Demon Night (13 page)

Put them down.
This wasn't a risk Ethan was taking again, not with these vampires. He let go of the one he was holding; his sword slid through the vampire's neck before his feet hit the ground. Two quick slices as he ran past the vampires lying motionless on the sidewalk meant they wouldn't be getting up again.

The female turned to flee; Ethan set his sights on the male at the door and let her go. He needed one left alive to deliver his message to Legion.

Unless Legion was coming to him.

That scaly psyche he'd felt the night before crawled over his skin, and it was getting closer, stronger. A demon posed a real threat to Ethan, and he wouldn't be protecting anyone if he was gutted or dead.

Time to get Charlie out of there.

 

It was so unbelievably fast.

One second Charlie was stumbling away from the pale woman, crowding into the corner again, and calling herself an idiot for being startled. And the next second, the door was opening and the vampire who'd had an arrow lobotomy was coming through.

Then crimson arced in a horizontal line across the booth panels beside Charlie, sprayed her face in a cool mist. The vampire's head slid forward off his neck, his body slowly crumpling before it was yanked away from the open door like a marionette.

Ethan. His maroon shirt black and wet, his skin dripping red. Charlie wiped at her face, stared at the blood on her fingers. They began to shake.

“Easy, Charlie.” She heard the urgency in his voice but couldn't make herself take the hand he offered her. “You're all right.” He glanced down; the stains on his skin and clothes disappeared. The itchy slide over her cheeks was gone, her fingers clean again.

The body at his feet vanished, then the head.

Ethan swallowed hard. “Charlie, there's something worse coming.”

Worse? But it must be: Ethan stiffened and looked to the side; a female's scream ripped through the air.

Charlie leapt toward the door, and his arms circled her, brought her in tight. White flashed behind him, soft and bright and beautiful. His wings unfolded, and pressure made her head swim, her chest ache, her stomach drop, like driving down a hill too fast and realizing nothing was going to stop her until she got to the bottom. The edges of her vision blurred, but she looked down and back, the ground like a dark blank sky lit by the stars of streetlights and two glowing red eyes.

 

Having to fly hadn't helped Ethan heal any faster, but the gunshot wound had subsided to a dull ache by the time he was over their apartment building. The speed with which he'd launched himself into the air meant Charlie had lost consciousness, but Ethan reckoned it was shock that kept her out until he settled onto her balcony. He rid himself of the wings and held her lightly across his lap, her head on his shoulder.

He made himself pat her cheek instead of stroking his fingers over her skin, murmuring her name over and over so that she wouldn't startle so bad. That he'd brought her to a familiar location would help, but they couldn't stay long.

He'd vanished each of the dead vampires and their weapons into his cache before the demon had arrived, but the female hadn't yet been dead when he'd gotten Charlie away. And there was blood to clean up, bullets to collect, evidence to destroy.

The fifteen-second altercation had left far too much for humans to find and wonder about.

Charlie stirred, her lips gently parting—and then she was sitting upright, her eyes wide. She looked around, and he felt the instant she recognized her surroundings, but her bolt toward the sliding door wasn't out of fear.

She didn't make it, and he held his palm under her ribs, keeping her steady and off the floor as her knees collapsed and she bent, heaving into the corner. Nothing came up, though it clamped hard on her body.

A normal reaction, he told himself. But he still worried as she straightened and tugged listlessly at the balcony door. She didn't comment on how easily it opened, though she must have remembered locking it. He couldn't sense much from her, but she wasn't blocking; sliding into her emotions felt a little like touching the mind of the vampire whose brain he'd smashed.

He followed her inside, past the tiny dining room table and the vase filled with blue marbles in the center of it. Her coat dropped to the floor.

“Charlie.”

She halted in the short hallway, but didn't turn to look at him.

“We can't stay here. They've become aggressive enough; you wouldn't be safe.”

Her hands clenched convulsively at her sides. The rasp didn't conceal the dullness in her voice. “Are my smokes still over at your place?”

“No.” His jaw tightened, and he considered smashing the vase against the wall, scattering those goddamn marbles all over just to wake her up, but he pulled the pack in from his cache instead.

Touching the mental space only pissed him off more; the vampires' bodies felt like grotesque lumps in his mind, on his tongue.

