Sins of the Demon

Chapter 2

“This is wrong,” I stated, infusing my words with as much emphasis as possible in order to convey to anyone listening just how intensely I felt about this. “So so SO wrong.” I zipped my spare jacket higher as a shiver wracked me. “It’s unnatural. It’s worse than unnatural. It’s…” I struggled to think of an appropriate word.

“It’s snow, you weirdo,” Sergeant Scott Glassman retorted.

“This is the Deep South!” I wailed. Fluffy little flakes of madness swirled on the chill breeze and dotted the knit cap covering Scott’s bald head. “It was nowhere near this cold an hour ago.”

“It’s called a cold front. Ninth grade science.” He stood with a hip cocked and a thumb tucked into his belt by his gun, looking every inch the “good ol’ boy” street cop that he was. We’d been teammates when I was on the road, and Scott had taught me more than a few tricks for dealing with the rural mentality. He made sergeant about the time I became a detective, and I had no doubt he’d someday be in charge of the Patrol division.

“Yeah, well,” I grumbled, “we’re not supposed to have snow down here!”

Scott let out a snort. “Would you rather have freezing rain?”

“I’d rather not have anything freezing, thank you very much.” I scowled and dug my hands deeper into my pockets. “I put up with hurricanes and the misery of Louisiana summer so that I don’t have to put up with snow or sleet or any other form of frozen wetness.”

“My god, you’re a weenie,” Scott said.

“I don’t like the cold!”

Scott turned to eye me, pursing his lips. “Well maybe you should try, oh, I don’t know, dressing for the weather?”

I hunched my shoulders in a vain attempt to keep the nasty little snow-bits from wiggling their evil way down my collar. “I didn’t know it was going to be this cold. Or snowy. ”I hissed the last word.

The stocky cop gave me a suitably withering look. “What, you don’t own a computer to check the forecast? A smart phone? A television? And is that really a Members Only jacket? I didn’t think anyone wore those anymore. Were you even born when that thing was made?”

I couldn’t exactly tell him that I’d been too busy putting a magical security system on the PD to check the weather, or that my other—warmer—jacket had been clawed by a demon. “Bite me,” I snarled instead.

His only reply was a laugh.

We were in the parking lot of the Beaulac Nature Center—which was a fancy name for a trail that wound through the woods and swamp. The “Center” part of it consisted of a shack not much bigger than a utility shed, and a Plexiglas-covered map of the immediate area. The lot was a mostly flat stretch of old gravel and sparse grass—barely big enough to hold the two Beaulac PD police cruisers, crime scene van, my unmarked and two other vehicles—an ancient and battered Peugeot, and a spanking new silver BMW.

The sight of the crime scene van pleased me. That meant that Crime Scene Technician Jill Faciane was already on the scene and doing her thing. A transplant from the New Orleans PD, who’d moved to Beaulac after Hurricane Katrina, she knew her shit, worked quickly and efficiently, and was my kind of smartass. Procedure dictated that crime scenes had to be processed before detectives could go tromping all over them, but if Jill was working I had solid hope that I wouldn’t have to stand out in the cold any longer than necessary.

I dug into the pockets of my jacket in the desperate hope that I’d left some gloves in them from last year, but all I found was an old wadded up Kleenex that probably had some ancient germs on it. I didn’t see any trash cans around, and I didn’t feel right casually littering out here, so I reluctantly stuffed the old tissue back down into my pocket, hoping that any germs it carried were long dead.

“So what’s the deal here, Sergeant?” I asked Scott. “Let me guess, I’m going to have to take a nature hike to get to the body.”

He gave me a sad shake of his head. “You really are a weenie, aren’t you?”

I grinned. “Go with your strengths!”

He lifted his chin toward an officer standing near the head of the trail. “I’ll let Gordon give you the rundown. He’ll be able to tell you a shitload more than I ever could.”

