Demon Night

of the cylinder in the deadbolt, the simple pin tumbler in the knob, and unlocked them both with an effortless thrust of his Gift.
    Though she’d left no lights on, he easily avoided the bamboo trunk that served as a coffee table. Knitted throws in bright colors covered the sofa and the chair in front of her desk. Against one wall, her television was dwarfed by stereo speakers and encased by shelves stuffed with records and CDs. He could read the neatly arranged titles from across the darkened room, but he already knew that classical and opera dominated her collection: she played them often.
    It had been her way of introduction two months before, a throwaway comment from the balcony, underscored by Vivaldi: Tell me if my music is too loud.
    Loud or quiet, it wouldn’t have mattered; if he listened closely, Ethan could hear her heartbeat through the walls. The click of knitting needles. The distinctive slide of a feather over skin.
    He followed the sound of her deep, even breathing. The fragrance of apple shampoo and cocoa butter rose from the damp towel wadded in a laundry basket at the foot of her bed.
    Charlie lay on her stomach, her knee cocked. She’d kicked the blankets off. The left hem of her checkered flannel pajama pants had ridden up, revealing half the length of her sleek calf. The straps of her white top exposed more smooth skin at her shoulders and toned arms.
    Despite her ordeal on the roof, her psychic scent suggested that her dreams were soft and pleasant—so different from the tension surrounding her in her waking hours. So different from the neediness, the emotional instability.
    She didn’t outwardly reveal them, but Ethan often felt both, like a dark itching scab in her psyche. They repelled him almost as much as they aroused his protective instincts.
    She began to move restlessly, her wheat gold hair tousled over her pillow, her psychic scent altering, tinged by erotic heat.
    Ethan looked away, ignoring the tightening in his gut, his groin. He’d come in for a purpose, but lusting after a human who needed protecting wasn’t it.
    The feather sat beside her alarm clock; his attempt to vanish it into his cache failed.
    With a frown pulling at his mouth, he strode across the room and swept it up. Placing any object into his mental storage space required that he possess it, or obtain permission from the owner. Charlie had apparently formed such a strong attachment to the lost feather that he had to steal it back.
    This time, it went easily into his cache. Destroying evidence—and whatever comfort it had offered her.
    He couldn’t erase Charlie’s memories, or the bruise forming across her cheek. A Guardian with a Gift for healing could have taken care of the latter—and had Ethan been prepared for her bolt away from the wall, he could have avoided her slamming into him.
    As it was, he’d only managed to keep her from hitting his weapon. His elbow had done less damage, but there shouldn’t have been any damage at all.
    And there shouldn’t have been three vampires ready to do worse. Ethan stifled his simmering frustration. He should have caught them, but they’d evaded his pursuit by using the one lock his Gift couldn’t breach—a lock formed, not by steel or magnets, but by ancient symbols and magic. The shield it created was damned impossible to break through.
    For that reason, he’d use it to protect Charlie. To get to her, the vampires would have to burn down the apartment and flush her out—and Ethan didn’t figure they were that desperate.
    Yet.
    Silence. Surround. Lock. Ethan scraped the symbols into her front door frame, an inch above the cream carpeting. Charlie likely wouldn’t notice them or the drops of blood he used to activate the spell, and it would break when she left in the morning.
    Immediately, an unearthly quiet descended around the apartment. The symbols not only barred entrance to anyone whose blood didn’t key the spell, but prevented all communication. Neither sound, sign language, nor electronic methods of communication could penetrate the shield, from inside or out. Even his psychic senses were useless—a demon could stand on the other side of the door, and Ethan wouldn’t know it until he left the protected area. Which he did quickly enough, slipping out into the hall and locking up behind him.
    That psychic blindness made him uneasy—as did the symbols’ origins. A year ago, only Lucifer had known how to cast the spell. The tyrannical ruler kept