Demon Moon

but Colin had never intended the focus to be anyone’s but his.
    Not that it mattered. Everything he’d had to hide had been laid bare with a simple question: Are you going to hurt me?
    God, no. Never again.
    Savi’s psychic scent surrounded him—oh so light and elusive, but it prevented the darker, rotting odor from intruding. Reality over memory. She gave him this, when she should have punished him for revealing anything of Caelum to Castleford and Lilith.
    What was wrong with her, that she forgave so easily?
    Colin pulled off his jacket and pushed off his shoes, then sank down onto the chaise lounge. He couldn’t remain upright. Didn’t want to make the effort to get to the bed. Probably couldn’t stay awake until Michael finished his perusal.
    “It’s an incredible likeness.” The Doyen’s quiet observation came through Colin’s haze of sleep, and he looked up. Michael stood before a portrait of Emily and Ramsdell, his bronze hands clasped behind his back as if he were a visitor in a museum. His profile could have been a statue’s, but a smile softened his lips. “It is unfortunate he could not remain in Caelum; he would have made a fine Guardian.”
    Colin roused himself enough to respond, “Perhaps, but he and my sister wouldn’t call his decision unfortunate.”
    “Yes.” Michael regarded Colin briefly. “Her countenance is remarkably like yours.”
    Colin studied Emily’s face, her expression enraptured as she stared down at Ramsdell, and swallowed past the ache in his throat. “Yes.”
    Savi had looked at him like that. Once.
    The Doyen took a turn through the turret room and continued until he faced the piece that served as the nexus of the gallery. “To be truthful,” Michael said after a moment, “I did not realize you were strong enough to open the doors. Any other nosferatu-born vampire could not have. You were both fortunate in the outcome; Caelum does not always show itself kindly to those unprepared to see it.”
    The broad line of his back obscured the bottom middle of the painting from Colin’s view, but he did not need to see it to know what the Doyen’s body hid from him.
    Savi, standing on the lip of the fountain. The sun shining through her wet clothes, limning her form in golden light. Her gaze bright and warm, inviting.
    She’d been utterly enthralled, and the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
    He closed his eyes.
    “You must take more care that this demon does not discover your link to Chaos,” Michael said from a great distance. “But do not fear that I will ask you to return to that realm, unless it is absolutely necessary.”
    With his last bit of sense, Colin grasped at Savi’s psychic scent, pulled it in tight, and thrust the Doyen’s words away.
    He’d die before he’d go back.

    This time, Colin was the one who pulled her forward. A fountain sat centered in the courtyard: a marble obelisk ringed by a waist-high wall of stone. Water sheeted from around the top of the pillar in a perfect, unbroken arc, falling silently to the pool below .
    “My brother-in-law told me of the sea surrounding Caelum, but he did not mention this. Listen,” he said, drawing to a halt a few yards from it .
    Savitri held her breath, her lips slightly parted. “I can’t hear it.”
    “Nor can I. Ramsdell said he’d dive into the sea and wouldn’t create a splash. That it remained smooth as glass. I’d assumed he was boasting of his excellent form.”
    Again that giddy panic rose within him, but he pushed it down. But for the noises they made and the faint sounds of Auntie sleeping in Michael’s temple, Caelum could have been a tomb. Nothing lived or grew there—only Guardians, and they’d left to fight an impossible battle against Lucifer and the nosferatu .
    And no Guardians would live to return, unless they sent the nosferatu to Chaos, where the screams and the dragons and the wyrmwolves…
    No.
    Savitri let go his hand, walked toward the fountain .
    No. He fought it back .
    The screams faded .
    She laid her palms flat atop the wall, leaned forward to look down into the pool. Lifting herself, she straddled the wide edge, her legs dangling on either side. Her skirt slid up to her knees. “It’s just like a mirror,” she said. “Come see.”
    A short laugh escaped him. “No. I will forgo that particular pleasure.” He did not want to see himself absent in a reflection of Caelum, of all places. Nor, heaven forbid, have it act as a real mirror .
    “Oh.