Demon Moon

and again, once muttering of a dragon, he seemed to hold on to her scent as armor, using it to keep the rest of Chaos at bay.
    She was almost completely open when he frowned and said sharply, “Stop, Savi. They’re moving. Toward the mountain.” He took at step forward, turned to look behind him. “I’m there—they still come this way. All of them. Piling over one another like rats in a bin.”
    Wet, exposed flesh sliding against scales and fur. Savi fought her involuntary gag, immediately pushed the image from her mind to prevent adding her revulsion to what must already be a bombardment of psychic and physical sensations.
    “Are they headed to the caves?” Selah asked, coming to stand beside Savi.
    “No, they’re running up the side of the—” Sucking in a harsh breath, Colin fell to his knees again, stared intently down. “A symbol is carved into the stone. Near the peak.”
    “From the nosferatu? Are there any still there?” Perhaps they’d practiced writing the symbols before they’d moved to the frozen ceiling.
    “No, sweet.” Colin wiped a shaking hand over his face. “Oh, good God.”
    “Draw it into the air,” Michael said softly.
    Colin hesitated, then clenched his jaw and traced a design in front of him. As soon as he finished, he swatted his hand through it as if to erase the invisible mark he’d created.
    “‘Reflect’?” Lilith turned to Michael for confirmation. “That symbol could not work alone to cross the realms. The nosferatu would have returned long ago, if it were that simple.”
    The Doyen was shaking his head. “Colin, did you write it as you see it, or reverse it so that we see it correctly?”
    “I reversed it.” He stared down at his palms, his fingers curling into fists. “I’ve not the courage to write it again.”
    “Fuck me,” Lilith breathed. “Written the other way, it’s ‘bridge.’”
    The blood against her tongue alerted Savi to the force with which she’d been biting her lip, desperately trying to put the pieces together. They wouldn’t fit.
    “You wrote it?” When? Hadn’t he and Selah fled to the caves? Inside the mountain?
    “Yes, sweet. I do not remember doing so, but I must have. Perhaps in the hope the curse that had brought me there would take me away.” His hands lowered to his sides. “They’re tearing into one another now.”
    Michael did not seem surprised. “Likely an instinctive response; the blood will activate the bridge.”
    Hugh frowned. “Did you not see the symbol when you retrieved him?”
    “They’d dragged him to the base,” Michael said.
    “Most of me.” Colin flinched, then added with forced humor, “Oh, sweet, do not despair. They didn’t eat the choicest bits.”



CHAPTER 25

    She was certain that B—— had written that blasted story, rather than P——. I convinced her that she ought to conform to Continental fashion, and take a companion. I, however, am more certain than ever that I never shall. My blood will not allow it. I do not lament the loss, of course; where on Earth shall I find a companion who can command my attention away from myself? Furthermore, why should I want to?
    —Colin to Ramsdell, 1824

    “Are you well?”
    The list of Osterberg’s recent credit card transactions blurred in front of her, but Savi didn’t glance away from the monitor. Not that it had helped; keeping busy hadn’t kept her from thinking.
    “Not really,” she said as Hugh sat on the edge of her desk, crossing his arms and ankles in his professorial talk-to-me pose.
    “Are you running?”
    “A little. But productively.” She pointed at the screen. “Both Osterberg and Fishnet Shirt—Ken Branning—have several gas purchases in St. Francis Woods, within two blocks of each other. I can’t find any reason for them to be there; they don’t have any other transactions, and it’s out of the way for their usual routes.”
    “So we’ll pinpoint Dalkiel’s location thanks to the Navigators’ low gas mileage?”
    “That, and because an aide employed eight months ago at the German Embassy in London—in Belgrave Square—quit a couple of days after SI captured the nosferatu. That took me a little longer to access; I’ll keep digging at that angle now that I’m finally in. It’s funny how governments are secretive about things like that.”
    “Very funny,” Hugh said, smiling. “Lilith and Colin are returning from their wyrmwolf hunt. It was successful.”
    Daylight streamed through the window;