Demon Night

the blade to wiggle it on out.”
    Oh, Jesus. “That doesn’t sound like a good plan.”
    “It’s likely not, but—” He sat up straight, and his jacket was suddenly in his hands. He lifted the sleeve up from the rest of the bundle; from the wrist to the elbow, it was dark with blood. “That’s mine, Charlie. Nearly lost my hand to a demon. Now, I can reattach it, or wait until I return to Caelum and get a Healer to fix me up, or eventually grow another one—but next time it might be my head, and I can’t put that back on. And next time might be the moment I let the shield down around the house, because there’s no way for me to know if a demon’s waiting for us when the spell is up.”
    Demons, spells, being constantly prepared to defend himself…Charlie could barely imagine life at that level or think in those terms.
    But she had to now, didn’t she?
    “All right. All right.” She shrugged out of her coat, tossed it onto the island. The ivory-handled knife was as cold as her fingers, and gooseflesh crawled over her body—but Ethan’s skin was smooth, as if he didn’t feel the chill in the air. “Do we need to sterilize this?”
    “No. Just quick and deep, Charlie. And soon, before I turn yellow and embarrass myself.”
    “Just hold on a second, Ethan. Jesus.” She thought his lips twitched before he turned, facing straight ahead. “I need a towel. Or five. You’ve got some of—”
    A rainbow of her neatly folded hand towels appeared on the island.
    “My tweezers, too.”
    After a second, Ethan said, “They in something?”
    “A brown makeup bag. It’s got a fleur-de-lis design all over the outside. Yeah, that one.” God. Just wiggle the bullet on out, Charlie. He was crazy. She wiped off the tips of the tweezers and laid them next to the towels. “Are you ready? You’d better start talking. You said you’re a Guardian—what does that mean?”
    “You ever play DemonSlayer?”
    “The video game? No.” She held the blade over the black circle she’d made on his skin. Just stabbing wouldn’t let her work in there; she needed an incision.
    “Good, because it’s mostly bull holy fucking whoreson —!” His jaw clamped together and he dropped his forehead to his arms; his knee lifted and he slammed his boot against the floor.
    Charlie felt the vibration in her feet, and she stared in shock at the deep wound she’d made, the blood pouring from it. She’d convinced herself it wouldn’t really hurt him. For God’s sake, he’d been shot and she hadn’t heard him complain about the pain, just the inconvenience. “Ethan—”
    His voice was muffled against his arms. “Get in there, Charlie, or it’ll close up and you’ll have to do it again.”
    He was right; it had bled hard the first second, but it was already slowing. She grabbed a towel and her tweezers. “Guardians?” she prompted.
    “Yes.” He hissed when she probed the incision, and she thought she heard wood splinter. “You’ve heard about Lucifer and his rebellion in Heaven?”
    “I think so.” She couldn’t see anything inside the wound, and looking at it was just making her sick; she closed her eyes and gently felt around for the bullet. She’d forgotten what a distinctive odor blood had. “Lucifer and his followers were turned into demons and thrown into Hell—but Lucifer decided to trick humans into wearing clothes instead of leaves, so he turned into a snake and made Eve eat the apple and then humans were eternally screwed.”
    His back shook under her hand, like he was holding in laughter. “I don’t know if the snake and the apple is true—but the demons did begin tempting humans, and angels remained on Earth to stop them. Except it wasn’t long before humans started thinking the angels were gods, and the demons got almighty jealous.” He sucked in a long breath. “You’ll have to open it up again. Deep as you can. Poke around in there, Charlie. You don’t need to be gentle, because it’ll only hurt for a second—I can hardly feel the cut you made now. And you aren’t doing any damage.”
    “Okay.” Charlie wiped the blood from her hands, the tweezers, then his back—cleaning the work space. “It’s all over your pants.”
    “I’d take them off and sit here in my skivvies, but— sonofabitch .” He gripped his knees, the muscles and tendons in his hands and arms standing in sharp relief. “But I ain’t wearing any.”
    He’d probably meant that to be teasing, instead of