Demon Night

by Meljean Brook

He rose to his feet. “You planning to stay a minute?”

  “A few seconds, maybe,” she said, her eyes widening as she took in the action around the table. This wasn’t anything like the slow play he’d taught her in his truck. Cards were flying from Pim’s hands, the players were turning them over against the felt, the pile of chips in the center of the table was growing, all at an incredible rate—and no one was speaking a word.

  But it wasn’t silent. A heavy psychic hum surrounded the table; now and then Charlie heard a note flutter up. And their hands were constantly moving—on their cards, but also what must have been a sign language.

  A chair appeared behind Charlie’s legs, and she sank into it.

  “I’m out this one,” Ethan said before turning to her. “Now, you’re throwing everyone off, wondering so hard what in blazes we’re doing.” He shook his head when she began to apologize. “Far as I’m concerned, it’s good for them. They need a psychic distraction now and then.”

  She watched for another second, feeling dizzy. “I can barely keep up.”

  “Mackenzie and Savi said the same thing, first day. You’ll get it, eventually.” He caught her gaze. “You’re all vampires—Savi’s faster, but even she ain’t as fast as a Guardian.”

  Jake snorted. “That’s why she cheats.”

  “The aim of this game is cheating.” Ethan glanced over at Jake, then back at Charlie. “He’s sore she took him for a bundle by counting cards. When we’re playing blackjack, we deal from ten decks to stop some of that, but Savi’s brain is something else.”

  Charlie’s brain was still stuck on the first part. “You’re supposed to cheat?”

  Ethan nodded. “Cheat, bluff, steal cards from the deck, pull an ace in from your cache—if you can get it past five of us without being caught, it means you’ve done something right. When you came in, I was holding just about nothing, but was doing real well until I saw you and my shields fell a bit.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “That’s a lie, Miss Charlie.”

  She grinned. “Sorry you didn’t call me pretty until after you’d won.”

  “Well, so am I, then.”

  Her smile slipped when his focus shifted to her mouth, his eyes like sun-warmed honey, and she felt the slow lick of bloodlust.

  She cleared her throat and turned back to the table. “So you’re trying to block, and feel out the other players’ hands at the same time,” she said as she attempted to track the movement of cards. And it wasn’t just the psychic awareness, she thought; they were obviously forced to think quickly, to constantly adjust, to look for any way to gain an advantage. Her brow furrowed. “Is it a training exercise?”

  Play stopped dead. Five Guardians looked at her as if she’d said a baby was ugly, and Charlie sat back, eyeing each of them warily.

  “Whoa boy, Charlie,” Jake said. “We’re trying very hard to pretend we aren’t always in Guardian boot camp.”

  There was just enough humor in his reply that her discomfort faded. Ethan leaned in toward her, tilting his head as if he intended to share a secret.

  “They’re feeling a bit cooped up,” he whispered. The lines beside his eyes were etched deep with his silent laughter.

  The game started again, but this time with a thread of conversation that Charlie could follow taking place above the nonverbal one they were still signing with their hands.

  “I should have become a vampire,” Pim said. “At least they can leave.”

  Jake threw a chip into the center of the table. “You might be getting out earlier than you think. I’ve just been given parole.”

  “I reckon it’s more like probation,” Ethan said. “You’ll still be here a good part of it.”

  Jake folded his cards. “I’m going to eat a hamburger next week,” he announced.

  “No, you ain’t,” Ethan said, but no one seemed to hear him above the sounds of jealousy running around the table.

  “Freedom,” Pim sighed. “No tiny rooms.”

  “No scheduled workouts,” another said.

  Ethan shook his head, and made a gesture with his hand. He was dealt in a second later. “No crybaby novices.”

  “You don’t get to eat?” Charlie asked. “I know you don’t have to, but you aren’t allowed to?”

  The corner of Ethan’s mouth quirked. “Each one of these novices has slunk out for something in the past week.” He added over the denials that rose, “They’re just whining.”

  “It’s prison, Charlie,” Pim said. “We don’t get to fly out to the desert and—” There was a thump under the table, and she winced, glaring at Jake. “—learn to hog-tie cows.”

