Demon Moon (4 page)

“No, not all of them. There were a few that weren't part of Lucifer's bargain, and there's one here.” Savi turned on the tap, clenched her teeth as the water washed away the blood. The wounds still seeped, and she wrapped tissue around them. Added more around her palms. “You're going to be safe in here—but you can't leave, okay? I'll be back in a minute or two.”

“No,
naatin
. I forbid it.”

She met Nani's gaze in the mirror. The same dark eyes—the same features, but for Savi's wild, spiky hair and slightly lighter skin. “There's no one else.”

“Yes, there's no one else. You are the last, Savitri. I can't lose you, too.”

“You won't,” Savi said, her voice thick. “I promise you won't.”

Nani's braid fell over her shoulder with the force of her headshake. Savi tucked it back. “You'll make me cry. You are too impetuous, too unsettled.”

“I know.” She bent and kissed her grandmother's forehead, then turned.

“Savitri! Make a promise you can keep.” Nani gripped her forearm. “Promise you will let me find a husband for you, so that you marry this year. Let me know you are in a good position before I die. Make an old woman happy for once.”

She hesitated only for a moment. “Will you stay here if I promise?”

“Yes,
naatin
.”

A short laugh escaped her, and she closed her eyes. “Alright, Nani. We'll find a suitable boy.”

Michael didn't come.

Despite everything, Savi had waited another two minutes, leaning back against the lavatory door and pasting a smile on her face as if nothing was wrong, as if her grandmother wasn't locked inside a toilet and surrounded by magic made from symbols Lilith had learned from Lucifer.

Savi had been rescued by a Guardian once before; perhaps that one time was all her karma allowed. Perhaps every bit of good had been used up when she'd been nine years old and Hugh had thrown himself in front of her, attempting to shield her from a pair of bullets.

Even then, velocity had almost triumphed over virtue—one lead slug had passed a millimeter from her spine, the other an inch above her heart. Small distances in a small body, but had Hugh not been there, had his flesh not changed the bullets' speed and trajectory, she wouldn't have survived; the gunman had aimed for her head.

Her parents and her brother had not been so fortunate.

The flight attendant gave her a sympathetic smile.
Yes, they've been in India. Oh! Their poor intestines. The grandmother will be in there for some time. And there goes the younger, stretching her legs as she tries to settle her stomach
.

At least that's what Savi hoped she thought. Surely she wasn't thinking of breaking strain, force per square inch, friction, James Bond villains, and magical venom. But it was hard to determine; maybe those things did occupy the mind of a woman who spent most of her time thirty-five thousand feet in the air between Britain and America, surrounded by a thin shell of aluminum.

But the flight attendant probably didn't think about the venom. Savi didn't think about it much, either—she knew that Lilith had to cut into venom sacs beneath her hellhound's tongue to collect it, and that Sir Pup was awake when it happened.

It wasn't an operation that Savi liked to consider, and she was grateful she'd never seen it.

Down the portside aisle, past the sleeping businessmen and-women, to the coach class. Two blue seats near the windows, four in the center. The nosferatu was in the second row; she didn't look at it as she made her slow circuit, crossing to starboard behind the last line of seats in the cabin. Most of the passengers slept.

Michael? Selah? Now would be really, really good
. The nosferatu's arm hung over its armrest, its fingers flexing. In anticipation? How had it afforded the flight? Where had it obtained identification? Had it simply slipped in with its inhuman speed? Was there a body in the cargo hold—or in the airport—belonging to the person who was supposed to have been in seat 29B?

She shook her head. It took some effort, but she quieted the portion of her brain that screamed for answers. Some things were very simple: Gravity made airplanes fall out of the sky when pilots and passengers were dead; a long distance divided by a short time made a fledgling's speed
too slow
; nosferatu were Evil, with a hatred of humanity, and no Rules preventing them from murder.

Worse than demons. Or vampires.

Or suitable boys.

She uncapped the hellhound venom and poured it into her mouth, held it on her tongue. It tasted oddly sweet and heavy, like nectar from a sun-warmed peach. It was too bad her face had to be the delivery system.

The passenger behind the nosferatu had reclined his seat. Hopefully asleep—and hopefully he wouldn't mind that Savi was going to sit on his lap for a few seconds.

She lifted the wire coil from around her neck. Made a single loop.

Then she stepped into the row behind the nosferatu, dropped the loop over its head, and fell into hopefully-sleeping-guy's lap.

She didn't have to pull much; the nosferatu's powerful surge to its feet did most of the work. It yanked her forward, and she smashed into the seatback, almost swallowed the venom. The wire slid through her left hand, providing enough friction to tear and rip—her fingers, and judging by the sudden spray, its throat. Like pomegranate juice.

The copper snapped.
Oh god, oh god. Please let it have cut the carotid artery
. It wouldn't kill it, but it would give her time. Sleeping-guy yelled and struggled beneath her. She leapt up, her stomach against the headrest. Blood was everywhere. She sealed her lips against the side of the creature's gaping neck, the pumping blood, felt its hand come up, its nails digging into her right shoulder—and she expelled the venom.

Like blowing up a balloon, Savi
. A wet, cold, disgusting balloon.

Screams rang in her ears. The hand fell away from her shoulder as paralysis set into the creature—maybe it would be enough. It would have to be; it was all she could do.

She ran. A passenger managed to grab her skirt—but he couldn't hold on. That was the thing about momentum and velocity: it often won despite good intentions.

Locking the door was unnecessary, but she did anyway. Nosferatu blood covered her chin, was
in
her mouth, her throat. She gagged and spat into the sink, splashed at her face. Her right arm and her fingers were numb. Nani sat on the commode and quietly sobbed into her hands.

