Chapter 23
Nicolas
The Sentinels met outside the factory just after three AM. Nicolas thought the sky should be dark and stormy for the appropriate gravitas, but it was as clear as the city sky ever was. A handful of distant stars twinkled on the black blanket of the night, and the moon was a half-full blob.
He was so ready for this to be over. The sooner they got the kids back, the sooner he could stop pretending to be a part of the guild. He was ready to be done with this divided life. His heart and soul resided outside the guild, and he was ready to be joined with them once more.
They stood in a group, well away from the factory, around the corner of a nearby building that might have once been a mechanic’s garage.
The faint scent of motor oil lingered in the air as Nicolas shifted from foot to foot.
He wasn’t alone in his nervous, eager anticipation.
All around him, the others jittered, checking their weapons or bobbing on the balls of their feet.
“We’ll go in first,” Nathan said. “Ira can enter last, with the demons at his back. He’ll invite them all in, and then we’ll storm the place.” He sighed, looking regretful for a moment before he said, “Show no mercy. They certainly won’t.”
Storm wrapped an arm around his shoulders. His white hair fairly glowed in the moonlight. “For what it’s worth, we’re all sorry it’s come to this, sunshine.”
“Not me,” Shadrach said with a grin, throwing his arm around Isaac, who shot him a reluctant smile. “They’re assholes. I’ve killed people for less.”
“We haven’t,” Nathan pointed out. “I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling like this… shouldn’t be happening this way.”
“No amount of wishing will change the way things are,” Isaac said.
Nathan scowled. “I know. Doesn’t change how I feel.”
“I get it,” Nicolas offered. “We grew up believing the paladins were the good guys. Now they’re treating us like the enemy. Does that make them the bad guys—or us?”
Nathan nodded despondently. “This is never what I wanted for any of us.” He looked at Storm, softening. “But I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I don’t think any of us would,” Alex said, leaning into Talon’s side.
“We’ll do what we have to do,” Luke said brusquely. “Let’s go get our kids back.”
“I call first in the door,” Isaac rushed out, drawing his sword.
“Fine, fine,” Nathan said, rolling his eyes heavenward. “Let’s move.”
The humans fell into a similar formation they learned at the guild, two marching side by side. Daniel was beside Nicolas with Julian and Ira at their backs. Alex and Luke were in front of them, with Nathan and Isaac leading the group.
Nicolas’s heart pounded as they approached the factory.
The demons hung back, waiting for them to breach the building first. It had been a long time since he’d worked with a team he didn’t hate.
Energy crackled in the air around them, their steps near silent on the asphalt as they rounded the factory toward the side door Ashmedai had pointed out upon their arrival.
Isaac tried the knob first, glancing back grimly and shaking his head. It was locked. Breaking it open would ruin any element of surprise they would have had. Once it was open, the clock would be ticking. They’d have to move quickly. They had no idea how many paladins were guarding this place.
Isaac backed up a step and kicked open the door.
Nicolas heard a shout from within as they all streamed inside.
Two paladins, Kyle and Tucker, whom he only knew in passing, were standing guard on either side of an open doorway.
They jerked to attention as the door flew open.
Kyle drew his sword, and Tucker yanked the door they were guarding shut and locked it.
Nicolas watched the fight unfold while Ira invited the demons across the threshold behind him.
Two against eight was hardly a fair fight.
There wasn’t even enough room around them for all of them to crowd in and exchange a blow or two, so he hung back with Daniel and Julian and Luke, letting Isaac and Nathan and Alex handle it.
Nathan dispatched Tucker quickly, giving him a mercifully quick ending that left his blood pooling on the concrete floor. Isaac, on the other hand, disarmed Kyle and got him in a headlock, whirling them around and shooting the group a savage grin.
“Ashmedai, you hungry?” he asked.
The demons had filled in around them, and Ashmedai turned to look at Nicolas, as though for his blessing. Nicolas nodded, and Ashmedai’s fingers brushed his cheek tenderly for a moment before he stepped forward.
“No, no, no!” Kyle shouted. “You’re supposed to be dead!”
“What are you guarding?” Ashmedai asked as he approached.