I slid a look toward Officer Tracy Gordon. If I didn’t have a rule against dating coworkers—and if my love life wasn’t already way too complicated—I’d have been all over him. Tall and dark-skinned, he had a smart-hunk look about him that pushed my buttons in all the right ways. “He still your trainee?”

“Nope. He finished up last week, and I pulled every string I had to get him permanently assigned to my shift.”

“Enjoy him while you can,” I said, clapping Scott on the shoulder. “We’ll be stealing him soon enough!”

He sighed. “I keep telling him that you detectives are joyless pricks and that going to investigations would be terrible for his career, but I’m not sure he’s buying it.”

“Imagine that!” I gave Scott a parting smile and then trotted over to where Tracy Gordon stood at the start of the trail. I knew it was the start of the trail because there was a deliberately crude sign that said “Start of Trail.” I glanced quickly around. There were no other trails or paths or anything else that could possibly be mistaken for the nature trail, but I was willing to bet that the sign existed because at some point someone decided to simply charge into the woods and then complained that it hadn’t been well marked.

Or maybe I was too quick to assume there were a large number of stupid people in the world.

“You need a better coat,” Tracy said with a frown as he held the crime scene log for me to sign. “Scarf and gloves too. You’re going to freeze your ass off dressed like that.”

“Yes, Mom,” I replied as I handed the pen back to him and stuffed my hands back into my pockets. Who was the stupid one now? “It wasn’t this cold when I left my house,” I added petulantly.

“Don’t you ever check the weather?” he chided. “Cold front moving through today. This morning was the high temp for the day.”

I scowled at the sky. Living in south Louisiana meant that snow was a rarity, but in the past few years there’d been a scattering of snow days—more than I’d ever remembered when I was a kid. Only two years ago we’d had a surprise dumping of nearly six inches—which had been awesome for everyone who didn’t actually have to go out in it. St. Long Parish didn’t have anything resembling a snowplow, and the best the parish officials had been able to do was spread salt and sand on the bridges and tell everyone to stay off the roads. As someone who usually did have to go out regardless of the weather, my dislike of driving in snow more than outweighed my inner six-year-old’s desire to make a snowman. “I shouldn’t have to put up with brutally hot summers and snow,” I whined.

He chuckled. A rich sound. “It’s not so bad if you actually dress for the weather.” To my surprise he pulled off his scarf and draped it around my neck, looping it with practiced ease. He gave me a grin before I could speak. “I’m from Colorado. I won’t freeze like you delicate southern flower types.”

I knew I should protest the offer and at least try to give the scarf back to him, but it was lovely and warm and it stopped the breeze from diving down the collar of my coat. Plus it smelled very faintly of whatever his cologne was, and I had to resist the very unseemly desire to bury my face in it and take a deep whiff. “Thanks,” I said instead. “I’ll give it back on my way out.”

“No hurry. So I take it you want the rundown?”

“Please.”

He pulled a small notebook from his front pocket and flipped it open.

I quickly held up my hand before he could start speaking. “Just the Cliff Notes version for right now,” I said. “I want to get through this before hypothermia sets in.”

He smiled. “Fair enough. About a hundred yards down the trail is a small picnic area, along with our victim, white male. ID in his pocket says that he’s Barry Landrieu, age thirty-seven. The Peugeot is his. No obvious sign of trauma on initial visual examination, though there appears to be blood around his nose. Coroner’s office is on the way, and crime scene is already doing their magic.”

Barry Landrieu. That name was maddeningly familiar, but my frozen brain didn’t want to tell me why.

“The witness who found the body is in the shack,” he continued before sliding the notebook back into his shirt pocket. “The BMW-Z4 belongs to him. I verified.”

This was why I adored Officer Gordon. He saw the loose threads and checked them out without being told to do so. One of these days he was going to be a fantastic detective. “I’ll deal with the witness after I see the body,” I said. At least this witness was willing to stick around, which would save me the trouble of having to hunt him down later for a statement. Detention of witnesses was one of those things that was legal only under certain circumstances. “I’m afraid that if I go inside now,” I continued, “I’ll never be able to convince myself to come out.”

