Demon Moon

The hum of the engines disappeared, though she could still feel the vibration beneath her feet.
    Her heart pounded. It must have been doing so for a while, but this was the first she’d noticed its rapid pace, or the clammy perspiration on her face. Gooseflesh raised the fine hairs on her arms.
    She took a deep breath to steady herself, to rebuild her mental blocks. Hugh had been teaching her to guard her mind since she’d returned from Caelum; she’d put the shields into place as soon as she’d recognized the nosferatu, but the toll of pain and stress might have weakened them.
    No psychic emissions could penetrate the spell; before she exited, she’d make sure her shields were solid.
    “Naatin?” Her grandmother’s query held an edge of fear.
    “Nani, there’s a nosferatu on board—those things that killed Ian and Javier, you remember?” She lifted the hem of her long linen skirt and dabbed at her upper lip, her brow. Her fingers left a stain on the pale green.
    It was going to be a bitch to run in.
    Nani’s mouth set in a thin line, and she shook her head. “Hugh destroyed them—”
    “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