Demon Moon

by Meljean Brook

  Savi smiled weakly, forcing out her words through the chattering of her teeth, the sudden shivering that had overtaken her body. “A surgeon? A neurosurgeon. Ivy League. Fair-skinned. Tall and handsome.”

  But not too handsome.

  “…so…beautiful…” The blonde moaned the words as she came. The third woman that night, but he could not stop drinking. A dull ring in his ears—his cell phone, Colin realized dimly. Lilith.

  He didn’t want to know. Neither Selah nor Michael had been in Caelum; the fledgling Guardian Lilith had sent had been forced to wait until one of them had returned. It had taken more than an hour and a quarter before the fledgling alerted Selah. Colin had flipped on the television once, only to hear of “Terror in the Skies.”

  Then he’d left to hunt.

  He broke away and pushed the sleep onto her. She fell limp, unconscious in his arms. He sliced his lip and mixed his blood with hers to heal the punctures. He’d almost taken too much, but she was strong, young. She’d recover quickly.

  He let her slide to the linoleum floor in a boneless, quivering heap. Her groceries still sat on the counter. He paused to inhale the scent of oranges, then shoved the bags into the refrigerator and carried her to her bedroom. A nice, tidy flat. A moderately intelligent woman, but she shouldn’t have invited a stranger up, no matter how lonely she was, nor how handsome and strong and helpful he’d seemed.

  She’d not learn a lesson from it, however; she’d forget him by the morning. Or, at best, remember him as a very pleasant—and very beautiful—dream. Perhaps she’d question the haphazard placement of the groceries in the refrigerator, but she’d never think a vampire had fed from her in that kitchen.

  No, she’d likely blame her job, or her exhaustion, or tell herself she was being fanciful.

  Small wonder they needed the Guardians’ protection.

  He pulled her blankets over her; she sighed and rocked her hips against the mattress. He contemplated waking her, but he’d indulged that lust with the first woman.

  And it was not bloodlust that had driven him to the third.

  His phone rang again as he walked through the living room. A mirror hung over the sofa. He’d closed his eyes and refused to listen when he’d passed it before, loaded down like a footman. Now he stared into it. Perhaps the screams would drown out Lilith’s voice when he answered her call. She wouldn’t hear them, though she was no stranger to their like.

  “Yes, Agent Milton?”

  “I’m not going to kill you after all. I need a favor.”

  “Do you?”

  In the mirror, a human body was devoured, torn apart by a flying beast. The human’s face remained, frozen into the glacial sky, shrieking.

  Chaos.

  “Damage control. I’m flying to New York with Michael; Hugh’s there with Selah, and she’s ready to jump in, but we need her back as soon as possible. That means you have to handle…Colin, what the fuck is wrong with you? You should have asked me to call you beautiful by now.”

  “I was feeding,” he said, his voice flat.

  “And her declarations were enough? That’s revolting. Listen, I need you to take Savi out, let her be seen by as many people as possible. Preferably a cop or two, as well. Auntie, you can leave at home with Sir Pup.”

  He looked away from the mirror, massaged his eyelids with thumb and forefinger. “She killed it?”

  “Garroted it with a wire from her laptop, then pumped it full of venom,” Lilith said, and laughed. Colin thought he detected a note of pride beneath it. “It’s not dead, though, just paralyzed. Michael teleported it to the holding cell at SI. Savi’s in the bathroom with Auntie; Hugh says Savi will wait until there’s no other choice before she lowers the symbols’ protection. But we’re going to have to deal with the mess, spin a story—there must be a lot of witnesses, and the body disappeared mid-flight. The plane lands in half an hour. Selah will bring them to our house then, so be there. We should arrive in New York just after that; we’re over Nebraska or some godforsaken place now.”

  He’d have Savi to himself for the entirety of the evening? A slow grin slipped over his mouth; Colin walked out of the flat, careful to turn the lock on the doorknob. He couldn’t engage the dead bolt from outside, but it wouldn’t have kept something like him out anyway. “You’re flying there with Michael; is he carrying you? How primitive, Agent Milton.”

