Chapter Seventeen

"Oh, sure, the minute Christian needs rescuing, earth-shatteringly important emergencies suddenly pile up on me. First Sebastian, now a demon. What next? The apocalypse?" I grumbled as I stuffed my things into my bag, leaving the holy water on top, where it was handy.

"I'm so very sorry to ruin your evening," Esme apologized.

"So just what does Esme mean when she says the basement is now part of—"

I slapped a hand over Roxy's mouth. "Never, ever say the H-word when there's a demon in the house."

Her eyes were huge as she nodded her understanding. I released her mouth. "I have no idea what's happened down there, but I guess I'll be finding out rather than saving Christian, like I should be doing." I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed out the bedroom door. "Blast that Guardian! Just what the… dickens"—we also don't say the D-word when minions of hell are about—"does she think she's doing?"

"How would I know? I'm just a handy feed bag to hang around the neck of any visiting vampire."

I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at the man following me. "Look, Raphael, I appreciate your offer of help, but about this you really have to trust me—a situation involving demons is no place for a human."

"You're not human?"

I gave him a wry smile as I limped down the stairs. "According to Roxy, I'm no longer strictly human, no. And even if I were, I'm a Summoner. I practice magic as my business. I won't be likely to fall into any of the demon's traps, as you might."

Raphael looked disbelieving as I approached the door to the basement. Esme was right; the lower half of the house was filled with demon smoke, a sign that the Guardian had either Summoned the demon to banish him forever, or something had gone badly awry. Given my luck, I was pretty sure it was the latter. Perhaps the Turners had already gone to sleep and would remain blissfully ignorant of the evening's events.

I glanced at Raphael. Even as angry as he was with me for allowing Sebastian to feed from him, he was still prepared to stand by my side and fight. He really was a nice guy, and I had made it one of my rules that I never allowed nice guys to become demon fodder. "If you won't listen to me, maybe you'll listen to Joy."

He frowned. I nodded. "Think about her—is she going to want you to risk your life and eternal damnation unnecessarily? Or would she tell you to let the experts handle this?"

"Well…"

I have never been able to do a strong mind push on anyone, but I tried now. I put my hand on his arm and focused on what I wanted him to do, giving him a push into agreeing with it. "I think Joy needs you more, Raphael. She loves you; I'm sure she wants you home. Right now."

He blinked, a faint frown between his brows. "I…"

Well, pooh, in for a penny, in for a pound. I put my other hand on him and mentally shoved. Hard. "She might even need you."

His head snapped up and he turned to bellow up the stairs. "Roxy! We're leaving. Now, woman! I don't have time to wait for you!"

Raphael was dragging a protesting Roxy out the front door as I opened up the door to the basement. Thick white smoke boiled up the stairs, a noxious barrier I had to push my way through to reach the basement.

"Hello?" The demon smoke was thick enough to choke a horse, which meant that us almost-humans were coughing like six-pack-a-day smokers. "Um… Guardian? Are you down here?"

I swam through the offal-scented smoke and peered around the basement.

"I'm sorry, but the wine cellar is off-limits," a voice called out from the heart of the smoke. It was a young-sounding voice for a Guardian. Very young.

"There's a… erm… gas leak. It would probably be best if you were to evacuate the house, Mrs. Turner."

"My name is Allie, and I've heard the one about the gas leak before." I headed for the open door to the wine cellar, out of which the smoke was pouring. I gagged a couple of times before I made it into the room, but what I saw once I got there had me rubbing my eyes.

In the center of the room Sarra the demon hung upside down by one leg, its arms bound behind its back, its suit scuffed-looking. Beneath it, crawling around an intricately scribed circle, a woman with short, curly red hair drew binding symbols with a gold stick.

She looked up as I fanned away the smoke that was billowing up from the crack in the tile. "You're a Summoner. Hullo. I'm Noelle. Did you know that you have mismatched eyes?"

I walked around the demon. It glared at me. "Yes, I know. Why do you have Sarra strung up by one leg?"

She drew another symbol. It flared bright green as soon as the stick lifted from the circle. "It was getting a bit stroppy with me. The Hanged Man always teaches them a few manners. It's retaliating with the smoke. Are those spirits I saw yours, then?"

"Yes, they are. There are four others as well. I hate to be a bother, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, what with Christian being held by this one's master and all, so if you could possibly just give me the abbreviated version of what's going on here, I'll be on my way to rescue him."

She leaned back on her heels and sucked the tip of her gold stick. "Asmodeus, eh?"

The demon snarled. A chunk of ceiling fell behind me. We both ignored it. It just never does to give a demon the satisfaction of knowing it's startled you.

"It's a nasty bag of tricks, but I heard through the demonic grapevine that it was weakened and searching for a suitable sacrifice to regain its power," she added.

"Well, it can't have Christian; he's mine. Back to the demon, if you don't mind…"

She looked up at Sarra, still sucking the stick. "It's a pretty specimen, isn't it? I like the hair gel. Nice touch. The mustache is a bit much, though, don't you think? Makes it look so smarmy."

"Um…"

"I'm destroying it, so I suppose it really doesn't matter."

I blinked and avoided two wine bottles as they flew out of a rack when the demon hissed at the Guardian. "Destroying it? I didn't think you could destroy a demon."

She laughed and stuck her stick behind her ear, brushing off her knees as she stood. "Of course you can destroy them. Don't they teach you Summoners anything? It's fairly easy, just a bit time-consuming, what with drawing all the symbols in proper order, and then, of course, there are the twelve words you have to pry out of them. Duck."

Now I was really confused. "Twelve words? What does a duck—" I jumped aside to avoid the wooden bench that was suddenly hurtled toward us. "Oh. Thanks."

Noelle turned to face the demon, her hands on her hips. "That was not in the least bit nice. Do we need to have another talk about what constitutes acceptable behavior?"

She traced a few symbols in the air and the demon screamed, curling up on itself in agony. I looked at the five-foot-long cracks that appeared in the cement wall. "Impressive. Now, if we could—"

"The twelve words are needed to destroy the demon, don't you see?" Noelle knelt again before her circle, pulling the stick from her red curls. "You have to get them out of the demon before you can destroy it, and naturally they're a bit reticent to give them to you. Makes for an exciting time, though."

"Right," I drawled, more than a bit worried about the Guardian's lighthearted manner. Guardians were highly respected, more than a little feared people in my circle of witches and wizards, and the friendly, freckle-faced woman in front of me just didn't meet my expectations. "Do you mind me asking how long you've been doing this?"

She drew another symbol. "Almost six months now."

"Six months?" I choked so hard tears came to my eyes as I coughed the saliva out of my bronchial tubes. Sarra cackled. The door fell off its hinges.