The skin around his eyes crinkled attractively as he smiled. “Probably a good strategy.”

I headed down the trail and, as described, in another hundred yards the trail opened out into a clearing that had been made into a picnic site. Beyond this area I could see that the trail continued on to a deck where one could look out over the marsh. A concrete barbecue pit held old ashes and a dusting of snow that was melting into slush. A pair of picnic tables had been there long enough to collect an assortment of carvings in their surfaces on the order of “Jenny wuz here” and “Buddy N Chelsea 4eva.” And in the scruffy grass between the tables and the barbecue pit was the dead man.

A gangly male officer wearing a jacket with Beaulac PD Crime Scene emblazoned across the back crouched by the body, snapping pictures. Brown curls peeked out from beneath a black Beaulac PD baseball cap, and when he turned I saw a scattering of freckles across a slightly crooked nose. I didn’t recognize him, but I sure as hell knew the slim, red-haired woman in a similar jacket standing beside him. This was Jill, one of my best friends and one of the very few who knew about the demon summoning. I had a feeling the crouching officer was a trainee of some sort—a guess that was somewhat confirmed when he straightened and looked to her for guidance.

His eyes shifted to me as I approached, and Jill turned, flashing me a smile. “Heya, darlin’,” she said. “Lovely day for a nature walk!”

I couldn’t help but note that she wore a dark blue knit hat, a black scarf wound around her neck and leather gloves. Apparently she had checked the weather before leaving her house this morning. And hadn’t been distracted by a demon attack. “Nature and walk should never be in a sentence together,” I retorted, grimacing as a burst of wind whipped through the trees and around us. I hunched my shoulders in an attempt to bury my ears in the borrowed scarf. “This sucks ass. Tell me what you’ve found so I can finish up and get the hell out of here.”

She laughed. “Okay, grumpypants. Tracy already gave you the gist?” At my nod she continued, “It looks to me like our vic has been here since maybe late yesterday, but the CO folks will have to give the word on that. He wasn’t dressed for cold weather. No flies, but the cold is probably keeping them away.”

I crouched by the body. He was lying on his stomach with one hand up near his face and the other down along his side. One leg was cocked awkwardly over the other in a way that made me think he might have stumbled and collapsed. I peered at what I could see of his face. Blond hair. A mustache stained red. “Looks like he had a nosebleed,” I said. “Not a whole lot of blood.” I skimmed my gaze over the rest of him, but there didn’t seem to be any obvious sign of trauma. No jacket, just a long-sleeved Henley-style shirt, jeans, and boots. “Maybe he overdosed, or had a stroke. Do those cause nosebleeds?”

Jill shrugged. “Ask Dr. Lanza,” she said, referring to the parish pathologist. “Who knows, maybe there’s a big knife that we can’t see sticking into his belly. We won’t know anything for sure until the CO dudes roll this guy over.”

I nodded. There’d be no touching the body until the coroner’s office personnel got here and everything was properly photographed and documented, which meant there wasn’t much I could do except interview whoever found him. “Does his name sound familiar to you?” I flicked a glance up at Jill.

She frowned in thought then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Why? Do you know him?”

“Not sure. The name Barry Landrieu rings a bell, and I kind of get the feeling I’ve seen him before, but…” I sighed and straightened. “Hell, I probably arrested him once or something.” Though even as I said it I knew that wasn’t it. Damn it, this was going to bug the ever-loving crap out of me until I figured it out.

I turned my attention to the gangly young man. “Hi. I’m Kara Gillian. I’d shake your hand but I don’t want to take it out of my pocket.”

He gave an awkward chuckle. “Drew Blackall. Nice to meet you.”

“Drew’s fresh out of the Academy,” Jill informed me. “He told me he wanted to be just like the CSI people on TV,” she added, face completely neutral.