  A muscle was flexing in Ethan’s jaw. “Pim, you’d best—”

  “No, it’s okay,” Charlie quickly said. Pim’s tone was too good-natured to cause her any real embarrassment, but judging by the hard stare Ethan was leveling at the other Guardian, he was ready to go across the table. “I understand the frustration. And I’m kind of relieved it’s not just me, because it was my first thought when we got here, too.”

  “That you’d like to learn to rope cattle?” Jake asked, and his smile seemed to urge her into a story.

  But this wasn’t a tale that Charlie wanted to spend any time on, so she simply said, “No, the feeling of it—the fence outside, the processing through security. The little rooms and the common area.” She shrugged when the psychic hum disappeared, and play slowed to a crawl. “You know.”

  But something was wrong. Pim looked at her, and hesitated before she said, “I wasn’t really—” She bit her lip. “We don’t really think that, Charlie. Drifter’s right that we’re just whining for the sake—”

  “Shut it, novice.” Ethan’s voice had the crack of a whip, and Charlie flinched back from it, got to her feet. Ethan slowly stood, his skin pale, the edges of his mouth white.

  Oh, God. Sick mortification balled in her stomach. The words came in a desperate rush. “I don’t think that now—and I never thought you were bringing me in to a prison. It was just the appearance that reminded me of it, that first impression,” Charlie said, but his expression remained taut, and she had to close her eyes against the burning in them. She’d insulted him, soiled the help that he’d given her—and she didn’t know how to fix it. “I need to go call Jane.”

  Before she said something even worse.

  “What do you think now?” he asked before she’d taken a step.

  Her throat was so tight she could barely get it out. “That it doesn’t matter, anyway.” She heard his harsh inhalation, realized that by saying only half of it she’d just managed to make it worse, and forced herself to lift her gaze to his face and finish. “Because when we’re in the same room I don’t notice anything but you.”

  The tightness melted away, the color coming back to his features, warming his eyes. “Well, Miss Charlie, that’s because I’m so almighty tall.”

  Relief tore through her, weakened her knees. “Actually, I think it’s the suspenders,” she rasped.

  One long stride carried him close, his hands in her hair, but although she lifted her face to his, he only lowered his mouth to her ear and said softly, “You go make your call, because if I kiss you now there won’t be another chance for you to talk to Jane tonight—and I’ll lose the pile of money that’s just waiting for me on that table. I’m feeling so lucky I could probably cheat the devil himself.”

  “I’ve done that,” a familiar feminine voice broke in. Charlie turned her head at the same time Ethan did, saw the woman who must have been Lilith. Dark hair, dark eyes, and with a smile that Charlie could only call wicked. “And luck didn’t have a thing to do with it.”

  Ethan glanced down at Charlie, and she saw the flicker of frustration in his eyes before he said, “Don’t believe her.”

  Charlie blinked. Lilith was already turning around, gesturing for them to follow her. “She didn’t cheat the devil?”

  “She did,” Ethan said, taking her hand. “But luck rode real tight on he
r ass that day.”

  Ethan needed five minutes alone with Charlie, but Lilith and Castleford showing up early told him he wasn’t likely to get it just yet.

  He’d thought for certain he’d spooked Charlie in the bedroom by giving her an indication of how powerfully he felt, and that she’d grabbed at a quick excuse to run. But he’d jumped to conclusions about her before, and now he was thinking he had again, because her response at the poker table had been the same: needing to speak with Jane. He’d sensed her spinning uncertainty then, the desperation and fear; maybe she hadn’t been running to Jane as an escape, but for comfort.

  And it hadn’t taken much of a push for the rest to come out, to discover her emotions were running deep. So it might be she was just all around spooked, and feeling anything she laid on him was a burden. Might be that she’d been tiptoeing as carefully as he’d been, and he would have to ease her into looking to him when she was uncomfortable or hurting—particularly as she sure in blazes didn’t like accepting anything else he had to give her.

  Ease her into it…but he figured he’d have to push a bit more, first—and he’d be doing it just as soon as he finished up here.

  Jake settled into the chair in front of Lilith’s desk, but Charlie remained standing beside Ethan, her hands buried in her pockets. She didn’t waver beneath Lilith’s penetrating stare.

