Read the book: «Where Demons Dare»

One

I leaned over the glass counter, squinting at the price of the high-grade redwood rods, safe in their airtight glass coffins like Snow White. The ends of my scarf slipped to block my view, and I tucked them behind my short leather jacket. I had no call to be looking at wands. I didn’t have the money, but more important, I wasn’t shopping for business today—I was shopping for pleasure.

“Rachel?” my mom said from halfway across the store, smiling as she fingered a display of packaged organic herbs. “How about Dorothy? Make Jenks hairy, and he could be Toto.”

“No friggin’ way!” Jenks exclaimed, and I started when the pixy took off from my shoulder where he’d been nestled in my scarf’s warmth. Gold dust sifted from him to make a temporary sunbeam on the counter and brighten the drab evening. “I’m not going to spend Halloween handing out candy as a dog! And no Wendy and Tinker Bell either. I’m going as a pirate!” His wings slowed as he settled atop the counter next to the stand of low-grade redwood dowels suitable for amulets. “Coordinating costumes is stupid.”

Normally I’d agree, but, silent, I drew back from the counter. I’d never have enough disposable income for a wand. Besides, versatility was key in my profession, and wands were one-spell wonders. “I’m going as the female lead in the latest vampire flick,” I said to my mom. “The one where the vampire hunter falls in love with the vamp?”

“You’re going as a vampire hunter?” my mother asked.

Warming, I plucked an uninvoked amulet from a vanity rack to size my chest up. I was hippy enough to pass for the actress I was trying to mimic, but my excuse of a chest wouldn’t match her spell-enhanced bust. And it had to be spell enhanced. Naturally big-chested women don’t run like that. “No, the vampire,” I said, embarrassed. Ivy, my housemate, was going as the hunter, and despite my agreement that coordinating costumes was stupid, I knew Ivy and I would stop conversation when we walked into the party. And that was the point, wasn’t it? Halloween was the only time doppelgänger charms were legal—and Inderland and the braver slice of humanity made the most of it.

My mother’s face went serious, then cleared. “Oh! The black-haired one, right? In the slut outfit? Good God, I don’t know if my sewing machine can go through leather.”

“Mom!” I protested, though used to her language and lack of tact. If it came into her head, it came out of her mouth. I glanced at the clerk with her, but she clearly knew my mother and wasn’t fazed. Seeing a woman in tasteful slacks and an angora sweater swearing like a sailor tended to throw people off. Besides, I already had the outfit in my closet.

Frowning, my mother fingered the charms to change hair color. “Come over here, honey. Let’s see if they have anything that will touch your curls. Honestly, Rachel. You pick the hardest costumes. Why can’t you ever be anything easy, like a troll or fairy princess?”

Jenks snickered. “’Cause that’s not slutty enough,” he said loud enough for me to hear, but not my mother.

I gave him a look, and he simpered as he hovered backward to a rack of seeds. Though only about four inches tall, he cut an attractive figure with his soft-soled boots and the red scarf Matalina, his wife, had knitted him wrapped about his neck. Last spring, I’d used a demon curse to make him human-size, and the memory of his eighteen-year-old, athletic figure, with its trim waist and broad, muscular shoulders made strong from his dragonfly-like wings, was still very much in my memory. He was a very married pixy, but perfection deserved attention.

Jenks made a darting path over my basket, and a package of fern seed for Matalina’s wing aches thumped in. Catching sight of the bust enhancer, his expression turned positively devilish. “Speaking of slutty …” he started.

“Well-endowed doesn’t equal slutty, Jenks,” I said. “Grow up. It’s for the costume.”

“Like that’ll do anything?” His grin was infuriating, and his hands were on his hips in his best Peter Pan pose. “You need two or three to even make an impression. Fried eggs.”

“Shut up!”

From across the store came my mother’s oblivious “Solid black, right?” I turned to see her hair color shifting as she touched the invoked sample amulets. Her hair was exactly like mine. Sort of. I kept mine long, the wild, frizzy red just past my shoulders, instead of in the close cut she used to tame hers. But our eyes were the same green, and I had her same skill in earth magic, fleshed out and given a professional stamp at one of the local colleges. She had more education than I did, actually, but had few opportunities to use it. Halloween had always been a chance for her to show off her considerable earth magic skills to the neighboring moms with a modest vengeance, and I think she appreciated me asking for her help this year. She had been doing great these last few months, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was doing better because I was spending more time with her, or if she simply appeared more stable because I wasn’t seeing her just when she was having problems.

