“I wonder,” Demogar asked as she stood up to go wash her face. “Do you know what it’s like to kill someone whose name you know?” She glanced at the body of the angel. “He wasn’t my friend, but I know who he was, how many kids he had, how many grand and great-grandkids. I know what his wife will say when she hears he did not return.”

“Was he part of the Empress’s guard then?” I asked, re-holstering my gun at the small of my back.

“Mmm,” she nodded. “Even as bad as I feel for having killed him, I cannot imagine how Lucifer must feel.”

I followed her to the bathroom and leaned in the doorway, arms crossed. “I don’t understand.”

“I thought you knew Lucifer, Soma. Don’t you know what he is up there?”

“Well, no. Actually, I never asked personal questions.”

“Why not? How can you trust him not knowing who he really is?”

I shook my head as she toweled dry her face and rehung the white cloth on the rack, making sure it didn’t bunch and that the ends were mostly even with each other. Curious girl.

“I guess I was afraid that if I knew too much about him, I would lose the ability to trust him, and I don’t want that.”

She turned around and leaned on the sink, her feet crossed and her hands next to her hips on the edge of the counter. “He’s the head of the Royal Guard. To have come here to try to kill me, he,” she nodded her head to the body behind me, “would have had to either get permission from Lucifer or be ordered by Lucifer. Either way, he knew he was killing that Koujin by letting him come down here, but in order to keep me as safe as we can, he has to continue acting as if he wants me as dead as Meira does.”

“Head of the Royal Guard? He’s a big shot then.”

“Indeed. He has the power to tell us what to do...if our lives are in danger, that is.” She smirked as she stepped forward and reached for the edge of the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to use the toilet.”

“Oh, excuse me,” I said, stepping back. I sighed and turned to the room. Better call in the clean-up team. I had my phone in my hand when an orange hawk flew in and circled the room almost too fast for me to keep it in my view. I dropped my phone and had my gun aimed at it as it landed a few feet in front of me.

“Soma, you shoot me, and I’ll peck your eyes out,” it said, cocking its head to the side, watching my hand carefully. I sighed and let my arm fall to rest at my side.

“Damn it, Shouta. What are you doing here?” I growled.

“Followed an angel. You know how we are,” he said, waddling over to the body and pecking at it. “It’s dead, but there don’t seem to be any bullet holes.”

“That’s because I didn’t shoot it. Go get Yuki. I need you guys to get rid of it for me.”

“You killed it; you dispose of it.” He waddled back over, tilting his head in that curious way birds do. “Someone else here?” he asked when the toilet flushed.

“Someone I have to protect, which is why you need to get rid of the body.”

“Whatever. Fine, I’ll get him,” he said, taking flight back out the open balcony doors. “Yuki! We’re too late. We get clean-up duty instead.”

“Aw, man!” Yuki’s deep voice wafted up from the ground. They’d got here pretty fast. I wondered if he’d taken animal form to keep up with Shouta.

“Did I hear someone out here?” Demogar asked, opening the door and stepping out into the dining area. I sighed through my nose, put the gun back in its holster and picked up my phone, returning it to my pocket.

“That was Shouta. He’s a Tengu, if you know what that is. He and Yuki are what we all refer to as ‘The Cleaners’. They hunt down angels who stray too close to the ground and get rid of them before they cause any harm to our people.” A solid series of raps on the door to the room drew my attention. “Stay here. I’m expecting my brother, but if anything goes wrong, you defend yourself and don’t worry about me.”

“Who said I would worry about you? If you can’t handle yourself, what the hell are you doing acting as my bodyguard?” she asked, smoothing her hair and straightening her shirt. I turned away quickly to answer the door. I hoped she wasn’t thinking clothes like those would help her keep a low profile, because her cleavage was going to be attracting a lot of men.

I tapped the wall twice as I walked towards the front of the room. An answering three knocks told me it was indeed my brother on the other side of the door. If it weren’t him, I’d be giving my position away to someone paying attention, but in my experience, the type of killers who knock on a hotel door generally need to wait till they hear the lock scrape to know where their victim is.

I pulled the door open and waved him in. He was all grins, and I knew it was for the prospect of a beautiful woman in our debt. I let the door swing shut behind him and grabbed his arm.

“Don’t you hit on her or make any lewd comments,” I warned in a low voice, so Demogar wouldn’t hear me in the other room.

“Ani, would I do something like that?”

“This is why I always win at poker. I know you, and I am telling you right now to leave her alone. She is-”

“Demogar!” It was Yuki who yelled it, and the tone told me I was already too late to stop whatever he was going to do. I bolted for the dining area, Otouto right behind me. Shouta was back in a humanoid form, and he and Yuki were sliding on their backs across the mats. Demogar was doubled over the table, a hand over her face with blood dripping between her fingers.

“Demogar!” I ran to her, grabbing her shoulders and turning her toward me to look at what was bleeding. “Oh gods, what did you do? Yuki! Why? How could you?” Four claws had sliced through her face starting at her chin and cutting through her nose. She’d lose her right eye, and the left was iffy. There was a line through it, but with all the blood, I couldn’t tell how deep it was.

I held her left hand away from the damage and tried to lift her up and carry her to the bathroom. She was leaving marks in my arm with her right hand, but she was determined not to scream or cry or even whimper. I had to admire this woman.

