Demon Moon

6ft, high achiever, educated, physician son.

    Photo & biodata must. Caste/religion no bar. HINDU Marathi parents seek an attractive, professional, vegetarian girl, with traditional values, for handsome son, USMD NYC. Please send biodata/recent photo.

    Savi sighed and scooped more noodles from the take-out box. With her left hand, she drew a circle around the first ad. Nani would be horrified that Savi had even glanced at the matrimonials, but at least she would know Savi was trying to keep her promise. In any case, her grandmother had probably begun inquiries in the Indian communities in the Bay Area and with relatives in Mumbai. There would be plenty of potential grooms for Savi to meet.
    And a software engineer would be okay; better than a doctor. She’d have more in common with a techie. She frowned and chewed. On the other hand, a doctor would be absent more often. Social obligations might be greater, though; when her parents hadn’t been at work, they were usually at some function.
    She glanced around the small, dark office with its glowing computer screens and felt a spark of hope. A techie might be gone just as often. She was never home, that was certain.
    Of course, over the past eight months that absence had had little to do with her job and more to do with a vain vampire and his frequent visits to Hugh and Lilith. His presence hadn’t been a factor in the month since her return from India, but she’d still kept as far from home as possible.
    Running. She was such a coward.
    She wouldn’t run from this promise, though. Pls respond with photo . Perhaps she could digitally alter a picture, and when she met the prospective groom in person claim she’d lost most of her hair in a fire.
    In a fire, saving a kitten.
    “How long did you think you could avoid me?”
    Savi’s cardboard-box table shook as her foot slipped, and she whirled on her stool. Lilith stood in the doorway, Sir Pup at her heels. She must have come from home; she wore loose cargo pants, a T-shirt, and a fitted leather jacket.
    Lilith’s appearance was a bit more striking when she was at work. Not that she was ever less than stunning with a face like that.
    Right now, a stunning and frighteningly triumphant I’ve-got-you smile sat on Lilith’s lips.
    Savi swallowed and managed, “I was hoping for at least another week. I should be out of here by then. You apparently got the info I sent about the nosferatu. How did you know it was me?” She glared at Sir Pup. The hellhound must have led Lilith to this office, followed Savi’s scent.
    He grinned at her, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth.
    “Considering everything else Hugh and I have discovered in the last couple of weeks, it could only have been you.” Lilith’s dark gaze skimmed over the room. Not much to see; a few monitors, server racks, boxes. “What’s taking you so long? I’d have thought if you wanted to go, you could go.”
    “The connections in the new place. The current ones can’t handle the data transfer. And there’s a security issue.” Apparently here, too, but no security system would stop someone like Lilith. Savi shrugged and studied the other woman’s long black hair. Too much curl.
    Her eyes narrowing, Lilith said, “What is it?”
    “I was thinking of making a wig.” Savi gestured to a small love seat, where she often took naps when the information she needed was long in coming. “I imagine you’re going to stay and interrogate me. Pad thai?”
    “I ate.” Instead of sitting in the deep cushions, Lilith lowered herself onto the arm and pulled her right foot up to rest on the seat. “It’s been two weeks since you left the hospital; Hugh and I have seen you a total of three times. He’s worried.”
    Guilt tightened Savi’s belly. She set the food on the table, and tried to remember whom she was speaking with: Lilith, a master of manipulation. Savi adored her, but knew Lilith wouldn’t hesitate to lie if it served her purpose. “You’re here for him? He knows what I do. How do you think he found you and Colin so easily last May? He asked me to get your info.”
    Sir Pup sniffed at the box of noodles; Savi dropped it to the floor and let him go at it. He’d shifted into his public form, a large Labrador with only one head. Did his other heads resent it when only one got a treat?
    “I found Hugh last May, standing over Ian Rafferty’s body,” Lilith said. “Who wouldn’t have been dead if not for DemonSlayer.”
    Savi’s