Demon Night

demon’s neck.
    No torture. Just a simple, clean kill, and the demon’s head dropped to the ground. The body and the head vanished.
    Sammael slowly circled the creature, wariness in every step, as if he was trying not to draw its attention.
    Charlie’s fear was leaking through her shields. “Drifter?” Her voice was below a whisper. “What’s going on?”
    The creature’s uncanny black gaze settled on Ethan. But the interest in its psychic scent was all wrong, not on Ethan at all…but behind him. Its eyes turned red, began shining.
    Ethan’s gut twisted up tight. A demon. Some kind of demon…and it had tortured and bled out a vampire .
    “Charlie,” he said hoarsely. “You and Jane get away from here.” Her bag was in his cache; he dropped it at her feet, then dumped a pile of weapons on the Toyota’s backseat. The demon tilted its head, as if sizing Ethan up. “You take the car and put the symbols on the dash, and drive in any direction you want. Before dawn comes, you find a place, pay for it with a credit card, and put the spell up around the room. Don’t let the sunlight touch you. You’ll be in your daysleep until evening, and I’ll find you when you wake up. Or if I don’t come, you use the number I dialed on your phone last night.”
    “If you don’t…?” Her voice shuddered to nothing. “Drifter—”
    “ Miss Charlie. Go.” He wanted to look back, to see her. But hearing her scramble around the car, opening the passenger door for Jane would have to do.
    The black-winged demon moved. Ethan let the bolt from the crossbow fly, then raced across the street to meet its sword an instant later. His blade broke under the force of its swing, pain tearing up his arms. He immediately brought in another, just managed to keep his head on his shoulders.
    The crossbow’s bolt was embedded in its chest.
    The venom hadn’t slowed it a bit.
    Get the shield up around the car . He didn’t have time to shout the warning before dodging yet another attack from the demon’s sword. He was quickly losing the distance he’d gained. Jane wasn’t even inside the vehicle yet, her human speed nothing in comparison to Ethan’s, or even Charlie’s.
    He heard Charlie urging her in, ducked a swipe of a blade, and saw Sammael’s gaze fix on the women.
    The winged demon’s attack was elegant and brutal. A feint, then a strike low. Pain tore across Ethan’s stomach in a burning line. The scent of blood filled the air, and Charlie’s cry; she must have seen it slice his belly open.
    This thing was going to have him dead before she was in the car.
    Like hell. Guns weren’t much good short-range, too easy to knock off the aim, but Ethan called in a pistol, got a shot to its face before its foot caught his arm. That slowed it a little, but the ache in Ethan’s forearm told him a bone had snapped.
    He fell back a yard, two, tried to gain a moment to reassess, to think. He didn’t get one.
    Jane’s voice barely registered through the haze of pain, but Sammael’s psychic wave of indecision did. Then resignation, when she shouted again. “Dylan—for God’s sake, help him !”
    Ethan dropped, flattened himself against the pavement to avoid the winged demon’s whistling blade. No way to get up in time—
    It suddenly fell back, its swords flashing.
    Ethan blinked, and rose up on his knees. Sammael was meeting it strike for strike, forcing it away from Ethan and the women.
    He dared a glance back at the car. Charlie was pulling the driver’s side door closed; her frightened eyes met his through the window. “Come with us.”
    He shook his head. “Go,” he said, then turned to focus on the battle in front of him. Sammael was still fighting, but although the creature had lost ground, surprised by Sammael’s attack, it was bearing in on him as it regrouped.
    Tires screeched as Charlie tore onto the road, barely missing Ethan’s leg. The shield was up a moment later.
    That wouldn’t be enough; they had to get the creature out of public sight, keep it occupied long enough that it couldn’t follow the vehicle.
    “I could use some saving here, Guardian,” Sammael growled. “Unless you don’t want them to get away.”
    Ethan didn’t consider himself an easily surprised man, but that did it. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered, and jumped to his feet.
    And if not damned, probably stabbed through the back within a minute.

CHAPTER 15
    “What are they doing?” Charlie tried to use the rearview