She took a cigarette from him, put it between her lips. Patted her pants pockets. “I need to get my luggage?”

And he didn't like that she formed it as a question—looking for guidance, having him tell her what to do, not making any decisions.

“No.” He vanished the pack of cigarettes, and she blinked. The sweep of her dark lashes was echoed by a brush of curiosity and surprise. “Just tell me what you want me to take.”

She pulled the cigarette from between her lips and rubbed her forehead with her scissored fingers. “Am I coming back?”

“Well, I don't rightly know, Miss Charlie. I reckon that's up to you.”

Her brows drew tight, as if she wasn't quite certain she'd heard the frustration beneath the drawl.

“Should I give notice to Jenkins?”

The landlord. That vase was in immediate danger, and he figured every other breakable within reach was, too.

“Not tonight.”

She took a deep, trembling breath. Resolve stiffened her psychic scent. “We'll take it all.” Her thumb tapped the end of the cigarette, and she glanced up at him. “How?”

He sized up the table with a look, pulled it into his cache. The vase fell, and he vanished it just before it hit the vinyl flooring. A small banquette stood by the sliding glass door; her lighter lay in the wide-bottomed bowl that sat next to a small potted cactus.

“You need that lighter, Charlie?” He pointed. “And I can't take your plant, because it's alive.”

She flicked the cigarette in the same direction. Her hair slid across her shoulders as she shook her head. “No.”

Too easily, he saw himself wrapping its apple-scented length around his fist and taking a long, hard taste from her mouth, so he vanished everything but the plant and moved on to the next room.

“My music,” she said, coming to stand next to him as the furniture in her living room and the little desk in the corner vanished. He used more care with her CDs, taking them one at a time and reading the titles as he did. They disappeared from her shelves like rows of falling dominoes.

They crowded into the small bathroom, and she wasn't watching her things vanish anymore, but was gazing up at him, wonder and fascination flushing her cheeks. Countless bottles of lotions littered her cupboards and sink, razors in pretty colors and curved to slide over a woman's contours with nary a nick. Her skin would be soft and smooth under a man's hands.

And her psychic scent wasn't empty anymore, but filling up with something that made him even more uneasy: awe.

He wasn't a goddamned hero, and if she looked at him like he was one it'd keep her as helpless as shock might: depending on him to make all her decisions, deciding what was right.

And he particularly didn't like how all-fired good it felt when she looked at him that way.

Damnation, but she'd riled him up with that zombie routine, and worse now that she'd come out of it. It wasn't like him. His temper was slow to heat and cooled off quick, rarely reaching more than a simmer. But she'd not only got his temper going—she'd gotten the rest of him, too.

He strode past her and cleaned out her bedroom before she had a chance to stand in the room with him, her appreciation and scent and that golden soft skin tempting him into something he ought not to be even thinking. Not with a woman like her, not in circumstances like these.

“You got anything else?”

“No.” She touched her fingers to the cross at her neck. Her voice was hoarser than usual. “What are you, Ethan?”

“Not that.” His gaze fell to the necklace. “But if you've been to church I reckon you've heard the story enough. Part of it, leastwise.”

Worry darkened her eyes. “I haven't.”

“Well, Miss Charlie, you're in good company, because I haven't sat on a pew for a hundred and thirty years.”

She began to smile, but it froze midway. “You're serious.”

“That I am.” He scanned the apartment, the surrounding area—and didn't detect anything, but he wasn't going to wait until more vampires showed up or give the demon a chance to follow them. “But I'll tell you the rest of it when we're secure.”

Her nod was jerky, a touch of fear flickering deep. She followed close behind him, out of her apartment and into his. He didn't have anything to collect but the cell phone charger plugged into the wall outlet.

A thread of doubt colored her psychic scent. “Did you already get all of your stuff?”

“There wasn't nothing to get,” he said, and continued out to the balcony. He looked back, saw her standing in the living room, taking in the emptiness. “You ready?”

She hurried out, stepped up close to him. Forming his wings pulled at the bullet still lodged in his back, but he was glad of the distraction when she wrapped her arms around his neck, when she gasped and laughed in startled delight as they caught air.

