Demon Moon

by Meljean Brook

“They’d dragged him to the base,” Michael said.

  “Most of me.” Colin flinched, then added with forced humor, “Oh, sweet, do not despair. They didn’t eat the choicest bits.”

  CHAPTER 25

  She was certain that B—— had written that blasted story, rather than P——. I convinced her that she ought to conform to Continental fashion, and take a companion. I, however, am more certain than ever that I never shall. My blood will not allow it. I do not lament the loss, of course; where on Earth shall I find a companion who can command my attention away from myself? Furthermore, why should I want to?

  —Colin to Ramsdell, 1824

  “Are you well?”

  The list of Osterberg’s recent credit card transactions blurred in front of her, but Savi didn’t glance away from the monitor. Not that it had helped; keeping busy hadn’t kept her from thinking.

  “Not really,” she said as Hugh sat on the edge of her desk, crossing his arms and ankles in his professorial talk-to-me pose.

  “Are you running?”

  “A little. But productively.” She pointed at the screen. “Both Osterberg and Fishnet Shirt—Ken Branning—have several gas purchases in St. Francis Woods, within two blocks of each other. I can’t find any reason for them to be there; they don’t have any other transactions, and it’s out of the way for their usual routes.”

  “So we’ll pinpoint Dalkiel’s location thanks to the Navigators’ low gas mileage?”

  “That, and because an aide employed eight months ago at the German Embassy in London—in Belgrave Square—quit a couple of days after SI captured the nosferatu. That took me a little longer to access; I’ll keep digging at that angle now that I’m finally in. It’s funny how governments are secretive about things like that.”

  “Very funny,” Hugh said, smiling. “Lilith and Colin are returning from their wyrmwolf hunt. It was successful.”

  Daylight streamed through the window; she envied Colin the ability to take out his frustration on something almost as much as she worried for him. “Where did it come up?”

  “In the bay, just north of Alcatraz.”

  “Did it eat any tourists?” she said, and immediately felt sick. “Oh, god. Never mind. That’s not as funny as it should have been. Did you kill James Anderson?”

  His soft gaze was the same color as Caelum’s skies; his body was as rigid as the marble. “Aye.”

  Her stomach roiled. “You used your Gift—forced Truth on him? And he shot himself?”

  “Aye.”

  “You thought I’d hate you for that? So you let me think he was just crazy? Even after I knew you were a Guardian?”

  His brow furrowed. “No. I never thought you’d have turned from me.”

  “Did you think I couldn’t handle the moral dilemma?”

  “No. If I did, I’d never have allowed you into SI. You think I see you as a child, Savi; I haven’t since you returned from Caelum.”

  Her eyes widened. “But you did before that?”

  “Yes.” Lines appeared at the sides of his mouth, as if he was repressing his grin.

  Was the change hers or his? But she couldn’t think of that, not when—“Why did he do it?”

  His smile disappeared, and Hugh sighed. “Savi, don’t.”

  She heard the door latch click open but didn’t look away from him. The room wasn’t shielded; everyone in the warehouse would hear anyway. It didn’t matter where they stood when they heard it.

  “But Anderson told you, right? He had to tell you the truth.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why? He’d already taken the money.” Her parents had known better than to argue when someone pointed a gun at them. “He never looked in the purse; he didn’t know there wasn’t much in there, so it wasn’t because he was pissed about the amount. And the jewelry was worth a couple of hundred dollars. Was it because they’d seen him?”

  “No. That was why he shot you, but not them.” He uncrossed his arms and clenched his fingers on the edge of the desk. “You always look for a reason, but there isn’t one, Savi. He just wanted to.”

  Her brows drew together, and she shook her head. “Just wanted to? He liked the power in it?”

  “No.”

  “He hated interracial couples? And their kids? He liked the sound of gunfire? He had a shitty childhood? A bad fucking day?”

  “Savi—” Hugh choked on a humorless laugh, passed his hand through his short hair. “No.”

  “It was completely random then? He just wanted to, for no reason, and pulled the trigger? Three times?” More than three. She could remember each loud—don’t think, Savi.

