Demon Night

human.”
    “Oh.” She blinked a few times. “Did you eventually get a chance to kill him?”
    “No.” A deep sigh moved through him. “No. What happened instead was that Caleb and I became something just as bad. We shot back at Billings’s men, because we figured it was us or them. Then the lawmen started coming after us—men who weren’t much different than Caleb and I had been. We didn’t put up a fuss when we saw it was them, but went along. And they knew what kind of man Billings was, knew the truth of some of it—so the first couple of times we were brought on in, they still treated us like we was one of them, and our busting out a bit of a joke. But then one day, it wasn’t one of Billings’s men we had to shoot back at, and we knew they weren’t going to bother bringing us in any longer.”
    His lips compressed, and he stepped back, running his hands up and down her arms before turning and picking up another rock, tossing it across the sand. His gaze followed its bouncing path, his profile set in a hard line.
    “At night, Caleb and I would be hiding out in places not much different than this, wondering how we’d come to such a state. I’d sit there thinking that I’d overturned every one of my principles—and I still couldn’t figure if what we’d done was wrong, because when we went the right way, there wasn’t any justice in it. But before long it wasn’t about justice at all, but just doing everything we could to stay alive. Because you’ve got to keep living. If you give up, you’re swinging at the end of a rope, and that seems just as much a betrayal of your principles as killing the lawmen coming after your head.” He turned back toward her. “And I’ll tell you that I still don’t feel a bit of remorse for what I did to Billings’s men—but I’d give anything in the world not to have the blood of good men on my hands.”
    “But you can’t.”
    “No. So I got a lot to atone for—but I also reckon that I’ll be doing it on my terms, and relative to how bad I figure what I did was. Which means I’ll be a Guardian for an awful long time.” A faint smile curved his mouth, and he looked down at his feet before slanting a glance at her. “And the only reason I can atone at all is because Caleb and I rode into the wrong town.”
    She remembered that he’d mentioned it before. “Eden?”
    “Eden,” he echoed softly. “It had a reputation for being real clean, full of upstanding citizens. Particularly the sheriff, Samuel Danvers, who’d gotten rid of the bad elements in the town—men like Billings—and renamed it Eden about two or three years before we arrived.”
    Charlie’s eyes widened. “He was the sheriff ?”
    “With a passel of human deputies who’d do just about anything for him,” Ethan said, nodding. “And on the surface, everything looked just fine. But we found out real quick it wasn’t.”
    “What happened?”
    “Well, he was waiting for us at the saloon, Charlie. He was awful polite, and I was tired of shooting my way out of a town. So we walked right into that cell, figuring I’d let us out just as soon as I could. Only Danvers, he never slept, or went to drink or eat, or even take a piss. He just watched us from his big rosewood desk.”
    Charlie’s flesh was crawling. She knew that feeling too well—of being under constant observation, of never having a moment alone.
    “And then someone in the town found a girl who’d been hurt and left to die out in the desert. She named one of the deputies as the one who did it.”
    Charlie hugged herself and shivered. “Sammael wouldn’t have liked that.” When Ethan glanced at her, surprised, she said, “In his car, with Henderson—Sammael couldn’t tolerate the idea of him touching me, and he thought anything sexual was dirty unless there was love involved.” She swallowed the sickness that rose in her throat. “I guess he’s probably the reason I wasn’t raped.”
    Ethan’s face was like stone. “Sammael used Henderson to take a choice from you, Charlie, and it was a violation just the same.”
    “No, I don’t mean that one is worse or—” She shook her head, fidgeted. “I’m not grateful to him. But I am glad I don’t have to deal with both. And remembering how Henderson…it’s bad enough.”
    Ethan closed his eyes. “I ought to have staked him out and left him to burn.”
    “I’m glad you didn’t,” Charlie said quietly. “Because although he was fast and strong, he