Demon Night by Meljean Brook Page B

months now. Did they come around Cole’s before?”
    â€œNo. Not the evenings I was watching.” If they had, Ethan would’ve gotten answers from them long ago. “But Charlie calls Jane most every night.”
    â€œSo you think that’s what tipped them off to her routine. Who tipped them off,” Lilith said.
    â€œJane?” Jake shook his head. “I don’t see—”
    â€œNo. The boyfriend, Dylan Samuels.” Ethan brushed the sides of his jacket back, hooked his thumbs at the base of his suspenders. “I figure he’s a demon.”
    Jake’s mouth snapped closed, and he glanced warily at Lilith. She set down the folder that had just appeared in her hands and studied Ethan. Her face was expressionless, but if she’d still been a demon, he reckoned her eyes might have been glowing crimson.
    â€œYou figure?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    â€œBut you aren’t certain.”
    â€œAbout ninety-nine percent.”
    Slowly, she picked up the remote and silenced the stereo. “Ninety-nine,” she said flatly. “Why didn’t you tell me this as soon as I came in?”
    Ethan scratched his jaw, considering. “Two…no, three reasons. The first was the one percent, and his human behavior. He’s been bedding Miss Jane for eight months now, and from listening in on Charlie’s phone calls I gleaned that he’s doing it regular-like. He wasn’t the person that recruited her, and she isn’t rolling in cash, just comfortable—so there weren’t no reason to strike up a relationship or continue it as long as he has. And you’ve got his transcripts there.” He gestured to the folder on her desk. “I talked to his professors, a few neighbors. He’s got a history that goes back at least ten years, though that doesn’t guarantee he didn’t just take over another man’s identity. I didn’t want to alert him to my presence if he was a demon, which meant I had to stay away from him and couldn’t feel him out too hard. What I have noted is that his psychic blocks are good.”
    Lilith was nodding. “But that isn’t impossible for humans. Reason number two, because reason number one isn’t enough for me not to put a bullet in your eye.”
    Which would hurt like a son of a bitch, but wouldn’t kill him. “It wouldn’t benefit me to fly down here and ask your opinion if I colored it with my assumptions first. It took you ten minutes to consider all of the avenues Jake and I have been exploring on and off for two months, and you discarded each one that I did, coming back to the sister. But maybe you wouldn’t have bothered had I opened up with Samuels as the demon. And maybe my ninety-nine has increased half a percent.”
    â€œMaybe?” She tapped her fingers against Samuels’s folder a few times before stilling her hand. “All right. I’ll give you that. And three?”
    â€œSir Pup is three thousand miles east. No matter how many weapons you’ve hidden around this room, I reckoned it’d be mighty difficult for you to murder me, so it was safe to risk pissing you off.”
    â€œJesus.” Jake backed his chair up, as if edging out of the line of fire. “It was good knowing you, Drifter.”
    Lilith ignored him, tilting her head to the side, her eyes narrowing. “I wonder—do people fall for your ‘I’m just simple folk’ routine?”
    â€œYes’m,” he said mildly. “Rather often.”
    She leaned back, and Ethan heard the coil of hair sliding against the seat’s leather upholstering. “It’s also because of your size. Somewhere around six-three, height doesn’t suggest power anymore, but ‘big dumb lunk.’”
    â€œI figure I got three extra inches of lunk in my feet then.”
    â€œI’d put it in your head,” she said, but the sharpening of her gaze