Demon Night

across a wide-screen television, and he muttered to himself when his character received a hit from a demon that sent blood flying and his life indicator shrinking.
    “Is that how they look?” Horns curled beside the demon’s head. She had crimson skin and fangs, but no tail, no trident.
    “Not exactly,” Jake said, leaning to the side as his character rounded a corner. “They shape-shift to look like people. They look like people when they’re demons, too, but they have more snake and goat to them. The whole scales and cloven feet thing, you know…”
    The rest was lost in another mutter and a furious clatter of buttons, and Charlie smiled to herself and moved to the east window. Ethan’s truck was gone.
    “You guys would make a killing as a moving service—” She broke off, looked closer. Two pinpoints of light were moving through the trees. “Jake, I think a car’s coming.”
    The room went dark, and Jake was beside her an instant later, touching her arm before her scream could escape. “I did that, Charlie. I can see better if I don’t have the reflection to look through.”
    He didn’t say anything about someone else not seeing in, and she fought the urge to creep away from the window, to find the nearest bed and hide under it.
    Squinting, he leaned toward the glass. “It’s a little car…a Toyota. Can’t see the driver yet.”
    Aside from the illuminated landscaping at the front of the house, Charlie couldn’t see anything but the headlights. “Jane drives a Toyota.”
    “Jane doesn’t know where we are,” he said, but there was uncertainty in his voice. “Unless Drifter did get ahold of her, and bought her some time to come here.”
    “Would he do that?” The question rattled from between her teeth.
    “He might have thought he’d be coming right after, or getting here first to tell us she was headed this way.”
    But because Ethan wasn’t there, it could mean that driver wasn’t Jane—or that he was hurt somewhere, or still fighting Dylan.
    She didn’t let herself think of any other option.
    “It’s Jane,” Jake said softly. “ Maybe. Let’s go on downstairs, Charlie.”
    He turned off the lights along the way; an automatic pistol appeared in his hand. Charlie hung back from the front entrance until he gestured her closer, then she stood to the side of the large double doors, trying to look through the beveled glass. The driveway wavered in front of her.
    Jake’s jaw was tight. “SI’s got temperature sensors being developed so we can tell demon from human through the spell, but aside from a few prototypes, they aren’t ready yet. I wish they were.”
    “Me, too.” Charlie rubbed her arms. “Can vampires shape-shift?”
    “No. Yes. One, but she’s—” Jake stopped, flashed a narrowed look at her. “You’re thinking that if it’s a demon, you can go out there and you won’t be in danger.”
    She’d been approaching the idea in a vague way, but when he put it in those precise terms, it didn’t sound dumb. “Yeah.”
    “Over my dead body. And it would be, because Drifter would kill me. In any case, without psychic abilities you wouldn’t be able to tell until you touched her.” He held up his empty hand, wiggled his fingers. “Hot skin. Feels like you’re touching someone with an extremely high fever.”
    Charlie stared out the window, trembling. How had Jane not noticed something like that?
    “Damn,” Jake muttered. “It looks like she’s injured.”
    “What?” She scrambled to his side. Her heart had already been racing; now it was pounding so hard it made it difficult to breathe. The headlights were swinging into the drive…definitely Jane’s car, but Charlie could only see the silhouette of her sister inside. “How bad?”
    “There’s blood on her forehead and her shoulder, and she’s driving a little erratically.” A calm seemed to settle over him, and he looked down at her. “Okay, Charlie, this is what I’m going to do. I’ll put a new set of symbols on the door frame, key them to my blood, then remove Drifter’s. Then I’ll go out—and if it’s her, I’ll bring her in. If it’s not, I’m going to call Drifter and SI. I might have to run, but you’ll be okay in here.”
    He bent to scrape the door, and she leaned over him, staring through the window.
    “I understand—oh, Jesus! Jane. ” Her nails dug into his shoulder. Jane stumbled past the hood of her car, the front of her white shirt crimson.
    A dark form darted