Guilt slithered through me, and giving Jenks a glare at his song about big-busted ladies tying their shoes, I wove through the stands of herbs and racks sporting premade charms, each having a distinctive sticker identifying who had made it. Charm crafting was still a cottage industry despite the high level of technology available to smooth out the rough spots, but one tightly regulated and vigorously licensed. The owner of the store probably only crafted a few of the spells she sold.

At my mother’s direction, I held each sample amulet in turn so she could evaluate my appearance. The clerk ooohed and ahhed, trying to push us into making a decision, but my mom hadn’t helped me with my costume in years, and we were going to make an evening out of it, ending with coffee and dessert at some overpriced coffeehouse. It wasn’t that I ignored my mom, but my life tended to interfere. A lot. I’d been making an effort over the last three months to spend more time with her, trying to ignore my own ghosts and hoping that she wouldn’t be so … fragile, and she hadn’t looked this good in a while. Which convinced me I was a crappy daughter.

Finding the right hair color was easy, and I nodded when my red curls turned a black so deep they were almost gunmetal-blue. Satisfied, I dropped a packaged, uninvoked amulet into the basket to hide the bust enhancer.

“I’ve a charm at home to straighten your hair,” my mother said brightly, and I turned wonderingly to her. I’d found out in fourth grade that over-the-counter charms wouldn’t touch my curls. Why on earth did she still have the difficult-to-make charms? I hadn’t straightened my hair in ages.

The shop’s phone rang, and when the clerk excused herself, my mom sidled close, smiling as she touched the braid Jenks’s kids had put my hair in this morning. “That charm took me your entire high school career to perfect,” she said. “You think I’m not going to practice it?”

Worried now, I glanced at the woman on the phone—the one who obviously knew my mother. “Mom!” I whispered. “You can’t sell those! You don’t have a license!”

Lips pressed tightly, she took my basket to the counter in a huff to check out.

Exhaling, my gaze went to Jenks sitting on the rack, and he shrugged. I slowly followed in my mother’s steps, wondering if I’d neglected her more than I thought. She did the damnedest things sometimes. I’d talk to her about it over coffee. Honestly, she should know better.

Streetlights had come on while we had shopped, and the pavement glowed with gold and purple holiday lights in the evening rain. It looked cold, and as I went to the register, I adjusted my scarf for Jenks. “Thanks,” he muttered as he landed on my shoulder. His wings were shivering, and they brushed my neck as he settled in. October was too cold for him to be out, but with the garden dormant and Matalina in need of fern seeds, risking a trip in the rain to a charm shop had been his only recourse. He’d brave anything for his wife, I thought, as I rubbed my tickling nose.

“How about the coffeehouse down two blocks?” my mom suggested as the dull beep, beep of barcodes being read clashed with the earthy smells of the shop.

“Grab some air, Jenks. I’m going to sneeze,” I warned him, and muttering things I was just as glad not to hear, he flew to my mom’s shoulder.

It was a marvelous sneeze, clearing out my lungs and earning a “bless you” from the clerk. But it was followed by another, and I hardly had time to straighten when a third hit me. Breathing shallowly to forestall the next, I looked at Jenks in dismay. There was only one reason why I would sneeze like this.

“Damn,” I whispered, glancing out the huge front window—it was after sundown. “Double damn.” I spun to the clerk, who was now shoving things into a bag. I didn’t have my calling circle. I had cracked the first one, and the new one was sandwiched between spell books under my kitchen counter. Damn, damn, damn! I should have made one the size of a compact mirror.

“Ma’am?” I warbled, then accepted the tissue my mom handed me from her purse. “Do you sell calling circles?”

The woman stared, clearly affronted. “Absolutely not. Alice, you told me she didn’t deal in demons. Get her out of my store!”

My mother let out a huff of annoyance, then her face turned coaxing. “Patricia,” she cajoled. “Rachel does not summon demons. The papers print what sells papers, that’s all.”

I sneezed again, this time so hard it hurt. Crap. We had to get out of there.

“Heads up, Rachel,” Jenks called out, and I looked up to catch a cellophane-wrapped stick of magnetic chalk as he dropped it. Fumbling with the wrapper, I tried to remember the complex pentagram Ceri had taught me. Minias was the only demon who knew I had a direct line to the ever-after, and if I didn’t answer him, he might cross the lines to find me.

Searing pain came from nowhere. Doubled over, I gasped at the assault and fell back from the counter. What in hell? It isn’t supposed to hurt!

Jenks hit the ceiling, leaving behind a cloud of silver dust like an octopus inking. My mother turned from her friend. “Rachel?” she questioned, her green eyes wide as I bent and clutched my wrist.

The chalk slipped from me as my grip went numb. It felt like my wrist was on fire. “Get out!” I yelled, and the two women stared at me as if I had gone insane.