  “Yeah, and I’m fucking freezing. A garrote!” She burst into laughter again.

  A masculine voice rumbled in the background. Lilith must have covered the mouthpiece with her hand; Colin could only hear the sharp tones of her reply. He stepped outside. The clouds had thinned into pale ribbons, and the moon hung round and heavy above the skyline. A block away, his Bentley sat by the curb; it’d take most of the half hour to drive across the city to Castleford’s house in Merced Manor. Much faster to run, but not half as stylish.

  “Michael says to tell you that he found something of yours by the fountain. What the hell does that mean?”

  He almost stumbled over the curb. Why hadn’t the Guardian killed him? Castleford would have. “It means that Savitri is going to have a very, very good time,” he finally managed.

  Ridiculous, to think of this as a second chance with Savi. A second chance for what? He’d only spoken at any length with her twice: fifteen minutes in her grandmother’s restaurant, and a few hours in Caelum. She was a bright young woman, certainly, but one he’d vowed not to pursue. His temporary obsession and their mutual enthrallment in Caelum was hardly reason to risk his friendship with Castleford and Lilith.

  The motor roared to life, but its growl was nothing to Lilith’s. “Colin, it’s not just Hugh anymore—she’s my sister now, too.”

  As if he could forget.

  The vibration of the engines stopped. Savi lifted her head from Nani’s silk-covered lap. Only two and a half hours had passed; the pilots must have continued on to New York instead of returning to England.

  A swipe of wet tissue across the symbols erased the blood. From outside, she heard orders to come out, threats of armed agents and lethal force.

  “Michael, Selah,” she said softly. “We’re ready.”

  Selah immediately appeared in front of her—all golden skin and blond hair. A white flowing gown. No wings, but they probably wouldn’t have fit in the bathroom.

  And then she and Nani were home.

  CHAPTER 3

  I do not see any danger in telling P——the truth, but for the details regarding the sword. We should not let it become known our family harbored your Doyen’s dragon-tainted weapon from the time of the Crusades. It is not the curiosity of humans I fear, should the connection be discovered, but we ought not to risk the attention of the horned and winged set.

  —Colin to Ramsdell, 1814

  Somehow, Selah managed to avoid the piles of hardware and wiring materials littering Savi’s apartment. Despite the successful landing, Savi had to help steady her grandmother—though she wasn’t too steady herself; teleportation was disorienting.

  Their luggage appeared on the wooden floor next to them, along with her laptop, and Savi sighed in silent envy. Guardians, demons, nosferatu, and hellhounds had the ability to hold items in an invisible pocket of space…or something. No matter how many questions she’d asked, Savi had never been able to determine exactly what it was, but it resembled the hammerspace in a video game: it didn’t matter the size or shape of the item, the Guardians could shove it into their cache, carry it around without effort, then make it reappear with a thought.

  Selah gave a quick smile before shifting her form. For a moment, Savi stared at a mirror image of herself, down to the clothes and jewelry. Then Selah altered it slightly, darkening her skin, widening her face, narrowing her eyes, thinning her lips.

  “Colin will be here in a few minutes,” the Guardian said, and her voice was also like Savi’s—perhaps a bit lower in tone. “Follow his instructions. I need your clothes; I can’t return them. Tomorrow, take the files you n
eed off the computer. I’ll come back for it then.”

  Lilith must already be at work, changing the story, creating lies, and destroying evidence. Savi nodded her permission for Selah to take them; her skirt, sandals, and shirt vanished into Selah’s hammerspace, and Savi stood barefoot on the cold floor in her underwear.

  Nani shook her head. “You won’t leave me nude,” she said in her accented English.

  “We’ll worry about yours later. With luck, they won’t get past Savi to look at you. I’ve got to get back before they charge the bathroom. I hope they don’t shoot me.”

  Savi winced. “Sorry.” Bullets wouldn’t kill a Guardian, but they’d still cause considerable pain.

  “No worries; I’m tough.” Selah disappeared.

  Nani sank onto the sofa with a sigh, kicked off her sandals. “Dress yourself, naatin. You’ll become ill.”

