Demon Moon (50 page)

Darkwolf slid into the adjacent sofa; Sir Pup lifted his head to make room for him. “He came to Arwen. She sent him here.”

“She wasn't close to Guinevere, but Arwen was the first when we came here to—” Branning choked, pressed his hand to his face. “Fuck, I can't believe he did that to her. I can't believe it.”

“Do you know where we can find him?” Colin asked quietly.

With a shudder, a clench of his fists, Branning nodded. “Yeah. There's an office on Lawson—”

“Between Funston and Fourteenth?” He saw the other vampire's surprise, and sighed. Taylor had contacted him earlier in the day, reported that one of the Navigators had been parked in front of the building. Lilith had led the raid on the office and come away with two vampires, still caught in their daysleep.

And when they'd awoken, Colin had found it difficult to punish them in wake of their effusive thanks for their capture.

“And another in St. Francis Woods—a residence.”

Colin felt Savi's immediate interest. “Do you have an address?” She pulled out her cell phone as soon as Branning recited it.

Castleford answered on the other end; Colin refocused his attention on Branning. “Will you flee the city?”

Branning nodded, swallowed hard. “He's told us too many times that he'll kill us for deserting. I'll go back to my first community—I've got friends willing to take me in until I can find…” His countenance smoothed, as if he simply couldn't think of taking a new partner at that time, and pushed it away. “We heard about what you did. A few of us have been trying to get out, since things started going bad—they want to know if you can help them. Keep them safe if they run.”

“Yes. It may require relocation until Dalkiel has been slain, but if they come in, we'll provide them protection.” Colin held his gaze. “If they lie, or come to me with the intention of using my promise as a way to hurt anyone in the community, I'll know it.” Castleford would question anyone relentlessly; they'd not be able to deceive him. “And I'll not be merciful if they do.”

Darkwolf waited until Branning had left. “Is he lying now?”

“If he is, I'll kill him; if he's not, Dalkiel will.”

“Lilith and Hugh are taking a few Guardians to check out that address,” Savi said, closing her phone. “You don't think he'll make it out of the city?”

“Perhaps if he leaves immediately. The longer he remains and tries to contact those still following the demon, the lower his chances.”

“He doesn't look as if he cares all that much.”

“No.”

Darkwolf slid his hand over Sir Pup's ears. “Dalkiel is using threats against their partners to keep them in line. For some, it's not effective—some partners are together because there's no one else, and they just have to feed.” He glanced at Savi, then back to Colin. “I am not one of them. I won't bargain with a demon to save myself, but I will Arwen and Gina. I have refused him once; the three of us have. Gina witnessed his humiliation. We were already in line of Dalkiel's anger, but we may be more so now.”

“So we are perfectly clear: I will destroy you if you try. And if I ever need make a choice between Savi and the lot of you, I'll choose her.” He smiled slightly, took her hand to ease her sudden tension. “But there are alternatives.”

“I don't want to flee.” Darkwolf's mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Not again.”

“It may be what saves you,” Colin said. “But you'll not have to run far. The nearest room typically suffices.”

Savi blinked. “You're going to show him the symbols?”

“We've told the employees; it'll hardly stay secret for long. It's a temporary measure,” Colin told Darkwolf as he took out his card, a pencil. “Though the three of you could stay within its protection indefinitely, you'll only need the extra time for help to arrive.”

“It's fleeing,” Darkwolf said, though he leaned forward with interest. “I'm not a coward.”

Amused, Colin lifted a brow. Did he think it made him seem weak? “It's survival,” he said. “We're prey to a demon. And a warren is a more attractive choice than an eternity frozen motionless in the putrid bowels of Hell.”

“Well, god, when you put it
that
way…” Savi rolled her eyes and burst into laughter.

Colin grinned and began to sketch the symbols on the card. The line of the first wobbled. The pencil shook in his hand.

He swallowed, concentrated. Forced it to steady.

Perhaps he was a bit tired, too.

It was eerie, how still he was.