  “Aye.”

  She couldn’t breathe. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

  “I know,” he said softly.

  Slowly, she forced her legs to stop their trembling, pushed air into her lungs. “That’s why you didn’t tell me? Because there was no reason? And you thought I couldn’t handle it?”

  “Yes.”

  She swallowed hard. “I think…I think eight months ago—maybe even yesterday—I couldn’t have. As it was, I was making up all kinds of stuff in my head: justifications, rationalizations. That’s not any better, is it?”

  Hugh relaxed slightly. “Hardly.”

  Lilith said from the doorway, “Do you know why I adore him so much? Because he doesn’t say anything retarded like, ‘It’s so that I could come into your life, and you’d eventually translate my book, which in turn would lead to us kicking Lucifer’s ass’ or ‘So that eventually the most beautiful bloodsucker in the world would be your sexual plaything.’ As if it were a trade.”

  “It’d have been a poor exchange,” Colin said. He was leaning against the door frame, the hood of his Guardian-made jacket pushed back. His gaze locked with Savi’s. “I apologize, sweet. I ought not to have mentioned it. It cannot be pleasant to revisit those memories.”

  “I think we’re equal then.” He’d revisited his own hell for her.

  “That was not a trade, either. Only demons keep tally.”

  The rustle of paper and the shift of Lilith’s and Colin’s attention beyond where she and Hugh sat alerted Savi to Michael’s arrival.

  “That’s not precisely true,” the Doyen said as she turned. He held a rolled parchment. “I do, too.”

  His tone lacked threat; it was the others’ reactions that made it seem ominous. Lilith sucked in a sharp breath; though it was difficult to tell, Savi thought Hugh tensed with disapproval.

  But Colin’s demeanor became carelessly nonchalant as he unzipped his lightweight jacket. She’d never seen him truly bored; he only affected it when he was at his most interested—or frightened. “If that Scroll is an accounting of mine, pray do not tell me the balance. A credit is a boast, a debit an embarrassment—and to acknowledge either exceedingly vulgar.”

  “It is neither. I tally; I don’t demand payment. That is demonic.” Michael stepped to a workstation in the middle of the room, vanished a computer from the tabletop, and spread the Scroll open. “Shield the room.”

  As Colin pricked his thumb and dotted it to the symbols, Savi rose from her chair to study the parchment. She slid her hand over its pale cream surface, tested the edges. The paper between her fingers was as thin as onionskin, but she could hardly bend it. “Is it blank—or can I just not see the writing?”

  Lilith joined Hugh at the other side of the table, stood with her arms folded beneath her breasts, frowning down at the Scroll.

  “There is nothing yet written. I’ve not yet heard anything of this curse to record.”

  Startled, Savi glanced over at Colin, found him standing beside her. The crease of his brow betrayed his own surprise; he met her gaze, blinked, then looked from Michael to Hugh. “You must have known. It was in Switzerland.”

  Hugh shook his head. “I saw that you’d covered your mirrors; I’d no reason to think it a curse, or different from anything you’d done in the five years since your transformation. I’d not seen you in th
at time.”

  “And when he came to me later, related the lack of reflection, we thought it an effect of the sword. You gave no indication that you saw something within the mirror until you returned from Chaos.”

  “I’d no idea such a place as Chaos existed,” Colin said. “I assumed it was Hell, or a nightmare reflection of myself. The curse was supposed to show us our inner selves; we thought it a joke.”

  “So did I, until a minute ago. This really was a curse?” Lilith looked between Michael and Hugh. “You aren’t serious.”

  “They’re exceptionally rare; typically, they don’t work, except in an accidental convergence of symbols, blood, and items with a particular resonance,” Michael said.

  Lilith frowned. “But Lucifer told no one of the symbols; I learned how to use the protection spell by luck. And except for that, I’ve never taught anyone those I do know, because I daren’t write them. Have you?”

  “No. They are too powerful; too dangerous. But it is inevitable that a human eventually stumbles onto a particular symbol. And perhaps knowledge of a few is left over from before, but their power rendered inert except in unique circumstances.”

  “Before when?” Savi asked.

  Michael glanced at her, his mouth a hard, straight line. “Before I began writing the Scrolls in Latin.”

  She compressed her lips to stop herself, and focused on the more important question: “Can it be broken?”

  Savi slipped her hand into Colin’s as Michael said, “No. Once done, some things cannot be reversed.”

  Colin’s fingers clenched on hers, but aside from that small movement, he gave no response.

  “Then what is this for?” Savi said dully, indicating the Scroll with her free hand.

  “Some things cannot be undone; however, they may be altered. But I cannot go forward without knowing what has gone before. Do you recall the words you spoke with it?”

  “Yes.” Colin’s brows lifted when Michael looked at him expectantly. “You cannot expect me to repeat them?”

  “I can.”

  “Bloody hell.” Colin closed his eyes, and his body tensed as he recited a string of words in a language Savi didn’t recognize. He half-raised his lids to peer about, then smiled down at her. “And I’m still here.”

  She grinned in response, letting out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “What was that?”

  “Romany,” Hugh said. “Roughly translated, a command to reflect a true nature hidden within.”

  “The language matters less than the meaning and intent behind it.” Michael raised his hand over the Scroll; a blade flashed and disappeared. Blood thinned and spread in rivulets over the paper, sliding into an arrangement of letters and words. Latin—yet another translation of the curse.

  Savi read the first lines, fascinated. “Are you moving it into place with your mind, or does your blood make the letters on its own?”

  “There’s no difference,” Michael said quietly. He turned his arm; the bronze skin had healed flawlessly. “And the symbol—how was it written?”

  “In blood, on a mirror,” Colin said. “Neither was required by the curse; I thought it more appropriate to the mood that night.”

  Michael nodded. “I will note it, but not record the symbol. Particularly not in my blood.” Even as he spoke, it slid like red mercury across the surface of the Scroll, leaving glistening sentences in its wake. “Was there anything unique about the mirror or its frame?”

  Colin shook his head. “I believe it was gilded wood, Louis XIV perhaps.”

  “So writing the symbol on the mirror made it both bridge and reflect at once? And that’s probably why he sees Chaos in the mirror?” Savi guessed, and after a brief hesitation, Michael nodded. “But why does it work as a bridge for the wyrmwolves? It’s written on rock in Chaos, and he didn’t write it in blood.”

  Hugh looked up from the Scroll. “What did you use to carve it?”

  “Selah left weapons for me; perhaps it was a dagger.” Colin lifted his hands. “I was bleeding. Some might have dropped onto the symbol.”

  “But you aren’t certain?”

  Colin shrugged, a tight smile around the corners of his lips, his eyes. “No. I’d delayed my daysleep for days, and hadn’t fed in almost a sennight. I wasn’t supposed to be awake after Selah left, let alone fleeing the caves for the top of a mountain.”

  Oh, god. “You knew the wyrmwolves were coming when you sent her away?”

  “Yes, sweet.”

  “But you woke up.”

  “Yes.”

  He wouldn’t have wanted to; he’d have wanted to go easy…like his sister and Ramsdell had. And he’d been starving—weak. The instinct to survive might have driven him to fight the wyrmwolves, but how had he managed the strength to do it, and to run? Where had he gotten the—?

  Her eyes widened. “You drank from them? That’s why you were certain the wyrmwolves were connected to you when they first appeared. And why you can sense them. Not just because you are an anchor to Chaos; you ingested their blood.”

  “Yes, but the buggers took most of it back,” he said and looked at Michael. “She’s likely correct; yet they respond to her psychic scent, not mine.”

  Michael’s dark gaze narrowed thoughtfully. “I’d be surprised if venom and nosferatu blood had such an effect alone. Did you take her blood the night the first wyrmwolf appeared?” When Colin shook his head, the Doyen met Savi’s eyes. “Have you taken in his blood?”

  “No. I bit him, but I was careful; I’m positive I didn’t swallow any.” Her cheeks heated slightly.