We all jumped when the air pressure shifted violently. Ears ringing, I looked up, my heart pounding and my breath held. He was here. I didn’t see the demon, but he was here. Somewhere. I could smell the burnt amber.

Spotting the chalk, I scooped it up and picked at the cellophane, but my nails couldn’t find the seam. I was torn between fear and anger. Minias had no business bothering me. I didn’t owe him, and he didn’t owe me. And why couldn’t I get the damned wrapper off the chalk!

“Rachel Mariana Morgan?” came an elegant British accent I’d expect from a Shakespearean play, and my face went cold. “Where a-a-a-a-are you?” it drawled.

“Shit,” I whispered. It wasn’t Minias. It was Al.

Panicked, I looked across the store to my mother. She stood with her friend, neat and tidy in her autumn-colored outfit, her hair perfectly arranged, and the skin around her eyes just starting to show a few faint lines. She hadn’t a clue. “Mom,” I whispered, gesturing frantically as I put space between us. “Get into a circle. Both of you!” But they just stared. I didn’t have time to explain. Hell, I didn’t understand it myself. This had to be a joke. Some perverted, twisted joke.

My eyes went to the darting clatter of Jenks as he came to hover beside me. “It’s Al!” the pixy whispered. “Rache, you said he was in demon prison!”

“Rachel Mariana Mo-o-o-o-orga-a-a-a-an,” the demon sang, and I stiffened at the tap-thunk tap-thunk of his booted feet coming from behind a tall display of spelling books.

“Damn fool moss-wipe of a pixy,” Jenks berated himself. “It’s too cold to take my sword,” he said in a mocking falsetto. “It’ll freeze to my ass. It’s a shopping trip, not a run.” His voice shifted, becoming angry. “Tink save you, Rachel. Can’t you even go shopping with your mom without calling up demons?”

“I didn’t call him!” I protested, feeling my palms start to sweat.

“Yeah, well, he’s here,” the pixy said, and I swallowed when the demon peeked from behind the display. He had known exactly where I was.

Al was smiling with deep, taunting anger, his red eyes, their pupils horizontal slits like a goat’s, peering over a pair of round smoked glasses. Dressed in his usual frock coat of crushed green velvet, he was a picture of old European grace, the image of a young lord on the verge of greatness. Lace showed at his cuffs and collar. His aristocratically chiseled features, with a strong nose and chin, were tightened in bad humor, and his thick teeth showed in an expression that anticipated dealing out pain.

I kept backing up, and he came out from behind the display. “Oh, I say. This is splendid!” he said in delight. “Two Morgans for the price of one.”

Oh, God. My mother. Terror snapped me out of my shock. “You can’t touch me or my family,” I said while I tried to get the cellophane off the magnetic chalk. If I could make a circle, I might be able to trap him. “You promised!”

The tapping of his boots stopped as he posed to show off his elegant grace. My eyes measured the distance between us. Eight feet. Not good. But if he was looking at me, he was ignoring my mom.

“I did, didn’t I?” he said, and when he sent his gaze to the ceiling, my shoulders eased.

“Rache!” Jenks shrilled.

Al lunged. Panicking, I backpedaled. Fear hit hard when he found my throat. I dug at his fingers, my nails gouging him as he picked me up to dangle me from his grip. His sculptured face grimaced at the pain, but he only tightened his fingers. My pulse pounded in my head and I went limp, praying he wanted to gloat a little before he dragged me back to the ever-after to hopefully just kill me.

“You can’t hurt me,” I squeaked out, not sure if the sparkles at the edge of my vision were from lack of oxygen or Jenks. I am dead. I am so dead.

A soft sound of satisfaction emanated from Al, a long, low rumble of contentment. He effortlessly pulled me close until our breaths mingled. His eyes were red behind his glasses, and the scent of burnt amber coursed through me. “I asked nicely for your testimony. You refused. I’ve no incentive to play by the rules anymore. You can thank your own shortsightedness for that. Me sitting in a tiny little cell.” He gave me a shake to rattle my teeth. “Stripped of my curses and naked but for what I can say or spell. But someone summoned me out,” he said maliciously. “And we have a deal that’s going to leave you dead and me a free demon.”

“It wasn’t my fault you went to jail,” I squeaked. The pulsing adrenaline hurt my head. He couldn’t take me to the ever-after unless I let him; he’d have to drag me to a ley line.

Somewhere in my frazzled brain, something clicked. He couldn’t hold me and go misty at the same time. Grunting, I pulled my knee up, connecting right between his legs.

Al grunted. Agony smacked into me as he flung me away and my back hit a display. I gasped for air, holding my bruised throat as packets of freeze-dried herbs sifted over me with light thumps. Sucking in the scent of amber as I coughed, I held up a hand to fend them off, angling my legs under me to stand. Where is the chalk?

