Page 5 of Unholy

“But sir?—”

“My answer is no, Paladin Morgan. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few. I won’t send more people to die on a wild goose chase. There’s a reason that halfling approached you, and this guild won’t fall for it.”

Yes, Luke believed Malachi had motives of his own, but who cared about that when there were real children in danger? They shouldn’t just disregard everything the halfling said because it was ahalflingwho said it. A girl was still missing, and Luke believed the sagdrannon would return.

“You are not to go near that hospital, do you understand? That’s an order. Go home, get some rest, and put it from your mind. And if this halfling approaches you again, you kill it. I don’t like that they’re approaching you after what happened to Hawk. They’re obviously planning something.” Sloan passed a hand over his mouth as he shook his head, glaring at his desk.

Luke pushed himself to his feet, fisting his hands at his sides so Sloan wouldn’t see the way they trembled with rage. He saluted tersely, turned on his heel, and strode from the room.

This was wrong. It blared over and over in his head like a klaxon as he made his way out to his car. Wrong, wrong, wrong. So what if a halfling was the one who gave him the intel? Children’s lives were at stake. What were they doing here, if they were willing to let children die to save their own skin?

No matter the halfling’s motivation, the child had to come first.

Luke pursed his lips. Disobeying a direct order would get him in huge trouble, but he couldn’t let this go. The guilt would eat him alive if he did nothing and more kids died. He unlocked his car and sat down behind the wheel, gripping it tight.

He was going to the hospital. Posing as police trying to catch the kidnapper was the easiest way to avoid unwanted questions—and avoid inciting a panic. He didn’t like lying, but he had a fake badge for situations where he needed access to certain places barred from the public. Sloan would normally field any questions from the public in such cases. He’d just have to hope people took him seriously enough without the word of any authority backing him up this time.

Hawk’s banishment had everyone riled, but he never thought Sloan would stoop so low. Ignoring kids in danger was unforgivable. They were all wary of halflings after what happened, but Luke wouldn’t sacrifice the innocent because of it.

It was all anyone could talk about for weeks after Hawk’s banishment. Many had called for retaliation against the halflings and the demon bar they frequented, In Extremis, but so far they’d been given no orders to do so. That was just as well, in Luke’s opinion. He couldn’t wrap his mind around taking ademonfor alover, especially as someone who’d grown up in the guild, learning exactly how nasty demons could really be. But Hawk made his choice, no matter how much they all hated it. At the end of the day, Hawk was still human, and the guild didn’t go after humans, even ones they disagreed with.

His thoughts traveled, rather unwillingly, to the red-eyedhalfling outside the warehouse. The flex of pale muscle, the glossy black hair. He had been telling the truth about the sagdrannon, and that made him even more enigmatic. Luke couldn’t understand his motives.

He shook himself, turning his car toward HQ’s gated exit. His motives didn’t matter. All that mattered was the children.

Chapter 2

Malachi

Malachi lingeredaround 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 tokeep. 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,hishuman, 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 wentout 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 heneededto 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 hismind 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 theplaster 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.

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