"Nick!" I cried, stumbling back. The demon grinned. It looked like an aristocratic Brit, except that I recognized it as the one who put on Ivy's face and tore out my throat that spring.
My back found the counter. I had to run. I had to get out of here! It would kill me! Flailing to put the counter between us, I hit the spell pot.
"Watch the brew!" Nick shouted, reaching out even as the bowl tipped.
I gasped, tearing my gaze from the demon long enough to see Bob's bowl spill. Aura-laced water spilled over the counter in an amber wash. Bob slid out, flopping.
"Rachel!" Nick exclaimed. "Get the fish! He has your aura. He can break the circle!"
I'm in a circle, I thought, strangling my panic. The demon isn't. It can't hurt me.
"Rachel!"
Nick's shout tore my eyes from the grinning demon. Nick was desperately trying to catch Bob, flopping on the counter, and keep the spilled water from reaching the edge. My face went cold. I was willing to bet just the aura-laced water would be enough to break the circle.
I lunged for the paper towels. As Nick fumbled for Bob, I made a mad dash around the counter, laying squares of white to sop up rivulets before they could make puddles on the floor that would run to the circle. My heart pounded and I frantically alternated my attention from the water to the demon standing with a bewildered, amused expression in the archway to the hall.
"Gotcha," Nick whispered, his breath exploding from him in a ragged sound as he finally gained control of the fish.
"Not the saltwater!" I warned as Nick held him over my dissolution pot. "Here." I shoved Bob's original bowl at Nick. Ordinary water sloshed out, and I blotted it up as Nick dropped Bob in. The fish shuddered, sinking to the bottom with his gills pumping.
Silence descended, framed by the heavy rasping of our breathing and the ticking of the clock above the sink. Nick's and my eyes met over the bowl. As one, we turned to the demon.
It looked pleasant enough, having taken the shape of a young man with a mustache, elegant and polished. It was dressed as an eighteenth century businessman in a suit of green velvet with lace trim and long tails. Round glasses were perched atop its thin nose. They were smoked to hide its red eyes. Though able to shift its form and shape at will - becoming everything from my roommate to a punk rocker - its eyes stayed the same unless it made the effort to take on all the abilities of whomever it was mimicking. Hence, my demon bite laced with vamp saliva. A tremor shook me as I recalled that its pupils were slitted like a goat's.
Fear tightened my stomach, and I hated being afraid. I forced my hands to unclench their grip on my elbows, pulled myself straight and tossed my head. "Ever think of updating your wardrobe?" I mocked. I was safe in a circle. I was safe in a circle.
My breath caught as a red mist of ever-after hazed it. The demon's clothes molded to a modern-day business suit I'd expect to see on a Fortune-twenty executive. "This is so... common," it said, its resonate, British-laden accent perfect for the stage. "But I wouldn't want it said that I wasn't accommodating." It took its glasses off, and my breath hissed in. I stared at the alienness of its eyes, jerking as Nick touched my arm.
Nick looked wary - not nearly scared enough to please me - and I felt a flush of embarrassment at my earlier panic. But damn it, demons scared the crap out of me. No one risked calling up demons since the Turn. Except for whoever called this one up to maul me last spring. And then there had been the one that attacked Trent Kalamack. Maybe demon summoning was more common than I wanted to admit.
I hated that Nick's respect for them stopped short of terror. They fascinated him, and I was afraid his search for knowledge would someday lead him to make a foolish decision, letting the tiger turn and eat him.
The demon smiled to show thick flat teeth as it glanced over its attire. It made a deep-in-thought sound and the wool disappeared, to become a black T-shirt tucked into leather pants with a gold chain belted around narrow hips. A black leather jacket appeared, and the demon stretched in a cloud of sensuality, showing every curve of the new, attractive muscle pulling its T-shirt tight across its chest. Blond hair cut short grew as it shook its head, and its height lengthened.
I felt myself pale. It had become Kist, pulling my old fear of him right out of my head. The demon seemed to take great delight in changing into whatever frightened me the most. I wouldn't let it shake me. I wouldn't.
"Oh, this is nice," the demon said, its accent shifting to a sultry, bad-boy drawl to match its new look. "You're afraid of the prettiest people, Rachel Mariana Morgan. I rather like being this one." Licking its lips suggestively, it sent its gaze across my neck, lingering on the scar it had given me while I was sprawled on the floor of the university library's basement, lost in a haze of vamp-saliva-induced ecstasy as it killed me.
The memory sent my heart pounding. My hand rose to cover my neck. The pressure from its gaze pushed on my skin, making it tingle. "Stop it," I demanded, frightened as it sent the scar into play and tendrils of feeling ran like molten metal from my neck to my groin. My breath hissed in through my nose. "I said stop it!"
The blue of Kist's eyes went wide and flashed to red. Seeing my resolve, the demon's outlines blurred. "You aren't afraid of this one anymore," it said, its voice shifting to become lower and laden with a proper British accent again. "Pity. I do so like to be young and testosterone laden. But I know what frightens you. Let's keep that a secret, hum? No need to let Nick Sparagmos know. Not yet. He may want to buy the information."
Nick's breathing sounded harsh beside me as the demon doffed the biker's hat - which promptly vanished in a haze of ever-after red - and shifted, returning to its previous form of British nobility in lace and green velvet. It smiled at me over its round smoked glasses. "This will do, in the meantime," it said.
I jumped as Nick touched me. "Why are you here?" he asked. "No one called you."