This time, though he went straight up, he didn't have to go so quickly. He slid his arm under her knees, shifted her weight. It was easier for him to maneuver—and more comfortable for Charlie—if he carried her cradled against his chest rather than hanging. Her breath puffed against his throat, formed a cloud of vapor that slid instantly away with the wind as they ascended.

“Ethan.” His name vibrated through her chattering teeth. “Do you have my coat?”

He didn't need to gain any more altitude; they were high enough that no one looking up would see them. He hovered, his wings beating steadily. “You've got to hang on to me.”

She nodded, her arms tightening and holding her face close to his. He slowly lowered her knees, let her take her own weight. Draping the coat around her shoulders was awkward, the wind threatening to rip it away, the wool flapping and twisting.

Until Charlie wound her legs around his waist, held on with one arm, and stuck her other arm through the sleeve. She switched sides and quickly repeated the action before bringing her eyes even with his.

Her hair was blowing against his face, caught in the seam of his lips. Her thighs tightened at the sides of his hips, and she lifted her hand to his mouth, dragging the strands away with a curl of her finger. “Thank you, Ethan.”

He gave an abrupt nod. “It's what I do.”

Charlie regarded him steadily, but he didn't dare sink into her emotions to discover if anything more than gratitude lay behind that expression. After a long moment, she sighed and laid her cheek on his shoulder. Her hand trailed over the frame of his wings on its journey back around his neck.

Ethan pushed her legs down over his hips and slipped his arm beneath her knees before she felt how much he'd wanted her to lay her lips against his again.

In gratitude, in awe—for any damn reason at all.

Ethan had a heartbeat.

Charlie wasn't certain why that reassured her so much, but the deep sound and even rhythm of it did. After a few moments of listening, she braved her face and eyes to the freezing wind created by his flight. Seattle stretched out below them—then abruptly the city lights were gone, everything below them dark as they crossed Lake Washington.

Giant residences lined the opposite shoreline. She knew of the area, though it had been a long time since she'd been invited to anyplace like it, and that hadn't been in Seattle. Eastside was home to the billionaires of the tech industry or the likes of Senator Brandt.

And, apparently, Ethan. Instead of heading farther inland, he skimmed above the placid water before landing on a wooden dock. She swayed in time with the lapping of the water against the floats until her knees adjusted to the motion. Moonlight whitewashed the stairs that led up the hill and gleamed in the windows of the lodge-style house. Tall firs broke the peaked line of the roof's silhouette.

Ethan was looking up at the large, rustic home with the same appreciation—and, she thought, a little bit of surprise. She saw him glance at the address placard tacked to the dock post, check it against a piece of paper that appeared in his hand, and shake his head.

“You don't own this?”

“No.” His hand captured hers. The trees cast shadows across the upper half of the stairs, leaving it too dark for her to see—but he had no trouble navigating the steps and the flagstone path that led to the lakeside entrance. “Ramsdell Pharmaceuticals does. I just figured it'd be…fussy.”

She blinked quickly. The job hadn't been a lie? Did he live a normal life at the same time he fought vampires—and whatever he considered to be worse?

“What was coming back there at the phone booth?”

“A demon.” The door opened at his touch. Though he had them folded tight against his back, his wings brushed the sides and top of the door frame. He paused just inside, consulted the paper again, then moved to the security panel situated between a giant picture window and a framed landscape painting.

A demon.
She didn't know much about them, only what she'd seen in movies and operas, but she had a good idea what the opposite of a demon was.

Charlie stared up at his profile, then at the wings arching above his head. She'd touched them—soft down had covered a heavy frame of bone and muscle; the flight feathers had been like silk. And though she longed to run her hands over them again, now it struck her as shameful that she'd done it without permission…and possibly blasphemous that she'd touched them at all.

And she wasn't even sure what she was blaspheming.

She tucked her hands into her coat pockets. More than touching—she'd stolen a kiss from him. Thought of doing things a lot less innocent than that.

The alarm light switched from red to green. Ethan studied the security panel as if he expected it to give up a secret, then finally turned toward her.

His eyes narrowed. “Whatever you're thinking that put that fire in your cheeks, you unthink it. I got a pile of mattress stuffing on my back, but it don't mean I'm wearing a halo.”