  Savi crossed her arms beneath her breasts, shivering. Not just clothes—a shower was a necessity; she didn’t want to stink of fear and blood and nosferatu when Colin arrived.

  She found her bathrobe in her luggage and shrugged it on, wincing as the rough terry slid over her shoulder. She had to tie the belt one-handed.

  A scratch sounded at the door connecting her apartment to Hugh’s house. Sir Pup. And the vampire, if the knock accompanying it was any indication.

  Dammit. She glanced around the apartment—the silk paintings, the DemonSlayer posters, the jumble of mismatched furniture—and sighed. No time to straighten anything. Nani would likely spend the entire meeting apologizing for Savi’s clutter.

  She opened the door, and the hellhound streaked through and almost toppled her over in his eagerness to welcome her home. Then he stopped and growled, each of his three heads swinging around as if to search out the source of the nosferatu scent.

  “It’s okay, Sir Pup,” Savi told him. “It’s just Nani and me. I had an adventure.” Smiling wryly, she lifted her gaze to Colin’s face.

  Oh, god. It wasn’t fair. She’d prepared herself for it, yet still her breath caught and her heart began to hammer in her chest. And he knew it. Her psychic shields blocked her emotions, but couldn’t hide her physical reaction.

  Yet there was no mockery in his eyes as he looked her over. His perusal was quick, intense. “Invite me in, Savitri,” he said quietly.

  The request startled a laugh from her. “Vampires don’t need an invitation.” She pitched her voice low as well; Nani knew Colin wasn’t human, but probably assumed he was like Michael and Selah. Perhaps even Lilith. No one had disabused her of the notion—her fear of the nosferatu was too great. She had accepted Hugh’s friends and background, but she wouldn’t like knowing Colin was basically half-nosferatu. Demons, Guardians…they were tolerable. Nosferatu were not.

  “No,” he said, and the tips of his fangs showed when he smiled. “But I am a gentleman, and a gentleman doesn’t enter a woman’s house uninvited.”

  She willed her heartbeat to return to its normal pace. She needed to step away from the door, put some distance between them, but it was difficult not to stare. That golden hair, artistically messy. His sculpted cheekbones and angular jaw. The lean, elegant length of him in his tailored trousers and soft, clinging sweater. How did he manage it when he couldn’t even see himself in a—

  There, a reason for escape. She swallowed and nodded. “Alright, but give me a second?”

  His smile widened. “Of course, sweet Savitri.”

  She felt his gaze follow her as she walked across the living room to the cheval mirror that stood in the corner. Nani rose to her feet and narrowed her eyes disapprovingly. “You cannot leave him at the door, naatin,” she said in Hindi. Then added in English, “Mr. Ames-Beaumont, please come in.”

  “It’s okay, Nani.” Savi turned the mirror to face the wall, and looked around for any that she’d missed. “I’m just making sure he’ll be good company, instead of ignoring us in favor of admiring himself.”

  “Savitri!”

  “Don’t scold her, Auntie,” Colin said, laughing. “She has the right of it. There is another by the kitchen, Savi. Sailor Moon?”

  She shot him a surprised glance as she flipped over the small frame depicting anime characters in schoolgirl uniforms.

  “A short obsession…with their equally short skirts,” he added as if in explanation, then turned his attention to her grandmother. “Mrs. Jayakar, you are as beautiful as ever.”

  She blushed and patted her hair. “And you are too kind to an old woman.”

  His brows rose. “Hardly old.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “If it weren’t akin to cradle-robbing, I’d steal you away and ravish you so completely you’d never leave my arms.”

  Savi couldn’t stop her grin as her grandmother swatted his arm and protested his audacity, laughing. Even Nani was not immune to his looks and charm. After the tension and fear of their flight, this was exactly what she needed.

  But unfortunately, they couldn’t stay there. “I’m going to get ready,” Savi said. “Where are you taking me? Any dress code I should follow?”

  His assessing gaze swept from her bare feet to the tips of her hair. “Not a tattered housecoat.”