He turned a bright shade of crimson, and I grinned. “And how long did it take for her to disabuse you of that notion?”

“About ten minutes,” he admitted.

I was almost surprised it had taken that long. Jill had several ready-made rants about the inaccurate ways her profession was portrayed on TV and how such portrayals were detrimental to law enforcement and forensic labs.

Jill gave a pleased sigh. “Ah, I do love shaping young minds.”

I snorted. “All right, I’m going to go talk to the witness. I’m freezing my tits off out here.”

“He’s a celebrity,” Drew blurted out, then flushed as we both looked at him. “The witness. I mean, um, not like a movie star, but he’s on TV and people around here know him.…” he trailed off, face coloring.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “Who is he?”

Drew gave an eager smile. “Roman Hatch!” he said. “He’s on ESPN and he used to play for—”

“I know who he is,” I interrupted, unable to completely hide the slight wince. “Roman Hatch. Former linebacker at LSU. They called him ‘Hatchet Man.’ Played for Green Bay and went to the Pro Bowl twice. Two years ago he had a career-ending knee injury, and now he’s a color commentator for ESPN.”

Jill cocked an eyebrow at me. “And here I thought you didn’t know anything about sports.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about sports. But I know Roman.” I paused, shrugged. “I went to LSU. And I, uh, dated him for a couple of months during my senior year.”

The look of astonishment on her face was almost enough to make me not mind the cold. “I think this shocks me more than…um…your house,” she said. I was pretty sure she’d been about to say something about my summoning demons and had caught herself just in time. Luckily Drew didn’t seem to be aware that Jill had censored herself. He stared at me in awe as if I’d just announced I was the new quarterback for the New Orleans Saints.

Jill shook her head and let out a low whistle. “Wow. You just don’t strike me as the type who would ever date a football player.”

“Yes. Because I’m not,” I said emphatically. “Hence the reason we aren’t still together.”

Her eyes flashed with wicked humor, and I knew she was dying to say something obnoxious about the type of men I currently had in my life. Good thing—for my sake—that the tech was here, and she was forced to restrain herself.

Any further commentary was cut short by the arrival of Coroner’s Office personnel as they maneuvered their stretcher over bumps and debris in the trail.

The Coroner’s Investigator gave me a dour nod before stooping to peer at the body. Clearly he was just as thrilled to be out in the cold as I was. He pulled on latex gloves then gave a nod to his assistant. Together they rolled Mr. Landrieu onto his back while Drew dutifully snapped pictures, and I stood back and shivered. The Investigator crouched again and ran gloved hands over the victim’s skull and carefully examined the rest of the body.

“No obvious sign of injury or foul play,” he finally stated. “Looks like the blood is from a nosebleed. Doc’ll have to figure out if that had anything to do with the cause of death.” He stood. “You need a looksee?”

“Yes, thank you,” I replied. A shimmer of unease swept over me as I stepped toward the body and I shot a quick glance around, suddenly weirded out for absolutely no reason I could name. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No animals or movement. Anything with any sort of common sense was surely holed up in its nest. I shifted into othersight, but it didn’t reveal anything sinister.

Still strangely unnerved, I crouched by the body. I felt as if something was pricking at my arcane senses, far too faint for me to be able to pinpoint. Too faint to even be sure that’s what was bothering me. Maybe I’m simply delirious from the cold.

Familiarity tickled madly as I took a hard look at the man’s face, but his features were distorted from the way he’d been lying. Impressions from leaves and dirt marred his cheek, along with the dull red tinge of lividity from the settling of the blood in his body. An ant casually traipsed across the milky white surface of his eye. Another was busy at the dried blood by his nose. The flies would be on him as soon as it warmed up. A few more days out here and the eyes, nose and mouth would be teeming with maggots, busily helping the decomposition process along.

“Kara…?” Jill murmured. I abruptly realized that the Coroner’s Office people were waiting for me to finish my observations so that they could get him into the body bag. Mumbling an apology, I stood and backed away a couple of steps while they rolled the body smoothly into the bag and zipped it closed.

