Demon Night

“I didn’t mean to take it that far. We’ve still got to get to Jane’s, and there’s something more I need to tell you.”
    Charlie checked the clock at the side of the bed; it was two in the morning. Sunrise came just before seven. “Maybe you should tell me on the way. And it might be easier if we’re not here .” She patted the mattress.
    He nodded. “We’ll go out the front, take her automobile with us.”
    “She’ll probably want to fly, if you can carry two.”
    “I can, but it leaves me without hands to defend us.”
    “Oh. Okay, the car then.” Charlie tied her sneakers and glanced at the clock again, her brow furrowing. “The other day, my radio alarm didn’t go off and my cell phone didn’t work. Did you put the spell up around my apartment?”
    “That I did.”
    “You stole my feather?”
    “That I did.”
    “Can I have—”
    It appeared on her lap before she could finish. She stroked her fingers down the length and tucked it into her sweatshirt pouch. Her throat felt oddly thick; she hadn’t thought she’d be this glad to get the silly thing back. “Thank you.”
    Then, because Ethan’s expression was changing from amusement to a deeper, searching look, she quickly added, “You were telling me the other things?”
    “Yes, well—” He glanced behind her, toward the bed. The skin across his cheeks tightened, his lips thinned. “We’ll fly slow.”

    The city sparkled as she’d never seen it before, each square window perfectly outlined, even from across the lake. Charlie soaked in the vision of it before rubbing her palm lightly against the down-covered frame of Ethan’s left wing. It flexed beneath her fingers with each powerful stroke.
    “The other thing?” she reminded him, although she was certain he hadn’t forgotten, and slid her arm fully around his neck so she wouldn’t be a distraction.
    Ethan didn’t glance away from the air in front of them. “It may be that Sammael doesn’t know this, but rumor ain’t an imaginary many-tongued chimera, and so it’s equally possible that he does. There was a vampire. A woman, about twenty years ago.”
    She studied the wooden line of his jaw. His voice wasn’t giving much away, but she’d have bet anything that talking about this was difficult for him. “Jake said something about her. You loved her?”
    “Didn’t know her from Eve. Didn’t know her name. Still don’t.”
    The wind was stinging cold tears from her eyes; she wiped them away. “What went wrong, then?”
    “I did.” He swallowed hard, and her gaze dropped to the muscle that ran from behind his ear to the hollow of his throat. Hunger flicked a teasing tongue across her fangs. “It was my first year back on Earth. The worst part of the Enthrallment had passed, but it still hit me now and again.” He glanced down at her. “You’ll get the same. Days where you’ll be all right, then a sound or a scent just gets in you, overwhelms you.”
    “Worse for Guardians, though?”
    “I reckon.” The flap of his wings and the distant buzz of the city filled the brief silence. “One night, we ran across a vampire defending herself against a demon, but she was losing quick.”
    “We?”
    “My mentor—Hugh Castleford, they call him now—and I. Hugh took on the demon; I was just to get her to safety, watch over her until Hugh finished up. But she’d been hurt pretty bad, had bled out some, and she needed to feed. So I offered myself on up.” A rueful expression crossed his features. “Was more than willing to offer myself up. She’d fought like a warrior, was strong, beautiful, and she smelled something wonderful.”
    “And you wanted her?”
    His eyes closed; when he opened them again, they were flat and dull, like a water-worn stone. “Yes. She began feeding—then the bloodlust grabbed hold of her. I should have known that the way she was responding wasn’t her , Charlie. Hugh taught me well—I knew what happened to vampires when it hit them like that. Sometimes, when they’re not too hungry, they can feed without it ever taking them over. But my blocks were down, and her hands were so cold and she looked and smelled so good, and she was sending me the pleasure of the feeding…and I just wasn’t thinking with my head. What she was feeling got into me, too, mixed with the Enthrallment. I pretty much lost my head.”
    Charlie was shivering; she wasn’t cold. “It’s that strong? The bloodlust—it’s that overwhelming?”
    “Yes. I