His reading her so easily only made her embarrassment worse, but she said in the strongest voice she could muster, “Okay.”

The sound in the room was strange; large and open, with vaulted ceilings lined with beams—their voices should have echoed, come back hollow. Instead the tones remained full without bouncing back. Perhaps the amount of wood and the thick rugs softened the echo, or they'd placed sound dampeners in the walls, like the shell of a concert hall.

The furnishings were light in color and sparse; paintings filled the walls, but it was too dark to see details on the canvases.

Ethan was looking, too, but whatever he saw on one wall made him smile a little. It turned into a grimace when his wings vanished. He cocked his right elbow and rotated his shoulder in a wide circle before holding out his hand to her again.

“I've got to go back, Charlie, see what I can about the demon and anything he left behind.”

Charlie swallowed hard. “All right.”

His palm enfolded hers, and she realized how cold her hands were from the flight and the unheated house. “You'll be fine here. Take a look at this.” He led her to the door, placed his fingers about halfway up the frame. “You see these markings?”

It was dim enough in the room that she couldn't see anything, but when she trailed her fingertips down the wood, she could feel the scratches on the smooth surface—and remembered how Ethan had scraped something into the phone booth. “So, these will keep vampires out—unless they're invited in?”

Had she accidentally invited one into the booth?

“An invitation doesn't mean anything,” Ethan said. He let go of her hand, and a dagger flashed in his. “It's a spell. You put your blood on each one of these symbols—there's three of them—from top to bottom, like this.” He stabbed the pad of his thumb, touched it to the frame three times.

Charlie's breath caught. The house had been quiet, but now it was silent; she hadn't been listening to the lake, the wind, but she heard their absence better than she had their lapping and sighing.

“This one's on a main entrance, so it locks down the entire house. There ain't nothing that can get in, not demon or vampire or human—and you've got nothing to worry about but an earthquake or fire.”

“But—”

Ethan wiped at the frame with his sleeve, and the sound slipped back in.

Charlie's lips parted in realization. “Oh.”

His smile edged just a bit higher on the right side when he looked down at her. “I ought to have warned you.”

She almost said,
That's okay
, but then she remembered the vampire's face and his fang-filled grin. “You should have,” she agreed, and watched him poke his thumb again. “Will my blood do that?”

“Yes. But if your blood activates the spell, I can't get back in. The spell will stay up for as long as a person's alive inside—but only the one who cast it can go in and out. So if you go out while I'm gone, you'll be able to get back in, but the spell won't be around the house anymore—you got that?” At her nod, he continued, “You won't be able to call anyone or communicate through the shield it creates. Nothing gets through; not television, not e-mail, not radio.”

“Nothing at all?” Charlie frowned, wondering why that tripped a memory for her.

Ethan shook his head. “I could stand outside the window and write a note on a paper, but you wouldn't be able to read it. You'd see it, but couldn't understand it.”

“Oh. Well, that's normal for me.” She gave up trying to remember what had pulled at her memory. Everything was coming at her too fast; she could feel herself withdrawing again, going numb, and he hadn't even told her what he was. She took a deep breath and admitted, “I need some time to process all of this, Ethan.”

“You'll get time. If you like, you can claim a bed and sleep. I'll be a good hour or so.”

She looked back into the large, open room, the moonlit water outside the window, the distant sparkle of the city. “I think I'll stay in here.”

For a long moment, Ethan's gaze was steady and firm on hers; then his brow furrowed like a man facing a puzzle. “I don't see a single electric light switch, or I'd turn them on for you. I suspect they're integrated into the computerized system that runs the house, but I neglected to ask the details—and I don't want to go selecting the wrong button.”

Charlie shrugged. “I like the dark.”

“Yes, but you ought to have something—” He blinked. “Well, hell.”

She turned as Ethan strode past her, the tails of his coat brushing her legs. There was no sign that his wings had penetrated the brown fabric, but it was marred by a small hole high on his back. Charlie frowned, followed him.

The main part of the room had a sunken floor. Charlie stood at the edge of the two steps leading down; Ethan had her favorite lamp, the one that had been next to her bed, and was plugging it in and setting it on a small table. The stained-glass shade washed the room with soft blues, reds, and golds.

