Chapter 10
Valac
Valac did not leave Julian’s mind after he was unceremoniously kicked from the human’s previous dream.
He waited, his body stagnant, for the moment when Julian’s consciousness finally sank back into sleep.
He couldn’t sense anything from Julian’s mind while he was awake, but he held fast to the connection between them anyway, too uneasy to let go when something was so obviously wrong.
He’d felt it in Julian’s dreamscape, wrapped around him like barbed vines.
Whatever had caused Julian to wake was dangerous.
Valac could feel it. If he resurfaced back into his own mind, he might miss Julian’s next sleep, and he couldn’t let that happen.
He needed to know that his human was okay.
And finally, here he was, sinking into the comforting depths once more.
He found Julian in his house, just as he had been last night, but this time, all was not well.
The windows were shattered, the doors in splinters, and slick blood coated the floor.
Julian, who had fallen in a pool of it just inside his front door, was trying to push the broken door shut, fighting against an unseen force on the other side.
“No, no, please!” he was screaming when Valac stepped into the room.
Outside on the front lawn, a giant cross burned, its flames licking up into the air and highlighting the silhouettes of many men, their forms appearing and disappearing as the dreamscape struggled to maintain the image.
Was this what had happened last night? Was that burning cross the source of the strange light he’d seen? Had they attacked his home?
Ugly animal snarls filled the air, and Julian whimpered. “Please, please, they’re coming. I don’t know what—”
Valac snagged his arm, dragging him up and wrapping his arms around him.
“It’s okay, my jewel,” he rumbled, and the dream around them froze.
The flames outside were no longer flickering.
The silhouettes weren’t moving. Behind them, the demons sneaking in through the kitchen were as still as statues.
Julian shuddered, and then he turned his face into Valac’s chest and sobbed.
“Tell me what’s happened. Is this what woke you last night? Were you under siege?”
Julian struggled to get his emotions under control, his breaths hitching in his chest. Valac hated it.
He reached down, hooking his forearms under Julian’s rear and lifting him.
Julian hissed in surprise, grabbing Valac’s shoulders as his legs automatically wrapped around Valac’s waist. Eye to eye now, Valac drank in the sight of Julian’s pretty pink blush.
His gemstone blue eyes glittered in the low light, still wet with tears.
Valac pressed him against the door—the solid door.
While Julian was distracted, he fixed it all.
The windows and doors were restored. The burning cross and shadowed enemies were gone.
The demons blinked away into nothingness.
The furniture was all back where it was supposed to be.
The blood on Julian’s clothes and the floor was no more.
The house was theirs once again, just as it should be.
“Tell me,” Valac said again.
Julian’s throat bobbed. “Put me down.”
Now that he finally had him where he wanted him? “No,” Valac growled. “You’re perfectly safe with me. I will do nothing you don’t want. Let me hold you, and tell me what happened.”
Julian’s eyelids fluttered. His mouth opened like he might protest, but then his body surrendered, sagging, fingers curling around Valac’s shoulders.
“This isn’t what happened last night. Not entirely.
This was… just a nightmare. A worst case scenario, I guess.
Last night, I found the burning cross out in my front yard.
They’d splashed blood on my porch and front door to attract monsters and set fire to the back deck.
I was able to put the fires out and barricade myself inside.
” His eyes filled with tears again, but he continued speaking despite them.
“I spent all morning cleaning up the mess they made and reinforcing what I could, but the wards on my house are painted in holy water on the windows and doors right now. It never seemed like a big deal before, but it’s all too breakable right now.
My squad knows how my wards are set up. It’s one of the easiest wards to put on a building.
Lots of us use them. If the people targeting me are the same people who helped me paint them on, they know how to break them.
They threw a brick through my window once already; that had to be why.
I don’t have any holy weapons. I’m not safe here, but I don’t have anywhere else to go.
I don’t know what to do, Valac, I don’t know what to—”
He was rambling, and Valac’s hands were busy holding him up, so he did the only thing he could think of. The only thing he’d wanted to do since the moment he laid eyes on him.
Julian whimpered as he sealed their mouths together, freezing in Valac’s grip. Valac didn’t move, so hungry he trembled with the need for more. And finally, Julian raised his hands, cradling Valac’s face, and tilted his head to kiss him back.
Kissing Julian felt like hellfire in his veins, hot and wild and burning him up.
He wanted to slip his tongue past those soft, plush lips, wrap his fingers around his throat and feel the vibration of those quiet sounds against his palm, but he had to focus first. He needed Julian to be safe.
What could he do from Hell? How could he help?
He could dreamwalk.
Parting reluctantly, Valac said, “I will go into Talon’s mind and ask him for help.”
“But I told the guild I wouldn’t associate with the Sentinels.”
“They are escalating. You’re not safe. You know you’re not.”
Julian’s face twisted.
