Demon Night (15 page)

She confirmed the spelling, then said in some surprise, “The senator? What are you looking for—anything specific?”

“Anything that don't feel right.”

The sound that came through the earpiece sounded an awful lot like a little girl muffling her giggles. After a second, she said, “Sorry. There's probably going to be quite a bit that doesn't feel right—he's been in politics a long time.”

Ethan smiled slightly. “They ain't all demons.”

“No, just the one who's funding SI.” He could almost see her lips pursing in frustration as she referred to Rael, the demon congressman who had ties to both Special Investigations and Legion—and heard her sigh as she let it go. “Okay. Is that it? Because I've got a complaint to lodge against your pupil.”

“Jake?” Since Hugh Castleford had taken over the novices' training, Ethan wasn't officially Jake's mentor anymore, but everyone still went to Ethan whenever Jake pulled something stupid. “What's he done?”

“He kicked me out of the poker game tonight.”

Ethan scowled. Though her shields were as good as his, Savi's expression gave away her hand every single deal. She was a terrible player…and rich as a nabob. And whatever the novices won from her in the occasional game she sat in on, Ethan usually cleaned out from them within a week or two. Running Savi off was the most damn fool thing he'd ever heard. Unless—“Were you counting cards?”

“Maybe.” There wasn't a hint of apology in her voice. “I've dropped twenty thousand on that table in the past three months.”

“And we surely do appreciate it, Miss Savi.”

In the background, her partner Colin Ames-Beaumont sounded mighty amused.

“Stop laughing, you ass,” she said. “Or I'll use
your
money next time.” Then Ethan was the one chuckling as the vampire's laughter pulled up lame. “Anyway, Drifter…I heard about your brother. I wanted to say I was sorry. Is there anything Colin and I can do?”

Ethan's throat closed up. Hit from the side, and he hadn't been expecting it at all. It took him a second, but he finally managed, “I reckon not, Miss Savi.” Hell and damnation, his voice was about as hoarse as Charlie's had been when she'd told him to go. He closed his eyes and pushed it away. “Aside from you telling me how to sweet-talk the computer running your house.”

“Oh, god. Don't tell me you couldn't get the lights on before you left.”

“All right.”

Her laughter sounded again before she said, “It's on the wall panel in every room—and there's also a remote control. There's a lighting menu, and the heat is under environmental control. Your temp is less than 106 degrees, so you won't be electrocuted when you adjust the settings. And I wouldn't move any of the paintings downstairs, although the ones upstairs are okay.” The humor suddenly dropped from her tone. “Drifter—if Charlotte saw Colin, knew what he was…did you get a chance to explain about the portraits?”

“The port—?” His teeth snapped together, and he sucked in a sharp whistling breath between them. Son of a goddamn bitch.

He was in the air less than a second later.

She'd gone in search of a bathroom, but found a puzzle instead. In the master bedroom, silvery moonlight illuminated a life-sized painting of the gorgeous blond vampire.

Charlie shivered inside her coat, her heart thumped madly in her chest, and her instincts screamed at her to run—but she stayed and tried to figure it out.

Because the woman he'd come into Cole's with was pictured there, too, and the expression on his face wasn't anything like a vampire's should have been. Not cruel or cold—there was something so tender in his eyes, in his smile, that it made Charlie's heart ache just to see it, made her feel like an intruder on a moment that was beautiful…and private.

And they were standing in the midst of what must have been Heaven.

It was depicted on other canvases, too—in bright blues and whites, columns and temples of marble, so huge and perfect and impossibly lovely that it made her dizzy to look at them for too long.

She unsteadily made her way downstairs to the living room, sat in the corner of a sofa and drew her legs up. The lake sparkled and the trees swayed, and slowly it came together.

Ethan had moved in not long after the vampire couple had spoken with her at the bar, asking about her family. Ethan, who didn't have anything in his apartment—he obviously didn't live there. So she had been paranoid, but someone had been watching her…or watching
over
her.

But why? How had he known she'd be attacked? She couldn't think it had been random. The first time, maybe—but the second? And they'd known her name.

She closed her eyes, ran it all through her mind in a quick, erratic rhythm, waiting for it to settle into a tempo that she could follow.

Vampires who'd wanted to hurt her. A demon. Ethan, and his wings. Blood all over her hands, his face—but there were some vampires he didn't kill, and apparently trusted. Vampires who'd asked so many questions about her family.

Vampires.
Ethan.
Blood.
Her family.

Blood. Her sister.

The click of the door shot through the silence of the house. Her eyes flew open; Ethan already stood in front of her, his hat and wings gone, his face tight and his gaze wary on hers.

