Demon Night

his demons ignorant of the symbols’ power, so none would dare threaten his position on Hell’s throne.
    But one demon—Lilith, Lucifer’s daughter—inadvertently learned of the spell when she had dared to rebel against Lucifer. Ethan had fought in that confrontation, and when the dust had settled, Lucifer had been forced to return to Hell and close the Gates to that realm for five hundred years. Locked in there, as it were, embroiled in a war—and defending his throne against an army of rebels led by the demon Belial.
    Though Belial had promised his demons a return to Heaven and their former angelic status, a demon’s promises weren’t worth the air used to speak them, and Ethan would prefer to see Lucifer’s and Belial’s armies annihilate each other. Particularly as the Guardians’ own ranks had been reduced—not by war, but by an Ascension. A little over a decade before, thousands of Guardians had chosen to move on to their afterlives, leaving less than fifty Guardians in the corps. Five hundred years would hardly be enough time to rebuild the Guardian corps and prepare for the demons’ return through the Gates.
    As it was, before the Gates had closed, hundreds of demons had escaped Hell, guaranteeing the Guardians plenty of trouble. So much so that Michael, the Guardians’ leader, and Rael—one of Belial’s demons and a U.S. congressman—had made arrangements with Homeland Security and developed a new law enforcement division, Special Investigations. Located in San Francisco, SI had but three directives: to train novice Guardians and act as an Earth-based center of operations for all other Guardians; to track and slay the rogue demons; and to conceal otherworldly activity from the general human population.
    Otherworldly activity, such as magic spells.
    And three months ago, only Guardians—and a few vampires recruited by Special Investigations—had known of the symbols. But a demon threat to the vampire population in San Francisco necessitated sharing knowledge of the spell with the vampires, and the use of it had quickly spread to other cities, other vampire communities—and to demons.
    Ethan suspected demons had been responsible for the attack on Charlie, but there was only one way to be certain. With luck, the vampires wouldn’t have dared leave the safety of their hidey-hole yet. But dawn arrived in less than three hours, and they’d succumb to the daysleep as soon as the sun rose. They’d have to poke their heads out eventually.
    Ethan would be waiting.

    Son of a bitch.
    Ethan clamped his jaw tight and took a cursory glance at the bakery’s interior. Excepting the window the vampires had broken to enter the building, nothing had been disturbed.
    The faint scent of vampire blood clung to the three symbols carved on the sill with splintered glass. The protective shield had fallen when they’d left, but Ethan dug the tip of his dagger through the shapes. The Seattle police might tie the vandalism here to the destruction of Cole’s gate two blocks distant—vampires still had fingerprints and DNA, after all—but Ethan wouldn’t leave evidence of the spell for them to find. They likely wouldn’t suppose it was something otherworldly, in any case.
    Peculiar, that Charlie did. In those rare instances humans spied a vampire’s teeth or a Guardian’s wings, they assumed it was a person dressed up in a costume. The feather she’d found hadn’t been reason enough for the fear and certainty lurking in her psychic scent when she’d passed off truth as exaggeration.
    The Lone Ranger. A white hat would never sit easily on him; she’d be a fool to think otherwise. But a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth as he crouched and cast around for the vampires’ trail.
    The light rain enhanced scent—as did the concrete, slightly warmer than the surrounding air. One vampire had leaned or brushed against the corner of the coffee shop at the end of the block. The odor was mostly human, with an undertone of metallic blood and wet leather. Not a revolting smell, but Ethan preferred green apple and cocoa butter.
    He’d taken quite a liking to the combination: sharp and sweet, warm and mellow. It’d be a damn shame if it changed.
    And it was strange that it hadn’t. Of the nine scientists Legion Laboratories had recruited in the past year—three geneticists, four experts in blood diseases, and two researchers who specialized in artificial blood—only Jane Newcomb hadn’t had a close relative