Demon Night

in its side. Pale, human-looking skin surrounded the wound, but it was already healing and turning crimson.
    She looked past it, toward Ethan. His face reflected his horror. Why was she sensing it through the spell?
    She shook her head in confusion. Lowering her gun to her side, she looked down at her chest, and wanted to throw up.
    Oh, God. Her ears were still ringing because Mark’s rifle hadn’t had a silencer.
    The horror she sensed was Jane’s.
    Charlie slowly turned. Mark’s eyes and cheeks were wet. The rifle lay on the floor by his feet. His arm was around Jane’s waist, and he held Charlie’s pistol against Jane’s neck.
    A scream climbed in her throat. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.
    “Slaughter all of you,” Mark said, his voice shaking as hard as the madness and fear in his psychic scent. Shrieking, tumultuous. “And your whores.”
    She tried to respond, but it only brought flavorless blood to her mouth.
    “Charlie,” Jane whispered, pleading, crying, and Charlie’s hand steadied on her gun. She looked at Mark’s forehead. Imagined the hole there.
    Saving Jane from this was going to be so easy.

CHAPTER 31
    The nephil slowed.
    For only a few seconds, but if it hadn’t, Ethan figured he’d have been dead. Seeing Charlie shot had just about torn him into pieces, and for an instant, his brain had shut down.
    But now it was Sammael who was going to be dead if the demon didn’t stop trying to see what was happening inside the house.
    Ethan didn’t—couldn’t—let himself look. A bullet would hurt Charlie something terrible, but she wouldn’t die. And getting himself killed would hurt her worse.
    The nephil turned his head, and Ethan’s blood ran cold. It had heard Jake. The kid’s voice was coming from somewhere behind the house, and even slowed, the nephil would take him out as easy as—
    Slowed.
    God Almighty. Something had slowed it down. And maybe the nephil tortured vampires because Vladimir and Katya had killed the human it had been…but then again, maybe it had more reason to bleed out vampires than a grudge.
    Ethan backed away, ignoring the ache in his thigh where he’d been cut deep, and switched his swords for his pistols. This was taking one hell of a risk. Guns would leave him pretty much defenseless, and he already knew bullets alone wouldn’t damage the creature all that much.
    The nephil took a step toward him. The vials filled with vampire blood sat in Ethan’s cache; quick as thought, he pulled them in.
    He dropped the vials in the air halfway between himself and the nephil, and fired. Glass shattered, spraying blood.
    The bullets embedded in the nephil’s chest, and Ethan saw the ripple of pale skin that spread out from the wounds before he had to trade in his guns for his swords.
    And once again, Ethan should have been dead—but he had just enough time to block the nephil’s swing.
    “Sammael,” Ethan said, but the nephil caught his stomach with its taloned foot and he spoke his next words while holding his gut together, pain flaring white-hot through his innards. “You got any vampire blood?”
    Sammael frowned; but a second later, his eyes widened. “And the blood that heals will bring glory, release the dead unto judgment, and the judged unto Grace,” he said, laughing, and Ethan thought the demon was heading for crazy until a crimson tide poured over the nephil. Sammael spun his pistols in his hands once, then started firing.
    Ethan used his sword. The nephil became smaller, and it turned to run, the senator’s form breaking through the red skin. Blood coated Ethan’s blade, and he buried it in the creature’s chest, but it was still moving, still running.
    “How the blazes did you demons imprison the nephilim before?” Ethan yelled.
    “I have no idea!” Sammael called, still laughing and shooting.
    A bullet dug into Ethan’s back, and he gritted his teeth. His sword skewered the nephil’s torso, and Ethan swung it around, using its body as a shield. He’d cut the goddamn heart in two, but it was struggling.
    Son of a bitch. Ethan’s second sword took its head, and it finally fell limp.
    Sammael’s next bullet caught Ethan in the throat.
    His vision darkened around the edges, and he sank to his knees, let the nephil drop to the ground in front of him. Sammael’s smile sharpened, and he exchanged his guns for a sword.
    A growl sounded behind Ethan. Three growls, as familiar to his ears as Hugh Castleford’s voice, as