Savi smiled weakly, forcing out her words through the chattering of her teeth, the sudden shivering that had overtaken her body. “A surgeon? A neurosurgeon. Ivy League. Fair-skinned. Tall and handsome.”

But not too handsome.

“…so…beautiful…” The blonde moaned the words as she came. The third woman that night, but he could not stop drinking. A dull ring in his ears—his cell phone, Colin realized dimly. Lilith.

He didn't want to know. Neither Selah nor Michael had been in Caelum; the fledgling Guardian Lilith had sent had been forced to wait until one of them had returned. It had taken more than an hour and a quarter before the fledgling alerted Selah. Colin had flipped on the television once, only to hear of “Terror in the Skies.”

Then he'd left to hunt.

He broke away and pushed the sleep onto her. She fell limp, unconscious in his arms. He sliced his lip and mixed his blood with hers to heal the punctures. He'd almost taken too much, but she was strong, young. She'd recover quickly.

He let her slide to the linoleum floor in a boneless, quivering heap. Her groceries still sat on the counter. He paused to inhale the scent of oranges, then shoved the bags into the refrigerator and carried her to her bedroom. A nice, tidy flat. A moderately intelligent woman, but she shouldn't have invited a stranger up, no matter how lonely she was, nor how handsome and strong and helpful he'd seemed.

She'd not learn a lesson from it, however; she'd forget him by the morning. Or, at best, remember him as a very pleasant—and very beautiful—dream. Perhaps she'd question the haphazard placement of the groceries in the refrigerator, but she'd never think a vampire had fed from her in that kitchen.

No, she'd likely blame her job, or her exhaustion, or tell herself she was being fanciful.

Small wonder they needed the Guardians' protection.

He pulled her blankets over her; she sighed and rocked her hips against the mattress. He contemplated waking her, but he'd indulged that lust with the first woman.

And it was not bloodlust that had driven him to the third.

His phone rang again as he walked through the living room. A mirror hung over the sofa. He'd closed his eyes and refused to listen when he'd passed it before, loaded down like a footman. Now he stared into it. Perhaps the screams would drown out Lilith's voice when he answered her call. She wouldn't hear them, though she was no stranger to their like.

“Yes, Agent Milton?”

“I'm not going to kill you after all. I need a favor.”

“Do you?”

In the mirror, a human body was devoured, torn apart by a flying beast. The human's face remained, frozen into the glacial sky, shrieking.

Chaos.

“Damage control. I'm flying to New York with Michael; Hugh's there with Selah, and she's ready to jump in, but we need her back as soon as possible. That means you have to handle…Colin, what the fuck is wrong with you? You should have asked me to call you beautiful by now.”

“I was feeding,” he said, his voice flat.

“And her declarations were enough? That's revolting. Listen, I need you to take Savi out, let her be seen by as many people as possible. Preferably a cop or two, as well. Auntie, you can leave at home with Sir Pup.”

He looked away from the mirror, massaged his eyelids with thumb and forefinger. “She killed it?”

“Garroted it with a wire from her laptop, then pumped it full of venom,” Lilith said, and laughed. Colin thought he detected a note of pride beneath it. “It's not dead, though, just paralyzed. Michael teleported it to the holding cell at SI. Savi's in the bathroom with Auntie; Hugh says Savi will wait until there's no other choice before she lowers the symbols' protection. But we're going to have to deal with the mess, spin a story—there must be a lot of witnesses, and the body disappeared mid-flight. The plane lands in half an hour. Selah will bring them to our house then, so be there. We should arrive in New York just after that; we're over Nebraska or some godforsaken place now.”

He'd have Savi to himself for the entirety of the evening? A slow grin slipped over his mouth; Colin walked out of the flat, careful to turn the lock on the doorknob. He couldn't engage the dead bolt from outside, but it wouldn't have kept something like him out anyway. “You're flying there with Michael; is he
carrying
you? How primitive, Agent Milton.”

“Yeah, and I'm fucking freezing. A garrote!” She burst into laughter again.

A masculine voice rumbled in the background. Lilith must have covered the mouthpiece with her hand; Colin could only hear the sharp tones of her reply. He stepped outside. The clouds had thinned into pale ribbons, and the moon hung round and heavy above the skyline. A block away, his Bentley sat by the curb; it'd take most of the half hour to drive across the city to Castleford's house in Merced Manor. Much faster to run, but not half as stylish.

“Michael says to tell you that he found something of yours by the fountain. What the hell does that mean?”

He almost stumbled over the curb. Why hadn't the Guardian killed him? Castleford would have. “It means that Savitri is going to have a very, very good time,” he finally managed.

Ridiculous, to think of this as a second chance with Savi. A second chance for what? He'd only spoken at any length with her twice: fifteen minutes in her grandmother's restaurant, and a few hours in Caelum. She was a bright young woman, certainly, but one he'd vowed not to pursue. His temporary obsession and their mutual enthrallment in Caelum was hardly reason to risk his friendship with Castleford and Lilith.

The motor roared to life, but its growl was nothing to Lilith's. “Colin, it's not just Hugh anymore—she's my sister now, too.”

As if he could forget.

The vibration of the engines stopped. Savi lifted her head from Nani's silk-covered lap. Only two and a half hours had passed; the pilots must have continued on to New York instead of returning to England.

A swipe of wet tissue across the symbols erased the blood. From outside, she heard orders to come out, threats of armed agents and lethal force.

“Michael, Selah,” she said softly. “We're ready.”

Selah immediately appeared in front of her—all golden skin and blond hair. A white flowing gown. No wings, but they probably wouldn't have fit in the bathroom.

And then she and Nani were home.