“W-What?”
“What are,” Ashmedai said slower, “you guarding?”
Kyle looked from face to face, lingering on Nicolas for a long, inscrutable moment. “We’re guarding those teenagers. Alvarez, I think their names are.”
On Julian’s other side, Luke sagged with relief.
“Good.” Ashmedai grabbed Kyle’s face.
“No—what-what are you doing? No! No!” His face contorted as that strange shadowy stuff emerged from his face, sucked up under Ashmedai’s shrouded hood. His body withered before their eyes, his skin graying and his body curling in so hard that his bones cracked.
Nathan turned away, looking pale. But Nicolas couldn’t take his eyes off Ashmedai.
The body was an afterthought as it fell.
When he straightened, power crackled around him, and his glowing eyes were bright with renewed energy.
Nicolas’s eyes trailed down the long, lean lines of his black-clad body, his spine steeled with fresh strength. He was ethereally beautiful.
“One more downstairs,” Ashmedai rasped. “I can sense a dark soul.”
“Let’s go, then,” Nicolas said. “The kids are probably down there.”
The staircase was behind the door that Kyle and Tucker had been guarding. Rather than use the key Tucker died holding, Isaac kicked it open with a gleeful grin and led them all down the narrow staircase. It came out in an empty room with a single door.
Nathan tried the knob and glanced back at them. “It’s locked, too.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Luke said. “Let’s kick it down.”
He didn’t wait, pushing his way to the front of the group and slamming his boot into the wood beside the handle.
Time slowed. Nicolas glimpsed a paladin—Ashton—inside the room beyond the door. He raised one hand toward them, and Nicolas realized he was staring down the barrel of a handgun.
“Take cover!” someone shouted.
Clawed hands grabbed Nicolas and hauled him out of the way as the pop of gunfire set his ears to ringing. Everyone dove away, and Nicolas turned to make sure no one was hit—
Daniel was a hair too slow. One minute he was mid-step, and the next he was spinning, blood spraying from a wound somewhere dangerously high. He lost his grip on his sword as he fell, his head crashing against the unforgiving concrete.
“Danny!” he screamed, lunging toward him.
A bullet whizzed by his head, and Ashmedai hauled him backward.
“No, no, I have to help him! Let me go! Danny!”
“Somebody fucking kill that guy!” Isaac shouted from the other side of the door.
“Valac!” Julian cried out.
Valac’s shadows flew from his body, rushing through the doorway, and screams followed. “I’ve got him.”
Ashmedai’s claws scored across Nicolas’s upper arm as he tore himself away, falling to his knees beside his little brother and rolling him over.
“Danny, Danny, let me see, okay? You’re gonna be okay. I just need to…”
Daniel’s eyes were glassy. Blood dotted his face and trickled from his mouth. One hand covered the side of his neck, and when Nicolas pried his hand away so he could see, his feeble heart tried to deny what his mind automatically knew.
The bullet had torn through the side of his neck.
If he’d been half a second faster, it would have missed him entirely.
Instead, it had ripped him open. Blood was already pooled around them, and Daniel’s face was gray from blood loss.
It soaked into Nicolas’s jeans, smeared on his hands and arms. And it wasn’t gushing from the wound anymore.
“Is he…” Alex started.
Nicolas leaned over him. “Danny. Danny?”
Daniel’s eyes were blank, unseeing.
“No.” His eyes burned with tears. “Please, Danny, please. Please don’t go. It’s not too late. It can’t be.”
Familiar arms wrapped around him. “I am sorry, my light.”
Nicolas sagged against him, unwilling to let go of his brother. “Please, Ash, please do something.”
“My blood will not work now. I cannot heal him.”
It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be how it ended for Daniel.
They were finally going to be back together as brothers now that they’d found the Alvarez kids.
Nicolas was supposed to leave the guild, and they’d team up with the Sentinels to make the world a better place. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
His throat ached as he leaned down to hide his face in Daniel’s blood-soaked chest. His ears rang, and he distantly realized he was sobbing, screaming, his hands fisted in Daniel’s shirt and his tears mixing with the blood soaking the fabric.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.