Demon Night

by Meljean Brook

  “Old Matthew just wanted to talk to me about some new stuff I might be doing.” Counting drawers and ordering supplies wasn’t all that thrilling, though. “Important work back there, you know—investigations into bank robberies, thwarting bad guys.”

  Unease prickled the length of her spine. They were off the main street now. Ethan had stopped at an intersection, turned his head to stare down the empty sidewalk behind them.

  Her breath shortened. Someone was moving in the darkness near a residential building.

  But she’d been so paranoid lately that someone was always moving in the darkness.

  She closed her eyes and kept on talking. “That’ll be me: bartender by night, FBI by day—” Ethan’s forward motion almost yanked her off her feet, pulled her out of her fright like a cartoon character who’d left her shadow behind. She ran along beside him and almost stumbled over the opposite curb. “The, uh, white collar division.”

  “You like numbers, Charlie?” He looked behind them, his nostrils flaring, his lips forming the beginning of a snarl.

  “When they add up.” She darted a glance over her shoulder, panic starting to fill her belly with jittering bugs. Nothing there, nothing there. “When they don’t, not so much. Ethan—”

  “I’m not all that fond of shit that don’t add up, either.” He suddenly stopped walking, and slowly turned. “And I don’t like five against two.”

  Her stomach dropped to her feet. Five figures slunk out of the dark. In the arc of the streetlights, their skin was pale—then concealed by shadows again as they came closer. Not as fast as they had the night before, but like a pack of wolves edging up on their prey, not wanting them to scatter too early.

  Ethan’s jaw hardened, and he breathed out long through his nose, a heavy sound of resignation. She couldn’t read any fear in his face—just determination. “But I reckon five against one will suit me just fine.”

  Did he think he was going to fight them? But the incredulous thought had barely formed when his arm came around her waist. The world tilted, whirling and spinning, her cheek against his neck, her fingers clutching at his arms.

  It stopped, and her bag thumped against her back, finishing its swing. She staggered into Ethan’s chest—she was on her feet, but not steady.

  “Can you stand, Charlie?”

  She blinked. A silver-and-black telephone box hung near her left arm. Ethan filled up the booth, hunching over her.

  The material beneath her fingers was roughly woven—not soft as she’d expected his shirt to be. She looked down, saw the brown sleeves. A long knife appeared in his hand.

  She jerked away, the back of her head rapping against plastic as she crowded herself into the corner. “Oh, no.”

  No no no. He was so big. Huge. She thought she’d be grateful, awed—but she was only afraid.

  His face was set as he turned and dug his blade into the trim beside the door. The flashing point of the dagger scratched metallic shrieks from the aluminum. Shadows surrounded the booth, flashes of dark and pale.

  Charlie slid to the floor, wrapped her arms around her shins, making herself as small as possible. The scraping stopped, and it was suddenly so quiet she could only hear the thudding of her heart, her crazy breaths.

  Then a flutter of movement as Ethan crouched in front of her, his knees filling up the space on either side of her legs. The brown coat pooled around him, his boots longer now, a smooth shine the length of his shins. Buckles winked dully at his ankles.

  “Charlie.” He ducked his head into her line of sight, forced her to meet his eyes. Hard and sharp, like shards from amber stone. She looked away from them, letting her gaze fall to the holsters hanging low on his hips and anchored with braided leather around his lower thighs. “You’ve got to stay put, Charlie, you hear me? Don’t you open this door, don’t you leave this booth for anything—until either I come get you or the sun comes up. For anything. Promise me that.”

  Shivers wracked her body; a cold breeze snaked around his legs, seemed to wriggle its way through every thin point of her clothes and skin. Outside, a shadow formed a human shape; a white hand tapped soundlessly against the plastic, then a face looked in, grinning.

  She’d seen that face before—for just an instant. An arrow had been through his forehead.

  “Charlie?”

  She met Ethan’s eyes. “I promise.”

  There was no escaping Charlie knowing now. And he’d lose this opportunity to make these sons of bitches talk by running with her.

