Demon Night (11 page)

“No. And won't again, I figure.”

Dead, then. And the news had been recent and unexpected. He didn't sound like a man who'd had time to get used to the idea.

She watched him finish off his drink and hoped he would hear the genuine sympathy in her voice, see it on her face when she said, “I can't give you another, not right away. But if you want some coffee or—”

“No.” He stood, took a beaten leather wallet from inside his jacket, slipped out several folded bills. He didn't throw the money to the bar, but held it out. “The balance is yours. For the story.”

She deliberately let her fingers rest against his before sliding the money from his grasp. His hand was steady as a rock, his gaze clear and focused, but drunk didn't always show. “You aren't driving?”

His smile was slow and warm. “No, Charlie. But I'm grateful for your concern.” He leaned forward.

Oh, Lord, did he have moves. Smooth and quick. His mouth pressed softly against hers. Charlie stood frozen, her forearms crossed on the surface of the bar. He lingered for the space of a breath, then pulled away.

For a long second she couldn't respond, couldn't do anything but stare into his eyes. Thin lines of amber striated the green, like a starburst of gold on a field of emerald.

Finally she shook herself, licked her lips—and tasted alcohol.

His gaze followed the movement of her fingers as she wiped away the smoky flavor of the whiskey before she could begin to want more. His voice roughened. “I apologize, Charlie. That was awful forward of me.”

She should have been enraged, or upset, or—something. But she only said, “I stole a kiss from someone tonight, too.”

“I doubt he thought it was thievery.” He looked at her for a long moment. “And I'm hard-pressed to feel true shame for stealing one from you. That was also for my brother—I'd have died for him to have something so sweet.” He glanced over her shoulder. His face hardened, his eyes cooled to emerald again. “I'd have killed to give it to him, too.”

She was too breathless to form a strong farewell when he turned, and she watched him walk through the lounge with her heart pounding far too quickly. She'd completely misjudged his size when he'd been sitting: as he passed the hostess's podium, he was a head taller than Melody. And unless he'd been standing on the brass rail, he must have been at least six foot two or so to lean over the counter and kiss her.

She blinked when he finally moved out of sight, and glanced down at the five twenties in her hand, then at the ice melting into the pale amber liquid at the bottom of his glass.

Definitely not a port.

That had been about the most damn fool thing he'd ever done.

His mouth a hard line, Ethan stared out over the city, contemplating the speed with which he'd lost his hold on that shape.

Usually, he could shift into his father's form for much longer. He looked down at his hands, concentrated on an image of them smaller. They shrank, sure enough, but it was a damned unsettling feeling.

He was just too comfortable in his own skin; putting on someone else's itched something terrible—and the added distraction of Charlie's soft lips hadn't helped him a bit.

Her lips, the deceptively sleepy look in her eyes when she studied him, the deadpan expression she used when telling a story, the remembered pain that—for an instant—had flared bright beneath the tale.

And her voice. He'd been just fine until he'd started speaking with her.

He could list a hundred different distractions—but, hell, he couldn't truly blame her lips. Truth was, he'd been feeling awful sorry for himself, thinking about Caleb. Her laugh and her smile had done more than the alcohol could toward soothing that hurt, so he'd reckoned her mouth would be even better. But kissing hadn't eased anything.

It only made him think of having more, and that was a dangerous notion. When a man was hungry, one or two bites only whetted the appetite—and he could get real used to being full.

He took a long breath, pushed away the memory of her lips before he got too fuzzy. He couldn't drift and clear his head now—he'd wait until he returned to Caelum. But a few hours up here on Cole's roof would help; he could keep watch for the vampires without taking in too much else.

He could well understand Charlie's attraction to the little roof garden. He liked the city, but solitude was difficult to find—and with senses like his, even more so.

A Guardian blocked out the noise, the scents, and the psyches, until he only heard what felt normal and let the rest fade into the background. But after a few days without drifting, Ethan had to work at blocking them out. For most Guardians, blocking was easy—only in those first Enthralled years did the enhanced senses trouble them.

They didn't trouble Ethan all that much anymore, but it did get to weighing on him, until he was fuzzy and jittery as a human on a couple of nights without sleep, and it became harder to ignore sensations—particularly those he enjoyed.

The buildup happened to all Guardians; Ethan just had to rid himself of the weight more often than others did. More often than even a novice did.

