Demon Moon (19 page)

She was certain she'd held her shields. He could've smashed through them with a single draw of her blood, but he hadn't.

She licked her lips; his flavor lingered on her tongue. “Are you still waiting for an invitation?”

“Yes. The bloodlust, however, is a bit of a bounder. It cares nothing of etiquette, or being the gentleman. And as you were willing, so it would be. I'd not be able to resist it.” He touched his forefinger to the dash. Three glistening drops remained on the veneer when he drew back; she leaned forward and saw the symbols etched beneath the blood. “In the gym, you lowered your shields in response to pain. I imagine a sharp bite would produce the same effect. If I'd simply wanted past your psychic blocks, I would have hurt you without taking your blood, made it seem a part of loveplay.”

Her heart caught in her throat as she stared at him. Did she have any weaknesses that he hadn't filed away for reference? “Why didn't you?”

“I was tempted,” he admitted, and his grin flashed. “You should be wary, Savi: I may take such a question as the invitation I long for.”

It didn't feel like a warning—it felt like a tease, a promise. She couldn't seem to catch her breath, and she turned toward her window, concentrated on finding an even rhythm.

He hadn't truly answered her, but he didn't need to; he'd had the opportunity to take what he wanted, but hadn't. He was determined to offer her pleasure in exchange for her blood and psychic scent. She could trust him not to hurt her…unless she asked for it.

Her breath fogged the glass. Condensation crept around the edges of the windows. He slid the key in the ignition; the engine purred. That she could hear it at all must mean the spell surrounded the whole of the car's exterior, not just the interior. The heaters blasted, but he didn't wait until the windows cleared before pulling from the space.

She couldn't see. Feeling slightly claustrophobic, she wiped off the steam in front of her as they passed through the gates. Two pale faces stared back at her from inside a black SUV parked across the street. More vampires, probably, but they'd driven by too quickly for her to be certain.

“Tell me what you think Michael asked me, Savi.”

She looked over at him. “Why do you want
me
to tell
you
?”

“You must know even that?” When she nodded, he said with a touch of mockery, “I want to know how much you've learned about me before I offer you further information. To feed my ego.”

She studied his face, watched the grooves form beside his mouth. No evidence suggested that he cared what others thought of him; if he had, surely he'd have taken the role of vampire leader Fia had spoken of. Did he care what anyone thought? If so, that number of people must be very few. And while he obviously enjoyed compliments or anything that gratified his vanity, he certainly didn't seek approval.

More likely, he wanted to guide her questions by first discovering what she didn't know, and then leading her away from anything he didn't want to answer without appearing to deny her curiosity.

“Okay. Where do you want me to start?” How much did he think she knew?

He shot her a disbelieving glance, then his mouth slid into a wide, laughing smile. She bit her lip against her own smile when she realized she'd questioned him anyway.

“The roads are crowded yet; it will be a long drive to Auntie's.” He turned and looked out between the seats. “And perhaps longer than typical,” he added softly.

“The vampires in the Navigator?”

“They've been observing my feeding patterns. I haven't noted them since my return to the States, but apparently they've decided to continue the practice.” He touched the back of her hand. “Do not worry; I'll not lead them to the restaurant.”

She sighed and picked up her bag from the floor. “Yet another reason to marry quickly and leave all this behind: protecting Nani.”

“Yes.” The warmth of his fingers left her skin, and he shifted gears and shot through an intersection beneath a red light. “Tell me about myself, Savitri.”

She looked down at the infrared detector she'd pulled from her bag. “You don't appear in reflective surfaces, like polished metals or still water or windows, but in mirrors, you see and hear Chaos. And you're anchored to that realm by your blood, because of Michael's sword and the changes it made in you when you were human. And maybe because the nosferatu whose blood Hugh and Lilith used to transform you had been killed with the sword, perhaps doubling the effect. Am I right so far?”

At his nod, she continued, “Last year, Lilith and Hugh used your blood to send a group of nosferatu to Chaos. Hugh tricked them into drinking it during a ritual, and they gained an anchor to Chaos so that Michael could teleport them there. There's no escape from that realm, no Gates. And only Michael and Selah can teleport, so there's no possibility they'd get out. They hoped the nosferatu would be killed and eaten by the dragons and smaller creatures in that realm. But we know they haven't all been eaten; if anything, the ones who live grow stronger.”

“Yes.” His voice was flat.

“But Michael lost his sword, which was
his
anchor to Chaos. He can't go there.” A terrible thought occurred to her. “Has he tried to use your blood—body parts—as an anchor?”

“Yes.” He stared straight ahead.

Oh, god. Horrified, she said, “But it didn't work?”

“No. Go on, Savitri.”

She
really
didn't want to consider that, so she said, “So I think that Michael is using your ability to see Chaos to keep an eye on the nosferatu—and the wyrmwolf's attack last month suggests that some kind of portal has opened. You immediately left for England, however, so Michael couldn't keep watch over it. But now that you're back, he wants you to use a mirror until they figure out what's happening, and if the nosferatu in Chaos have something to do with it.” She took a deep breath and powered on the detector, checking its settings to keep her hands busy. “And I know that while I languished with boredom in Michael's temple in Caelum, you were trapped in Chaos for almost a week, starving and almost mad. So I think seeing it now, even through the safety of a mirror, must be…unpleasant.”

Terrifying. The lesson he'd taught her in Caelum had given her a very good idea of how terrifying.

His fingers clenched on the steering wheel. “Castleford told you I could be teleported to Chaos? That I was
mad
?”