  A man played the hand he was dealt, but Ethan had learned to carry an ace or two up his sleeve. And a Guardian against a vampire was like having a whole goddamn deck full of aces.

  With a burst of speed, he caught the first vampire. A male, yelping like a coyote when Ethan got hold of his collar. Ethan pivoted, slammed the vampire flat against the pavement, intending to keep him down with his boot against the vampire’s neck until he handled the others.

  Ethan heard the crunch of the vampire’s skull against concrete, felt the sudden blandness in the male’s psychic scent that wasn’t unreadable, like psychic blocks or the spell, but just empty.

  Hell and damnation—he’d slammed him too hard. Until the vampire’s brain healed, he wouldn’t talk any more than a vegetable would.

  Footsteps came up fast behind him. Ethan looked under his arm, snatched the attacking vampire’s wrist before he could take off Ethan’s head with his sword. A tight squeeze had the vampire dropping his weapon. Ethan caught the sword before it hit the ground and swung the vampire by his broken wrist, whipping him up hard against a wooden storefront. He clamped his hand around the vampire’s throat, lifted the bastard until he dangled.

  The muffled pop warned him, but even Ethan couldn’t move quick enough to avoid the bullet. Pain exploded in his upper back, tore into his chest like a blacksmith pounding a hot iron stake through him. His muscles screamed as he turned and replaced the vampire’s sword with his crossbow.

  Ethan fired. The vampire holding the gun dropped, the weapon clattering to the sidewalk, the bolt between its eyes. Gritting his teeth against the agony in his back, Ethan trained the crossbow on the vampires circling the booth.

  Charlie was watching them wide-eyed, and he could see by the rise of her chest that she was breathing erratically. Her lips were trembling.

  Then she flinched and raised her arms protectively when a female with long dark hair and wearing half a cow in leather lifted her gun. The pings of the bullets against the glass were no louder than the silenced shots.

  Charlie lowered her arms and stared. Her gaze shifted to Ethan and he nodded once, letting a smile touch his lips. She might not understand magic was at work, but the results were unmistakable: they wouldn’t be getting in, and couldn’t hurt her through the spell.

  Her mouth widened in a relieved grin, opened in a laugh that he could see but not hear.

  Still watching her, still watching the vampires circling the booth, Ethan replaced the crossbow with his own sword, pressed it to the neck of the vampire he held before loosening his grip.

  Using his lungs brought blood up to his mouth; he swallowed it down and ignored the burning in his back and chest.

  “Let me make this real simple.” His tone was low enough it made speaking less of an effort, dangerous enough they wouldn’t know how much it was hurting. It was better the vampires thought a bullet had little effect, or they’d soon be shooting more at him. “Anything happens to Charlie, any more humans are turned against their will, and Sodom and Gomorrah is going to look pretty next to what I’ll do to Legion.”

  In the booth, Charlie rose to her feet. Her palms flattened against the window panel. Not cowering anymore, though she took a startled step back when the female snarled at her and made a lunge at the plastic.

  Rabid dogs, just looking to frighten her.

  Beneath Ethan’s hand, the vampire’s throat worked as he struggled to speak. “You Guardians talk a lot, but you don’t help us. Don’t give us anyth
ing we need.”

  That sounded like a line a demon would feed them. Ethan smiled a bit, and even without fangs he reckoned it looked as lethal as a demon’s. “Well now, you just tell me what Legion is giving you, and perhaps—”

  The female rushed around the booth, snapped at Charlie again. The vampire’s movement must have looked near instantaneous to Charlie, as if she’d appeared from thin air; Charlie stumbled back against the opposite side of the small space.

  Her surprise crackled through the air like summer lightning.

  Son of a bitch. She’d rubbed up against the blood on the symbols, wiping them clean.

  And the vampires realized it the instant he did. If they got in there with her, reactivated the spell with their own blood, Ethan wouldn’t have a chance in hell of helping her.

  The female was on the wrong side of the booth—her companion went for the door.

