Sex and the Single Vampire

What is it? The triumvirate?'

He spat out a word as he slipped through the open door, leaving me frozen with fear.

Demon.

Chapter Fourteen

'Oh, crap,' I breathed, for a moment too terrified at the thought of a demon to do anything. Then I realized that was the man I loved out there about to battle a soldier of some demon lord, and it was my job to be at his side, helping him where I could. Summoners might not be any great shakes at fighting minions of the dark, but we do have a few tricks up our sleeves. I hurried into my jeans and pulled on a sweater, taking time to step into some shoes before dashing out into the hallway and racing down the stairs.

Demons go to ground whenever possible; they draw their strength from the earth, and get weaker the farther they are from it. Therefore, demons will almost always engage you in battle in a basement. I stumbled down the stairs to the ground floor, my leg screaming its protest at the combination of my earlier exercise in the tub and being jolted down two flights of stairs.

'Allie? What is the matter?' Esme appeared at the top of the stairs.

'Demon,' I called over my shoulder as I ran for the door to the basement stairs. 'Stay in the study and keep the others there.'

I tried desperately to remember the little I'd learned of demon lore. What did come back to me had me spinning around on the stairs and gritting my teeth as I forced my poor leg into leaping back up the stairs to Christian's study. I ran straight through Esme, and then Antonio as he drifted through the door, throwing apologies and orders over my shoulder as I scrabbled through my bag. 'Sorry about that, Antonio. Esme, bring Alis back in here. You'll be safe here. Where the heck is my… Oh there it is.'

'Mi amor, what is the problem? That one, 'e 'as frightened you? 'E will answer to my sword this time, that I will swear upon my life.'

'You're dead, and the problem isn't Christian; it's a demon. For heaven's sake, stay here where you're safe.' I gathered up my chalk, the bottle of holy water, and my notebook, and spun around, dodging Alis as I hurried back down the stairs. My leg was screaming, but not as much as my mind. Christian had been alone with the demon for two or three minutes; what was he doing? Did he have experience with demons? Did he know they didn't like water, that if you captured one in a circle, it could be made to tell the truth about who summoned it? Did he know how to draw a circle strong enough to hold a demon? And worst of all, just what type was the demon—one of the weak minions, or a strong emissary of a demon lord?

The smell hit me as I raced down the basement stairs. Demons have a very strong odor, something that has been compared to that of a moldering grave. Never having stuck my nose in a moldering grave, I couldn't say, but I did know the smell raised all the hairs on the back of my neck and made my internal warning system go into overdrive trying to convince me to turn around and get myself out of there.

What I saw as I threw open the door to the wine cellar stopped me dead in my tracks. Christian leaned against the wall nearest the door, his arms crossed over his bare chest, his eyes solid black. Standing at the end of one of the six-foot-tall wine racks was a handsome man in a three-piece suit.

A very handsome man.

An exceptionally handsome man. One with dark blond hair slicked back from a broad brow, dark, sardonic eyes, and a pencil-thin mustache.

It was a demon… in Eurotrash form.

Are you okay? I asked Christian. He didn't answer me, didn't even glance over to me, but he held out his hand in warning to keep me from stepping between him and the demon. I could feel the power he was exerting to keep the demon in one place, but I didn't see any signs of containment wards. I had no idea how he was controlling the demon, but decided how wasn't important.

'This is your woman,' the demon said, its voice making a couple of cracks appear in the cement wall.

I knew Christian wasn't happy having me there with him in the room with what appeared to be one of the greater demons. Only the upper soldiers in a demon lord's service could cause the wall to crack with just a few words.

'She is not Joined with you. Will you give her to me?'

A hand-size patch of plaster fell off the far wall.

I wet my fingers with holy water and moved next to Christian to trace a ward over his heart, being careful to avoid blocking his gaze.

'She is nothing but flesh and bones, Dark One. You could be powerful, more powerful than you can imagine. I know what you seek. If you give her to me, I can give you more power than the lord who created you.'

Two of the ceiling lights went out.

I repeated the warding process on my own chest, then squatted down to draw a circle on the tile floor using the holy water, wondering what the demon was talking about. Christian had told me his father had been the one made a Dark One, not him.

'That will do you no good,' the demon told me, its words punctuated by the sound of a bottle of wine exploding. I looked up, quickly tracing a capture symbol with my still-wet fingers, an archaic spell a wizard had taught me in case I ever ran up against a succubus or any of the other minor creatures who were sometimes attracted to haunted sites. It didn't last long, but if you were quick, you could use it to keep the creature held to one place for a few vital seconds.

'It's going to take more than just holy water to hold one of its power,' I told Christian. He dragged a fingernail across his wrist, stepping forward to allow the blood seeping from the scratch to drop into the circle. I held out my hand to him.

'Would you?'

He hesitated.

'Christian, we don't have much time. You said there's power in us together; we can't do this singly.'

'I don't like it,' he said, reluctantly taking my hand. He was aware that if something went wrong, the demon could use our blood to bind us to itself.

'I know, and I appreciate that, but this is our only chance. If we can pull it into the circle, it will have no choice but to tell us what we want to know.'

He gave me a look to let me know that he knew I was right, but still didn't want to involve me. I wiggled my fingers at him until he took one in his mouth, swiftly nipping the end of the finger. I held it above the spattered drops of his blood and let my blood mingle with his.

The demon shrieked and broke free from the ward. I was knocked backward by the force of the ward exploding, striking my head on the cement wall behind me. The demon went straight for Christian, even as I screamed out a warning.

The ward over his heart protected that organ, but it did nothing for the rest of his body. Before I could draw breath enough to clear my spinning head, the demon threw itself on Christian, punching its fist straight through his stomach and out his back.

'Dear God in heaven.' I gasped as Christian clung to the demon, but whether it was for support or in attack, I didn't know. Blood soaked the demon's arm as he jerked it out of Christian's body, but powerful as it was, Christian hadn't survived nine hundred years without learning a few tricks of his own. I saw his lips moving in a spell as he easily broke the demon's bloodied arm.

I crawled over to the circle and started tracing wards around it. Although the demon was stronger than a mortal man, it was bound by the limitations of the form it had chosen, and while it couldn't be destroyed, the form it used could be harmed to the point that the demon would have no choice but to abandon it and return to its master.

All of which meant I had to hurry if I wanted to capture it before it broke Christian's body to the point where he wouldn't be able to heal himself.

The demon screamed again as Christian snapped its neck. It retaliated by punching another hole in Christian's chest, but this time he knew it was coming and fell backward, pulling the demon with him, ripping out its