Demon Night

tendon. Ethan’s weapon fell.
    Grinning again, the demon slithered back—but the venom must have slowed him down, because Ethan followed him quick and slammed his bleeding fist into the bastard’s smiling face. Bone crunched.
    Slowed…but Ethan didn’t get a chance to do it again. Hissing, the demon leapt back and up, perching once more at the edge of the roof, blood dripping over his mouth and chin.
    Within a moment, the dripping had stopped, and his nose began regaining its shape. Two pistols appeared in the demon’s hands, and Ethan eyed them warily. He didn’t want to have to scamper off like a rabbit. But they weren’t pointed at him yet, just spinning on the demon’s forefingers like he was a gunslinger showing off.
    “I smell Charlotte on you, Guardian. Have you put your hands on her?”
    “Shucks, no,” Ethan said, smiling. “Just my mouth.”
    He imagined if he’d said the same of Jane, he’d have a bullet in him now. But though the demon stiffened and disgust rippled through his scent, he didn’t stop spinning his weapons.
    “You know I will not kill Charlotte, but give her immortality.”
    “All well and good, if she asks for it. But I don’t figure your vampires were planning to give her the opportunity to refuse.”
    “Perhaps not.” But knowing the vampires would have broken the Rules obviously didn’t displease the demon. “Perhaps I ought to ask her very nicely: ‘Charlie, your worthless, pitiable, self-destructive existence sickens me. Why not donate your body to help protect my kind from those who would destroy us?’” Sammael’s eyes gleamed, black and human again. “I could offer her a choice—and with it, a purpose; but I doubt she is capable of understanding or accepting that. And so I must use the vampires.”
    “Five less than you used before.” Ethan’s wrist had healed up, but he didn’t yet reclaim his sword. He could pull in another from his cache, and Sammael might be bolder in his offense—and more careless—if he thought Ethan would depend on the ancient pistols holstered at his thighs. “Tell me: Did you leave Miss Jane home alone? I just might go calling on her.”
    The demon moved, but not into an attack. He stood and stared down at Ethan before saying, “I will not allow you contact with Jane.”
    “Considering that Charlie’s with me, and Jane will very likely want to see her sister in the near future…well, I sure do hope you attempt to deny Jane’s free will and try to stop her.” Ethan didn’t know what—if any—immediate consequences there were for a demon who hindered a human’s free will now that the Gates to Hell were closed and Lucifer locked behind them, but he figured something must have been keeping the demons from doing it the past year.
    The demon’s eyes narrowed. “You have no idea what you’re up against, Guardian—or who you are dealing with,” he said, and his grin was sharp and wide. He launched himself up into the sky with his teeth gleaming.
    Well now, that had finally been a response that Ethan could have predicted. Demons were masters of spouting lines that could have been straight from a penny dreadful.
    Ethan took another look at the alley floor, hoping the demon had left something behind, but it was clean. Mighty peculiar, that Sammael assumed Ethan had killed the female vampire. If Sammael was associated with the other demon, was communication at Legion breaking down? And if Sammael hadn’t known of the other demon, was it one of Lucifer’s demons coming in to give trouble to Belial’s?
    Odd to think that demons had loyalties, but the civil war in Hell had been raging for almost a millennium; it might be that—even with the Gates closed—Lucifer’s and Belial’s followers continued their struggles against one another.
    But Ethan wasn’t going to figure it out standing here. A look at the sky told him dawn was coming in less than two hours—and he wouldn’t be able to speak with Savitri Murray once the sun rose.
    His phone was dead, but a mental search through Charlie’s things confirmed that hers was in the big embroidered bag that she carried around.
    He ought to have left more of her belongings with her—a single lamp wouldn’t bring much comfort while she was alone, and the terrible hurt he’d put on her wouldn’t have made the empty house easier to bear.
    Goddammit, he shouldn’t have kissed her back. If he’d just kept his hands off her, there wouldn’t have been any need to say