Demon Moon

vampires.”
    “Dalkiel only met with them at Denver’s apartment. No motel rooms, no restaurants, nothing that might give us a place to start,” Fia added.
    The demon had likely cultivated them for the single purpose they’d served, then. Too young and weak to be true assets, but desperate enough to be useful, even if their use was of short duration.
    “You’ve got metal detectors at the front doors?” Savi said, peering at one of the monitors.
    Fia nodded. “We’ll be carrying, but no one else is allowed through with anything sharper than a nail file.” As if reminded by the mention of weapons, she unbuckled her holster, replaced it with a sheath that would carry her sword on her back—more for show than for use, and less dangerous than a gun to carry around in the crowded club. Even if a vampire got hold of the sword, he’d have to move close enough to Savi to use it.
    Close enough to Colin.
    “If I were one of Dalkiel’s vampires, I’d snap off the stem of a martini glass and stab it through my target’s throat. Or use my fangs; they’ve got to be good for something.” Savi glanced over her shoulder at Colin, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement. “But that’s just me. Hopefully they’ll be reliant on their guns and swords.” Her gaze shifted to Fia. “You’ve got your security guy walking a circuit of the cameras to make certain the video isn’t compromised, but he’s using the same ‘OK’ thumbs-up each time. It’s too easy to loop. The first thing I’d do is record about ten minutes of that, then hack into your feed and send it back. By the time your guys in the security room noticed something was off, you’d have a breach.”
    She should have been a criminal. Smiling, Colin wiped his fingertip with his handkerchief; the puncture he’d made had already healed. “What do you suggest, sweet?”
    “Song lyrics,” she said, turning to study the monitors again. “Have him sign a line at each camera, using a different song each round. Some firms use the time, but if Dalkiel has enough patience, he can just record one day and use it the next.”
    Paul stood, gathered his sword from the low coffee table. “Do you know the Guardians’ sign language? If we need to talk to you, can we?”
    Though Colin couldn’t see her face, couldn’t sense her emotions through her psychic blocks, he could feel the blood rising to the surface of her skin as her cheeks flushed.
    “No. I haven’t been paying attention. It’s visual, so it should be easier for me to pick up than something verbal.” She slanted a glance at Colin before looking away. “Can you teach me a basic vocabulary tomorrow?”
    “Yes. We’ll use Hindi or Latin until then.” Both languages were somewhat obscure; there’d be little chance more than a few—if any—vampires at the club knew them.
    “Paul and I don’t know Hindi,” Fia said.
    “And I don’t understand spoken Latin.” No embarrassment colored Savi’s voice this time; her attention was fixed on the monitors. She pressed her finger to one of the screens. “We need to talk to this woman. Do any of you recognize her?”
    Colin crossed the room, careful not to touch her, not to contemplate what lay beneath the white silk making a marble column of her slender throat. She pointed to a thin female with short, platinum hair, but it was impossible to determine through the small video if she was vampire or human. “No. Fia? Paul?”
    “Yeah,” Fia said. “That’s Raven. About twenty years plus seven as a vampire. That’s her partner, Epona.” She indicated the bosomy brunette rubbing her pelvis against Raven’s bottom. “I’ve chatted with them a couple of times. They stay pretty low-key. I think Epona bartends on the weekends at The Thirst, down on Folsom; Raven works the night desk at a hotel in the Tenderloin.”
    “The last time I was here, Raven was dancing with the guy with the mullet—the driver in the Navigator that followed us from SI on Friday. She might know his name,” Savi said, then pointed to another monitor. “And this guy, too. The blond talking to the Vampire Princess Miyu wannabe. He was Mullet Boy’s passenger, though he’s traded in his suit for that fishnet shirt. Do you know him?”
    “No,” Fia said, blinking rapidly in surprise before glancing at Colin. He gave a quick shake of his head, a hard knot forming in his stomach.
    Savi’s stiff silence in the car apparently had a different cause than he’d thought: