Demon Night (35 page)

Ethan's face was like stone. “Sammael used Henderson to take a choice from you, Charlie, and it was a violation just the same.”

“No, I don't mean that one is worse or—” She shook her head, fidgeted. “I'm not
grateful
to him. But I am glad I don't have to deal with both. And remembering how Henderson…it's bad enough.”

Ethan closed his eyes. “I ought to have staked him out and left him to burn.”

“I'm glad you didn't,” Charlie said quietly. “Because although he was fast and strong, he wasn't very good at blocking when I hit him. But now I'm fast and strong, too—and maybe I'll run into him someday.”

Ethan's gaze was hard and assessing, and he nodded. “All right. I'll see that you get some training in, so that your weapons include more than your fists. And I'll hold him down, if you like.”

“That wouldn't be fair,” she said, smiling.

“You don't worry about fighting fair with vampires and demons, Charlie. If something ever comes up, you hit as low and as mean as you can.”

His tone was serious; her smile faded, and she nodded. “Okay.” She absently pushed a rock aside with her bare toe, and startled when a huge spider scurried out from beneath. After a few running steps, she looked up to find Ethan grinning at her.

“We'll be training a long time, Charlie, toughening you up.”

“Fuck you. It was
hairy
.”

Laughing, Ethan took her hand, and they walked toward the mound of rocks she'd seen the bat flying over. Hard, bare earth appeared in patches, as if the wind had swept the sand from it.

She took a deep breath; the air was still now, and crisp—but not uncomfortable. “What happened when the deputy was accused?”

“Danvers wouldn't believe it, and he had us to lay the blame on—although the times didn't add up, and the townspeople knew it. So I reckon his lie just broke them.”

“Broke them? How?”

“Well, it seems he'd been running the town real tight for several years. Dictating behavior and morals, using his deputies to scare those who didn't fall in line or who disagreed with anything he did. And I don't think he saw anything wrong in the way he went about it, because, to all appearances, it was working. But I figure the townspeople were just seething—and when they boiled over, his little piece of Heaven started falling apart. A few deputies killed, the whores wearing their unmentionables on the stoop, people drinking in the saloon when it wasn't the appointed times, not showing up for church services. Are you laughing, Charlie?”

He tugged her against his chest, turned around and stepped backward in time with her. His grin was broad.

“Yes.” It shook from her. “Sorry. It was the last part.”

“Ah, well—his deputies kept on bringing reports to him, and he'd rant on and on about disorder being the downfall of man. Caleb and I thought it was plenty ridiculous. Even more so, that he was certain we'd been some corruptive force that brought this all down on him. But we weren't laughing by then.”

Neither was Charlie. Ethan continued moving backward, his hands low on her back. Walking, but their only scenery was each other, and Ethan's face was slowly becoming overcast.

“He'd closed up the shutters, and during the day we just baked in there. Sweating, and then after a while nothing left to sweat. And once the girl was found, the sheriff didn't bring us any water—because a demon can't kill a man, but his deputies were the ones who physically locked us in, so letting us slowly die wasn't actively killing us. And though we had no inkling of what he truly was, we figured by then that he wasn't…wasn't
normal
.” His fingers moved against her waist, drawing small circles over the cotton shirt. “Of course, now I know that Caleb and I might have gotten out at any time.”

Charlie blinked. “What?”

“He couldn't deny our free will. If I had gotten up, picked that lock open, he couldn't have prevented me. Or prevented either of us from walking on out of there. But I didn't know that, and he was always watching us, so I didn't even attempt it until the end. We were going to die anyway, so I reckoned I might as well get up and try it.”

“What'd he do?” she whispered.

“He took out his gun, but its threat wasn't going to stop me, Charlie. So he crushed it in his hand.”

“And that stopped you?”

“Scared the piss out of me. Then he pulled out the key, and he said that we looked awful thirsty. And all we had to do was drink what he had in two special cups, and he'd give us that key instead of crushing the lock.”

Charlie was trembling, and her steps felt as heavy as a zombie's. “He had
two
cups?”

Ethan nodded. “But he just said that they both had to be drunk, not that we each had to drink one, and I held him to that. Then I beat the hell out of Caleb until he agreed to give me his cup, and made the best bargain with Danvers as I knew how—because Danvers had said he'd keep a bargain. I didn't believe him, but we had nothing to lose by negotiating the terms of it.” He took a long breath. “And that was that. I drank the poison, and pushed Caleb the hell out of there. It killed me sure enough—but next thing, Michael's there, giving me another choice. I figure Sammael must have run to the next town as soon as Michael showed.”

Charlie's gaze dropped to his chest, and she tried to process it all. She wasn't sure she could. “Sammael still thinks it was your fault, doesn't he? He said something at the bridge—about you having to pay for Eden.”

“I reckon he does. Which suits me just fine, as I got a few things to settle with him.”

She blinked up at him; he'd said that as easily as if he'd announced he was paying a tab. “You don't seem angry, though.”

He sidestepped, swinging her with him until they were walking side by side again. “I figure I'm like those townspeople. Just simmering.” He slanted a glance at her. “I want Sammael's head for plenty of reasons. I'm feeling mighty vengeful, Charlie, but if I rush on in and get myself killed, there's other things that won't be provided for. Atoning is more important than revenge. Being a Guardian and protecting the living is—and so is making certain you don't need for anything.”

That he'd placed providing for her on the same level as atoning and being a Guardian filled her, warmed her, left her struggling for something to say; but she couldn't respond except to nod. And although she didn't want to be one of his obligations—and wanted to assure him that she intended to support herself as quickly as she could—to protest that she didn't need anything would be silly and ungrateful and trivialize everything that he
had
given her.

