Demon Blood

her hand and drew her behind him. “Now breathe deep. And tell me what you smell.”
    He heard the vampire’s inhalation and felt the uneasy realization in Tomás’s psychic scent. Murmurs of “demon” hummed through the crowd. The others smelled it, too. The scent of Farkas’s blood saturated the air.
    “He was sent to kill you and to take over your community. I’ve got no plans to do the same. I’m done here.”
    Deacon eased his foot off and waited a second, just to make sure Tomás wouldn’t leap up. Holding Rosalia’s hand, he began backing toward the exit. The vampires moved out of their path.
    Tomás rose to his knees and picked up the demon’s head. Not much time had passed; Farkas’s skin would still be hotter than a human’s. As he pressed his thumbs against the demon’s fangs, disbelief worked through Tomás’s expression. Yeah, the vampire sure hadn’t seen that one coming.
    Deacon turned for the door. Rosalia slipped her hand into his elbow, and that soft grip felt a little too good for his liking. He shrugged her off.
    Outside, the air surrounded him like a heated blanket. His shirt front and jacket sleeves were splattered with blood. He’d planned to ditch Rosalia the second they were done, but now he had to return to the hotel and clean off before going anywhere. No train or plane would take him back to Paris in this state.
    He didn’t realize how fast he was walking until he noticed Rosalia was running to keep up with him.
    He slowed to a human’s pace. Not for her sake. Drawing attention never boded well. People weren’t blind or stupid.
    Vampires weren’t supposed to be blind and stupid, either.
    It was one thing for a demon to impersonate a human. But although a demon could form fangs and look like a vampire, the fuckers had hot skin. And Farkas might have shared blood, but his bite wouldn’t have felt anything like the pleasure of a vampire’s. Did no one in that community notice that? And if Farkas had tried to explain it away, what idiot would believe him?
    “How could Tomás not know? How could he not see ?”
    Rosalia didn’t have to ask what he meant. Perhaps she’d been wondering the same, but she came up with a kinder answer than he would have.
    “He didn’t have the benefit of the friends that you did.”
    That was true enough. From the very first, Camille had warned him about demons and taught him about vampires. She’d taught him about fighting in ways that didn’t use his fists. Then Irena had taught him more.
    Rosalia caught him off guard by adding, “Thank you, Deacon.”
    For what? The demon had made slaying him too easy to get much satisfaction out of it. “Yeah. Now you can show your thanks by buying me a ticket back to Paris.”
    His gruff response didn’t put her off. She smiled up at him, instead. He couldn’t figure out why she seemed to like him despite the shit he threw at her. It bothered him. Like she knew something he didn’t, because he couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t slugging him into next week.
    “No need to buy one.” She glanced at his shirt, and he felt the sticky wet blood vanish into her cache. Nice trick. “I already have a flight scheduled.”
    Of course she did. A pair of big, white wings. “You?”
    “Yes.” She laughed and skipped ahead for a few steps before twirling around to face him. “And you should stay in my hotel room.” Before he could say anything, she added, “You can watch Theriault, you can listen to the surveillance tapes, and it’s air-conditioned.”
    He stopped. So she thought it would be that easy? Just fall in with her once, and he was her puppet? No chance.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    Her smile wavered. “Failing miserably?”
    “Yeah.” He started walking again. “So haul off, sister. I’ll find my own way back.”
    He didn’t want to owe her a goddamn thing. Not that he would have anyway, since she’d forced him into a position where he had to find his way back.
    He passed her still form. She’d wrapped her arms tight around herself again. A few moments later, she called after him, “What you did here matters, Deacon. It will make a difference to this community, to everyone.”
    Maybe so. He didn’t care. How many ways could he tell her before she accepted that? He didn’t know, and he didn’t have much left.
    And when he was down to nothing, he only had one response. “Fuck off, Rosie.”
    Damn him, though, if he didn’t look back when he reached the end of the