And since he'd been coming around Charlie, he'd had to drift even more frequently than usual. There wasn't nothing about her that didn't grate or stroke or tickle a nerve. With the rasp of her voice, her music, and her sweet-smelling lotions, she put his senses on high alert—and she filled them up almighty quick.

Now that he'd been looking at her, too, he suspected that interval would shorten.

With a deep sigh, he pulled his long jacket in from his cache. The night air was cool, and the contrast of temperature only provided another distraction. He didn't get cold, but he felt the difference; when he was fuzzy, he felt it all the more. It was best just to prevent as much sensation as possible from slipping through.

A psychic sweep of the area picked up the vampires again, still indistinct. It might be they weren't aware of his presence; vampires' minds weren't near as powerful as Guardians' or demons'. Even if a vampire attempted to probe Ethan's shields, he wouldn't necessarily realize Ethan wasn't human.

Still, Ethan wouldn't rely on psychic detection—with enough practice, a vampire or human could form damn good shields, too.

His eyes narrowed when the senator and his son left Cole's. Now, there were two men with shields that could shame a novice Guardian. It wasn't all that unusual for humans who made a habit of guarding their thoughts and responses to have strong psychic blocks; someone in government certainly would. Ethan hadn't given either of them more than a cursory scan after they'd called Charlie over, but he'd attempted to look deeper once Jane and Legion had been included in the conversation.

Considering the son's history with Jane, that inclusion might have been nothing more than coincidence—but Ethan didn't trust coincidence.

There wasn't much suspicious about them now, though. They walked in silence toward a sleek black Town Car, and Ethan was certain it was disappointment that slumped the younger Brandt's shoulders.

Charlie had handled him real well. Just looking at her, it would have been difficult to see how awkward she'd felt, or that she had no intention of meeting with young Brandt later.

Difficult, but apparently not impossible. Standing at the door of his car, the senator said, “She won't return your call.”

Mark Brandt glanced back toward the restaurant. “She might.”

“Don't be a fool, son.” He unlocked his door with a remote device. “This indirect route to Jane will lead you nowhere.”

If using his Gift wouldn't have alerted any nearby vampires to his presence, Ethan would have locked the car door again, simply to observe the senator's reaction. Ethan couldn't get through his shields, but a man's response to an unexpected obstacle spoke loudly enough.

“The direct route got me nowhere, too,” Mark Brandt muttered.

The senator's jaw clenched briefly. “Then create another path.”

That silenced the younger man, and Ethan watched them drive away. Coincidence or not, it was best to have Jake look up the Brandts, see if they had any connection to Legion.

His cell phone was in his cache. He turned it on, then frowned at the display. A moment later, the lighted screen went dark. Well, shit. He'd forgotten that he'd vanished it the last time because of the bothersome beep that signaled the low battery.

Charlie's laughter suddenly hit him, made him look around. The roof was empty. Her voice struck again, and he realized she was talking in low tones with someone inside the restaurant.

Hell and damnation, he'd been
listening
for her.

With a shake of his head, he pushed it away. She should have been background noise. He only listened for what was necessary, or the influx of sounds would drive him mad—right now, that meant a furtive footstep or a whisper. The ring of a blade or the chambering of a bullet.

Protecting Charlie was necessary—but it was best that
she
wasn't.

 

Charlie almost dropped her cash drawer when she turned around and found Ethan sitting at her bar, twenty minutes after Cole's had closed. She'd been thinking that he'd fallen asleep at home or forgotten, or had been waiting for her outside after they'd locked the front doors. She had no idea who had let him in—and she didn't realize how a tight band of anxiety had wrapped around her chest until it let go.

He watched her fumble with the drawer, an easy half smile curving his lips. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

A few quarters slid to the floor, landing soundlessly against the anti-fatigue mat. “I wasn't surprised. I do this every night.” She took a deep breath, steadied the drawer between her stomach and the register. “I have to go in the back, finish up. It might take me a couple of minutes.”

“I don't plan on going anywhere.”

And he did look like he'd settled in, turning on the stool and letting his gaze roam the lounge. She glanced in the mirror; the movement of his head flexed the tendon that ran from behind his jaw to the hollow of his throat. She wanted to run her fingers over his collar, compare the softness of the fabric with the smoothness of his skin. He still wasn't wearing his jacket, though it was past two o'clock in the morning. But then, maybe someone as big and rangy as Ethan didn't get cold; he probably generated his own heat.

Sighing, she bent and retrieved the quarters, then headed through the employees' door. Hot or not, it didn't bode well that he seemed to find Vin putting the chairs up more interesting to observe than he did Charlie.