She'd have done anything just to give him a little in return. She managed to offer in a thick rasp, “I'll hold him down.”

Ethan's laugh rumbled through her, and he dropped a hard, closed-mouth kiss against her lips. “I'll let you take the first stab, if you like.”

“Okay. Or sucking on him might be a good payback—but don't let Jane see me do it.” She blinked, grimaced. “Never mind. That sounded weird and just
wrong
.”

Ethan's laughter deepened, though he was shaking his head and apparently trying not to imagine that, as well. When it faded, he glanced down at her, a perplexed expression lurking in his gaze.

She drew back to see him better. “What is it?”

He hesitated only a second. “I just can't figure you, Charlie. You're joking now, even though Jane laid a terrible blow on you today, staying with Sammael even after seeing the truth for herself. And I also can't figure how it was Old Matthew had you crawling over to my lap, when you made it through Jane's call just fine. Do you want him to come for you?”

“No.” Wherever Ethan was, that was where she wanted to be. But she looked away from him, unsure she could explain.

A small shelf jutted out from the mounded pile of rocks; she carefully tucked the tails of the shirt under her bare bottom before sitting on its flat surface. The stone was still warm, like a lingering touch of sun.

She took a deep breath. “It was just that Jane, she didn't seem to notice…” Her throat closed.

“How much you were hurting,” Ethan said, coming to sit beside her.

“Yes.”
She tilted her head back; the stars were blurry again, and she blinked them into focus before looking at Ethan. “But Old Matthew heard it, somehow. Or he was listening for it, even though he has no real reason to. Aside from, you know, caring about me. Even though he has no real reason to do that, either.”

Ethan's brows drew together. “That's the most damn fool thing I've ever heard,” he said softly.

“Thanks.” A short laugh slipped from her, and she drew up her legs, wrapped her arms around them. “I was about to wallow in a lot of really old self-pity, and I don't mean to.”

“I know you don't, Charlie—but you'd best explain what you do mean.”

She nodded, and gathered up the story. Unlike most, it didn't come easily, but more like an engine that had to be choked to start. “Old Matthew said when he hired me that, because he took on so many ex-cons, he had to be careful. And that his employees could keep their private lives private—but if he found out that any of his employees was lying to him about something that affected Cole's, and if anyone couldn't stay straight and clean, they could take a walk.”

“So you reckoned that when you said you had been lying to him, that was it.”

“Yes.” But instead, Old Matthew had ended their conversation by telling her that she'd have a place if she ever made her way back. “And I still don't know why he took me on in the first place. You know what I did to his restaurant, right? Running that car through it?”

Ethan's nod was slow. “That I do.”

“There was insurance to cover the damage…but Cole's was his
baby
. The one thing that was really his. And he told me that the night I went in—and that it made him crazy to think that a spoiled rich white girl could be so stupid, and so careless.” She offered Ethan a wry smile. “We weren't rich, but the rest of it was correct.”

He returned her smile before adjusting his seat, bringing her in close against his side. “So I take it you hadn't ever thought of yourself in those terms before.”

She shook her head with a self-deprecatory laugh. “I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, actually—and I was numb. Jane had just given me her ultimatum, and I was doing what she'd asked, but I was still reeling from it. And whenever I'd thought of the accident, it was always about me losing my voice. And whenever Jane talked about that night—which wasn't often—it was to remind me that our dad had just flown me out to Seattle so that he could tell us he was dying. Like she thought it excused what I'd done…and in those years after I got out of Mission Creek and before I began working for Old Matthew, I was happy to rationalize everything, take any excuse. When the truth is, I would have been drunk that night anyway.”

She stopped. The story had begun coming out smoothly—pouring out of her—but now Ethan was silent. She didn't want to look up at him, see his reaction, but she forced herself.

Her stomach knotted tight when she met his heavy frown. She tried to smile, wasn't sure that she managed it. “It's not a pretty picture, is it?”

“No, it ain't,” he said. “But it's also an old one, and I've done worse, so it don't matter much to me. But I'm afraid you lost me, Charlie. Why'd you go see Old Matthew, and what's this about an ultimatum?”

“Oh.” She reordered her thoughts, brought in the dangling threads. “Well, after Mission Creek, I moved in with Jane—and was pretty much leeching off of her. I had jobs, but they never lasted long, and a few boyfriends, but I didn't really care if they stayed or went. Because Jane was there, and she was so easy to lean on.” She looked down at her hands. “And it wasn't all bad; Jane and I have always gotten along great. And after so many years apart—and after what she'd gone through taking care of Dad while I was in Mission Creek—I think we really needed each other. But she pulled herself together…and there I was, taking a lot more than I was giving. Not just money, but needing her to tell me I was worth something, because I was having a hard time finding it myself.”

She paused, wondering if Ethan would say anything. But he only smoothed his hand over her hair, and she took it as a signal to continue.

“And it was around that time that Jane finished up her research at UW and published her paper, and then didn't get any of the credit for it. But although I knew she was struggling with something, because she talked about it a lot, I also wasn't really listening to her. But I think now that was part of it—why she just gave up on me. Or snapped, rather. And the stuff she found in my room was what pushed her over.”

“What'd she find?”

Charlie laid her cheek against his chest, stared out into the desert. “Cocaine. And the funny thing is, it wasn't mine. Well, not
funny
, but…but…it starts with an ‘I.'”