  “So you can get Drifter through the spell?” Lilith said as she sat on the edge of her desk next to Castleford.

  Sir Pup lay on the floor at her feet, and Charlie only blinked once when he lifted his three heads to study her before lowering them back to his forepaws.

  “Yes,” Charlie said slowly, raising her gaze to Lilith’s again.

  “Can you do it now?”

  Charlie was shaking her head before Ethan could respond. Castleford and Lilith had already seen recordings of them busting through the shield; they didn’t need a demonstration, particularly one that might trigger her bloodlust.

  “I haven’t fed yet,” Charlie said. “And Drifter hemorrhages every time, so I’d prefer not to unless we’re practicing, or it’s critical.”

  Lilith nodded, a smile curving her lips. “That last part sounds like something Drifter might say. I assume he’s told you how much this will benefit us.”

  “Yes.” Charlie’s response had a wry note beneath it. “I’m well aware of what can happen when someone is locked inside the spell with a demon or a vampire, and a Guardian can’t get to her.”

  Lilith slanted a glance at Castleford, as if to see his reaction. She probably couldn’t read Charlie’s face much better than Ethan did.

  “No, Miss Charlie,” Ethan said. “Agent Milton’s wondering what you want out of it.”

  “Oh.” Charlie blinked. “Am I supposed to bluff and hold out for a million dollars? No one’s going to believe it. The second someone needed the help, I’d be doing it anyway.”

  Ethan looked down at his boots, fighting his laugh. No, he reckoned Charlie couldn’t offer an ultimatum to save her life. “We ain’t talking trading, Charlie, because we ain’t much for bargains when they matter. We’re talking payment. Putting you on retainer, so to speak.”

  When she shook her head, he fully expected her to refuse and to declare that she didn’t need anything. But her brows knitted, and a moment later she said, “I’m sure there’s something I could use. Let me think about it for a while.”

  “You probably won’t want to wait too long,” Lilith said. “Savi called us just after sunset, saying that Sammael checked out of the hotel. So she looked, and you didn’t yet have an e-mail from Jane. Then Savi tried the phone Drifter gave to Jane, but she hasn’t gotten any response but voice mail.”

  Charlie paled, turned to look up at Ethan. “I’m going to see if anything’s come in since then. Or try her number at Legion. Maybe she just forgot, is still at work.”

  Ethan nodded, had to unclench his jaw before he said, “Jake? You give her any help she needs.” He waited until the door closed behind them. “I can’t see as anything called for how abruptly you laid that on her.”

  Lilith frowned. “And here I thought that you had a brain to go with those pretty eyes, Drifter. Two minutes with her told me that’s how she’d prefer it; if I thought she’d wanted coddling, I’d have let Hugh tell her.”

  “I’d have been as blunt,” Castleford said.

  “All right.” Ethan took a deep breath. “You ain’t wrong about her. I’m just feeling awful protective.”

  “Half a second told me that,” Lilith said. “Now, do you want to know what the Scrolls told us about your nephilim friend in Seattle? Or do you want to wait?”

  Even if Charlie managed to connect with Jane, Ethan figured he wouldn’t be long in San Francisco, and he’d rather be as prepared as possible to face it again.

  “Let’s hear it now,” Ethan said.

  “First,” Castleford said, “there’s no mention of a prophecy, or the grigori. Neither does it explain how the nephilim were created.”

  “Don’t matter much to me, anyway. I ain’t looking to make more, but to kill one.”

  Lilith pulled her heel up onto the edge of the desk. “That’ll be the difficult part, because there’s no mention of any weaknesses, like sunlight or hellhound venom. They must have been incredibly powerful if it took both Lucifer’s and Belial’s demons to imprison them.”

  “Considering I’m only alive because Jake teleported me out, that don’t surprise me a bit. If I do happen to encounter it again, I’ll be calling Selah for backup.”

  Selah could teleport in—and, given a few extra seconds, bring other Guardians with her.

  Castleford nodded. “We’ll alert everyone active, let them know what she might be carrying them into.”

  “All right,” Ethan said. “Do the Scrolls say what sets it off?”

