Demon Moon

his capacity for healing without a head.
    “How long will it take you to get there? Can I talk dirty to you on the way?”
    His brow creased as he began jogging north. She was too aware of her effect on him—and the effect of his arousal on his control—to risk distracting him with such sexual play. “Please do.”
    In Hindi, she said, “I had sex with a monkey and it gave me herpes.”
    He let out a shout of laughter, then replied in the same language, “That is quite all right, sweet. I’m immune to such diseases. I daresay I’m fortunate in that, given my history.”
    “Very fortunate. Okay. I just wanted to make certain no one here could understand me, but they didn’t even blink.” Her voice was breathy, her tone sensuous. “I’m going to send either Fia or the hound to watch your back. Your only choice is which one I send.”
    He gritted his teeth, glanced heavenward. Above the skyscrapers, the moon peeked through the thinning clouds. “Savi, if I don’t know you are safe—”
    “I’ll stay in Security with Arwen and the guys from SI. Sir Pup is in his demon form; no one’s going to challenge him here. If nothing else, I’ll drop my shields and bring a pack of wyrmwolves down on them.” She sighed, and he could easily imagine her liquid brown eyes, their expression caught between amusement and gravity. “I don’t like Arwen, but I don’t think she’s going to try anything; she was pretty shaken up when she saw the present Dalkiel and friends left on your car.”
    “But you’re worried that Darkwolf or Gina might try something.”
    “Not terribly worried, because if they do anything to you I’ll tell Sir Pup to eat their friend here,” she said. “I’m simply less trusting than I used to be. Or less stupid. And I want to know you are safe, too.”
    How could he resist that? “Fia, then.”
    “Okay,” she said in English a moment later. “She’s going. When you get there, you’ll find Dalkiel on the roof terrace. I think it must be him; he’s in his demon form. Osterberg’s there, too. It looks like they’re just waiting, but it’s hard to tell; the video is kind of fuzzy.”
    Good God. “Have you hacked into a spy satellite?”
    Her voice trembled with laughter. “No. That’d take a lot more skill than I have, and a much better system. This is from a KRON WeatherCam.”
    “A decade suddenly seems a bit generous, Savitri.”
    “Well, I’ve isolated the feed and taken the camera offline—but, yeah, there’s too many ways people might see something they shouldn’t.”
    He shook his head in disbelief, but only said, “I’ve arrived. Are Dalkiel and Osterberg on the roof still?” No reason to be quiet; the demon must know they’d come.
    “Yeah. You’ll wait for the others? It’s the only way I can see where you are, if you’re with them.”
    “I’ll wait.” His position near the entrance was relatively safe; he focused his senses upward to guard against attack from the roof, and caught the faint threads of two familiar psychic scents. “Paul and Varney are here. Alive.” For now, at least. There was no mistaking the bitter trace of fear—and pain—they hadn’t managed to block.
    “I’ll let Fia know.”
    Three figures dipped between the shadows across the street. “No need, sweet. She’s here, too.”

    “How will they get in?”
    Savi’s fingers didn’t stop moving over the keyboard as she glanced over at Arwen. The vampire had apparently conquered her fear of Sir Pup; despite the sharp-toothed grin he trained on her from his left head, she’d sidled close enough to the hellhound to angle her neck for a view of Savi’s monitor.
    Sir Pup watched, too, from his middle head; his third, he’d turned to keep an eye on the security team behind them.
    “He’ll probably just smile at the guy,” Savi said, and pushed away from the desk with a kick of her foot. Her chair rolled back, and she grabbed a phone from the adjacent table. A twist and another kick, and she was at her computer again, trailing the phone cords behind her.
    She plonked the phone onto the desk, took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy.
    Engaging the speakerphone, she dialed Hugh’s home number.
    On her monitor, three small blobs crossed the street and congregated near the front of the building. The silence from Colin’s radio and the absence of background noise told her he’d turned off his microphone while talking with the others. Savi silenced hers, as well,