“It's about Jane, isn't it?” Her voice was loud—not to her ears, but from the inside, like she was speaking underwater or holding her ear to check her key.

His taut skin twitched a little around his eyebrows, his mouth. “Yes.”

She slid off the sofa; her legs were solid beneath her now. “Is she safe? Can we go get her?”

Ethan hesitated, then said, “She's safe. There's a shield around her house, too.”

“Someone's been watching her? Like you—oh, my God. Dylan.” Charlie's relief didn't last; her eyes widened and she laughed a hard, sour note. And to think she'd liked Dylan—liked how friendly and smart and fun he was, and how much he adored Jane. And Jane was crazy in love with him; if everything had been a lie, this would kill her. “I
knew
he was too fucking perfect. So he's an angel like you, and in order to get close to her he—”

“No. That's not how it is, Charlie. He's not a Guardian.” Ethan stood still as she stalked toward him. “That's not how it is at all.”

“No?” She pushed against his chest. The muscle under the heel of her hand might has well have been stone, and Ethan a mountain.

“No.” His response was as firm as the rest of him.

Firm enough that she believed it.

“Well…well, fuck.” Her fists were curled. She'd wanted to get up in his face and scream at him, but now she just felt out of control. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets. “Then how is it? Do they want Jane to cure them?”

“I don't rightly know what they want from her, but I don't reckon it's a cure, because there isn't one.” His voice deepened with something that sounded like weariness. “But it wouldn't surprise me if the demons were telling them something of the sort, making promises so that the vampires fall in line with their plans.”

“What plans?”

“Hell if I know, Charlie.” He lifted his hand like he meant to rub it over his face, to make action match his tone, but he winced and let it drop back to his side. “Are you mad enough to cut me open?”

“I'd rather punch you, actually.” No, not really. Just punch
something
. Ethan was simply a convenient target. “I don't understand why Jane and I got pulled into this. Whatever
this
is.”

Ethan nodded. “I owe you some explaining.” He seemed to smile at her snort of agreement, though his lips didn't move. But she saw it at the corners of his eyes, the slight lift of his brows. “And I'd be much obliged if you'd help me out while I'm doing it. How strong is your stomach?”

Blinking quickly didn't make his question make any more sense. “What?”

“The bullet's giving me some trouble, and it's coming out too slow. I can't protect you like I should if my arm don't function when I need it. But if the bullet's out, it'll heal up quick and clean.”

It took her two more blinks. “You want me to get the bullet out of your back?”

“I reckon it'll hurt like a son of a bitch if I go in through the front,” he drawled, and she closed her eyes, pressed her lips together. “Now, Charlie, don't you start laughing and lose your mad, because if you're angry it'll be easier to use a knife on me. Though I must be all kinds of a fool, hoping you're riled up before I give it to you.” He paused, and the drawl slipped away. “But only if you feel up to it, Charlie.”

That
was the voice she'd heard from him the night on the roof. Still slow and long, as smooth and warm as a sip of scotch, but without an exaggerated flavor to it. “You'll tell me who you are? What you are?”

“Yes. But we'd best do this in the kitchen.”

Charlie looked down at the pale rug, realized that they were moving to avoid staining it with blood, and wasn't sure if she
was
up to it. But Ethan was already walking that way, so she hurried after him. He stopped just inside the kitchen, in front of a security panel. Light flooded the room.

And maybe her stomach wasn't all that strong, because it began roiling when he laid a knife on the butcher-block island top and pulled a ladder-back chair in from the breakfast nook. He straddled it, crossing his forearms on the backrest.

She took a deep breath, stepped up behind him. The hole in his coat centered above his right shoulder blade. Charlie gingerly touched the skin showing through the tear. “Right here?”

“Yes.” His muscles shifted under her finger, and she looked up to see him tilting a black felt-tip pen her direction. “Mark it, so you won't have to cut more'n once or twice.” He turned his head in profile to her, his brows drawing together. “That hole pisses me off more than getting shot, Charlie. I don't have a talent for creating my own clothes, particularly something that fits me this well. You got that marked?”

“Yes.” She couldn't say anything else. His jacket, suspenders, and shirt disappeared, leaving his broad shoulders naked and exposing tanned skin over long, rangy muscles. Her fingers itched to run the length of his back, from the short thick hair at his nape to the tight ridges of flesh hugging his spine and narrowing down to his waistband.

But she didn't want to touch him like
this
.

The knife gleamed wickedly on the countertop.

“Forgive my blushes, Miss Charlie. I'm so awfully modest and bashful.” He grinned and rested his chin against the top of his shoulder, watching her sidelong. “And you'll have to pardon any groaning I do. It's not becoming for a man to cry, so we groan real loud instead.”