  “Lucifer used the nephilim to enforce the Rules,” Lilith said, frowning slightly when Sir Pup lifted his heads and a growl rumbled from his chest. She leaned forward to scratch at his neck. “How isn’t exactly clear. But when a demon obstructed free will or harmed a human, a nephil was called, teleporting out of Hell to slay him.”

  That fit what Ethan had seen; once Jane had set her mind on going to Charlie and the demon had held her back, the air had been humming with that odd psychic energy. “But it didn’t stink as if it had just come in from Hell.”

  Castleford hesitated, then shook his head. “The Scrolls suggest that the nephil possessed a human, and used that body when it was on Earth—just long enough that the nephil could kill the demon. Then it was called back to Hell.”

  “Which doesn’t make sense,” Lilith said, turning to Castleford. Her tone suggested they’d already discussed this detail at length, and couldn’t come up with an explanation that satisfied either of them. “Assuming that a nephil could just take over a human’s body like that, possession would deny the human’s free will. That’s too big a contradiction, even for Lucifer.”

  She frowned again as Sir Pup got to his feet, his noses scenting the air.

  The odor of sulfur and rot hit Ethan just before he heard Michael’s melodic voice. “The humans whose bodies they possessed were dead.”

  Ethan only had a second to meet the Doyen’s gaze, note the black wings and bronzed skin, his white toga stained gray with soot and dirt. Then Charlie slipped through the door and wordlessly shook her head; she hadn’t been able to reach Jane.

  Her eyes widened when she saw Michael, and her nose wrinkled.

  Lilith didn’t hide her revulsion. “I guess that answers where you’ve been, Michael. You stink. And the smell is disturbing my puppy; he doesn’t have fond memories of Hell.”

  Michael sighed. “Tell me, Lilith—who does?” He looked at Charlie as she moved to Ethan’s side, his obsidian eyes narrowing. The familiar touch of his healing Gift slid gently through the room. “Were you forced into the transformation?”

  “No,” she rasped. Her cool hand found Ethan’s, and he squeezed it reassuringly.
With his opposite hand, he quickly signed the details of her transformation, the feeding, and weight loss to Michael before she added, “I wanted—want—to live.”

  Michael shook his head, and his toga disappeared, immediately replaced by a linen tunic and long pants. His wings vanished.

  “It is not enough to simply want to live. Even those forced want to live,” he said, and Charlie’s breath caught, her fingers tightening painfully on Ethan’s. “You must want to live as a vampire. It is a small difference, but one that your body and your will recognizes when the change tries to take hold.”

  “It’s getting easier to be one.” Her hands, her voice were trembling.

  “Then you will continue getting better,” Michael said. “But because of your initial reluctance, it will be some time before the transformation completely sets.”

  “I’ve always been slow,” Charlie said with a rough laugh, and tears clung to her lashes before spilling to her cheeks.

  Well, hell. Ethan stared down at her, trying to figure the source of her tears—her expression didn’t show the fear or relief he’d have expected. She stared at Michael, her face open and seeking as if she wanted to reach out to him, her psychic scent projecting shimmering fingers of heat and light.

  Awe and wonder.

  She added in a whisper, “Do you sing?”

  “I have not in a very long time.” A smile softened the line of the Doyen’s mouth, and now that her question made Ethan listen for it, he heard the distinct tones running through the complicated harmony of Michael’s voice. “And if we are very fortunate, you will never hear me do so.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Charlie eventually had to block out some of Michael’s incredible voice, force herself not to pay attention to the intricate, shifting melody that made up his words, as if each sound contained a song. And once she listened to what he was saying rather than just his voice, she had to rush to catch up.

  That the nephilim had been created by Lucifer was clear, but Michael didn’t explain how it was done. Charlie thought his evasion of their questions left Castleford and Lilith frustrated, although it was difficult to tell—and Charlie only received the impression because Lilith was stroking her dog’s heads a little more than she had been. Some of that frustration eased when Michael confirmed that the nephilim had attempted to take Lucifer’s throne, but that the creatures were imprisoned—and that he’d teleported throughout Hell for the last few days, searching for the nephilim’s prison.