For a few moments, Savi's own breath seemed to stop as Colin slipped into his daysleep. The rise and fall of his chest ceased; his features took on the waxy, bloodless cast of the newly dead.

The subtle radiance that differentiated him from Dalkiel died, like a film of grease over a lens. He was still beautiful, but she decided that bouncing on him in this state wasn't the least bit appealing.

It'd be hours before he awoke. There was nothing she
had
to do that she could. The symbols protected the house, but prevented her from working online. She wasn't hungry, and there wasn't anything to clean.

Days like this were why video games had been created. DemonSlayer it was.

She planned her strategy in the Seventh Level of Hell as she arranged the curtains around the bed. It was Savi's favorite level, full of violent sinners and harpies that had to be killed before moving up to the Sixth Level. Her gaze skimmed the room. Why didn't he put drapes on the windows? He painted in the dark; surely he didn't need natural light for his gallery. Perhaps he just preferred it—

She stifled the scream that threatened to tear with jagged fingernails at her throat.

Outside the turret, Dalkiel hung upside down, grinning though the glass. His scales gleamed dully in the sunlight, his eyes glowed scarlet. In his talons, he held a twelve-inch cardboard box.

Her hands fisted in the heavy velvet, her gut clenching. She was safe. Colin was safe. Dalkiel couldn't break through the spell.

Despite that reassurance, clammy perspiration snaked the length of her spine. Naked. She grabbed for her robe, pulled it on.

As if in response to her sudden fright, her discomfort, Dalkiel shape-shifted into her form. The box disappeared, and he twisted and clutched at his breasts and crotch in a disgusting parody of masturbation.

Anger rose to take the place of fear. Yanking the belt tight around her waist, she stalked into Colin's dressing room. A pistol lay on a pile of neatly folded undershirts.

She could shoot through the glass; the symbols only prevented things from coming in.

When she returned to the bedroom, the gun in hand, Dalkiel was gone. Her breathing rapid, unsteady, she cocked her head and waited. And immediately berated herself.

Stupid. She was
listening
for him; she couldn't hear him any more than he could her.

A red blur had her spinning around, aiming the gun at the eastern window. Nothing. Another blur, across the bay window. She whirled.

Nothing.

He's just trying to scare you
.

And doing a good job of it. He was too quick; she imagined him skittering around the exterior of the house like a spider, all grasping fingers and clinging feet.

The hair at the back of her neck prickled. Fighting to keep her arms steady, she looked at the turret window again. In his demon form, Dalkiel beckoned her with a crook of his claw, then sliced a fingernail over the tape sealing the box closed.

She didn't want to know what was in there; he liked to rip off heads too much. But if he had killed someone, she needed to know who.

She swallowed and stepped forward, until she was only a couple of feet from the glass.

Dalkiel flipped open the lid, lifted out the head by a tangle of blood-matted hair. Eyeless. In the instant before the sun disintegrated it to ash, Savi recognized him.

Ken Branning.

The gassy
pop!
of the silencer was louder to her ears than the snap of glass, the fissured hole in the window.

She'd missed; he was too fucking fast. Her teeth grinding, she made a slow turn. Her heart skipped, raced.

His wings slowly flapping, Dalkiel hovered at the side of the house and flicked open a lighter. A tiny flame leapt from the igniter.

Savi jumped onto the bed, rolled the sheets around Colin's body, scooped him up, and ran.

Colin woke, fear and exhaustion heavy in his lungs and mouth. Savi's psychic scent.

He opened his eyes to smooth steel walls: the shelter in the basement. He sat up, silk falling to his waist; Savi turned away from the monitors, offered him a strained smile.

“Dalkiel. He didn't burn it; I thought he was going to burn it,” she said in a near-babble. “But I think he just wanted to freak me out. Branning's dead, and I shot out one of your windows.”

Oh, Christ. She'd been trapped in here, prevented a call for help by the very thing that protected them. Even the pendant around her neck had been useless behind the spell. Colin wrapped her in his arms, tucked her head against his chest.

“Is he still out there?” His voice was rough.