“You sorry bitch of a succubus whore!” Al groaned, holding himself as he hunched over, and I smiled. Minias had told me that as part of Al’s punishment for letting his old familiar go when she knew how to spindle line energy, he’d been purged of the accumulated charms, spells, and curses he had built up over the millennia. It left him, while not helpless, at least reduced to a limited spell vocabulary. Obviously he’d been in the kitchen recently, since his upper-crust Englishman persona was a disguise. I didn’t want to know what he really looked like.

“What’s the matter, Al?” I mocked, wiping my mouth to find I’d bitten my lip. “Not used to anyone fighting back?” This was freaking great. Here I was in a charm shop, and nothing was invoked but vanity charms and bust enhancers.

“Here, Rachel!” my mom cried out, and Al’s head swung around.

“Mom!” I shouted when she threw something at me. “Get out!”

Al’s eyes tracked it. I stiffened as a shimmer of black ever-after coursed over him, healing whatever I had damaged. But the magnetic chalk thumped safely into my hand. I took a breath to yell at her to get out again, and the shimmer of a blue-tinted ever-after circle rose up around her and the clerk behind the counter. They were safe.

An odd, unexpected sensation of ice swept through me, and I stiffened. It felt like the chime of a bell ringing through my bones. Oblivious, Al let out a roar and lunged.

Yelping, I dropped to the floor and out of his reach. From behind me came a crash as Al sailed over me and fell into the rack I’d knocked over. I had seconds. Arm extended, I sat on the floor and scribbled a circle, rolling back and away as a premonition honed by years of martial arts told me he was reaching for me.

“Not this time, witch,” he snarled.

Eyes wide, I spun on my butt. My foot came up to kick, but he moved with an inhuman quickness and my boot struck his palm. I froze, lying on my back with my ankle in his grip and my scarf in my face. One good twist, and he’d break it. Shit.

Al had lost his glasses. His eyes glinted maliciously as he smiled, but before he could move, an explosion rocked through the store and blew out the windows. My hands jerked to my ears and I yanked my foot out of Al’s grip. The demon’s goatlike eyes were wide as he stumbled back, but his shock quickly became anger.

Frightened, I scrabbled to knock over another display. Packaged amulets rained down. The shush of tires against wet pavement became obvious as my hearing returned, the sound coming in through the broken window along with the calls of people. What had my mom done?

“Jenks!” I shouted, feeling the icy cool of a damp night. It was too cold. It might throw him into hibernation!

“I’m fine!” he exclaimed as he hovered in a red haze of dust. “Let’s get the bastard.”

I gathered myself to stand, then hesitated in a crouch when Jenks’s gaze fixed on something over my shoulder and the pixy went white.

“Uh, bastards,” he amended shakily, and a new fear settled in when I realized Al wasn’t moving anymore either, but watching whatever Jenks was. In the hush of ambient street noise, a wave of burnt-amber, tainted ozone flowed over me.

“There’s another demon behind me, isn’t there?” I whispered.

Jenks’s eyes flicked to mine and away. “Two.”

Terrific. Jenks darted away, and I moved. I tripped on my scarf, then kicked backward when someone grabbed my leg. Their hold faltered, and dropping back to the floor, I spun. A yellow-clad arm reached for me. Gripping someone’s shoulder, I swung my foot up as a fulcrum and flung him over me.

There was no crash; whoever it was had gone misty. Three demons? What in hell is going on!

Ticked, I got to my feet only to stumble when a blur of red darted in front of me. My eyes went to my mother. She was okay, fighting to get the clerk’s arms off her as the woman panicked, safe in the circle as the store was ripped apart.

“You sent a rent-a-cop after me?” Al bellowed. “Nice try!”

I covered my ears when a pressure shift pulsed against me and Al vanished. The demon in red that had been headed for him skidded to a stop. Cursing violently, he flung his scythe in rage. It sliced through a metallic rack like it was cotton candy, and the display toppled as the clerk began sobbing.

Blinking, I stood and slowly backed away. Packets of amulets crunched under my feet. Holy crap, I thought; the monster looked like death having a temper tantrum, and I jumped when Jenks landed on my shoulder. The pixy had a straightened plastic-coated paper clip, and I found strength in that. So what if there were still two demons here? I could do anything with Jenks watching my back.

“Follow him!” the last demon shouted, and I spun, fearing the worst. Please, not Newt. Anyone but Newt.

“You!” I exclaimed, my breath exploding out of me in that one word. It was Minias.

“Yes, me,” Minias snarled, and I jumped when the red demon with the scythe vanished. “Why, by the bloody new moon, didn’t you answer me?”

