Where Demons Dare

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.

Two

The coffeehouse was warm, smelling of biscotti and brewing beans. Jenks went to my mom’s shoulder when I loosened my scarf, but I didn’t take it off, not knowing if my neck showed Al’s fingerprints or not. It sure hurt enough to. Al is out? How am I going to shut this down?

Gently rubbing my neck, I lingered at the door to watch Minias, Jenks, and my mother find their place in line. The heavy-charm detection alarm was glaring a harsh red—responding to Minias most likely—but no one in the crowded place was paying it any mind. It was three days before Halloween, and everyone was trying out their spells.

The demon looked tall beside my mother as she fidgeted. Her cream-colored leather clutch purse matched her shoes to perfection; I must have gotten my fashion sense from my dad. I knew I had gotten my height from him, putting me several inches taller than my mom and a shade shorter than Minias, even in my boots. And my athletic build had certainly come from my dad. Not that my mom was a slouch, but memories of afternoons at Eden Park and pictures from before he had died reassured me that I was as much my father’s daughter as my mother’s. It made me feel good, thinking that a part of him lived on though he’d been gone twelve years. He’d been a great dad, and I still missed him when my life got out of control. Which was more often than I liked to admit. Behind me, the irritating heavy-charm detector gave a final pulse and went dark.

Relieved, I eased up behind Minias, making his shoulders stiffen. He’d been markedly quiet in the car, giving me the creeps as he sat rigidly behind me while my mother sat sideways in her seat to watch him. She had disguised the scrutiny by trying to engage him in conversation while I called Ivy and left a message for her to run across the street and warn Ceri that Al was on the loose again. The demon’s ex-familiar didn’t have a phone, which was getting tiresome.

I was hoping my mother’s light banter had been a ploy to ease the tension and not her usual out-of-touch-with-reality mentality. She and Minias were on a first-name basis now, which I thought was swell. Still, if he had wanted to cause problems, he could have done it half a dozen times between the charm shop and here. He was biding his time, and I felt like a bug on a pin.

My mother and Jenks edged out of line to ogle the pastries, and when the Were trio ahead of us finished ordering and moved off, Minias stepped forward, glancing indolently at the hanging menu. A man in a business suit behind us huffed impatiently, then went pale and backed up when the demon eyed him through his dark glasses.

Minias turned back to the counter attendant and smiled. “Latte grande, double espresso, Italian blend. Light on the froth, extra cinnamon. Use whole milk. Not two percent or half-and-half. Whole milk. Put it in porcelain.”

“We can do that!” the kid behind the counter said enthusiastically, and I looked up. His voice sounded familiar. “And for you, ma’am?”

“Uh,” I stumbled, “coffee. Black. That’s it.”

Minias looked askance at me, his surprise clear even through his dark glasses, and the kid behind the counter blinked. “What kind?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” I shifted from foot to foot. “Mom, what do you want?”

My mother cheerfully hustled back to the counter with Jenks on her shoulder. “I’ll have a Turkish espresso and a slice of that cheesecake if someone will share it with me.”