“I've been watching, but I haven't seen him pass any of the security cameras in a couple of minutes. Not since the sun set, and the thermal sensors aren't picking him up anymore.”

“Inside or outside?” She could have escaped without fearing for herself—Dalkiel couldn't hurt her, even if she'd abandoned the house—but it would have left Colin alone, vulnerable.

“Outside. I'm not paying for the window.”

He tried to drum up a smile as his palms swept the length of her. No injuries, but he
needed
to touch, to be certain. His fangs ached to taste, to feel the truth of it from inside—to completely erase the fear. He kissed her instead, a sweet slide of texture and scent against his lips.

The tension in her slim form slowly eased; her muscles quavered lightly beneath his hands, as if she'd held them too tight for too long.

She breathed his name when he drew back. Arched her neck in a wordless plea.

Oh, sweet Savitri. No need to ask for this;
he
would beg for it. Her blood: a shock to his tongue, a burst of light and color. She gasped, panted as he slipped in, around the thick spiraling vault of memories, sampled the emotions spinning over its surface, found the right notes to strike.

Awe. Fear and delight. Passion and enthrallment.

Caelum.

He could give her this. If only this.

It was hardly enough.

This was not a course he should have been taking—not with Savi. And yet Colin still found himself sitting on a bench outside the new glass-and-steel Federal Building in the middle of the day, waiting for a man who could kill him with little effort.

Probably would kill him for daring to manipulate him in this way.

“I should have expected this of you,” Michael said as he sat beside him. “But I'll admit I did not. Do you need a covering?”

Thick gray clouds hung low in the sky; there was direct sunlight enough to make him squint, not enough to burn. “No.”

Michael leaned back, observing the busy human foot traffic, the flow of government employees in and out of the building. He wore linen trousers and a tailored shirt as a concession to the public, but his sandals appeared castoffs from a poorly produced gladiator film.

“Before I left, Lilith informed me that the latest raid was successful. Seven vampires; there cannot be many more under his control. You have taken the community well in hand.”

“I'll add my self-congratulations to yours when Dalkiel has been destroyed.” Colin studied the Doyen's profile. Savi's efforts had uncovered almost every avenue of concealment the demon had taken, and his only remaining hold on the vampires was their fear. There was little left for Dalkiel to do in San Francisco but to pursue his revenge. “If he manages to destroy me, however, you'd do well to ask Castleford to continue training Fia and Paul. They could take my place, with assistance from Darkwolf and his consorts to form a council.”

“And if Dalkiel does not?” Michael's gaze moved from the people to the bubbling fountain in the concrete courtyard.

“I will stay sixty years, perhaps.” He could not think beyond that time; Savi would age beautifully…and he could not conceive of a life here without her. “And if what Savi fears comes to pass, and we are exposed, I'd be an unlikely spokesperson for any community. So I will establish a council regardless; cameras do not flatter me as well as they do others.”

“Others, such as a demon who was elected to human government office because of his performance on-camera.”

“Yes.”

Michael turned his head; his eyes were hard, his gaze like onyx. “You would not.”

“I am myself surprised by the lengths I'd go to to keep her with me; a demon has no sexual need. There'd be no danger of the bloodlust forcing from me what I don't want to give anyone but her.”

“So you would take his blood, and your blood would be the trade? He'd most likely find a way to kill you. Rael is adept at bargaining; you are not.”

“I may die, yes. His liege is embroiled in a war against Lucifer; he would accept the power it can provide Belial. I would have five hundred years, I think, before he would kill me. That is time enough. “

“Are you attempting to force my hand?”

“Yes. It would be unfortunate if you lost your only access to Chaos.”

Michael smiled, and it moved like ice through Colin's veins. “You are mistaken; Belial wants nothing of Chaos. Only to return to Grace. Rael would probably kill you the moment you stepped into his office, or play with you for his amusement.”

“We shall soon see.”

“Perhaps,” Michael said after a moment of silence, “you are not so poor a bargainer. But you did not have to go to these lengths.”