Jill turned to Drew. “Why don’t you go on back to the van and start in on the paperwork.” He nodded and obediently trotted after the CO people as they trundled the loaded stretcher carefully back down the trail. As soon as they were out of earshot she gave me a penetrating look. “You saw something wonky, didn’t you?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I thought I felt something strange, but I didn’t see anything.” I gave her a sharp look. “Why? Did you feel something?”

“No. It’s just that your eyes go funny when you’re looking for your woowoo stuff.”

I frowned at her. “Funny? What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “Hard to describe. It’s not like they glow or anything, but…they get super intense. I can almost feel it.”

That was the first time I’d ever heard of anyone being able to tell when I was using othersight. Could Jill have some sort of sensitivity to the arcane? Or maybe it was simply that she knew what I was doing and thus read more into it.

“Where’s your shadow?” she asked, and I knew she was referring to Eilahn. She knew about the demon and her role. That had been easy enough to share.

“Around somewhere,” I muttered, still frowning. I didn’t worry about Eilahn. I knew that if something happened she’d be at my side in less than a heartbeat. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right with this scene. I kept thinking I saw flickers of movement at the edges of my vision, easily explained by the movement of the wind through the grass and the trees. Except…

Except it feels off.

I fought back a shiver as I scanned the area again with othersight. Jill stood silently and patiently while I opened myself as much as possible to any arcane sensations.

Nothing. It was simply woods. Sunlight fought to break through the clouds, scattering mottled shadows onto the carpet of leaves and pine needles. A branch scraped against a neighboring tree and droplets of moisture pattered down onto the picnic tables and the limp ashes in the barbecue pit.

I sighed and gave her a wry smile. “Guess I’m nuts after all.”

She chuckled. “In other words, business as usual for you.”

I fell into step with her as we made our way back up the trail. “Life would be easier if I was nuts, I think,” I said.

“Oh, just do what everyone else does—heavy drugs!”

I began to laugh, then stopped dead. Barry Landrieu. Now I remembered where I knew him from.

Jill turned back to me with a frown. “You okay?”

I gave a slow nod. “Yeah. Sorry. I, um, just realized why the victim’s name seemed familiar.”

She gave me a questioning look, but I hesitated. Had I ever told Jill about some of the more unpleasant parts of my past? Screw it, I decided. If she can tolerate the whole demon summoning thing, she’s not going to run screaming because of this.

“After my dad was killed and my aunt became my guardian, I did a lot of acting out,” I told her. “Experimenting with drugs and that sort of thing. Mostly it was just smoking pot and sneaking alcohol, but sometimes it was painkillers or ADHD meds.”

Her brow furrowed but she simply gave me a go on nod.

“I used to hang with a girl named Tammy,” I said. “Tammy North—and she had an older brother. Half-brother actually. He had a different last name, which is why I couldn’t place it at first.” I lifted my chin in the direction the stretcher had gone. “Barry Landrieu. Tammy and I would smoke pot that he gave us. But one day when I went over there Barry gave me something new to try. Heroin. I overdosed and damn near died.”

“Jesus,” she breathed.

I scuffed a shoe in the dirt. “Yeah, it pretty much sucked ass.” Then I took a deep breath. “On the other hand, it was one hell of a wakeup call for me and my aunt.”

“Is that when she tried to see if you could be a summoner?”

“Not immediately, but about a year later Aunt Tessa ‘introduced’ me to demon summoning. She also called the narcs on Barry and they busted him pretty soon after. I thought he was still in jail, to be honest.”

“What happened to his sister?” Jill asked.

“Dunno. My aunt pulled strings and had me switch schools. I don’t think I ever saw Tammy again.” A sliver of guilt wormed through me. After recovering from the overdose I’d thrown myself into learning summoning, and I’d barely spared Tammy a second thought.