  Colin glanced down at her, his fangs exposed in a brief, teasing grin before he said, “It arrived directly after—too soon for it to have been the bite.”

  “And the fever began long before that.”

  “In the plane?” Lilith said.

  “I first noticed it in the car. Not long after…” Her voice broke, and she stared up at Colin. “Not long after you healed me with your blood.”

  The last traces of his smile faded. “That is also when I first noticed the scent. But I’ve used my blood to heal thousands of people—everyone I’ve fed from, even after I returned from Chaos.”

  “But none of them had hellhound and nosferatu tainting their veins.” Her mind raced. “Or it was the henna—all over my hands. What if there was a symbol in the design somewhere?”

  “It could be any of those things,” Michael agreed. “Or a combination of them all, or something we’ve not considered.”

  “In the hospital, was my room protected by the spell?”

  “No,” Hugh said.

  “My shields were down from the fever, but no wyrmwolves came. For two weeks.”

  “Because I was not near enough to sense you,” Colin said slowly. “It’s not you or me, but us.”

  “Yes.” She saw the despair in his gaze, the tightness around his lips. “It doesn’t matter,” she added quickly, though her stomach knotted. “I can keep my shields up. And I’ll only be here for a few more weeks anyway.”

  Hugh said quietly, “Michael, are there any alternative food sources for a vampire? Blood—but not from humans, or that isn’t accompanied by a sexual urge?”

  “No.” He ran his hand over the parchment and the liquid stilled, sank into the paper. “If there were, I’d have given vampires that choice long ago.”

  The tight clasp of Colin’s fingers on hers grew painful; she held on, uncaring.

  The Doyen’s crimson blood covered the Scroll with a list of all of the reasons they should—had to—let go, and dried into lines of obsidian.

  After such a morning, it was a relief to spend the latter part of the afternoon in Colin’s basement, lounging on the sectional with him as Lon Chaney Jr. lurched across the enormous screen.

  She lost count of the times he buried his face into her hair, laughing—and even if his commentary resembled something out of MST3K, she heard the fondness beneath it. He apparently adored monster movies, and judging b
y the DVD titles stacked two-deep in the shelves, the era and medium didn’t matter. The Wisdom of Crocodiles sat between Frankenstein and Blood: The Last Vampire; he’d offered up Vampire Hunter D and seven versions of Dracula for consideration before they’d settled for The Wolf Man—the only one Savi hadn’t seen.

  It was too much to hope for a happy ending, but at least a werewolf died at the end instead of a vampire.

  “That is the happy ending,” he reminded her when she said as much a few minutes later, after they’d retreated to the kitchen. He absently shook the decanter of blood he’d pulled from the refrigerator. “The ungodly creature wiped from existence, the Earth restored to its natural order. And, indeed, any man so hirsute should be treated as a perversion. Will this disgust you?”

  Her mouth stuffed full with rice from the takeout they’d picked up earlier, she could only shake her head. He poured the blood into a tall glass; it frothed at the top, like a cappuccino.

  He grimaced and set it aside. “I’ll wait; I detest foam. That smells incredibly good. Perhaps I will hold it below my nose as I drink, and pretend it is red coconut curry.”

  “Do you miss eating?”

  “Not when I’m feeding from you, sweet. But compared to swine? Yes.”

  “I’m flattered.” She poked at a carrot with her fork. “You’ll let me know when it starts to affect you?”

  “Not it if hurries your leaving.”

  “I’ll be able to tell,” she said quietly. “You’ll be shaky, stupid, tired. No libido. If my choice is between your weakness when Dalkiel’s still out there, and my staying—” She shook her head. “It’s not a choice.”

  “And if Dalkiel is dead?”

  “Shaky, stupid, tired,” she repeated, and hated the tremble in her voice. “With no sexual drive. Do you want to live like that?”

  His jaw tightened. “No. Bloody fucking hell.” He unclenched his fists. “I’d still be beautiful; you could bounce upon me now and again whilst I lie in my daysleep.”

  She snorted with amusement, but it didn’t last. Her laughter ended on a sigh. “Talking to them didn’t help us much, did it?”