For a Few Demons More(3)

It was a good banishment—apart from my not having put it in a circle first—and Newt raised one eyebrow at me, its puzzlement set aside with an ease that spoke of much practice. “That’s not my summoning name.”

The demon jerked into motion. I shrank back to invoke a circle—paltry though it would be, undrawn and unscribed—but Newt stepped into the living room, the hem of its robe the last thing I saw slipping around the doorframe. From out of sight came the sound of nails being pulled from wood. There was a sharp crack of splintering paneling, and Newt swore colorfully in Latin.

Jenks’s cat Rex padded past me, curiosity doing its best to fulfill its promise. I lunged after the stupid animal, but she didn’t like me and so skittered away. The caramel-colored kitten paused at the threshold with her ears pricked. Tail twitching, she sat and watched.

Newt wasn’t trying to pull me into the ever-after, and it wasn’t trying to kill me. It was looking for something, and I think the only reason it had possessed me was so it could search the sanctified church. Which boded well as a sign that the grounds were still holy. But the damned thing was crazy. Who knew how long it would ignore me? Until it decided I might be able to tell it where it was? Whatever it was?

A thump from the living room made me jump. Tail crooked, Rex padded in.

The sudden knocking on the front door of the church spun me the other way to the empty sanctuary, but before I could call out a warning, the heavy oak door swung open, unlocked in expectation of Ivy’s return. Great. Now what?

“Rachel?” a worried voice called, and Ceri strode in, fully dressed in faded jeans with dirt-wet knees, clearly having been in the garden despite it being before sunrise. Her eyes were wide with worry, and her long, fair hair billowed about her as she paced quickly across the barren sanctuary, tracking in mud from her garden-inappropriate, elaborately embroidered slippers. She was an elf in hiding, and I knew that her schedule was like a pixy’s: awake all day and night but for four hours around each midnight and noon.

Frantic, I waved my hands, alternating my attention between the empty hallway and her. “Out!” I all but yelped. “Ceri, get out!”

“Your church bell rang,” she said, cheeks pale with concern as she came to take my hands. She smelled wonderful—the elven scent of wine and cinnamon mixing with the honest smell of dirt—and the crucifix Ivy had given her glinted in the dim light. “Are you all right?”

Oh, yeah, I thought, remembering hearing the bell in the belfry toll when I had pushed Newt from my thoughts. The expression “ringing the bells” wasn’t just a figure of speech, and I wondered how much energy I had channeled to make the bell in the tower resonate.

From the living room came the ugly noise of paneling being ripped from the wall. Ceri’s blond eyebrows rose. Crap, she was calm and sedate, and I was shaking in my underwear.

“It’s a demon,” I whispered, wondering if we should leave or try for the circle I had etched in the kitchen floor. The sanctuary was still hallowed ground, but I didn’t trust anything except a well-drawn circle to protect me from a demon. Especially this one.

The questioning look on Ceri’s delicate, heart-shaped face went hard with anger. She had spent a thousand years trapped as a demon’s familiar, and she treated them like snakes. Cautious, yes, but she had long since lost her fear. “Why are you summoning demons?” she accused. “And in your sleepwear?” Her narrow shoulders stiffened. “I said I’d help you with your magic. Thank you very much, Ms. Rachel Mariana Morgan, for making me feel worthless.”

I took her elbow and started dragging her backward. “Ceri,” I pleaded, not believing that her delicate temper had taken this the wrong way. “I didn’t call it. It showed up on its own.” Like I would even touch demon magic now? My soul was already tainted with enough demon smut to paint a gymnasium.

At that, Ceri pulled me to a stop, steps from the open sanctuary. “Demons can’t show up on their own,” she said, the flicker of concern returning as her white fingers touched her crucifix. “Someone must have summoned it, then let it go improperly.”

The soft scuff of bare feet at the end of the hallway cut through me like a gunshot. My pulse catching, I turned, Ceri’s attention following mine an instant later.

“Can’t—or don’t?” Newt said. The kitten was in its arms, paws kneading.

Ceri’s knees buckled, and I reached for her. “Don’t touch me!” she shrieked, and I was suddenly battling her as she swung blindly, pulling from me and lunging into the sanctuary.