  And that easily, he declared her inadequate. Her mouth flattened, and she bit off her automatic reply. Nani did not approve of gaalis.

  “You’re going out?” Dismay filled her grandmother’s voice, and Savi sighed.

  “I have to be seen, Nani, so that no one can say I was on that plane. No suitable boy is going to marry a girl who’s a terrorist.”

  She ignored the sharpening of Colin’s expression and waited for Nani’s reluctant nod before she headed for the bathroom.

  “Savi,” Colin said, and she glanced back over her shoulder. “Anything you put on will be appropriate.”

  “Only because they won’t be looking at me anyway.”

  His delighted grin warmed the room—or her blood. It just wasn’t right for a man to be that beautiful. Even Guardians and demons who could shape-shift into ideal forms couldn’t equal Colin when he smiled.

  “They will,” he said, “…after a while.”

  Colin angled the lamp, shining the light more fully onto the painting. His masterpiece, if he’d ever had one. But it had not been his brushstrokes, the color, nor the composition that made it beautiful: it was the subject.

  Caelum. The realm the Guardians made their home.

  Seven months before, only Guardians and their angel predecessors had ever seen Caelum. But when Lucifer had threatened Savitri’s life, Michael had teleported her to his temple in that realm, out of the demon’s reach. Several days later, the Doyen had taken Colin so that Lucifer would not discover Colin’s link to Chaos.

  Lilith had not been able to escape as easily: a symbol on her chest anchored her to Hell and prevented her being teleported to Caelum. Moments before Michael had taken Colin to Caelum, before she and Castleford had left to face Lucifer, Castleford had requested that Colin bring Caelum back to her, and the painting Colin had created filled one wall in Castleford’s living room.

  He’d chosen the prospect from outside the doors of Michael’s temple. It had been from that spot Colin had first seen the splendor of that realm; he didn’t know if he’d managed to capture the effect for Lilith, but it still overwhelmed him.

  He traced his fingers over the rough canvas, followed the curve of a spiraling tower in which the anterior edge of the lower spiral was the same as the posterior edge of the higher. What had Savitri said of the shape? He pondered for a moment. That it was the result of the Gestalt effect, he suddenly remembered; that they couldn’t truly see it and their minds completed the form with the most rational interpretation. He’d painted what he’d seen—but she was correct; there was no sense in such a structure.

  And she’d been as awestruck as he, naming most of Caelum’s forms irrational. Indeed, the spires seemed too tall and thin to hold their weight; the sky too blue and the sun too bright; the waters surrounding the city too still.


  How many times had she stopped him to point out a physical impossibility? How many times had he pulled her along to show her another sublime arrangement of shape and shades of white?

  She’d had to leave the day after Colin had opened the doors of the temple. He’d had two months; time given by Michael so he could paint—and recover.

  But had she seen it better than he?

  The click of Savi’s heels sounded quick and light on the stairs. He resisted the urge to shut off the lamp, to give himself the advantage of darkness. In the months since his return, he had never observed her reaction to the painting.

  She’d always run too quickly; the moment he arrived, she’d fled for the safety of her flat or the dark little office she kept downtown.

  Savi stepped through the entrance to the living room, and paused. Her gaze slid past him. Her eyes darkened, her lips parted on a sharply indrawn breath.

  And it was the only time in his long life he’d been pleased that something other than his face had caused such a response. Would that he could read her emotions as well, but as usual, her shields were firmly in place.

  He smiled, and the change of his expression must have caught her attention; she narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you put my grandmother to sleep?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “You’ve never asked me, Savitri. I did not take her blood.”

  Oh, but to have Savi’s again; to have the whole of her. He settled for looking, though he shouldn’t have taken so much pleasure in that, either.

  She’d chosen low-waisted, black trousers and a crimson silk top with sleeves that split at her shoulders, leaving her slim arms bare. Her skin seemed the warmer for the blue tones in the crimson; it shouldn’t have. A long cream coat was draped over her forearm.

  He didn’t look at her shoes for fear that he might fall to his knees to examine the contrast of strap against ankle, the arch of her foot.