Demon Night Read Online Free PDF

tickled the underside of her chin with the tip of the feather, looking at the wall and wishing—not for the first time—that she could see through it.
    But perhaps it was best she couldn’t. Not yet, not until she was steady. Strong.
    With a long sigh, she stood and scooped the pack of smokes from the table. She’d gone through a quarter of them. “Will you do me a favor?” Without waiting for his answer, she held it over the wall. “Will you hide these at your place? I won’t buy more if I can get them for free next door.”
    He didn’t respond, but his fingers brushed hers as he took the pack. She closed her eyes. He was warm, as if he’d protected his hands in his pockets instead of exposing them to the cold night air, a feather in one and a cigarette in the other.
    â€œIf you ask, should I give them back?”
    Her fingers trembled, and she pulled her hand away from his and tucked it against her side. “No. Make me come and get them.”
    â€œWell now, Charlie, I don’t know whether to hope that you resist, or to pray for an end to our Pyramus and Thisbe routine.”
    Her teeth clenched, and the frustration that rose up in her wasn’t unfamiliar: that feeling of ignorance, of being unable to share in a joke or discussion—or worse, the certainty that she had heard something before, but just couldn’t place it. “Hold on, Ethan. I’ll be right back.”
    She didn’t close the sliding door behind her. Her computer was on, and luckily the search engine offered up the correct spelling after she put in her mangled, phonetic version. Pyramus and Thisbe. Lovers parted by a family feud, whose only contact was speaking through a crack in a wall.
    Damn. She had seen this once, at a theater in New York—she’d probably been drunk off her ass, or halfway there.
    She grimaced as she scanned the rest of the story, then returned to the balcony. “That didn’t end well. Unless you think double suicide is romantic.”
    Ethan’s laughter broke and rolled like muted thunder—a fitting accompaniment to the lights and the weather. “No,” he said eventually. “That I don’t. Good night, Miss Charlie.”
    She smiled into the dark; this was a familiar routine. And she was feeling settled now, too—and safe. “Good night, Ethan.”
    Her smile lingered as she readied for bed, as she placed the feather on her nightstand. The drumming of the rain against the roof, the sighing of the breeze, the swish of the passing cars was a soft symphony lulling her to sleep.
    Long before it was silenced, she’d fallen deep.
    Â 
    Charlie needed better locks.
    Ethan could have picked them open within seconds, but he didn’t require tools or time. He mentally tested the shape of the cylinder in the deadbolt, the simple pin tumbler in the knob, and unlocked them both with an effortless thrust of his Gift.
    Though she’d left no lights on, he easily avoided the bamboo trunk that served as a coffee table. Knitted throws in bright colors covered the sofa and the chair in front of her desk. Against one wall, her television was dwarfed by stereo speakers and encased by shelves stuffed with records and CDs. He could read the neatly arranged titles from across the darkened room, but he already knew that classical and opera dominated her collection: she played them often.
    It had been her way of introduction two months before, a throwaway comment from the balcony, underscored by Vivaldi: Tell me if my music is too loud.
    Loud or quiet, it wouldn’t have mattered; if he listened closely, Ethan could hear her heartbeat through the walls. The click of knitting needles. The distinctive slide of a feather over skin.
    He followed the sound of her deep, even breathing. The fragrance of apple shampoo and cocoa butter rose from the damp towel wadded in a laundry basket at the foot of her bed.
    Charlie lay on her stomach, her