  Put them down. This wasn’t a risk Ethan was taking again, not with these vampires. He let go of the one he was holding; his sword slid through the vampire’s neck before his feet hit the ground. Two quick slices as he ran past the vampires lying motionless on the sidewalk meant they wouldn’t be getting up again.

  The female turned to flee; Ethan set his sights on the male at the door and let her go. He needed one left alive to deliver his message to Legion.

  Unless Legion was coming to him.

  That scaly psyche he’d felt the night before crawled over his skin, and it was getting closer, stronger. A demon posed a real threat to Ethan, and he wouldn’t be protecting anyone if he was gutted or dead.

  Time to get Charlie out of there.

  It was so unbelievably fast.

  One second Charlie was stumbling away from the pale woman, crowding into the corner again, and calling herself an idiot for being startled. And the next second, the door was opening and the vampire who’d had an arrow lobotomy was coming through.

  Then crimson arced in a horizontal line across the booth panels beside Charlie, sprayed her face in a cool mist. The vampire’s head slid forward off his neck, his body slowly crumpling before it was yanked away from the open door like a marionette.

  Ethan. His maroon shirt black and wet, his skin dripping red. Charlie wiped at her face, stared at the blood on her fingers. They began to shake.

  “Easy, Charlie.” She heard the urgency in his voice but couldn’t make herself take the hand he offered her. “You’re all right.” He glanced down; the stains on his skin and clothes disappeared. The itchy slide over her cheeks was gone, her fingers clean again.

  The body at his feet vanished, then the head.

  Ethan swallowed hard. “Charlie, there’s something worse coming.”

  Worse? But it must be: Ethan stiffened and looked to the side; a female’s scream ripped through the air.

  Charlie leapt toward the door, and his arms circled her, brought her in tight. White flashed behind him, soft and bright and beautiful. His wings unfolded, and pressure made her head swim, her chest ache, her stomach drop, like driving down a hill too fast and realizing nothing was going to stop her until she got to the bottom. The edges of her vision blurred, but she looked down and back, the ground like a dark blank sky lit by the stars of streetlights and two glowing red eyes.

  Having to fly hadn’t helped Ethan heal any faster, but the gunshot wound had subsided to a dull ache by the time he was over their apartment building. The speed with which he’d launched himself into the air meant Charlie had lost consciousness, but Ethan reckoned it was shock that kept her out until he settled onto her balcony. He rid himself of the wings and held her lightly across his lap, her head on his shoulder.

  He made himself pat her cheek instead of stroking his fingers over her skin, murmuring her name over and over so that she wouldn’t startle so bad. That he’d brought her to a familiar location would help, but they couldn’t stay long.

  He’d vanished each of the dead vampires and their weapons into his cache before the demon had arrived, but the female hadn’t yet been dead when he’d gotten Charlie away. And there was blood to clean up, bullets to collect, evidence to destroy.

  The fifteen-second altercation had left far too much for humans to find and wonder about.

  Charlie stirred, her lips gently parting—and then she was sitting upright, her eyes wide. She looked around, and he felt the instant she recognized her surroundings, but her bolt toward the sliding door wasn’t out of fear.

  She didn’t make it, and he held his palm under her ribs, keeping her steady and off the floor as her knees collapsed and she bent, heaving into the corner. Nothing came up, though it clamped hard on her body.

  A normal reaction, he told himself. But he still worried as she straightened and tugged listlessly at the balcony door. She didn’t comment on how easily it opened, though she must have remembered locking it. He couldn’t sense much from her, but she wasn’t blocking; sliding into her emotions felt a little like touching the mind of the vampire whose brain he’d smashed.

  He followed her inside, past the tiny dining room table and the vase filled with blue marbles in the center of it. Her coat dropped to the floor.

  “Charlie.”

  She halted in the short hallway, but didn’t turn to look at him.

  “We can’t stay here. They’ve become aggressive enough; you wouldn’t be safe.”

  Her hands clenched convulsively at her sides. The rasp didn’t conceal the dullness in her voice. “Are my smokes still over at your place?”