“Otouto! Call an ambulance! She needs medical attention now!” I yanked a washcloth off the rack and pressed it over her eye. It fluttered open just enough for me to tell she wouldn’t be completely blind. That at least was a relief.

“No. No, I can’t go to a hospital. They won’t treat me,” she muttered. Her voice was tight with pain, but she seemed desperate to not let it shake.

“They won’t know you, not like this. We have to get you stitched up. You’ll bleed to death like this. And your eye...”

“Ani!”

“What? Did you call them?” I yelled in an almost-panic. Lucifer was going to kill me for sure for this.

“Ah, no, actually, the boys are here, and they say they got something for her.”

I put the bloodied cloth in Demogar’s left hand and brought them both to her face over the deepest part of the damage. “Hold it there hard, Demogar. I’ll be right back.”

The look on my face as I left the bathroom was enough that Otouto stepped back several paces. My sons, the ones I hadn’t wanted to let Demogar anywhere near just an hour ago, blocked my path. Kage, ever the peace-maker, put his hands on my arms.

“Don’t worry. She won’t need any stitches in a minute. Just trust us, please.” If his voice weren’t always the soft, bedside manner that it was now, it would have enraged me even more.

“Otan, trust us.” Mune gave me his devil-may-care grin and went into the bathroom. For a split second, I panicked. At the very least, she didn’t know him; she may attack him. But Kage patted my arm and flashed his own sweet smile, then followed his brother in, closing the door.

“You’re letting them go in there? She’s wounded! She could do anything to them!” Yuki cried, having got to his feet.

I was on him in a second, his shirt balled in my fists. He grunted when his back hit the wall, and he thought twice about saying anything more in the face of my snarl.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I yelled, spit spraying his face.

“What are you talking about, Soma? Don’t you know who that is?” he tried through clenched teeth.

“Better than you do! It’s my job to protect her! Lucifer sent her to me! And when he sees her face, I’m pointing at you, and when he’s through with you, hopefully he won’t have any energy left to beat the shit out of me!”

“But it’s Demogar! The Empress’s Shadow! How can you protect her after all she’s done?”

“Yuki, if she gets lycanthropy from you, I will hunt you down and skin you alive every full moon for the rest of your life,” I hissed. I could barely move my mouth, I was so angry, and I could see my own red eyes reflected in his sunglasses still miraculously propped up on his forehead.

The bathroom door opened just then. Kage and Mune stepped out, rolling one of our camping coolers behind them. Had they had that when they went in? Mune gave me the grin he does when he knows he’s done good. Kage just bowed to me to acknowledge he’d seen me and went to stand by his uncle. Still in the bathroom, I could see Demogar bent over the sink. She reached for the towel and turned to come out while drying her face. I dropped Yuki to the floor along with my jaw when she flipped the towel over her shoulder, revealing her face.

“Don’t worry about lycanthropy, Soma. It will not be a problem. However, I do ask that these two leave and not come back while I am here. I do not enjoy that much pain.”

Her face, her ruined face, her lost eye, her barely-hanging-on nose...all of it was whole. Healed. As if nothing had happened. Yuki’s claw marks in her face were just gone. I looked at my boys for an explanation. Both of them just shrugged. I turned my gaze back to Demogar, and that’s when I realized her eyes were completely black, no whites, no irises, just solid black.

“Soma, let us not speak of anything too important in front of guests. If they are here to take away this body, then let them take it away.”

As she spoke, I watched her mouth. She was good at hiding it. I hadn’t noticed before now. I wondered if I was losing my touch or if she had used glamour, but she had a full set of vampire fangs. Suddenly, my boys coming, the cooler...it made sense. They had seen it happening, had a vision of the future probably, and had brought her some of our emergency blood packs.

“Demogar, you’re a dhampir.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. She sighed and waved her hand at the balcony, and the doors slammed shut.

“Damn it, Soma. I’m going to have to kill them now. I hope you’re happy.”

I didn’t see her move, but Yuki was slammed face-down on the dining table, her foot at the back of his neck, and she was reaching out for Shouta. I could feel a slight tingling as her power wafted through the room. She wasn’t hiding anything anymore.

“Stop her!” Kage screamed. “Otan!”

I didn’t have the time to think. Once again, I acted on instinct. I grabbed her around her neck again and pulled her backwards, interrupting whatever she was doing to Shouta and getting her off Yuki. At the same time, I sank my own fangs into her shoulder. She gripped my arms until her nails broke my skin, and I could hear her choked attempts to scream. I used the link that forms naturally when a vampire or dhampir drinks blood directly from the vein to force my will over hers. It wasn’t easy, but I had to stop her and calm her down. I understood her fear, probably more than she did. After all, my brother and I, my sons Kage and Mune, we were all dhampiri. I had thought that we were the only ones, but I was obviously mistaken.

I picked Demogar up and carried her to the closest bed when she finally went limp in my arms. Her black eyes never closed, and since I couldn’t tell where she was looking, I shifted uncomfortably, feeling like she was staring at me. I brushed the bangs out of her eyes and tried to tell her mentally that she was safe. But as I went to check on those two idiots in the dining room, all I could think about was, if she’s a dhampir, where is her twin?