I blew out my breath. “Anyway. At least now I know why the name’s familiar.”

Jill reached and rubbed my arm. “You should go let the Hatchet Man console you in your time of loss,” she said, then danced away, laughing, as I took a swing at her.

“You are such a bitch,” I muttered, but I couldn’t help but grin. However, my mood slipped a bit as we continued on to the parking lot. I knew the victim and the witness. What were the odds of that?

Pretty high, actually, considering how small Beaulac is, I decided. I should probably be surprised that it didn’t happen more often. Sometimes a coincidence was just a coincidence.

Still, it was one of those things that would make me take a closer look at everyone involved.

Tracy was on his phone, and he simply gave us a slight wave as we passed him. Jill headed to her van while I hurried on to the shack. My haste had absolutely nothing to do with a desire to see Roman again—and everything to do with my desire to warm the hell up.

I stepped into the shack and quickly pulled the door closed behind me, breathing a silent prayer of thanks to whatever powers would listen to me that there was a space heater in here and that it was working at maximum efficiency. Beyond that there wasn’t much appealing about the interior. A small metal desk against the far wall. Two office chairs that looked like they’d been in use during the seventies. Roman sat in one of the chairs, his attention on the phone in his hand. He had on jeans and expensive-looking cowboy boots, with a black sweater and a leather bomber jacket up top. He lifted his eyes to me as I entered, recognition flaring instantly.

“Kara?” he exclaimed, a broad smile spreading across his face as he stood. He was still as good-looking as ever—broad-shouldered and tall with hazel eyes set in a square-jawed face. His sandy-blond hair nearly brushed the rafters, and it was clear he hadn’t slacked off on his workouts since leaving the Packers. His whole build pretty much screamed “former linebacker.” I suddenly felt absurdly tiny. “Holy shit, what are you doing here?” His gaze swept over me, taking in my belt with the gun and badge.

I gave him a dutifully friendly smile. We hadn’t parted with any sort of animosity. It was more of a Holy crap we are SO not meant to be together sort of thing, but still, the potential for awkwardness was definitely strong, especially since I’d been the one to end it. “Hi, Roman. How’ve you been?”

To my surprise he threw his arms around me in a hug before stepping back to give me a once-over, still grinning. “I’ve been awesome. You look great! And wow…a cop?”

“Homicide detective,” I replied, a little proudly.

“That’s fantastic!” he exclaimed. Then he seemed to remember where he was and what I was doing here, and he winced. “Sorry, I mean, it is, but it sucks that I have to find out like this.” He shook his head. “Anyway. It really is good to see you, Kara.”

“You too, Roman,” I replied automatically, but I was surprised to realize that I actually kind of meant it. “Thanks for waiting around. I just need to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?”

“No problem,” he said, dropping back into the chair. “Anything I can do to help.”

Taking a seat in the other chair, I asked him for his driver’s license and quickly jotted down his information. Michigan license. His cell phone had an out of state area code. “You in town visiting your folks?” I asked. We were both from this area, though he’d gone to a private all-boys high school on the other side of the parish while I’d suffered at Beaulac High.

“My maw-maw’s doing a bit poorly,” he said. “Nothing serious, but my dad needed some help moving her into assisted living. I also have a couple of investments I’m working on down here, and figured I’d check in on them.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “I mean about your maw-maw, not about the investments,” I quickly added. I’d only met his grandmother a couple of times, but she’d seemed nice enough. My grandparents had all passed away either before I was born or when I was too young to remember them. “Can you tell me what you were doing out here?” I asked.

He leaned back, exhaled. “I used to come out here all the time when I was in high school. It was just some trails back then—it wasn’t an official park or anything with the picnic tables and parking lot.” A flicker of a grimace crossed his face, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that he’d liked it better when no one else knew about it. “Anyway, whenever I’m home I try to get out here. I like coming out to watch the sun come up over the marsh. It’s really pretty. Clears my head, y’know?”