“Because I don’t deal with demons!” I shouted, pointing to the shattered window as if I had any authority over him. “Get the hell out of here!”

Minias’s smooth, ageless face creased in anger.

“Look out!” Jenks cried as he took off from my shoulder, but I was way ahead of him. The demon was striding across the store in his yellow robe and funny hat, kicking charms and herbs out of the way. I backed up, the cries from the sidewalk telling me how close I was to the circle I’d scribed earlier. My pulse pounded and I felt myself sweat. This would be close.

Murderously silent, he came on, his slitted eyes a red so dark as to be almost brown. His robes unfurled as he moved, looking like a cross between a desert sheik’s cloak and a kimono. Pace stilted, he reached for me, the light glinting on his rings.

“Now!” Jenks shouted, and I dropped out from under the demon’s reach and rolled past the chalk line.

I was outside the circle; Minias was in it. “Rhombus!” I exclaimed, slapping my hand down on the chalk. My awareness reached out to touch the nearest ley line. Power surged through me and I held my breath, eyes watering as it flowed in unchecked, my desire for a quick circle letting the ley line energy fill me with an unusual force.

It hurt, but I gritted my teeth and held on while the forces equalized in the time it takes for an electron to spin. Pulled by the trigger word, my will tapped the memory of hours of practice, consolidating a five-minute prep and invocation into an eyeblink. I wasn’t that good with most ley line magic, but this? This I could do.

“Bloody hell and damn your dame!” Minias swore, and I couldn’t help but smile when the hem of his yellow robe swung to a stop. It was blurry from the molecule-thin sheet of ever-after that rose to trap him in my circle.

My breath slipped from me, and I sat back on my butt, my palms behind me on the hardwood floor and my knees bent as I looked at the demon. I had him, and the fading adrenaline was starting to turn into the shakes.

“Rachel!” my mother called, and I looked past Minias. She was frowning at the clerk. The woman refused to take down her protective circle, sobbing and crying. Finally my mother had enough, and with her lips pursed in the temper we shared, she shoved the woman into her own bubble, causing her to break it.

Out of sight behind the counter, the frazzled woman hit the floor and wailed all the louder. I sat upright when the phone was dragged from the counter to thunk on the floor. Beaming, my mother stepped delicately around the scattered charms and spells, hands extended and pride flowing from her like a wave.

“Are you okay?” I asked as I took her grip and she pulled me up.

“Fantabulous!” she exclaimed, eyes bright. “Hot damn, I love to watch you work!”

I had crushed herbs all over my jeans, and I slapped at them to get the flakes off. There was a crowd at the broken window, and traffic had stopped. Jenks dropped to hover behind my mom, making the “crazy” motion with his finger, and I frowned. My mom had been more than a little off since my dad had died, but I had to admit this nonchalance at a three-demon attack was much easier to take than the clerk’s noisy hysterics.

“Get out!” the woman yelled as she pulled herself up. Her eyes were red and her face was swollen. “Alice, get out and don’t you ever come back! You hear me? Your daughter is a menace! She ought to be locked up and shunned!”

My mother’s jaw clenched. “Shut your mouth,” she said hotly. “My daughter just saved your butt. She drove off two demons and bound a third while you hid like a prissy girlie-girl who wouldn’t know the right end of an amulet if it came out her ass.” Color high, she turned with a huff and looped her arm through mine. The plastic bag of charms was in her grip, and it thumped into me lightly. “Rachel, we’re leaving. This is the last time I shop in this pee-stained hole.”

Jenks was grinning as he hovered before us. “Have I told you lately how much I like you, Mrs. Morgan?”

“Mom … people can hear you,” I said, embarrassed. God! Her mouth was worse than Jenks’s. And we couldn’t leave. Minias was still standing in my circle.

Heels crunching on the merchandise, my mom dragged me to the door, her head high and her red curls bobbing in the breeze from the busted window. A tired sigh lifted through me at the wail of sirens. Great. Just freaking great. They’d want to haul me down to the I.S. tower to fill out a report. Demon summoning wasn’t illegal, just really stupid, but they’d think of something, probably a bald-faced lie.

The I.S., or Inderland Security, didn’t like me. Since having quit their lame-ass worldwide police force last year, Ivy, Jenks, and I had been showing up the Cincinnati division with a pleasant regularity. They weren’t idiots, but I attracted trouble that just begged me to beat it into submission. It didn’t help that the media loved printing stuff about me either, if only to feed people’s animosity and sell papers.

