Demon Moon

hung up before Lilith could finish. Colin had been right: sometimes, fleeing was the best option.
    Sir Pup whined softly, and she patted his head. Arwen stared at the phone, then looked at Savi.
    “Did you win?”
    Savi shook her head. “I don’t know.” Lilith might be angry, but she’d do as Savi had asked. The Guardians would be in place to offer quick assistance.
    Then she’d probably come down to Polidori’s and kick Savi’s ass, and start in on Colin when he got back.
    The light from the monitor wall cast a blue tinge over Arwen’s pale face. “You guys really are trying to do what’s best for us. Not just working for the Guardians, I mean.”
    “Well, it’s not all about you,” Savi said, and watched as the building door in Nob Hill opened, seemingly by itself. “We’re trying to save ourselves, too.”

    A dazzling smile through the front glass got Colin inside; the doorman slumped over a second after buzzing him through.
    Disappointed he’d not needed to drink from the poor bugger to put him to sleep, Colin held the door open, let the others through. He took his weapons and shoulder rig back from Fia, checked the pistols, and disengaged the safeties before sliding them back into their holsters.
    Darkwolf did the same with his guns. His efficiency suggested he’d have no trouble using them. “How long is he going to stay like that?”
    Colin had no idea; it was magic, not science. “Long enough,” he said.
    “Better no one else sees us, though,” Fia said, glancing at the corner of the ceiling, where a camera recorded the lobby traffic. “Stairs or elevator?”
    “Stairs.” Too easy to be trapped in a lift.
    “You’ll want to take the north stairs up to the roof,” Savi said, and Colin quickly moved in that direction. “His condo is on the tenth level, three floors below.”
    Was her voice shaky? “All right, sweet. I’m silencing the radio until we reach the roof. Are you secure?”
    She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
    He scanned the space beyond the stair door before shouldering through. A soda machine hummed softly in the corner. The stairwell was sparse, utilitarian; no carpet muffled their footsteps.
    Though impossible to see upward beyond the current flight of stairs, the psychic scents of several vampires—unfamiliar, arrogant—reached through the distance, despite their attempts to block his probe.
    He signed the information to Fia, then pointed to the ceiling and held up four fingers to relay the same to Gina and Darkwolf. They wouldn’t be able to conceal their approach from the waiting vampires, but Colin preferred that the idiots thought themselves with the advantage of surprise.
    “I don’t sense anyone,” he said aloud, then took the stairs, his blades ready at his sides. He paused just below the final flight, turned and gestured to Darkwolf’s and Gina’s guns, then shook his head. It wouldn’t do to alert the building residents with gunfire at this stage. “Wait here,” he mouthed silently.
    He took a glance at heightened speed around the stairwell wall. Apparently, Dalkiel had thought the same; each of the four vampires held a gun with a silencer, swords sheathed at their hips. One female, three males. They stood shoulder to shoulder, their guns leveled at chest height toward the landing below.
    A clever tactical decision—so long as the enemy didn’t get too close. Either Dalkiel didn’t care to protect these vampires, or he’d no idea of Colin’s swiftness.
    Colin hoped it was both.
    He stepped onto the landing. A near-simultaneous click and fire from the four vampires, but he was already ducking below the bullets’ paths, clearing the stairs with ease. He sliced through the legs of the middle two, rose up between them and took their heads before they could scream. The third’s gun clattered to the floor, her finger still clenching around the trigger. His blade was through her neck before she knew her hand was gone.
    He finished off the last as the vampire turned toward him, desperately trying to pull his sword from its sheath.
    Blood spread and trickled down the stairs. Colin wiped his face and neck to remove the worst of the spray. What a sodding mess.
    “Come on up,” he said quietly, and frowned when he saw the horrified expressions on their faces. They’d been softened by their natures; blood wasn’t always appealing, even to the hungriest of vampires. It was best they learned now.
    Sorry , Fia signed weakly. We know them .
    Colin