Demon Night

the restaurant. “She might.”
    “Don’t be a fool, son.” He unlocked his door with a remote device. “This indirect route to Jane will lead you nowhere.”
    If using his Gift wouldn’t have alerted any nearby vampires to his presence, Ethan would have locked the car door again, simply to observe the senator’s reaction. Ethan couldn’t get through his shields, but a man’s response to an unexpected obstacle spoke loudly enough.
    “The direct route got me nowhere, too,” Mark Brandt muttered.
    The senator’s jaw clenched briefly. “Then create another path.”
    That silenced the younger man, and Ethan watched them drive away. Coincidence or not, it was best to have Jake look up the Brandts, see if they had any connection to Legion.
    His cell phone was in his cache. He turned it on, then frowned at the display. A moment later, the lighted screen went dark. Well, shit. He’d forgotten that he’d vanished it the last time because of the bothersome beep that signaled the low battery.
    Charlie’s laughter suddenly hit him, made him look around. The roof was empty. Her voice struck again, and he realized she was talking in low tones with someone inside the restaurant.
    Hell and damnation, he’d been listening for her.
    With a shake of his head, he pushed it away. She should have been background noise. He only listened for what was necessary, or the influx of sounds would drive him mad—right now, that meant a furtive footstep or a whisper. The ring of a blade or the chambering of a bullet.
    Protecting Charlie was necessary—but it was best that she wasn’t.

    Charlie almost dropped her cash drawer when she turned around and found Ethan sitting at her bar, twenty minutes after Cole’s had closed. She’d been thinking that he’d fallen asleep at home or forgotten, or had been waiting for her outside after they’d locked the front doors. She had no idea who had let him in—and she didn’t realize how a tight band of anxiety had wrapped around her chest until it let go.
    He watched her fumble with the drawer, an easy half smile curving his lips. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    A few quarters slid to the floor, landing soundlessly against the anti-fatigue mat. “I wasn’t surprised. I do this every night.” She took a deep breath, steadied the drawer between her stomach and the register. “I have to go in the back, finish up. It might take me a couple of minutes.”
    “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
    And he did look like he’d settled in, turning on the stool and letting his gaze roam the lounge. She glanced in the mirror; the movement of his head flexed the tendon that ran from behind his jaw to the hollow of his throat. She wanted to run her fingers over his collar, compare the softness of the fabric with the smoothness of his skin. He still wasn’t wearing his jacket, though it was past two o’clock in the morning. But then, maybe someone as big and rangy as Ethan didn’t get cold; he probably generated his own heat.
    Sighing, she bent and retrieved the quarters, then headed through the employees’ door. Hot or not, it didn’t bode well that he seemed to find Vin putting the chairs up more interesting to observe than he did Charlie.
    In his office, Old Matthew was muttering numbers to himself and working his way through a stack of one-dollar bills; she quietly slid her drawer on the desk next to him so he wouldn’t lose count, and continued on to the employees’ room. He called her name on her way back through.
    Old Matthew’s office was an explosion of paperwork that he always claimed was completely organized, but he’d brought her in more than once to help him search for a paper he’d mislaid. The one-way mirror on the back wall looked out over the lounge; through the silhouettes of bottles and shelves, Charlie saw Ethan pick up a pink packet of sugar substitute from the bar, read the back, and shake his head.
    “Charlie, take a look at this.”
    She tore her gaze away from Ethan. Old Matthew had rocked back in his chair, holding a pair of bills over his head and squinting at them under the light. The tiny loops in the black kufi she’d knitted for him at the beginning of winter were a little loose and faded now; he wouldn’t care that it was becoming worn, but she made a mental note to pick up yarn for another.
    He gave her the cash, his big fingertip sliding down the edge. “See the ink here?” Purple had soaked into the side of the twenty in a long blotchy