Colin relaxed slightly. “You denied Savi's request to visit Caelum. You don't have to honor my free will, and may take me to Chaos at any time; but I know Guardians too well. You prefer choice over force. So I'll go willingly, if you allow her access to Caelum whenever she wishes it.”

“Caelum is not for humans,” Michael said. “Nor for vampires.”

“I daresay that in essence, we are not truly vampire or human. And it did not affect her poorly when she was.”

“Perhaps.” Michael watched him; without waiting for an invitation, he sent a psychic probe through Colin's mind, then eased away. He could have no doubt of Colin's resolve, no doubt that this was not a bluff. “Very well.”

“Take her for her protection upon my next daysleep,” Colin said. “I'll not have her terrorized by Dalkiel again.”

“A pair of novices can be sent to the house.”

Colin shook his head. “I confess it is not only for protection; I need to make amends before she leaves. It is best done there, where the injury was given.”

The Doyen's hard mouth softened. “For that reason alone, I would have agreed to this.” Michael stood, lifted his face to the sky, his eyes closed as if soaking up the weak sunlight.

“Would you have forced me?”

“Yes.” With a sigh, Michael looked at him again. “A Guardian prefers not to impose upon the free will of any being, but when it is a moment of necessity and it does not break the Rules, we are often more men than angels—and perhaps more demonic than human.”

Colin nodded, and watched as the Doyen walked slowly across the courtyard and disappeared beyond a concrete sculpture.

What would he be if he forced a commitment from Savi?

Demonic
came to mind. So did
selfish
. But they did not concern him as much as they might have, if the alternative for Savi and him was not
alone
.

The first time Michael had teleported Colin to Caelum, the Guardian had dumped him unceremoniously in the middle of his temple, and disappeared immediately thereafter.

And as pleased as Colin was not to be thrown to the floor, he'd have preferred Michael left as quickly. Instead the Doyen walked with him, nattering on about the effect of the realm seeming to lessen over time—and indeed, Colin noted with idle curiosity, he was not as overwhelmed by it. He'd attributed it to his eagerness to see Savi, but when he stopped and looked, he saw the same beauty, the same perfection…but it did not bring him to his knees.

Nor did it seem a tomb. The faint sounds of Guardian life reached his ears: conversations, practice, movement. Only a few Guardians now—not enough to populate the realm, nor to protect Earth without human and vampire assistance—but it was
life
.

“Perhaps I am better prepared to see it this time,” Colin said as he crossed the courtyard. The archway Savi had declared impossible rose in front of him, and his heartbeat sped to an equally unlikely rhythm. He could hear her, scent her. So close.

She'd teleported with Selah almost three hours earlier; Colin had remained behind to collect the few gifts he'd kept hidden from her since his conversation with the Doyen earlier that week.

“Perhaps,” Michael agreed. “Though I maintain you were both fortunate. With an anchor to Chaos in your blood, your passing through the Gate could have had a much different outcome.”

Colin's brows drew together, and he hesitated for just an instant. “A Gate?”

Michael cocked his head toward the archway. “If I—or any other Guardian—passed through, we'd emerge in a Vietnamese village. I can teleport into that part of Caelum, but not walk.”

Though his stomach was slightly unsteady, Colin grinned. “I must confess it gratifies me exceedingly, knowing there are
two
things I can do that you cannot.”

“An orgasm with a kiss,” Savi said, poking her head into view beyond the left side of the archway, “and walking through a Gate. What's that?” She nodded toward the case in Colin's hand, curiosity widening her eyes.

“One thing,” Michael said without expression. “I'll return for you in two days.” He disappeared before they could respond; a sound like a dainty thunderclap echoed through the courtyard.

Savi blinked. “Did you hear that? The vacuum filling. It works up here. What's in the bag? I brought food. And a digital camera, but nothing appears on the display except the sky, me, and the Guardians. Oh, and Selah showed me the apartment we'll stay in during your daysleep tomorrow; it looks terribly uncomfortable. How do they regulate time when the sun always shines? I wouldn't have minded a trip to Vietnam,” she said as he stepped beneath the archway. “I imagine I'll be traveling a lot pretty soon. I've been thinking.”

