Page 1 of The Devil's Pair

Prologue

Uinta Mountains, Utah

The Garden of Divine Light

Right-Guardian Michael staggered up the basement stairs holding his aching, bleeding head. He couldn’t believe –like at all– that someone had actually managed to hit him from behind, hard enough to knock him out and flat on his face. Healsocouldn’t believe that Iris had escaped –yet again, that fucking bitch– from the Garden.

Master Gideon was going to kill him for letting all that happen.

Angry and terrified, he got to the hallway… and that was when he saw that all hell had broken loose up here too: some Guardians were holding guns and running to the front of the building, others were stumbling around with head injuries similar to his own.

Who the actual hell managed to get through all of us, down to the basement, and out the door with Iris?

“Right-Guardian!” Guardian Solomon was holding a gun, looking concerned. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Michael snarled, wiping the blood from his nose; he’d smashed it on the concrete floor when he’d pitched forward. “What the fuck is happening?”

“Men outside,” Solomon told him.

“Men? What men?”

“I don’t know,” Solomon said. “Huge bastards, one with a fucking wild red beard. Master Gideon thinks that they’re from –”

The sound of gunfire broke out now and both men whipped around to stare at the front door. It sounded like Armageddon and The Judgement Day were both descending in a hail of holy bullets, kicking ass and taking names and leaving exactly zero prisoners. Michael blinked as he heard shouting from outside now:

“Come on, babe!” A man’s voice, loud and desperate. “Move that assnow!”

“I’m moving my ass!” a woman screamed back shrilly. “Shut up!”

Michael started. “Is that – is thatIris?”

But Solomon hadn’t heard him: he was already moving away from him, moving towards the front of the compound, moving to join the battle. Michael stood frozen in the hallway, ignoring the other Guardians jostling him as they pushed past, not seeing Guardian Joseph lying dead half-inside a closet, blood pooling under his head. Michael heard nothing at all – not the guns firing or the shouting and screaming – nothing except the rage roaring in his ears.

Iris.

Without a second of thought, he spun and ran to the back door. He wrenched it open, looked quickly to the left and right, launched himself outside. Carefully now, not wanting to be seen by anyone at all, he crept to the small garden shed where the tools were kept. It was unlocked and wide open, thank Christ, and he guessed that some of the Guardians had grabbed the guns that were hidden in there. Michael wondered if maybe there would be one left, but really, he wasn’t interested in a weapon. After all, he wouldn’t be fighting. He had other plans.

He stepped inside the shed, scanned the items hung on the walls, grabbed the bolt cutters. He gave a cursory glance around to see if there was a gun, but the secret panel behind the work bench was open and empty: clearly the Guardians were as armedas it was possible for them to be. Not that Michael was worried about arming himself. No, all he cared about was getting a clear view of just what the fuck was going on in front of the Garden.

He already had a pretty good idea, though. Unfortunately.

It took all of thirty seconds for Michael to cut through the fence surrounding the compound yard. He squeezed through, made for the forest twenty feet away, then moved towards the gunfire using the trees as cover. He peered around a tree trunk and was gratified that he now had a clear view of the scene that was unfolding in front of the Garden. What he saw kicked his rage into the stratosphere; he thought that his bloodsurelyhad to be boiling by this point.

That whore Iris was all wrapped up in the arms of a red-headed giant. He was holding her off the ground, her face pressed into his chest, her stockinged feet swinging in the air. Michael stared at the man and his fury was now absolute: herecognizedthis guy… and that was when Michaelknewthat his hunch had been right about who was standing out there, taking literal aim at his whole life, his whole world, his whole sense of purpose and direction and being.

He’d sat in a van in Colorado for two weeks with the former Right-Guardian Zachariah –may henotrest in peace, that teeth-sucking dickhead– and watched the Road Devils motorcycle club come and go in and out of their bar, garage and tattoo parlour. He’d seen that red-bearded asshole many,manytimes… and now he knew that somehow these dangerous criminal types had crossed state lines and found the Garden. They’d come to get Iris, and then they’d burn to the ground every single thing that Michael loved.

His attention shifted to the other people hiding behind a vehicle in the compound courtyard, and he squinted hard to see the men’s faces, wondering if he’d seen them back in Denver too. But no… these three were new to him. One was a gigantic blondScandinavian type with icy-blue eyes that were visible even from this distance, terrifying in his size and demeanor as he surveyed the front of the building; the other two were both dark-haired and they were –wait a minute– they wereidentical.

Twins? Twin motorcycle club pricks?

The one twin was face-down in a van and he was clearly hurt; Michael rejoiced to see a large pool of blood staining the back of the man’s jeaned thigh. The other twin was talking to the viking holding Iris, and he looked tense. Michael hoped hard that his brother had massive internal injuries and died a slow and agonizing death.

There was another woman there too, a tiny brunette. She had a blanket around her shoulders and she was sitting on the van floor next to the bloody twin. She looked shaken and shocked, and Michael jolted when he realized that it was Violet, yet another one of Master Gideon’s woman-servants. Clearly, these motorcycle thugs and Iris were on some kind of lunatic rescue mission – andthey’d managed to not only wreak havoc and chaos and destruction, they’d also taken yet another of Master’s flowers from the Garden.

Goddamn these motherfuckers.

The blond giant was moving now, looking at something in the yard. Michael followed that piercing Arctic gaze and blinked when he spotted the woman holding a gun like she meant it – and suddenly he sawso clearlyjust who had wreaked this devastation upon his life.

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