I gave a smile of understanding. “Guess this time wasn’t so head-clearing, huh?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t even see the body at first since it was still pretty dark. Passed right by him on the way out to the deck. Then on the way back…At first I thought it was just a bunch of trash or clothes that someone had dumped out here. I was all pissed off, and then I saw the guy’s hand. I started to try and turn him over, but he was already stiff.” Roman shot me a troubled look. “I probably messed up evidence, didn’t I?”

“It was a natural reaction,” I assured him. “I doubt you disturbed anything critical.”

He blew out his breath, nodded. “I called nine one one and waited for the cops.” He shrugged. “They told me to wait here. That’s pretty much it.”

“Did you see anyone else around?”

“Nope. It was dead quiet out here this morning.” He winced. “Sorry. No pun intended, I swear.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve heard far worse from cops,” I told him. “The ID on the victim is for a Barry Landrieu. Do you know him?” I watched him carefully.

He thought for a second then shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Sorry.”

As far as I could tell he was being truthful, but I still intended to run a check on both of them to see if there were any links. That was standard procedure. Sure, we used to date, but that didn’t mean I was going to shirk on my job. Closing my notebook, I stood and so did he. “I appreciate your help. If I have any more questions I’ll be in touch.” I pulled out one of my cards and handed it to him. “And if you think of anything else, please let me know.”

He glanced down at it before pulling out his wallet and tucking the card carefully within. “What happened to him? Was he murdered?”

“We won’t really know anything until the autopsy,” I said, “but right now I’m inclined to think it was natural causes.”

“It was good seeing you again, Kara, despite the circumstances. You look great.” He gave me a warm smile, reminding me why I’d gone out with him as long as I had. He was a smart guy with plenty of charm, and it had been tough to resist when he’d turned his attention to me. It had simply taken me a couple of months to get past the charm and realize that not only did we have nothing in common, but I was also never going to feel comfortable sharing the more private details of my life with him. Like the fact that I had never mastered shaving my legs in the shower and had to take a bath to accomplish the task. Or that I was absolutely addicted to my Water-Pik and actually liked getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist’s office. Oh, yeah, and that whole demon summoning thing.

“Good seeing you too,” I said. “I’m glad to hear you’re doing well.” I really hoped he didn’t have anything to do with the death of Barry Landrieu. Hopefully this case will be the nice, easy natural death it currently appears to be.

He glanced down at my left hand. “Not married yet?”

My lips twitched. “Nope.”

“Seeing anyone?” he asked, eyes on me.

Wow. How to answer that one? “Umm, sort of. Yeah.” Did regular sex with a demonic lord count?

“I’m going to be in town for a couple of weeks,” he said. “Maybe we could have lunch or coffee.”

“I’d like that,” I replied before I could think about whether or not I really would like it. “I, um, hate to chase you off, but I need to tie up the loose ends here and get started on the paperwork.”

“No problem,” he said. He pulled the door open and politely stood back to let me exit first. The cold was a knifing shock after the balmy comfort of the shack, and it took everything I had to force myself out into it and not suck my breath in dramatically or anything like that.

“I’ll be in touch,” Roman said, then surprised me by leaning down and giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before hurrying off to his car.

I watched as he started the BMW and drove off, then yelped at a hard smack on my arm. I turned to glare at Jill.

“Oh my god,” she said, grinning wickedly. “You are a total hunk magnet!”

I thwapped her arm back. “Don’t you start! I am not. Besides, you have a hunk of your own.” Jill was dating Zack. Special Agent Zack Garner—who I’d recently discovered was a lot more than just a special agent.

Jill suddenly reached out and gave my arm—the same one she’d just punched—a comforting squeeze. “Still nothing from Ryan?”

I couldn’t quite suppress the wince as I shook my head. “Nothing worthwhile. I get spam that’s friendlier.” Jill heard from Zack several times a day, while in the past month and a half I’d received a grand total of three emails from Ryan—all oddly terse and almost painfully neutral. It was enough to give a girl a complex. And I was neurotic enough already, thank you very much.

