Demon Night

tightly as it once was. Some of those human physical urges are relieved, some are not—and the will has greater control over form.”
    “Well, hell,” Ethan muttered, laughing softly, and Charlie glanced up at him. “Considering that my will can’t control my form for nothing, I reckon that means I’m spineless.”
    “Stubbornness is as great an impediment to shifting as a weak will,” Michael said with the first real smile Charlie had seen from him. It didn’t last long. “In almost every manner, a Guardian’s strength and powers are similar to a demon’s—but I can find no evidence of symbols within demons or the nosferatu, or any indication of what they’ve been changed from . And that is why I can only speculate; however their transformation was done, it was with an invisible hand.”
    The thought of that made Charlie slightly uneasy, and she was grateful when Ethan said, “Will the nephilim be changing its human shape, then?”
    “No. It will be enough of a struggle to remain in the body it chooses. A nephilim cannot simply animate the flesh; there must be a bond, and it is specific to an individual. And by mimicking the human’s psychic energy—”
    “Like the damn spell,” Ethan said, and when Michael frowned, Ethan must have signed an explanation: his fingers were a blur, and Michael’s smile appeared again.
    “That is well done, both of you,” he murmured, and he looked to Lilith and Castleford. “The symbols’ power is not so easily breached. What did Ethan not mention?”
    “There’s hemorrhaging unlike anything I’ve seen with a Gift—only in novices who’ve lost control of their form,” Castleford said.
    Lilith must have caught Charlie’s confused expression. “Their brains turn to mush,” Lilith explained. “It’s likely that Drifter’s Gift is literally trying to wrap his mind around the power within the symbols—shifting his brain’s makeup so that he can understand it, and get through the lock.”
    Oh, dear God. Charlie thought for a moment that she’d be sick.
    Castleford glanced at Charlie and quickly added, “It heals at a normal rate, however. Charlie seems to suffer no ill effects.”
    “If she did, I wouldn’t be doing it.”
    Michael was nodding, but at that he turned to look at Ethan—or at her, but Charlie couldn’t be certain. But although his face hardened slightly, he only said, “It is the same principle when the nephilim matches the psychic energy to gain entrance into the body. And just as destructive, for when the nephil asserts his own form, it loosens the bonds on the flesh—essentially, the body begins dying again. And as the body dies, the human’s psychic energy attempts to break away from the nephil’s possession. The body heals when the nephil reverts to the human form—but that moment is when the nephil is at its very weakest, for it also must strengthen its hold on the human’s essence again.”
    “I can’t imagine it’ll take its own form often, then,” Ethan said. “Is there any tell that will let us know a body’s housing something else inside it?”
    “No,” Michael said. “Temperature, psychic scent—everything will appear human. And as it must use the human’s body—including the brain—it will have that person’s memory, adopt the same mannerisms, and many of the same thought patterns. There would be differences, but you would have to know the human well to see them.”
    “So I pretty much got to wait until it ain’t hiding in the body, and figure who it turns back to when it’s done.”
    “Yes.”
    Ethan whistled low between his teeth, shaking his head in frustration. “All right, then. I’ll be heading up to Seattle, soon as possible—maybe hope that someone sees it.”
    Seattle. Charlie squeezed Ethan’s hand, lifted her gaze to his. “Do you have the blood that Jane gave you? You said Michael can teleport.”
    “He sure can,” Ethan said, and a small drinking glass from the motel appeared in his opposite hand. He held it out for Michael. “We’re looking for Charlie’s sister.”
    Michael frowned at the glass, and after a moment, looked at Ethan again. “I cannot anchor to her.”
    Which only meant that Jane was probably behind the shield, Charlie told herself. And probably with Sammael. “What about the demon blood she was going to send? Did it arrive today?”
    “I’ve got it,” Jake said, and a small white box appeared in his hand. A wry smile passed over his lips. “I was