Demon Moon

lie.” Short, dark mahogany hair, a powerful form—beautiful, though he didn’t take her breath away. He did Lilith’s. When they were together, it was like being in a statically charged atmosphere.
    He’d changed since Lilith had come back into his life; though always intense, he had been tightly contained, focused on academia and books. Now he had a darker edge—the eight-hundred-year-old warrior who no longer denied his nature.
    Lilith hadn’t created that edge; she’d only torn away the layers that had hidden it. A strange couple: the woman who lied and the man who saw truth. Yet they were absolutely and completely devoted to each other.
    Savi fought the urge to cover the matrimonials; concealment would draw their attention more quickly than openness. “So what is it?” she asked instead, and wrapped her arms around her middle. “You want to know what I do? It’s pretty simple; I get a list of transactions—credit cards, bank accounts, plane tickets, phone records, property acquisitions, whatever—and I have to change them. I don’t even know what they are from. Most of them are probably from ordinary citizens, to keep me from guessing.”
    And the others were the government’s way of protecting its agents and covering their movements. A credit card purchase for a pair of sunglasses twenty minutes after a political assassination in the Middle East? She didn’t want to know about it, she just transformed it into a baguette in Paris. Savi wasn’t the only one in the network; she imagined there were many others across the country in dark little offices, doing exactly the same thing. Changing transactions that she’d changed, just to make the layers deeper.
    “That isn’t our concern, Savi,” Hugh said. “You don’t do it for the money; you have more than enough from your parents’ trust and from DemonSlayer. And you aren’t capable of holding a job like this.”
    Savi pressed her lips together before she said, “You think I’m unreliable?”
    “No. But only because you don’t commit to anything you can’t follow through on. You wouldn’t have accepted this job and stayed for so long except under duress. Your interests change too quickly.”
    Lilith smiled thinly. “And it really, really upsets me when people I care for serve against their will. Sir Pup, may I have Auntie’s file?”
    A much thicker folder appeared in Lilith’s upturned palm.
    Her heart pounding, Savi looked from Hugh’s face to Lilith’s. “What’s the point of this? I can’t lie to you. You’re trapping me into something—if you’d just tell me the reason, this would be a lot easier. You don’t have to do this to me. Not you two.” Her voice thickened. “Of all people, not you two.”
    Lilith turned her face away for a moment, but Hugh didn’t flinch. “Of all people, you should have come to us. We’re doing it this way because you didn’t.” His gaze softened. “Auntie’s resident alien status was revoked just after you turned eighteen. We can see that in her file. Also, that her applications for reinstatement were denied. Then she’s given citizenship, though she never took the test or fulfilled the preliminary requirements. You did that? Or they did?”
    “They did,” Savi said tightly. “I’d have never left the rest incomplete.”
    “It was a different administration then; Homeland Security didn’t even exist,” Hugh said. “Why didn’t you try to get out?”
    “Because I brought it on myself with those fake IDs, and I have to consider these consequences. They might let me go; I don’t know. For all I know it was a demon who forced the issue eight years ago because of my connection to you. We’ve learned enough about Lucifer’s foray into different federal agencies to know that one of his demons might have had that power—it’s probable they did. But I’m not going to risk it by asking them to let me go.” She leveled a dark look at Lilith. “You understand that.”
    “Making a bargain with Lucifer is completely different than working covertly for the government,” Lilith said.
    Silence fell for a moment, then Hugh lowered his face into his hands and his shoulders began shaking. Unable to contain her own laughter, Savi sat down and bent forward, holding her sides.
    “Lilith,” he said finally, wiping his eyes. “That’s a lie.”
    A smile pulled at her mouth, but she didn’t glance away from Savi. “We’ll get you out, if you want out.”
    Savi sighed. “It’s