“No. He wouldn't divulge such a confidence, even if I'd asked. Nor did Lilith,” she said before he could ask. “I guessed. Are they still back there?”

After another glance over his shoulder, he took an onramp toward the city center. Probably letting the vampires think they were headed to Polidori's. “Yes. Forgive me for doubting you, Savi—but that's a rather spectacular bit of deduction.”

She tested the wide stylus against her legs; on the small handheld screen, her thighs appeared orange and yellow. “Not so spectacular. Lilith can't be teleported anywhere because her anchor to Hell is too strong; if either Michael or Selah tried to take her from SI to our house, they'd end up Below. And if they did, even Michael couldn't teleport her out—she has to go through a Gate.”

With the press of a few buttons, she changed the display mode. The screen blanked, and a moment later read:
Human .2 meters
. She suppressed the little thrill that went through her; it was still a prototype, and hardly worth celebrating.

She continued, “Selah teleported Hugh to my apartment the night Beelzebub and the nosferatu set fire to your house. Hugh told Selah to return for you in your basement before fetching a Healer for him, and she teleported away. Did she find you?” Savi was certain Selah had; Hugh had inadvertently told her as much the previous day.

“Yes.”

“But she didn't come back. Hugh had been her mentor, and the injuries were bad. Really bad. If she could have, she'd have come back. And neither you nor she came to the hospital in the days following, before Michael took me to Caelum. I saw Selah in Caelum three days afterward; she was really shaken up. And when you came to Caelum, it was Michael who brought you…though, given that they were preparing to go against the nosferatu within hours, Selah would have been a more sensible choice to leave Earth at that time, even for a few moments. Unless she
couldn't
bring you. So I think your anchor took you both to Chaos, but she couldn't get you out. Until, eventually, she left you alone and went to find Michael. And he's the one who brought you back.”

“I should have let you question me,” he said. She looked over at him; his tension and stillness belied the rueful humor in his tone.

Her throat tightened. There had been more. His hands, which had been immaculately manicured only a week before Caelum, had been reddened at the tips of his fingers, the nails half-torn away—as if he'd tried to claw his way out of something. Michael couldn't have healed that; self-inflicted and human-caused wounds were beyond his power to repair. And Colin should have healed more quickly on his own, unless hunger had taken its toll and slowed the process. “I'm sorry.”

He cast her a puzzled glance before maneuvering around a truck. “For what do you apologize?”

“Dredging it up. I don't always know when to stop.”

“Must I remind you that I requested your recitation?”

“I could've just asked, ‘What did Michael want from you?' And you could have said, ‘He wants me to make a dreadful observation in a mirror, my sweet Savitri.'”

A smile touched his lips. “Your accent is dreadful. What is that gadget?”

“Just something I've been playing with—I pulled apart a pair of infrared goggles and a handheld game, made some adjustments to the display function. It's for newbies, or humans who can't quickly tell if someone is a human, a demon, or a vampire. I can see the differences after looking for a while, but this would take a temperature reading and tell me right away. And there aren't any human agents at SI now, but eventually there will be. Without psychic abilities, they'll need something like this. Only better—not a bunch of junk.”

“There are humans: Castleford, Lilith…you.”

“They can't really be called human—and neither am I, not anymore. I wouldn't be in this car with you if I were normal, would I?”

“You weren't normal before you ingested the venom, sweet; if you had been, I'd not have spent more than five minutes in your company.”

Wrapped in such flattery, his confirmation shouldn't have stung as much as it did, but at least he didn't lie and pretend it was her, and not what he could get from her.

“Anyway, I wanted to see if it could read through the spell to the vampires behind us.” She frowned down at the screen as she swept the stylus toward Colin, then switched to the IR display. Just a light green blob—no shape at all. “Except it doesn't seem to be working now.”

“It probably is. Try the vampires,” Colin said.

She half-rose and turned to peer through the window behind them, saw the black Navigator as it passed beneath a streetlight. “Why do you still have an accent? You've lived in the States for a century.”

Bright red filled the display: the SUV's engine. The device was too primitive to separate the vampires' data from the motor's, but apparently it could detect heat from outside the spell's protective shield.

“Do you think it an affectation?” He sounded amused.

“Maybe.” She settled back into her seat. “It probably makes it easier for you to hunt. You just say something poetic and they swoon.”

He gave a heartfelt sigh, and said, “‘I die! I faint! I fail! / Let thy love in kisses rain / On my lips and eyelids pale. / My cheek is cold and white, alas! / My heart beats loud and fast;—/ Oh! Press it to thine own again, / Where it will break at last.'” He lifted his hand from his chest and arched a brow. “‘The Indian Serenade,' yet you are not swooning.”

Only because she had something to support her. “Shelley has always struck me as overly dramatic and sentimental,” she managed.

“My sweet Savitri—do
not
tell me you are a cynic. I'll not believe it. A skeptic, but not a cynic.”

“No, I've seen too much evidence to the contrary. Hugh and Lilith. My parents. Selah and Lucas. My best friend just married a man she'd met once before her wedding, and in her last e-mail she declared herself madly in love with him.” She shrugged. “I just think the odds of finding the perfect person are very low, particularly when you've got only sixty years to do it in. So most people either settle for security and fond companionship, or divorce when it doesn't work out and keep on looking. Are you?”

“I have also seen too much evidence to the contrary.” He smiled slightly. “And the odds have not increased over two hundred years, despite the reams of poetry I've recited.”

“Perhaps your odds would increase if you wrote your own.”