the demon’s vibe before it had attacked. The whole place felt draped. Like something was inhibiting his senses.

After going inside to visibly check every room, he went back to face Jessie’s wrath.

Her eyes flashed blue flame when he slid into the truck. “Don’t you ever—and I mean ever—lock me in another place again. If I was meant to be controlled, I would have come with a remote.”

“I could appreciate your independence if we weren’t talking about demons who want to take control of your body so they can torment your soul.” He started the truck and pulled away from the curb. “Is there anywhere else they might be?”

The fire in her eyes died, replaced by a cold fear that was so much worse. “They’re not here?”

“No. Asmodeus obviously gathered that you are the key to my demise.”

She gasped. “Why didn’t he take me then?”

“Your grandparents were a much easier target.”

“You promised me they were safe!”

“As long as they didn’t leave the house.” He glanced at her profile. Tears streaked down her cheeks like little gullies of accusation. “What did you want me to do, lock them in?”

She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Why not? You sure as hell don’t seem to have a problem with that! Or do I have the sole honor of bringing out the bastard in you?”

“Now that you mention it. I believe you do.” Think. What could have gone wrong? He was coming to suspect that Jessie was immune to his compulsion because she was his compar, and everything between soul mates was supposedly free will. But how did her grandparents override his coercion to stay inside where they’d be safe under the protection of his wards?

“You really think Asmodeus has them?”

It was the only possible answer. Nate wasn’t sure how far-reaching the Hell Prince’s powers were, but clearly he could manipulate thoughts through space. Asmodeus had probably compelled Walt and Tillie outside, then took them because of Jessie, who was important to him.

And when someone was important to you, you were vulnerable. Weak.

Which was exactly how Asmodeus wanted him before he made a play for the relic. “Bleeding bollocks!” Nate’s foot pressed on the gas pedal.

Jessie latched on to the grab handle above the passenger window. “I want one of those swords.”

“Hell, no. This isn’t a joke, Jess.”

“You see me laughing? He has my family, Nate!”

“Humans don’t fight demons.”

“My God, you Guardians are so full of yourselves! Think about it, humans fight demons all the time. It’s called temp-ta-tion. And believe it or not, some of us make damned good choices.”

They arrived at the location where they’d originally stolen the truck. Nate hit the breaks and put the truck in park. “You think the demons care what anyone thinks about anything?”

“I can’t control what the demons think, do, or don’t do. All I know is, I’m not going to stand by and let you call all the shots. This is my life, and I’m going to make the decisions that affect me. My first one is finding my grandparents.” She bent forward to grab a narrow metal object that had slid from under the seat when he’d abruptly pressed the brakes. Before he could stop her, she’d used it to hammer through the passenger side window.

Nate grabbed the back of her long-sleeved shirt and hooked an arm around her waist, carefully pulling her back between the slivers of glass. “Jesus, woman! Are you hurt?” He picked at her like one of those ridiculous monkeys he’d once watched at the London zoo plucking fleas off one another. Satisfied she had no more embedded glass in her skin, he looked up to catch the fire in her eyes. He both feared and liked her like this. Fighting. Proud. Not at all like the weak-willed, weak-minded people he’d exploited. “I will find them. I won’t stop until I do. I promise you.”

“If this is what a life with you is like, I don’t want it.”

“This is not the time to talk about this, Jess. Let’s get back to TERRA, make a plan—”

“Why, Nate? Why me? There are hundreds of thousands of eligible women in the metro area, and you have to pick the girl who doesn’t even like to look at herself in a mirror. What is wrong with you?”

“How can you not know after the week we’ve shared? After how much I’ve told you I love your laugh, your kindness, your loyalty, how you make me feel like…” I can actually be the man you think I am. “You can’t be serious here, Jess.”

She tried the door handle, turning back to him with disconsolate eyes when she found it locked. “Just let me go.”

Never. His fingers curled around her arm. “You think I’m lying.”

“You’ve said many times that you do what you have to do to get your way. You lie as easily as you speak the truth. Maybe easier.”

He released her arm, his heart ready to pound out of its rib cavity. “I’m not lying. Surely you can feel the difference. If you don’t, I don’t know what else I can do.”

She gave him an if-only-I-could-believe-you look. “How convenient.”

“What do I need to do to make you believe me?”

“Find my grandparents. Unharmed.”

She met his fierceness with a silent dignity that made his ignoble instincts—subdue, command, protect!—begin to calm. Finally, he nodded. “I already told you I would. After that, I’ll find a way to send Asmodeus back to Hell.”

“And then?” she whispered.

He released her, his pulse jack-hammering in his neck as he stared at her.

Then he’d have to let her go. It was the only way to keep her safe. Even now he should send her to Katherine’s club in Hawaii. Or maybe even Zian’s club in Shanghai. Surely she could hide amid thirty million people.

He closed his eyes, unwilling to say the words to send her away. Something inside him shifted vaguely like he’d chosen the wrong fork in the road. He could not bloody think about this right now or he’d Go. Fucking. Mad.

He threw open the truck door. “Let’s move.”

She grabbed his shoulder before he could exit the vehicle. “Whatever is between us is impossible, isn’t it? I’m going to die, and you’re going to live forever.”

No! “I won’t let you die, Jessica.” Even if he couldn’t have her, he would let no harm befall her.

Sadness filled her eyes, though her soft lips curled. “There’s no changing mortality.”