In his office, Old Matthew was muttering numbers to himself and working his way through a stack of one-dollar bills; she quietly slid her drawer on the desk next to him so he wouldn't lose count, and continued on to the employees' room. He called her name on her way back through.

Old Matthew's office was an explosion of paperwork that he always claimed was completely organized, but he'd brought her in more than once to help him search for a paper he'd mislaid. The one-way mirror on the back wall looked out over the lounge; through the silhouettes of bottles and shelves, Charlie saw Ethan pick up a pink packet of sugar substitute from the bar, read the back, and shake his head.

“Charlie, take a look at this.”

She tore her gaze away from Ethan. Old Matthew had rocked back in his chair, holding a pair of bills over his head and squinting at them under the light. The tiny loops in the black kufi she'd knitted for him at the beginning of winter were a little loose and faded now; he wouldn't care that it was becoming worn, but she made a mental note to pick up yarn for another.

He gave her the cash, his big fingertip sliding down the edge. “See the ink here?” Purple had soaked into the side of the twenty in a long blotchy streak. “It's from a security packet, the kind they use at banks. During a robbery, the teller will stick this in the bag with the cash. When the packet explodes, it marks all of the bills in the bag.”

They were old-style twenties, with the small portrait of Andrew Jackson. Charlie didn't get them often, but enough not to bother looking twice when she did. “These were from my drawer? Should I not have taken them?”

“No, no—I needed to talk to you, but I'm not pulling you in about this. I just thought it was interesting. When they get the guy, the money is taken into evidence—then eventually destroyed, because there's not much usable left after that packet goes off. But these are in sequential order; they haven't been in circulation, though their print date was over fifteen years ago. So he'd been caught, just got out, and went back to wherever he'd stashed the money—or had been holding on to it until he thought it safe to spend.” He slid the bills back into her drawer, and his face wrinkled around his grin. “I don't care if he spends it here, as long as he doesn't plan on taking any. And I'd bet dollars to donuts he knew just how to distract you.”

Blood rushed to her face. Old Matthew hadn't missed the kiss through the one-way. But though he was laughing at her, her embarrassment couldn't last—and she didn't let herself acknowledge the disappointment that the kiss hadn't been about her at all, but a way of getting the marked money into her hand.

“He was slick,” Charlie agreed. A glance at the one-way confirmed that Ethan didn't look impatient or bored—only watching the floors being mopped in the lounge, a slight furrow on his brow that told her he probably wasn't thinking of the nightly cleaning. “What else did you need to talk about?”

Old Matthew unpinned the schedule from the corkboard behind his desk, flipped it to the second page. “Do you still need the time off next week?”

“Yes.” A hard little knot formed in her stomach; the semester had been a difficult one. She'd asked for three days to complete a project and study for finals—days that she desperately needed. “I thought Robbie was okay to cover my shift.”

“He is.” Old Matthew glanced up at her from under his thick brows. “You still planning on using Cole's as a model for your project?”

“Yes.”

“How about you get started early on that? Working back here part of the evenings, helping me with some of the paperwork to give you a better feel for it.”

The knot unwound, and her smile tugged at her cheek. “Is it the bruise?”

“Charlie girl, if I wanted ugly up front, I'd have Robbie tending the bar all the time.” Old Matthew's teeth were very straight and white against his dark skin, and his grin was broad. When her laughter faded, he added, “No. Truth is, I've been thinking about this since you first mentioned the classes. I've just been too set in my ways to do anything about it yet.”

“About what?”

He waved his hand at the mess around his desk. “I'm starting to feel trapped in here with all these numbers, seven days a week, year-round. This wasn't all that I wanted to be doing when I started her up—and you don't want to be slinging drinks forever.”

Once, it hadn't mattered what “forever” consisted of. Now she knew this wasn't all she wanted—she just didn't know what “all” was yet. But she said, “I like working the bar—”

“Charlie girl, liking isn't
living
.” The frown that passed over his face left it looking more careworn than normal when it receded. “You can get comfortable enough in any situation; that doesn't mean you should accept what you've been handed and stay there.”

“Yeah.” There was no other response to that. “Would this be a permanent thing?”

“If it suits both of us. ‘Assistant manager' sounds like a pretty nice title to put on the résumé, whenever you figure out what it is you're doing after you're done here. We can work you up to that, and I can start taking off a few nights a week.”