Demon Moon

silent the rest of the way to the Room.

    This couldn’t be right.
    Savi placed the printout by her mousepad and stared at it, her mind racing. Around her, the comfortable clacking of keys and a low electronic hum sounded as Jake and Drifter spoke in low voices, Drifter watching and offering suggestions as Jake used the computer to investigate a demon’s activity.
    CPUs, servers, monitors, and reams of paper—altogether, the office wasn’t much different from her previous one, just a bit brighter.
    She leaned forward to check the looping signature at the bottom of the purchase order again, but she hadn’t been mistaken: Colin Ames-Beaumont.
    The PO had been signed and dated three weeks ago, in Los Angeles. Fifteen Lincoln Navigators, acquired through Norbridge Medical Supply—a subsidiary of Ramsdell Pharmaceuticals. A veritable fleet, but hardly suitable for transporting crutches and wheelchairs.
    But Colin had been in the U.K. three weeks ago. And he didn’t personally manage his assets; she couldn’t imagine him concerning himself with something as mundane as a business’s vehicle purchases.
    Nor could she imagine him voluntarily traveling to Los Angeles.
    Obviously there’d been some kind of identity theft; but the vampires’ involvement and the sheer balls it would take to impersonate Colin and forge the purchase order indicated it wasn’t a matter of someone stealing bills from Colin’s mailbox to cash a few checks or run a credit card scam.
    She bit her lip, debating. It’d be easiest to go get him; he was somewhere in the building. With his help, she could weed more quickly through legitimate accounts and purchases to find any false ones.
    Except…
    You’re falling in love with me .
    She groaned a little, rubbed her hands over her face. How could he have so easily seen what she hadn’t recognized in herself? Had she been stuck in an inert emotional position for so long that it took a force like Colin to push her out of it? Once it gathered momentum, could she stop it? She’d known her feelings for him ran deeper than she wanted them to, but she hadn’t thought she’d reached such a critical point.
    And how embarrassing to admit to herself that she probably hadn’t recognized it because she’d never come to that point before. She didn’t lack for sexual experience, but was she so emotionally naïve? She hadn’t thought so. Certainly, her attachments never lasted, and usually never delved beyond the physical combined with a light friendship. But she wasn’t ignorant that deeper feelings could exist; she’d hoped it would eventually happen.
    But she’d never thought it would happen with a vampire. How unsuitable could one person be? Colin surely topped that list.
    And as well as they got along, as certain as she was that he appreciated her company and had developed an affection for her—and undoubtedly wanted her—she knew that he’d use her feelings to his advantage. He’d been too pleased in the realization for her to reach any other conclusion. And her instinctive, defensive reply, laughing it off as a phase, would only be seen as a positive to him; he would think they could have a fling without her being seriously hurt.
    She was certain he wouldn’t deliberately hurt her—his reaction the previous night had been evidence enough of that. But deliberation and action were often completely different things.
    Her gaze fell on the paper again. How tempting it was to hide here in this little room and deny herself contact with him in order to protect her heart. Any information she found could be forwarded through Lilith and Hugh.
    How tempting. And how much like running.
    Before she could change her mind, she swiveled in her chair and stood. Jake—a Guardian for forty years, but who looked no older than twenty with his military haircut and chiseled face—paused in his typing and glanced at her.
    Drifter had had his hand braced against the computer desk as he’d read the computer screen; when he straightened up, she had to fight the instant sensation that, next to him, she was a little girl.
    “Can you tell if the vampire Ames-Beaumont is still here?”
    Jake scratched absently at his chest; he was wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt. Had he made it himself, materializing it with his Guardian powers, or had he purchased it?
    Why could they materialize clothes, but not weapons? And hadn’t they ever heard of the Law of Conservation of Matter? And even if it transformed from energy,