Minias cleared his throat as we approached, and my mother halted in surprise. Clasping his hands innocently before him, the demon smiled. From outside came an increase in conversation at the approaching cruisers. The jitters started, and Jenks slipped between me and my scarf with that paper clip still in his grip. He was shivering, too, but I knew it was from the cold, not fear.

“Banish your demon, Rachel, so we can get our coffee,” my mother said as if he was a nuisance like fairies in her garden. “It’s almost six. There will be a line if we don’t hurry.”

The clerk steadied herself against a counter. “I called the I.S.! You can’t go. Don’t you let them go!” she screamed at the watching people, but thankfully none came in. “You belong in jail! All of you! Look at my shop. Look at my shop!”

“Put a cork in it, Patricia!” my mother said. “You have insurance.” Coyly touching her hair, she turned to Minias. “You’re nice looking—for a demon.”

Minias blinked, and I sighed at his contriving smile and the bow that made my mom titter like a schoolgirl. The conversations at the broken window shifted, and when I looked at the street and the sound of approaching cruisers, someone’s camera phone flashed. Oooooh, better and better.

Licking my lips, I turned to Minias. “Demon, I demand that you depart—” I started.

“Rachel Mariana Morgan,” Minias said, stepping so close to the edge of the barrier that smoke curled up where his robe touched it, “you’re in danger.”

“Tell us something we don’t know, moss wipe,” Jenks muttered from my shoulder.

“I’m in danger?” I said snidely, feeling better now that the demon was behind a circle. “Gee, you think? Why is Al out of jail? You told me he was in custody! He attacked me!” I shouted, pointing to the destroyed shop. “He broke our agreement! What are you going to do about it?”

Minias’s eye twitched and the barest rasp gave away his slippers scuffing the floor. “Someone is summoning him out of confinement. It’s in your best interest to help us.”

“Rache,” Jenks complained, “it’s cold and the I.S. is almost here. Get rid of him before they make us fill out paperwork until the sun goes nova.”

I rocked back on my heels. Yeah. Like I was going to help a demon? My reputation was bad enough.

Seeing me ready to banish him, Minias shook his head. “We can’t contain him without your help. He will kill you, and with no one alive to file a complaint, he’ll get away with it.”

A chill ran through me at the certainty in his voice. Worried, I glanced at the people at the window, then looked over the store. Not much was standing. Outside, traffic began to move as the amber and blue lights of an I.S. car started playing over the buildings. My gaze fell on my mom and I cringed. I could usually keep the more lethal aspects of my job from her, but this time …

“Better listen,” she said, shocking the hell out of me, then clacked her heels smartly as she went to intercept the clerk’s dash to the street.

A bad feeling knotted my stomach. If Al wasn’t playing by the rules anymore, he’d kill me. Probably after making me watch him murder everyone I loved. It was that simple. I’d been living on instinct for the first twenty-five years of my life, and though it had gotten me out of a lot of trouble, it had also gotten me into just as much. And killed my boyfriend. So though every fiber of my body said to banish him, I took a slow breath, listened to my mother, and said, “Okay. Talk.”

Minias pulled his attention from my mother. A sheet of ever-after cascaded over him, melting the formal yellow robe into a pair of faded jeans, leather belt, boots, and a red silk shirt. My face went cold. It was Kisten’s favorite outfit, and Minias had probably picked it out of my thoughts like a cookie out of a jar. Damn him.

Kisten. The memory of his body propped up against his bed flashed through me. My jaw trembled, and I clenched my teeth. I knew I had tried to save him. Or maybe he had tried to save me. I just didn’t remember it, and guilt slithered across my soul. I had failed him, and Minias was using it. Son of a bitch demon.

“Free me,” Minias said mockingly as if he knew he was hurting me. “Then we’ll talk.”

I held my right arm as it throbbed with a phantom pain, remembering. “That’s likely,” I said bitterly, and the clerk jerked from my mother, her shrill voice hurting my ears.

Minias wasn’t fazed, and he looked over his new attire with interest. A pair of modern, mirrored sunglasses misted into existence in his grip, and he placed them on the bridge of his narrow nose with a meticulous care to hide his alien eyes. He sniffed, and I felt sick at how much he looked like any guy on the street. An attractive, university kind of guy, who’d fit in on any campus as a grad student, or maybe a teacher still working for tenure. But his bearing was uncaring and slightly supercilious.

“The coffee your mother mentioned sounds equitable. I give my word I’ll be … good.”

My mother flicked her attention to the noisy street, and seeing her eyes glinting in approval, I wondered if this was where I got my need to live for the thrill. But I was smarter now, and putting a hand on my hip, I shook my head. My mother was nuts. He was a freaking demon.

The demon glanced over my shoulder at the sound of a car door shutting and a police radio. “Have I ever lied to you?” he murmured so only I could hear. “Do I look like a demon? Tell them I’m a witch that was helping you catch Al and I got in the circle by mistake.”

