2. Malachi
Chapter 2
Malachi
Malachi lingered around the corner of the hospital entrance, a cigarette pinched between two fingers, and watched with glee as Luke returned that afternoon, striding into the building with purpose and a pair of barely noticeable lumps hidden beneath the back of his polo shirt. The setting sun cast an array of molten colors across the sky, like fire and blood. There was danger on the horizon, and Malachi couldn’t wait to witness it.
When he’d heard the rumors that Talon had claimed a human, he’d thought it was idiocy. By the way they talked, Talon took one look at the human and declared him his, but demons didn’t claim humans like that. Leviathans were strange ones, though, so who knew what was going on in Talon’s ancient head. Maybe it was something specific to their kind.
Or so he thought, until one night, weeks ago, when he’d been standing outside a human club. In Extremis was his usual haunt, but occasionally he liked to venture out to the human clubs and see what was on offer. Most of the time, they were boring. He’d been standing near the door, smoking a cigarette much like he was now, when Luke walked by. He hadn’t noticed Malachi, shrouded in shadow and obscured by the crowd of other smokers, but the moment Malachi’s eyes found him, he was ensnared. The human’s sharp gaze reminded him of a prowling cat, giving the crowd a passing perusal as he slunk around them. His rounded shoulders, his tapered waist, his rugged scars, his trimmed beard, his obvious confidence, they all drew Malachi in like a moth to a flame. He’d been on Earth for hundreds of years, but he’d never seen a human he so desperately wanted to sink his teeth into. Not to maim or kill, but to keep . And then he finally understood what Talon must have felt.
He’d fallen into step behind Luke, shadowing him for the rest of the night. There probably should’ve been some dismay or at least hesitation when he saw Luke draw a blade and kill a demon in an alleyway, but his eyes snagged on the way his back muscles bunched under his T-shirt, on the way his corded forearm flexed as he gripped his blade. Wanting a paladin would cause him nothing but pain, but he was helpless to resist. He followed Luke all the way back to the Paladin Guild’s elusive headquarters. No demon he knew even knew its location. Being so close to its holy walls should have been harrowing. All he felt was impatience as he waited for the human, his human, to appear again. And appear he did, not long after. Malachi followed him to his apartment next, peeling himself away only when the sun rose and he had no other choice.
He’d followed Luke every day since, wondering how best to approach him as he learned all he could from afar. He seemed to be driven by the fight. It was all he did. He went out alone rather than with a squad—he was a loner, like Malachi—killed monstrous demons, went to HQ to do whatever paladins did behind its imposing wall, and then he went home. He didn’t seem to have any hobbies or extracurriculars outside of fighting. It made approaching him more challenging—and he needed to approach him. He wanted Luke’s honey-brown eyes on him. He wanted to give Luke something, plant the seed that Malachi was someone trustworthy, someone Luke didn’t need to be wary of. What would a fighter like Luke be interested in? Thus, Malachi had found him a demon to kill, one he knew no holy warrior could resist. Even if he didn’t trust Malachi’s motives, his duty to protect the children would outweigh his suspicions.
Malachi didn’t care how long it took to get close to him. Luke would be his.
Tossing the cigarette butt away, he pushed off from the brick wall and followed a safe distance from Luke’s holy heels. He definitely wanted to see the fruits of his labor. Luke, in violent motion, was too beautiful a sight to pass up.
Halflings like him didn’t have all the same powers that a black-eyed leviathan had, but he could move through crowds unnoticed easily enough, and he could glamor his eyes so that they didn’t appear to be the startling red they actually were—although he rarely had to bother. It was alarmingly easy to fool most humans. They assumed he was wearing contacts or that they were simply brown or hazel, their minds unwilling to consider the possibility of anything else.
Those with red eyes had supposedly once been human. He didn’t remember being human, didn’t even remember going to Hell. All he remembered was pain. Whatever happened down there must have been traumatic, and his mind had blocked most of it out, except for one white-hot burst of pain that lived on in his memory and sometimes haunted his dreams. He always thought that was the moment he’d become a demon, but he supposed he couldn’t be sure.
He took the stairs to the third floor while Luke waited for the elevator. There, he lingered in the stairwell until he saw the man pass by the narrow window, admiring the shift of muscle below his polo shirt. He wanted to bend him over, shove that shirt up under his arms, and watch the sway of his back as Malachi took his pleasure.
Slipping from the stairwell, he followed at a safe distance, dipping into a darkened, empty patient room when Luke slowed to a stop and sat in an empty plastic chair in the hallway. He took out his phone and crossed his ankle over his knee, looking for all the world like a bored visitor waiting for someone.
Time was meaningless to Malachi. An indeterminate amount of it passed as he admired Luke from his hidden alcove. The long column of his throat. The finger-grabbing length of hair on the top of his head. His sun-browned skin and the pearlescent scars peppered across his arms. The way his thick thighs splayed in the small chair.
As the sun fell, Luke stood. Malachi’s demon heart pulsed with excitement. It was almost time.
Luke went to speak quietly to the nurses, flashing a badge that was probably fake but authentic enough to fool the civilians, and then he circled the nurses’ station, going down each hallway around it before stopping just outside the room Malachi lurked in.
Malachi could sense him as though there was no wall between them at all, like his living heat seeped through the plaster and wood and into Malachi’s very bones. He leaned in, inhaling deeply, his eyes falling closed as cedar wood and citrus filled his lungs. His palms pressed flat against the wall, and he wished he could tuck his nose behind Luke’s ear, into his short hair, and breathe that scent directly. This was the closest they’d ever been. Malachi wasn’t sure anything would ever be close enough.
He sensed when the demon arrived, like a burst of cool, foul-smelling air on his skin. Luke must have set up some kind of ward around the children’s rooms, because he burst into motion right away, his footsteps pounded toward the demonic presence. Malachi risked peering around the doorway to watch as Luke launched himself into the child’s room. There was a scream, followed by Luke’s hastily barked orders. A moment later, a woman burst out of the room, carrying her son, who wore a hospital gown.
Something flung Luke from the room. He slammed into the wall, and the sagdrannon—a hooded demon with skeletal features and a mouth full of sharp teeth—bore down on him. A trill of panic went through Malachi. He’d step in to help even if it would blow his cover, but Luke brought both knives up into the sagdrannon’s chest with a snarl. It shrieked, its back arching, and it tumbled to the floor. Another well-aimed jab to its chest pierced its heart, and the demon went limp.
Malachi grinned. He should’ve known his human could handle it.