“At least let me ask him for better wards. We have methods of keeping out demons that you don’t, my jewel. I will get him to write down the instructions for the wards and leave it somewhere for you.”
“What if the paladins see him outside my house?”
“Leviathans can cloak themselves in shadow. No one will see him.” He growled, low and dangerous. “And if anyone is nearby to witness him, anyway, he will kill them.”
Julian looked shocked. “He will?”
“I will tell him to. They would deserve it, if they’re lurking around your home, violating your sense of safety.”
Julian’s mouth opened and shut a few times. “I don’t want to be responsible for him killing people.”
Valac gripped Julian’s chin, forcing their eyes to meet. “You won’t. I will. And would they show you the same courtesy?”
The human’s throat bobbed. “I don’t know.” He let out a shuddery sigh, his head falling back against the door. “Okay. Put me down, then. Go and ask him to drop off the instructions.”
“Will you be okay here without me? Your mind may wander without me here to keep you lucid.”
Julian nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ll be okay. At least long enough for this. Enduring one nightmare is worth it if I can get access to better wards to protect myself.”
“All right.” Valac turned and gently deposited him on the sofa. “I will return as soon as possible, my jewel.”
And when he did, he planned to revisit the kiss they just shared.
The house around him faded away as he left Julian’s mind and reached out in search of another, less familiar one. There was a chance Talon wasn’t sleeping, since demons didn’t need to rest as often as humans, but odds were good that Talon was near to his human partner, Alex. Valac would go there.
Bright orange light greeted him as he slipped inside Alex Hawk’s mind.
Valac squinted, turning away from it as the scene coalesced around him.
It was a beach, with dark, sloshing waves.
The sun was setting over the water, casting fiery color across the sky.
Valac couldn’t remember the last time he saw a real sunset.
He found Alex and Talon sitting on the sandy beach some distance away. A tent was visible on the hilltop behind them, glowing from within.
Talon noticed him before Alex did, leaping to his feet and appearing in front of Valac with a furious snarl.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here, behemoth?”
It would be more threatening if he didn’t have to look up at Valac as he spoke. “Calm yourself, leviathan. I’m here to ask for your help.”
“Then come while we’re awake!”
Alex joined them belatedly, taking Talon’s hand and tugging him back. “It’s okay, Tal. What’s wrong, Valac?”
“I wouldn’t invade your mind without reason, Alex Hawk,” Valac said. “I am still in Hell, but I come with a request for aid for Julian.”
“The paladin?” Talon said.
“What’s wrong with Julian? Is he okay?” Alex asked.
“For now. He left the guild, and they are targeting him for leaving their ranks. Harassing him, threatening him.” He told them everything Julian had said, about the burning cross, the fire, and the blood.
“He feels unsafe. He fears they aren’t finished, and the old members of his squad know how to disable his wards.
He needs something stronger that will keep the demons out if his windows are smashed. ”
Alex looked imploringly at Talon. “You put wards on my apartment at one time, didn’t you? You needed a knife?”
Talon nodded. “Yes. It’s blood magic. I can write it down for him. He needs to etch some symbols into the wood over each door and window and coat them in his blood. Is he willing to do that?”
“I believe so.” If he wouldn’t, Valac would leave Hell as soon as possible to do it himself if he had to.
“Good.”
“I have a personal favor to ask, as well,” Valac said. Julian might not be willing to directly ask the Sentinels for help, but Valac had no such compunctions. And this way, the only one who might be beholden to them was himself—though he didn’t think they would require anything untoward from him.
“Sure, what is it?” Alex asked, to a long-suffering sigh from Talon.
“Maybe we should find out first before we agree, little bird,” he murmured.
“He’s been perfectly civil,” Alex replied under his breath.
Valac didn’t suppose it was worth pointing out that he could hear them both just fine.
“Deliver the warding instructions to him as soon as possible, but could you also keep an eye on his house? Make sure there are no demons or paladins lurking in the area? He cannot watch his own back, as much as he would like to, and it would… pain me for something to happen to him.”
Talon’s expression smoothed, and his dark eyes seemed to pierce straight through Valac. “Oh, I see.” He exchanged an unreadable look with Alex. “Yes, we’ll keep an eye on the human. I assume you’re going to return to the surface?”
“As soon as possible, yes.”
Talon pressed his lips together with a nod, like this was the answer he expected. “It’ll be good to have you on the team, I guess.”
Valac frowned. “What do you mean?” He was asking for a favor, not offering to join the Sentinels.
Talon chuckled. “You’ll see. Just something the prophet keeps saying.
I’ll wake up Alex, and we’ll go over to your human’s house.
Tomorrow, we’ll even let the other Sentinels know, and work Julian’s house into their regular patrols.
At least once a night, someone will go by and make sure he’s okay. Deal?”
Relief glowed within him like the sunset beside them. “Yes, thank you. I will owe you for this, leviathan.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll hold you to that. Tell your human the instructions will be waiting in his mailbox in the morning.”