“I know you're trying to make it better, Ethan, but you're just freaking me out. Do you want a drink or something first?” She could make a drink, that would be nice and comfortable—

“I doubt Colin and Savi keep any around—liquor doesn't do anything for me, in any case. Nor would medicine or painkillers. I'll talk myself through it.”

And her, too, she hoped. “How deep is it?”

He rolled his shoulders, grimaced. “About two or three inches. Just dig in there until you hit lead and then use the tip of the blade to wiggle it on out.”

Oh, Jesus. “That doesn't sound like a good plan.”

“It's likely not, but—” He sat up straight, and his jacket was suddenly in his hands. He lifted the sleeve up from the rest of the bundle; from the wrist to the elbow, it was dark with blood. “That's mine, Charlie. Nearly lost my hand to a demon. Now, I can reattach it, or wait until I return to Caelum and get a Healer to fix me up, or eventually grow another one—but next time it might be my head, and I can't put that back on. And
next time
might be the moment I let the shield down around the house, because there's no way for me to know if a demon's waiting for us when the spell is up.”

Demons, spells, being constantly prepared to defend himself…Charlie could barely imagine life at that level or think in those terms.

But she had to now, didn't she?

“All right. All right.” She shrugged out of her coat, tossed it onto the island. The ivory-handled knife was as cold as her fingers, and gooseflesh crawled over her body—but Ethan's skin was smooth, as if he didn't feel the chill in the air. “Do we need to sterilize this?”

“No. Just quick and deep, Charlie. And soon, before I turn yellow and embarrass myself.”

“Just hold on a second, Ethan. Jesus.” She thought his lips twitched before he turned, facing straight ahead. “I need a towel. Or five. You've got some of—”

A rainbow of her neatly folded hand towels appeared on the island.

“My tweezers, too.”

After a second, Ethan said, “They in something?”

“A brown makeup bag. It's got a fleur-de-lis design all over the outside. Yeah, that one.” God.
Just wiggle the bullet on out, Charlie.
He was crazy. She wiped off the tips of the tweezers and laid them next to the towels. “Are you ready? You'd better start talking. You said you're a Guardian—what does that mean?”

“You ever play DemonSlayer?”

“The video game? No.” She held the blade over the black circle she'd made on his skin. Just stabbing wouldn't let her work in there; she needed an incision.

“Good, because it's mostly bull
holy fucking whoreson
—!” His jaw clamped together and he dropped his forehead to his arms; his knee lifted and he slammed his boot against the floor.

Charlie felt the vibration in her feet, and she stared in shock at the deep wound she'd made, the blood pouring from it. She'd convinced herself it wouldn't really hurt him. For God's sake, he'd been
shot
and she hadn't heard him complain about the pain, just the inconvenience. “Ethan—”

His voice was muffled against his arms. “Get in there, Charlie, or it'll close up and you'll have to do it again.”

He was right; it had bled hard the first second, but it was already slowing. She grabbed a towel and her tweezers. “Guardians?” she prompted.

“Yes.” He hissed when she probed the incision, and she thought she heard wood splinter. “You've heard about Lucifer and his rebellion in Heaven?”

“I think so.” She couldn't see anything inside the wound, and looking at it was just making her sick; she closed her eyes and gently felt around for the bullet. She'd forgotten what a distinctive odor blood had. “Lucifer and his followers were turned into demons and thrown into Hell—but Lucifer decided to trick humans into wearing clothes instead of leaves, so he turned into a snake and made Eve eat the apple and then humans were eternally screwed.”

His back shook under her hand, like he was holding in laughter. “I don't know if the snake and the apple is true—but the demons did begin tempting humans, and angels remained on Earth to stop them. Except it wasn't long before humans started thinking the angels were gods, and the demons got almighty jealous.” He sucked in a long breath. “You'll have to open it up again. Deep as you can. Poke around in there, Charlie. You don't need to be gentle, because it'll only hurt for a second—I can hardly feel the cut you made now. And you aren't doing any damage.”

“Okay.” Charlie wiped the blood from her hands, the tweezers, then his back—cleaning the work space. “It's all over your pants.”

“I'd take them off and sit here in my skivvies, but—
sonofabitch
.” He gripped his knees, the muscles and tendons in his hands and arms standing in sharp relief.
“But I ain't wearing any.”

He'd probably meant that to be teasing, instead of sounding like it had been ground between two jagged stones.

“Sorry,” she murmured, and swiftly got the tweezers going. When the steely tension in his back eased, she said, “So the demons were jealous?”