Demon Night (5 page)

Charlie's file was in his cache; with a quick mental pull, Ethan made it appear on Lilith's desk. It contained all of the data Jake had found in various government databases and several financial institutions. “Charlotte Newcomb. Three vampires came for her last night.”

Her lips compressed into a thin line before she said, “Is she still alive? Still human?”

Ethan gave a short nod. “They ran when I arrived, and used the symbols.” He hesitated briefly, then added, “Charlie knows. Not details, but she was certain they were vampires, and that a guardian angel came to her rescue.”

“She would have been a lot more certain if you'd failed and she was sucking blood now.” A smile curved Lilith's mouth, but there was little humor in it.

There was less in Ethan's reply. “It's been more than two months since the last transformation. Since Milliken's.”

Lilith flipped open the folder, began scanning the pages. “Any reason for them to wait, when they didn't with the others? Is there anything special about her?”

Plenty, but Ethan doubted there was anything a demon might appreciate. “I figured you'd know better than I would. And why they aren't waiting any longer.”

“I know Lucifer's demons. Those who used to follow Belial are a bit more individual.” She grimaced around the last word.

Jake grinned. “You say that like it's a bad thing.”

“It is when you're trying to predict their behavior, puppy.” She speared him with a dark look before returning her attention to the file. “Cerberus's balls, this girl is a fucking mess. Overdrafts, maxed-out credit cards, late payments.”

“
Was
a mess,” Ethan said with an edge of impatience, not moving from his position by the painting. With his Guardian eyesight, he could easily read the page she was holding. “Those are the financials from three years ago.”

Lilith darted a glance up at him. “So they are.”

Ethan's jaw clenched, and his skin heated slightly. Of course she hadn't missed the date; she'd been trying to draw a response from him, and she'd gotten one. No longer a demon, but still manipulative. Still looking for a man's weaknesses.

Charlie wasn't his. He liked her well enough, but he'd be a damned fool to let a woman like that depend on him or get under his skin.

Apparently oblivious to the smirk that tilted Lilith's lips, Jake leaned forward and tapped his finger against a line item. “A lot of it was this payment—she made it a year after she got out of Mission Creek.”

“A five-thousand-dollar fine?” Lilith's brows arched. “And a year at a state correction facility? Was the DUI her first offense?”

Jake nodded. “No other DUIs, but she'd checked herself in and out of alcohol rehab for a couple of years, so the judge took that as a sign that she wasn't capable of rehabilitating herself. And she totaled her rental car, driving into the side of that restaurant, so there were a few other charges thrown on top of it. She was lucky no one else was injured, or she might not have gotten off as easy as she did.”

Ethan didn't know it had been all that easy, but he didn't respond. He was hardly one to determine suitable punishments.

“Did you check out the inmates who were in with her? Any hits with Legion?” Lilith asked.

“We ran the names,” Ethan said. “There were none.”

“Her financials are clean now, though she doesn't have anything extra,” she noted as she hit the end of the file. “Certainly nothing to tempt a demon. Who gave her the money?”

Jake slid his toothpick between his lips again, leaned back. “Her sister, a little over two years ago. The loan got her out of the hole. That's also when Charlie stopped the careless spending and finally got a steady job.”

“At…Cole's? Hold on.” Lilith glanced back at a page. “She's drunk and drives her car through the window of his restaurant, and six years later he offers her a position as
bartender
?”

Another folder appeared in Jake's hand. “Old Matthew Cole. Sentenced thirty-seven years ago for rape and double murder, then had his conviction overturned a quarter century later when DNA evidence showed he was innocent. Legally changed his name to ‘Old Matthew' because he said that's what he was when he got out—what the courts did to him, he just wanted to make official. Most of his staff has served time for minor offenses.”

“An ex-con turned Mother Hen, with a grudge against the law,” Lilith murmured, shaking her head in amusement, then turned back to the first page in Charlie's file and studied her picture.

“We looked at all of Cole's and the staff's associates as well,” Ethan said.

“She's attractive, I suppose, if one goes for those blond, sloe-eyed, rock-and-roll, just-fell-out-of-bed types. Don't you think so, puppy?”

“I'd do her,” Jake said.

“You'd screw a goat if it looked at you crosswise.” Ethan ignored Jake's rueful grin of agreement and stared down at Lilith. Was she trying to rile him again, suggesting such a thing? Demons didn't have a sexual drive; they could perform the act, but couldn't feel physical desire. “A demon ain't likely to lust after her, and it wouldn't make no difference if she looked as she does now or if she were the bearded lady in a traveling wagon.”

“No, but they recognize and enjoy beauty. It doesn't take much for appreciation to become envy, which might explain the change. I don't know that her face is so remarkable it'd inspire that much envy, though. She's an odd kind of pretty.”

Only the knowledge that Lilith might shoot him kept Ethan from shaking his head in disbelief and observing that women were far more critical of each other than a man ever would be. Even upside-down and flattened by the photo, Charlie's wide-spaced, heavy-lidded brown eyes, her translucent skin, her plump upper lip, and small, slightly crooked teeth called to the most basic urges in a man: to haul her off to bed and put that mouth to good use, to see her eyes darken and skin flush.

“What about singing?” Jake tossed a silvery compact disc on top of Charlie's picture, and Lilith picked it up. “I don't know anything about this kind of music, and most of her performances took place before newspapers and trade magazines began archiving their reviews online—but those I could find said she was some kind of vocal prodigy out of Juilliard.”

Lilith stood, pressed a button on a remote, and a console slid out of the wall. Ethan watched the player suck the disc in, then frowned at Jake. “Where'd you come up with that?”