My eyes narrowed. He wanted me to lie for him?

Minias leaned so close to the barrier of ever-after that it buzzed a harsh warning. “If you don’t, I’ll give the public what they expect.” His eyes went to the people clustered at the window. “Proof that you deal in demons ought to do wonders for your … sterling reputation.”

Mmmm. There is that.

The door jingled open. With a cry of relief, the clerk shoved my mother away and ran to the two officers. Sobbing, she draped herself over them, effectively preventing them from coming in any farther. I had thirty seconds, tops, and then it would be the I.S.’ s decision as to what happened with Minias, not mine. No freaking way.

Minias saw my decision and smiled with an infuriating confidence. Demons never lied, but they never seemed to tell the truth either. I’d dealt with Minias before, finding that for all his considerable power, he was a novice when dealing with people. He had been babysitting the ever-after’s most powerful, insane denizen for the last millennium. But clearly something had changed. And someone was summoning Al out of containment and setting him free to kill me.

Damn. Is it Nick? Stomach caving in, I put a fist to my middle. I knew he had the skill, and we had parted on very bad terms.

“Let me out,” Minias whispered. “I’ll hold myself to your definition of right and wrong.”

I glanced across the demolished shop. One of the officers managed to disentangle himself when the clerk pointed at us, almost gibbering. Other people in uniform were filing in, and it was getting crowded. I’d never get a better verbal contract from Minias than that.

“Done,” I said, rubbing my foot across the chalk line to break the circle.

“Hey!” an incoming suit shouted as my bubble went down. The spare young man whipped a thin wand from his belt and pointed it at us. “Everybody down!”

The clerk screamed and collapsed. From outside came the sound of panic. I jumped in front of Minias, hands up and spread wide. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I cried out. “I’m Rachel Morgan from Vampiric Charms, Independent Runner Service. I’ve got the situation under control. We’re cool! We’re all cool! Point the wand up!”

The tension eased, and in the new calm, my mouth dropped open when I recognized the I.S. officer. “You!” I accused, then started when Jenks catapulted himself from my shoulder.

“Jenks, no!” I shouted, and the room reacted. A unified protest rose, and ignoring the calls to halt, I lunged to get in front of the man with the wand before Jenks could pix him and somehow land me with an assault charge.

“You sorry-ass hunk of putrid fairy crap!” Jenks shouted, darting erratically as I tried to stay between them. “Nobody sucker punches me and gets away with it! Nobody!”

“Easy, Jenks,” I soothed, all the while trying to watch both him and Minias. “He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it!”

My words penetrated and, with his wings clattering aggressively, Jenks accepted my shoulder when I fluffed my scarf and turned to the I.S. officer. I knew my face was as ugly as Jenks’s. I hadn’t expected to ever see Tom again—though who else would they send out on a call concerning demons but someone from the Arcane Division?

The witch was a mole in the I.S., working one of their most sensitive, highest-paying jobs while simultaneously laboring away as a peon in some fanatical black-arts cult. I knew because he had played messenger boy last year and asked me to join them. Right after he stunned Jenks into unconsciousness and left him to fry on my car’s dashboard. What an ass.

“Hi, Tom,” I said dryly. “How’s the wand hanging?”

The I.S. officer backed up with his eyes on Jenks. His face reddened when someone laughed at him for being afraid of a four-inch pixy. The truth of it was, he should be. Something that small and winged could be lethal. And Tom knew it.

“Morgan,” Tom said, nose wrinkled as he breathed in the burnt-amber-tainted air. “I am not surprised. Summoning demons in public?” His gaze traveled over the trashed store, and a mocking tsk-tsk came from him. “This is going to cost you.”

My breath quickened when I remembered Minias, and I spun. True to his word, the demon was behaving himself, standing still as every incoming I.S. officer pointed their weapons, both conventional and magic, at him.

My mother made a puff of noise, her high heels clacking as she strode to him. “A demon? Are you insane?” she said as she tucked our purchases under an arm to take Minias’s hand and pat it. I froze in shock. Minias looked even more surprised.

“Do you honestly think my daughter is so stupid she’d let a demon out of a circle?” she continued, her smile bright. “In the middle of Cincinnati? Three days before Halloween? It’s a costume. This kind man helped my daughter repel the demons and got caught in the crossfire.” She beamed up at him, and Minias delicately removed his hand from hers, curling his fingers into a tight fist. “Isn’t that so, dear?”

Minias silently sidestepped away from my mother. I felt a tug on my awareness as something was drawn from the ever-after to this side of the lines, and Minias pulled a wallet from his back pocket.