However, part of my wince was guilt-induced. Jill seemed to be getting more and more serious about Zack. And I didn’t have the faintest idea how to tell her—or even if I should tell her—that Zack wasn’t exactly the perfect man she thought he was.

And that he wasn’t a man at all, for that matter.

I was part of an interagency task force that supposedly dealt with financial crimes but actually handled situations that fell outside the definition of “ordinary.” I’d met the other two primary members of the team—FBI Special Agents Ryan Kristoff and Zack Garner—during the investigation of the Symbol man murders, during which I’d confided to Ryan that I was a summoner. Shockingly, he’d known what a summoner was, and I subsequently discovered that he also had a fair amount of sensitivity to the arcane, though not as much as I did.

Or so I thought. But shortly over a month ago our little group began work on a case involving death threats against a local singer, and during the final wrap-up of the case—which turned into an ugly battle against a horde of golems—I discovered that there was a shitload more to Zack and Ryan than met the eye. Turned out that Zack was a demon in human form. And Ryan? Well, the FBI agent who’d become one of my closest friends was very likely an exiled demonic lord, even though he had no memory or awareness of that fact.

The two agents had left for some sort of special training up in Quantico about a week after the battle with the golems. Meanwhile I was left to grapple with information I’d been told, stuff I’d seen, and things I’d deduced. Zack couldn’t come right out and confirm my suspicions about the two of them, but he had repeatedly stressed that Ryan’s safety could be jeopardized if he knew the truth. I still didn’t know if Zack was Ryan’s guard or his guardian, but I had an odd gut feeling that the training was a convenient excuse for Zack to get Ryan away for a while.

Jill’s face twisted into a sympathetic expression. “Men are dicks,” she announced, “and Ryan’s being an emo dick, which is the worst sort.”

I smiled despite my angst. “Ryan’s never really struck me as the emo type.”

She gave a snort. “Please. Zack says that he’s being Mr. Moody—moping around or taking out whatever frustrations he has on anyone silly enough to be willing to train with him.” Then her eyes softened—which wasn’t an expression I was used to seeing on Jill. “Look, it really messed him up when he thought you’d died.”

My stomach tightened again, and I had to work hard to keep a neutral expression on my face while I gave her a nod. The only reason I hadn’t died was because of Ryan. And what he’d somehow been able to do.

…he straightened, expression smoothing to ice, with only his eyes showing a devastating rage. He raised his hands before him, and in the next heartbeat the space between his hands filled with white-blue potency. He lowered his head, lip curling as he unleashed the power at the golem.…

“I know,” I managed to say. “But I didn’t die.” I shrugged, wishing I could shrug off the tension and uncertainty as well. Was that why Zack and Ryan left? Did they need to make sure that Ryan wouldn’t go all demonic-lord-smites-his-enemies again? “Whatever. I’ve been through worse.”

She gave a mock shudder. “Unfortunately, that’s far too true. You’re such a drama queen!”

I grinned. “And you still hang with me.”

“Makes me look good in comparison!” Then she lifted her chin in the direction the BMW had gone. “So, you and the football star, huh? Spill!”

“There’s nothing to spill,” I insisted. “We were in the same Early Japanese Art class. We found out that we were from the same town. He asked me out. He was nice. We dated for about two months. We parted ways.”

She eyed me. “And…?”

I laughed. “Okay, he was also my ‘first.’”

“Niiiiice,” she said with an approving nod. “That’s how to get off to a good start.” Then she cocked her head, eyes sparkling mischievously. “So was it? A good start?”

“As good as any first time is, I suppose. He’s a decent guy. We just had absolutely nothing in common. And he was a damn sight nicer than my second boyfriend. Complete asshat and sucked in bed.”

Her lips twitched. “And now you date a demon.”

“And now I date a demon.” I shrugged. “Clearly I haven’t learned a damn thing.”