“Bit torrents. Savi told me about file sharing a couple of months ago, but I only began downloading music last week. And since I was scouring papers for Charlie's info anyway, I looked it up. This was a charity benefit at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with several other performers—you want track eight,” he said when a male began belting an Italian tune that Ethan had first heard when he was human.

Lilith skipped through the CD and, as the initial strains filtered through the speakers, announced, “It's from
Lucia di Lammermoor
.” She caught Jake's look and rolled her eyes. “I was a demon, not a Neanderthal. And the most interesting people have always been the politicians, artists, and poets. She's performing the mad scene from the third act, which means she's a bit of a showoff, but a confident one. It's a difficult—” She silenced herself by pressing her lips together when the singing began. She cocked her head, closed her eyes.

Ethan looked away, stared at the thick-piled rug beneath his boots. He'd listened to enough of Charlie's music collection to recognize a fine voice. Her soprano was light and high—but with a strength that swelled through him, left him full of its sound. And pure, he realized—most regular folks and professional singers had rough edges in their voices, edges that had become more apparent with his enhanced hearing. He'd heard nothing this clear since he'd become a Guardian.

Nothing human, leastwise. A voice like that belonged in Caelum—was what he imagined filled the realm before the Guardians had taken it from the angels.

“Fuck me,” Lilith said after a moment. She returned to her seat without lowering the volume. “
That's
a gift. Unlocking doors is kid's play next to that. And you said she got off easy? If she lost that voice because of her own stupidity it's no wonder she hit a downward spiral.” She looked up at Ethan. “Is she drinking?”

Charlie trilled through a series of quick, high notes that had his gut clenching, his fists tightening. It took a second before he could say, “No. Not a bit.”

“But she's bartending. Classic self-flagellation: it serves as punishment because it's a constant reminder, and the temptation of the drink is its own pain—but she tells herself that her resistance just means she's the stronger for it. Maybe that's why the demons haven't touched her; she's doing just fine tormenting herself.”

“If their goal was torture, I'd reckon you were correct. But they don't send in vampires for that.”

Lilith nodded, her gaze thoughtful. “Let's assume there's nothing about Charlie herself that would have made them hold off, because she doesn't have this voice anymore. But they did, and there had to be a reason for them—or the demon pulling their strings—to change their mind, and her only link to Legion is her sister. Tell me how they came at her.”

“During her break. They knew to find her on the roof.”

“You've been keeping an eye on her for two months now. Did they come around Cole's before?”

“No. Not the evenings I was watching.” If they had, Ethan would've gotten answers from them long ago. “But Charlie calls Jane most every night.”

“So you think that's what tipped them off to her routine.
Who
tipped them off,” Lilith said.

“Jane?” Jake shook his head. “I don't see—”

“No. The boyfriend, Dylan Samuels.” Ethan brushed the sides of his jacket back, hooked his thumbs at the base of his suspenders. “I figure he's a demon.”

Jake's mouth snapped closed, and he glanced warily at Lilith. She set down the folder that had just appeared in her hands and studied Ethan. Her face was expressionless, but if she'd still been a demon, he reckoned her eyes might have been glowing crimson.

“You figure?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“But you aren't certain.”

“About ninety-nine percent.”

Slowly, she picked up the remote and silenced the stereo. “Ninety-nine,” she said flatly. “Why didn't you tell me this as soon as I came in?”

Ethan scratched his jaw, considering. “Two…no, three reasons. The first was the one percent, and his human behavior. He's been bedding Miss Jane for eight months now, and from listening in on Charlie's phone calls I gleaned that he's doing it regular-like. He wasn't the person that recruited her, and she isn't rolling in cash, just comfortable—so there weren't no reason to strike up a relationship or continue it as long as he has. And you've got his transcripts there.” He gestured to the folder on her desk. “I talked to his professors, a few neighbors. He's got a history that goes back at least ten years, though that doesn't guarantee he didn't just take over another man's identity. I didn't want to alert him to my presence if he was a demon, which meant I had to stay away from him and couldn't feel him out too hard. What I have noted is that his psychic blocks are good.”

Lilith was nodding. “But that isn't impossible for humans. Reason number two, because reason number one isn't enough for me not to put a bullet in your eye.”

Which would hurt like a son of a bitch, but wouldn't kill him. “It wouldn't benefit me to fly down here and ask your opinion if I colored it with my assumptions first. It took you ten minutes to consider all of the avenues Jake and I have been exploring on and off for two months, and you discarded each one that I did, coming back to the sister. But maybe you wouldn't have bothered had I opened up with Samuels as the demon. And maybe my ninety-nine has increased half a percent.”

“Maybe?” She tapped her fingers against Samuels's folder a few times before stilling her hand. “All right. I'll give you that. And three?”

“Sir Pup is three thousand miles east. No matter how many weapons you've hidden around this room, I reckoned it'd be mighty difficult for you to murder me, so it was safe to risk pissing you off.”

“Jesus.” Jake backed his chair up, as if edging out of the line of fire. “It was good knowing you, Drifter.”

Lilith ignored him, tilting her head to the side, her eyes narrowing. “I wonder—do people fall for your ‘I'm just simple folk' routine?”

“Yes'm,” he said mildly. “Rather often.”

She leaned back, and Ethan heard the coil of hair sliding against the seat's leather upholstering. “It's also because of your size. Somewhere around six-three, height doesn't suggest power anymore, but ‘big dumb lunk.'”

“I figure I got three extra inches of lunk in my feet then.”