“My papers … gentlemen,” the demon said, giving me a smirk before he passed Tom what looked like one of those ID holders you see on cop shows.

The clerk slumped against the first officer, wailing. “There were two of them in robes and one in a green costume! I think that’s the green one there. They trashed the store! They knew her name. That woman is a black witch and everyone knows it! It’s been in the papers and the news. She’s a menace! A freak and a menace!”

Jenks bristled, but it was my mother who said, “Get a grip, Pat. She didn’t call them.”

“But the store!” Patricia insisted, her fear turning to anger now that I.S. officers surrounded her. “Who’s going to pay for this?”

“Look,” I said, feeling Jenks shivering between me and the scarf. “My partner is cold sensitive. Can we wrap this up? I haven’t broken the law as far as I can see.”

Tom looked up from reading Minias’s ID. He squinted from the picture to Minias, then handed it to someone far older standing behind him with a curt, “Pull it.”

Unease trickled through me, but Minias didn’t seem to be troubled. Jenks pinched my ear when Tom moved to stand before me, and I jerked out of my reverie.

“You shouldn’t have turned us down, Morgan,” the witch said, so close I could smell a witch’s characteristic redwood smell rolling off of him. The more magic you practiced, the stronger you smelled, and Tom reeked. I thought of Minias and felt a moment of worry. He might look like a witch, but he would smell like a demon, and they’d seen me let him out. Crap. Think, Rachel. Don’t react, think!

“Somehow,” Tom said softly, threateningly, “I don’t think your friend Minias is going to have a record. Any record at all. Sort of like a demon?”

My thoughts scrambled, and I felt more than saw Minias ease up behind me.

“I’m sure Mr. Bansen will find my papers are in order,” he said, and I shivered when a chill ran through me, pulled into existence from the draft of Jenks’s wings.

“Holy crap! Minias smells like a witch!” the pixy whispered.

I took a deep breath, my shoulders relaxing when I found Minias did indeed lack the characteristic burnt-amber scent that clung to all demons. I turned to him in surprise, and the demon shrugged, twisting his hand. It was still in a fist, and my lips parted when I realized he hadn’t opened his fingers since my mother had taken his hand.

Eyes widening, I spun to my mother to find her beaming. She’d given him an amulet? My mother was crazy, but she was crazy like a fox.

“Can we go?” I said, knowing Tom was trying to get a good sniff of him as well.

Tom’s eyes narrowed. Taking my elbow, he pulled me from Minias. “That is a demon.”

“Prove it. And as you once told me, it’s not against the law to summon demons.”

His face went ugly. “Maybe not, but you’re responsible for the damage they do.”

A groan slipped from Jenks, and I felt my face go stiff.

“She destroyed my store!” the woman wailed. “Who’s going to pay for this! Who?”

An I.S. officer approached with Minias’s ID, and while Tom held up a finger for me to wait, he talked to him. My mother joined me, and the people outside complained as an officer started to make them move on. Tom was frowning when the man left, and bolstered by his show of bad temper, I smiled cattily. I was going to walk out of here. I knew it.

“Ms. Morgan,” he said as he slid his wand away. “I have to let you go—”

“What about the store?” the woman wailed.

“Can it, Patricia!” my mother said, and Tom grimaced as if he’d eaten a spider.

“As long as you agree that demons were here because of you,” he added, “and you agree to pay for damages,” he finished, handing Minias his ID back.

“But it wasn’t my fault.” My gaze scanned the broken shelves and scattered amulets as I tried to add up the potential cost. “Why should I have to pay for it because someone sicced them on me? I didn’t summon them!”

Tom smiled, and my mother squeezed my elbow. “You’re welcome to come down to the I.S. and file a counter-complaint.”

Nice. “I’ll accept the damages.” So much for the air conditioner fund. “Come on,” I said, reaching for Minias. “Let’s get out of here.”

My hand passed right through him. I froze, but I didn’t think anyone had noticed. Glancing at his irate face, I gestured sourly for him to go before me. “After you,” I said, then hesitated. I wasn’t going to do this at the coffeehouse two blocks away. Not with the I.S. buzzing like fairies around a sparrow nest. “My car is about five spots down. It’s the red convertible, and you’re riding in back.”

Minias’s eyebrows rose. “As you say …,” he murmured, rocking into motion.

Looking proud and satisfied, my mother snatched my purchases up, linked her arm in mine, and like magic the crowd parted to show us the door.

“You okay, Jenks?” I questioned when the cool of the night hit us.

“Just get me in the car,” he said, and I carefully wrapped my scarf about my neck once more to snuggle him in.

Coffee with my mom and a demon. Yeah, that was a good idea.