It was comforting, familiar—and she had to admit, better than the dark. She folded her arms over her chest, and wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or start crying.

Ethan came to stand in front of her, his left foot on the first step. “You'll be all right, Miss Charlie.”

She swallowed hard, nodded. “Are
you
okay? Did they shoot you?”

“They got me, but it ain't no trouble.” He showed her his thumb. “I heal quick.”

The wounds he'd made with his dagger were already gone—not even a trace of pink remained. She held herself tighter to keep from touching his hand, raised her gaze to his face, let it settle on his lips. Her brows drew together. “But you have a scar.”

His smile held a hint of teasing in it. “A souvenir from when I was human,” he said. The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. “I keep it because womenfolk can't resist taking a better look; and once they're in close, they're like bears on honey.”

Laughing relieved some of the pressure that had been building up in her chest, left her slightly light-headed. Ethan was watching her, grinning in full now, and Charlie could easily believe that any woman near those lips would be tempted.

She was probably too close.

Her laughter faded, her breath came hard. He didn't move away when she leaned toward him. For an instant she was unbalanced, at too far an angle over the stairs—but she braced her palms on his wide shoulders and caught his upper lip between hers, a soft brush before simply holding her mouth against his.

It was easy, so easy to stand there with his breath heating her bottom lip. But Charlie knew herself too well, and this felt too good. She wouldn't be satisfied with a little taste—she'd want more.

And although his lips moved under hers, Ethan wasn't kissing her back; he just wasn't smiling anymore.

She pulled away, her hands falling to her sides.

Ethan blinked his eyes open, and a vertical line formed between his eyebrows, as if he was surprised to see her standing a foot away.

“Well, I'll be going—” He shook his head, blinked again, and looked down at his hand. “You'll be—” His jaw tightened, and he glanced up at her. “Son of a bitch.”

Ethan simply straightened, shifting his weight forward and up, his left foot still on the first step but now he was towering over her. His fingers speared into the hair at her temples, his huge hands cupping her face and tilting her head back for the claim of his mouth.

Heat surrounded her: his palms curving around her cold cheeks, his chest against hers. Her fingers slid beneath his jacket, across the softness of his shirt and the hard muscle it covered.

Oh, Lord, and his
mouth
. Hot and wet, and he didn't wait for her to recover from her surprise but used the insistent pressure of his lips to guide hers apart. He sipped, licked, and his warmth stole through her, sliding down to her belly and seeping into her blood like a sweet kiss of Drambuie, leaving her flushed and dizzy and all too ready for another drink.

But this couldn't be bad for her. The shuddering drag of her breath when his mouth left hers wasn't harsh to her ears, but the most luscious sound she'd made in years, the emotions unmistakable. Need. Desire. Wonder.

Ethan spoke roughly against her throat, and she didn't hear the words clearly but her answer was yes. Her necklace loosened—disappeared. She thought of the scar, then banished it from her mind.

Demons and vampires could never hurt her as badly as she'd hurt herself. And she'd done enough wrong in her life, fucked up so many times that she didn't know how she deserved to be here now, with a man with wings and a laugh like whiskey and who kissed as if he wanted to swallow her down—but she'd be grateful for it every second of the rest of her life, even if she never encountered anything like him or anything miraculous again. And now she only wanted to crawl onto him, lean on him, and hold on to this wondrously
alive
feeling—

Ethan froze. He lifted his head to stare down at her, his eyes like amber stone. His thumbs swept across her cheekbones—and then he abruptly let her go and turned away from her. “I'd best go.”

His voice was as hard as his expression had been. Reeling from the change, she didn't know what to say, tried to read his profile instead—but it was inscrutable. “Ethan?”

A round-brimmed hat appeared in his hand and he jammed it on his head, shadowing his features. “Don't rely on me, Charlie. I'll keep you safe. But don't be thinking it's more than that, or that I'll be anything more than someone who protects you.”

But he'd wanted to be. A man didn't kiss like that unless he craved it. Her chest tightened, and she struggled to understand the point behind his warning. “Because you're unreliable?”

Maybe there was a kindness in that—cautioning her that nothing would come of a relationship with him except disappointment. But Charlie wasn't looking for anything permanent, and she'd never been idiot enough to think she could change someone.