Demon Moon

relieving you of your burden,” Ariphale said. “But I do not care for it.”
    “I imagine you don’t. I was not speaking of myself.” His gaze swept the nosferatu’s length. “At this moment, you must be certain of your impending doom. For though my consort awaits you, she’ll not have the opportunity to kill you and end your cursed existence; the moment the shields around this room have fallen, the angelic Selah will teleport in…and will return you to your holding cell. But you’ve another option.”
    “To remain here?” Ariphale shook its head; its amber eyes glowed fiercely. “That is not another option; it is still imprisonment.”
    “You are mistaken; that is not what I offer. Chaos is not all that I contain within me,” he said softly. “I also have Caelum. And I can make it very good for you.”
    Within his pocket, the spiked collar lay folded in his palm. Colin squeezed.
    The tinge became a flood.
    Colin withdrew his hand, and painted in blood a symbol on the wall. “My consort,” he said, “cannot keep her psychic shields up whilst in her wolf form. You sensed them failing before her transformation; you know this to be true.”
    “Yes.” Its response was guttural, the bloodlust raging fully upon it.
    He wrote the reversed symbol below the first. “Also, that the portal to Chaos opens when her shields are down. You must have heard the experiment we conducted in the Room.”
    Ariphale stared at the symbols. “You are opening a portal to Chaos? Or to Caelum?”
    Neither, but this ignorant bloodsucker had not learned that without Colin sensing Savi’s psychic presence, the effect was inert. The spell prevented that.
    Colin grinned and backed slowly away. Provoking a hunter’s instincts. “The wyrmwolves should come through at any moment. And I shall lock myself in the suite’s washroom, activate the spell inside, and wait for them to kill you. When you are dead, the protection around this room shall fall, the Guardians will sweep in and terminate the wyrmwolves…and I shall exit the washroom unharmed. And perhaps with my hair combed; I’ll have little else to do as I wait.”
    Good God. He was more like Dalkiel than he’d thought; these monologues were quite entertaining.
    And, as he’d hoped, infuriating.
    With a cry of rage, Ariphale rushed him. Colin let him come—he couldn’t have escaped by running. Nor did he want to: a nosferatu less overwhelmed by bloodlust might have drawn a weapon; Ariphale used his fangs.
    So did Colin.
    He only needed a sip. The nosferatu’s hand over his mouth, holding his chin twisted to the side and his neck exposed, was just enough.
    Ariphale’s body went rigid, then quaked as Colin sent the rapture twisting through it. The creature’s mouth opened, as if to cry out; the tearing pressure of its teeth in Colin’s throat eased.
    Release. A final pulse into the nosferatu’s blood, to shift the odds in his favor; Ariphale already seemed better prepared for it. He was quickly losing his advantage, but Colin only needed a moment’s head start, and an instant’s clarity to recall that he shouldn’t use his bleeding hand. And to hope that Selah was watching, and would be ready.
    He swiped at the symbols; the nosferatu bore down on him, his weapon flashing.
    Selah didn’t transport in; she gave him a sword.
    Colin stepped to the side and dropped. He cut Ariphale’s running legs from under it, then stood and impaled it from behind, angling in between its wings and into the heart as it fell. And through the back of the neck, just because it was there.
    Not very sporting, but fuck him if he wasn’t as weak as a bloody kitten.
    The suite door crashed open. Savi’s fragrance filled his mouth, his lungs. He staggered, sank to his knees. Buried his hands in her fur as she pressed her cold nose against his throat.
    Colin drew back and looked at her. “I’ll not kiss you like this.”
    She opened her mouth in a wolfish, toothy grin; a moment later she lay quivering against him, still smiling…laughing.
    Naked.
    “I think I must have a hammerspace.” She pressed a kiss to his lips. Another. “But I have no idea how to get my stuff back out of it.”
    Colin glanced down at her fingers; the henna decorating her hands was unbroken, but her ring was gone.
    Her smile faded. Colin had no time to reply.
    “Savi,” Michael said from behind them, his voice eerily strained. “Raise your psychic shields.”
    His gut clenching, Colin turned to look.