The demon said nothing, glancing over the kitchen with undisguised curiosity. Showing a predatorial grace, it began to circle the bright room, its shiny buckled boots silent on the linoleum. "I know you are new to all of this," it mused aloud as it tapped at Mr. Fish's brandy snifter on the windowsill and the fish quivered, "but generally the summoner is outside the circle, and the summoned is on the inside." It turned on a heel to send its long coattails furling. "I'll give you that for free, Rachel Mariana Morgan. Because you made me laugh. I haven't laughed since the Turn. We all laughed at that."
My pulse had slowed but my knees felt watery. I wanted to sit down but didn't dare. "How can you be here?" I asked. "This is holy ground."
The vision of British grace opened my fridge. Making a tsk-tsk sound, it shuffled through the leftovers, coming out with a half-empty container of fudge frosting. "Oh yes, I do like this arrangement. Being on the outside is ever so much more interesting. I think I'll answer that query for free as well."
Oozing old world charm, it pulled the top of the frosting off. The blue plastic disappeared in a smear of ever-after, and the demon dipped the gold spoon that had taken its place into the container. "This isn't holy ground," it said as it stood in my kitchen in a gentleman's frock and ate frosting. "The kitchen was added after the sanctuary was blessed. You could have the entire grounds sanctified, but then you'd connect your bedroom to the ley line in the graveyard. Ooooh, and wouldn't that be delightful."
A sick feeling twisted my stomach at what that might mean. Eyebrows raised, it looked at me over its smoked glasses, its red eyes showing a shocking amount of sudden ire. "You had better have something worth hearing, or I'm going to be royally buggered."
I straightened in understanding. It thought I had summoned it with an offer of information to pay off my IOU. My pulse jackhammered back into full throttle as the container of frosting vanished from the demon's hand and it came close to the circle.
"Don't!" I blurted as it tapped the sheet of ever-after between us. The demon's face lost its amusement and, expression deadly serious, it ran its attention over the seam with the floor. I gripped Nick's arm as it mumbled about tearing summoners limb from limb, interrupted teas, and how inconsiderate it was to pull someone from their dinner or Wednesday night telly. Adrenaline shook me as the demon dissolved to a red mist and sank through the floorboards.
I clutched at Nick, my knees threatening to give way. "He's checking for pipes," I said. "There are no pipes. I looked." Fear made my shoulders hurt as I waited for the demon to rise through the floor at my feet and kill me. "I looked!" I asserted, trying to convince myself.
I knew the circle bisected rocks and roots, and the top of it went into the attic, but as long as there wasn't an open path like a phone or gas line, the circle was secure. Even a laptop could break a circle if it was connected to the net and an e-mail came in.
"Oh good. He's back," Nick breathed as the demon reappeared outside the circle, and I stifled a laugh, knowing it would sound hysterical. What kind of a life did I have when seeing a demon was a good thing?
The demon stood before us, taking a tin of what probably wasn't snuff out of a tiny vest pocket and sniffing a pinch of black powder into both nostrils. "You cast a well-built circle," it said between cultured sneezes. "As good as your father's."
My eyes widened and I stepped to the circle's edge. "What do you know of my dad?"
"Reputation, Rachel Mariana Morgan," it simpered. "Strictly reputation. He was not in my realm of expertise when he was alive. Now that he's dead, I'm interested. I specialize in secrets. As does Nick Sparagmos, it seems." It put the tin away and pulled Ivy's chair out from before her computer. "Now," it said idly as it shook the mouse and brought up the Internet, "as amusing as this is, can we get on with it? Your circle is tight. I won't be killing you now." Its red eyes went sly. "Later, perhaps."
I followed its gaze to the clock over the sink. It was one-forty. I hoped Ivy didn't walk in on this. An undead vamp might survive a demon attack, but a live one would stand as much of a chance as me.
I took a breath to tell it to go away because I didn't call it, but a thought stopped me cold. It knew Nick's last name. It had said it twice.
"It knows your last name," I said, turning to Nick. "Why does it know your name?"
Nick's mouth opened and his eyes slid to the demon. "Ah..."
"Why does it know your name?" I demanded, my hands on my hips. I was tired of being afraid, and Nick was a convenient outlet. "You've been calling it up, haven't you!"
"Well..." he said, his long face reddening.
"You idiot!" I shouted. "I told you not to call it. You promised you wouldn't!"
"No," he said, his hands taking a grip on my shoulders. "I didn't. You said I wouldn't. And it just sort of happened. I didn't even mean to call him the first time."
"The first?" I exclaimed. "How many times have there been?"
Nick scratched the bristles on his cheek. "See, I was sketching pentagrams - for practice. I wasn't going to do anything. He appeared, thinking I was trying to call him with some information to pay off my debt. Thank God I was in a circle." Nick glanced at the soggy papers with their silver chalk lines. "Just like he showed up tonight."
Together we turned to the demon, and it sent its shoulders to rise and fall in a shrug. It seemed more than willing to wait out our argument, more interested in Ivy's favorites list than us at the moment.
"It's an it, not a him," I said. "And I'm not going to let you blame this on the demon."
"How very kind of you, Rachel Mariana Morgan," the demon said, and I scowled.
Nick was starting to look angry. On sudden impulse I pushed the hair from his left temple. My breath caught as I saw two lines bisecting his demon scar instead of one. "Nick!" I wailed. "You know what happens when you get too many of those?"
He took a bothered step back, and his brown hair fell to hide it.
"It can pull you into the ever-after!" I shouted, wanting to smack him a good one. I had only one line through my demon scar, and the worry still kept me up at night.
Nick said nothing, watching me with unrepentant eyes. Damn it all to hell, he wasn't even trying to explain himself. "Talk to me!" I exclaimed.
"Rachel," he said. "Nothing is going to happen. I'm being careful."