  “No.” His jaw tightened, and he considered smashing the vase against the wall, scattering those goddamn marbles all over just to wake her up, but he pulled the pack in from his cache instead.

  Touching the mental space only pissed him off more; the vampires’ bodies felt like grotesque lumps in his mind, on his tongue.

  She took a cigarette from him, put it between her lips. Patted her pants pockets. “I need to get my luggage?”

  And he didn’t like that she formed it as a question—looking for guidance, having him tell her what to do, not making any decisions.

  “No.” He vanished the pack of cigarettes, and she blinked. The sweep of her dark lashes was echoed by a brush of curiosity and surprise. “Just tell me what you want me to take.”

  She pulled the cigarette from between her lips and rubbed her forehead with her scissored fingers. “Am I coming back?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly know, Miss Charlie. I reckon that’s up to you.”

  Her brows drew tight, as if she wasn’t quite certain she’d heard the frustration beneath the drawl.

  “Should I give notice to Jenkins?”

  The landlord. That vase was in immediate danger, and he figured every other breakable within reach was, too.

  “Not tonight.”

  She took a deep, trembling breath. Resolve stiffened her psychic scent. “We’ll take it all.” Her thumb tapped the end of the cigarette, and she glanced up at him. “How?”

  He sized up the table with a look, pulled it into his cache. The vase fell, and he vanished it just before it hit the vinyl flooring. A small banquette stood by the sliding glass door; her lighter lay in the wide-bottomed bowl that sat next to a small potted cactus.

  “You need that lighter, Charlie?” He pointed. “And I can’t take your plant, because it’s alive.”

  She flicked the cigarette in the same direction. Her hair slid across her shoulders as she shook her head. “No.”

  Too easily, he saw himself wrapping its apple-scented length around his fist and taking a long, hard taste from her mouth, so he vanished everything but the plant and moved on to the next room.

  “My music,” she said, coming to stand next to him as the furniture in her living room and the little desk in the corner vanished. He used more care with her CDs, taking them one at a time and reading the titles as he did. They disappeared from her shelves like rows of falling dominoes.

  They crowded into the small bathroom, and she wasn’t watching her things vanish anymore, but was
gazing up at him, wonder and fascination flushing her cheeks. Countless bottles of lotions littered her cupboards and sink, razors in pretty colors and curved to slide over a woman’s contours with nary a nick. Her skin would be soft and smooth under a man’s hands.

  And her psychic scent wasn’t empty anymore, but filling up with something that made him even more uneasy: awe.

  He wasn’t a goddamned hero, and if she looked at him like he was one it’d keep her as helpless as shock might: depending on him to make all her decisions, deciding what was right.

  And he particularly didn’t like how all-fired good it felt when she looked at him that way.

  Damnation, but she’d riled him up with that zombie routine, and worse now that she’d come out of it. It wasn’t like him. His temper was slow to heat and cooled off quick, rarely reaching more than a simmer. But she’d not only got his temper going—she’d gotten the rest of him, too.

  He strode past her and cleaned out her bedroom before she had a chance to stand in the room with him, her appreciation and scent and that golden soft skin tempting him into something he ought not to be even thinking. Not with a woman like her, not in circumstances like these.

  “You got anything else?”

  “No.” She touched her fingers to the cross at her neck. Her voice was hoarser than usual. “What are you, Ethan?”

  “Not that.” His gaze fell to the necklace. “But if you’ve been to church I reckon you’ve heard the story enough. Part of it, leastwise.”

  Worry darkened her eyes. “I haven’t.”

  “Well, Miss Charlie, you’re in good company, because I haven’t sat on a pew for a hundred and thirty years.”

  She began to smile, but it froze midway. “You’re serious.”

  “That I am.” He scanned the apartment, the surrounding area—and didn’t detect anything, but he wasn’t going to wait until more vampires showed up or give the demon a chance to follow them. “But I’ll tell you the rest of it when we’re secure.”