Demon Moon

follow.”
    “For once, I’ll be glad to see her. I’ve got to get—”
    The call dropped. Fear slid icy through Savi’s stomach, caught at her throat, and she met Colin’s eyes. In the club—from only three or four humans, but it rose like a chorus around them: Are you there?
    The signal lost, as if the spell had been activated around the club. To prevent a call for help from going out—or to prevent help from coming in?
    It didn’t matter: the symbols did both.
    Colin didn’t bother with silence, with signing; he shouted. “Varney! Darkwolf! Get them all out!”
    He grabbed her hand and they darted across the floor; so fast that the dancers seemed to still around them, a 3-D music video in slow motion. The frozen rainbow of lights flickered, casting an odd shadow across the wall.
    A naked white form scurried across the ceiling.
    Nosferatu. Even with her shields up, Savi could taste the darkness in its psychic scent, the malevolent intent.
    Ariphale dropped, falling faster than gravity could have pulled it. Its feet slammed against the floor; the polished wood shivered and cracked under the impact. Its pale, membranous wings snapped wide. God, had it been so big on the plane? In the cell? Colin slid, skidded. They couldn’t avoid it. Momentum carried them forward; Ariphale knocked Savi aside with a brush of its claws.
    The hands that caught her were warm— too warm to be human or vampire or Colin. Too strong and too fast to mean anything but death.
    She watched as Colin stopped himself before crashing into the nosferatu, but the creature clamped its talons over his shoulders, turned him around and held him in place. Colin didn’t fight. He stared at Dalkiel, his face tightening as heated fingers wrapped around her throat.
    Not to squeeze, she realized—only to threaten decapitation. A sharp pull would kill her; strangulation wouldn’t.
    “Little Savitri,” Dalkiel crooned into her ear with Colin’s voice. “Listen to the worms scream.”
    They were screaming—and running. Humans, mostly. A few vampires. Their footsteps pounded up the stairs. Were they remembering how the nosferatu had burned the eldest of them the year before?
    Or they were just smart. A beautiful demon was reason enough to flee; only an idiot would stay to see what a seven-foot winged-and-fanged nightmare would do.
    Savi would have run, too, if fear hadn’t immobilized her. If Ariphale hadn’t been staring down at Colin with hungry amber eyes.
    The music cut off. Colin’s plea seemed a yell in the relative quiet.
    “Let her go.”
    And echoed from the side: “Let them go.” She couldn’t see him, but she recognized his voice. Darkwolf. Savi felt Dalkiel’s surprise; if Colin was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Even if you kill them in combat, prove yourself strongest as by tradition, we won’t follow you.”
    Her feet swayed over the floor as Dalkiel lifted her and turned—not far, keeping Colin in his sight, despite the nosferatu’s hold and the threat to her life.
    “Then I’ll kill you,” Dalkiel said. “Your friends, your consorts—you cannot fight me. And if you flee my rule, you will only prove yourselves cowards. Either way, I am satisfied.”
    Darkwolf’s jaw hardened and he took a step forward. Gina, Arwen—others Savi didn’t recognize. All moving, their psychic scents filled with determination.
    The demon’s fingers clenched, his nails digging in.
    Blood. Savi’s chest heaved; she couldn’t draw a breath, didn’t need it, but terror and pain wound themselves slick and greasy over her skin.
    “Stop,” Colin rasped, and though his command was for Dalkiel, the vampires immediately halted. “I’ll bargain.”
    The demon laughed, dismissing Darkwolf and returning his attention to Colin. But he directed his response to Savi, in a low and triumphant rumble. “Your pretty young vampire knows I must consider the terms of the bargain, but he has no leverage and nothing to offer. I hold everything valuable to him in my hands; there is nothing I desire that equals his need to protect you. It is such a liability, these bloodsharing partnerships. They weaken vampires—but I am the stronger for them, the more powerful. I could have threatened to slaughter every vampire here and he’d have allowed it, but for your life he remains still.”
    Colin’s mouth curved in a thin smile. “Ah, yes. A true leader sacrifices himself—not those around him—to preserve what he loves. I confess, I’d trade