The soft despair in her psychic scent told him before she did. His tongue felt thick as he led her toward the fountain. “Will I hunt you across the Earth? Or will you stay?”

“Neither,” she whispered, and her breath hitched in her chest.

The case fell from his grip, the paintbrushes and bottles rattling together. Her weight was nothing; he lifted her onto the wall, pressed his forehead to hers.

“Stay,” he pleaded. “Stay with me, marry me, be with me.” It was selfish to ask; he didn't care. If it took manipulation to force her to commit to him, he would manipulate.

“I think about it,” she said, and her voice was hoarse. “I get to the point where I almost convince myself I could do it. Because my head
knows
you can't help it, that you won't really want to have sex with them, that it's the bloodlust. And how many people have you been with—have
I
been with? They don't matter. Why should any in the future be different?”

They won't be
, he almost lied. But he could not. In the past he had wanted them; now, there was no one else. They
would
matter, because their very existence would hurt her.

“I try to tell myself it's just feeding, like stopping for take-out. And I think you'd be careful. You'd shower before you came home. But then I'd know when it happened, because you'd be in different clothes; so maybe you'd shower every day before coming home so that I don't know exactly when, but it would still be a constant reminder. Eating away at me. At
us
. And not just the sex—you'd feel like shit because it hurt me, and I would feel like shit because you felt guilty for something you can't control. It would ruin—
taint
—everything good between us.”

She was right; and she saw far too much for him to hide anything from her. “And so your solution is to run? To avoid this for the remainder of your life? Do you think that will hurt less?” His tone was harsh, but not cruel. Still he saw each word striking her, the depth of his pain reflecting hers. “You love me, Savi. You will always love me.”

“I know.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I'll come back. A day or two at a time. Once a month. More frequently, if I can.”

His throat closed. Like a blood donation schedule—enough time between feedings that it wouldn't endanger her. But even once a month would take its toll. Hope warred with misery, anger. “Must you leave San Francisco?”

Her hand cupped his cheek; her gaze searched his. “Yes. It would kill me to have you so close, but not to have you to myself.” She forced a smile. “And I'm rich, but don't have much time compared to an immortal; I might as well spend some of both seeing the world. I can perform most of my responsibilities online: work, help out with the community stuff, the information and IDs. I can come back to check on Nani—and be with you as much as I can. And maybe once a year or so, when you've built up your tolerance to animal blood, we can have two weeks. Or three.”

His chest constricted painfully. This would be their life? Was their situation so hopeless that a stolen moment here and there was the only solution; that her gaze brightened as if
three weeks
per year was a bloody miracle?

Yet it was a solution—far from perfect, but he would take it. Take anything she had to offer him. “There will still be others,” he said softly. “How will your leaving make that different?”

Moisture pooled in her eyes; she blinked it away. “Because it's not as real if I don't see it.”

“And I'll not be the only one who pretends things I don't like don't exist,” he said ruefully.

Her smile was watery, but genuine. “Yes.”

“You'll ring me every day?” And he
would
hunt her down when he couldn't bear the separation.

She nodded. “And instant messenger. And text message.”

“I'll be fastened to my computer and cell phone in anticipation. Only I hope not to receive more e-mails whilst you are aboard airplanes, unless they are to inform me of your flight home,” he said. “I will live for your every return, Savitri, and die upon your departure.”

“That's so melodramatic,” she said, but she kissed him frantically, as if her leaving would be in the next moment and death imminent.

He slowed her, soothed her with lips and hands until her breathing regained its steady rhythm and his eyes no longer pricked with tears.

With a sigh, she leaned back to look up at him.

“So…what's in the bag?”

The paintbrushes he laid out on the fountain wall didn't surprise her; the airtight bottles of prepared henna did. Colin poured the mixture into a wide-bottomed bowl; the fragrance of tea tree oil, lavender, and lemon saturated the sterile air. The dark scent of
mehndi
.