An EMT bent the twisted frame of a wrecked car just enough so his team could extricate an unconscious woman from the driver’s seat.

A policeman chased an armed thug, catching up to him and tackling him even though he’d taken two shots to the chest.

Another uniformed man—National Guard, I thought—helped shore up a levee in a blinding rainstorm, carrying so many sandbags his feet should have sunk into the ground from the weight.

There was no narrative, no voice-over. But the commercial ended with the words “Make a difference”

in stark white letters on a black background. Below that was an 800 number and a Web address.

I stared at the TV in horror. We’d speculated that the Spirit Society might be persuaded to lower their standards for demon hosts, but we hadn’t thought about a national recruitment campaign.

Make a difference. It was what ninety-nine percent of all demon hosts wanted to do, and I could easily see it as a siren call to people with self-esteem problems.

I tried to tell myself that they wouldn’t drum up much business running the ad at two in the morning, but of course I knew they were likely running it in prime time as well. A century ago, belonging to the Spirit Society had been a federal offense, punishable by life in prison; now they were recruiting on national TV.

I clicked off the TV and dropped the remote on the coffee table. Then I convinced myself I had a headache and downed a couple Tylenol PM before climbing into bed and pulling the covers over my head.

I woke in the morning to the sound of the phone ringing. I’m always groggy in the morning when I take something to help me sleep, so instead of answering, I snuggled deeper into the covers. A minute passed, and then the phone rang again. I groaned and jammed a pillow over my head to drown out the noise. Whoever it was could leave a message, damn it!

When the phone started ringing a third time, I dragged myself into a sitting position and glared at it. The clock told me it was only seven-thirty, which meant I’d had about five hours of sleep. So it wasn’t just the Tylenol PM making me groggy.

The phone in my bedroom doesn’t have caller ID, so I had no idea who to expect when I picked it up and growled, “If you’re selling something or looking for a donation, or doing a survey, I’m going to hunt you down and kill you.”

“And good morning to you, too,” Adam said.

I groaned again and fell backward onto my bed, the phone still pressed to my ear. Adam calling at this time of the morning was not a good thing. And whatever not-good thing it was, I didn’t know how I could face it before I had my coffee.

“What is it?” I asked, closing my eyes and thinking wistfully of sleep.

“Mary’s dead.”

His words banished most of my grogginess, and I sat bolt upright. “What? How? And when?” It wasn’t that many hours ago that we’d been having our guilt-inducing interview with her.

“Not very long ago, and slowly.”

I swallowed hard. “What happened?”

“She was beaten to death. I haven’t been to the crime scene—officially, she was a human murdered by another human, so therefore it’s not in my jurisdiction—but I talked to one of the officers on the scene. Sounds like whoever beat her broke practically every bone in her body.”

I winced, trying not to picture Mary’s miserable, frightened face. Whoever killed her must have had a heart of stone. Of course, since she was a demon, the beating had really killed Mary’s human host, not Mary herself, who would have returned to the Demon Realm when her host died. “What are the chances it’s a coincidence that she was murdered shortly after we talked to her?”

“Pretty damn low,” Adam said with an unhappy sigh.

“Did she still have your card on her when she was found?”

“Yeah. That’s why the officer called me. I told him I met her at the club and gave her my card in case she witnessed anything hinky there. It’s not the first time I’ve done that, but she’s not the type I’d usually approach. I’m still going to have a bunch of explaining to do. The cops don’t know she was possessed, and it’s best if it stays that way.”

“Why? If the cops know she was an illegal, then the crime will fall under your jurisdiction. Surely that would be better for you.”

I could almost hear Adam squirming. “You know there have been … questions about my conduct lately.” Thanks to me, though he was kind enough not to say it. “I’m not sure how safe it is to call attention to myself by admitting I failed to follow standard procedure.”

I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Whatever. I’ll trust your judgment on that. But where does that leave us?” I hadn’t felt like we’d gotten as much as I’d hoped out of last night’s interrogation, but without Mary to lead us to her contact, we had nothing.

“Back at square one,” Adam confirmed. “I think another council meeting is in order.”

Great. One problem with this concept of having a council is that they expect to be kept in the loop, and even to take part in decision-making.

“Guess I’ll be spending the rest of the morning on the phone again,” I grumbled.

“Better than how I’m going to spend the morning,” Adam quipped back, and I had to agree, no matter what he decided to tell his comrades.

seven

BECAUSE ADAM WAS TIED UP WITH POLICE BUSINESS, our second council meeting in two days didn’t convene until after four. As I waited for the council to arrive, I watched a Phillies game on TV, hoping to keep myself from thinking too much. It even worked, for the first couple of innings. Then I saw another Spirit Society recruitment commercial, and I lost all interest in the game. I turned off the set and wondered if I’d ever enjoy watching TV again.

The council members straggled in by ones and twos, just like the day before. And just like the day before, Raphael was the last to arrive and was about ten minutes late. But no one said anything to him about it, so at least we didn’t immediately start the hostilities.

Adam filled us in on the details of Mary’s murder. Not surprisingly, Mary’s host, Helen Williams, had a long rap sheet, even though she’d been only twenty-two years old. Arrests for drugs and prostitution riddled her record, and, as is unfortunately often the case with people like Helen who live high-risk lifestyles, the police weren’t going to spend lots of manpower and taxpayer money to hunt down her murderer. So far, there’d been no sign of any friends and family beating on their doors demanding justice. The prevailing theory was that she’d run afoul of a drug dealer and been “punished.”

If Helen Williams had been a different sort of person—the kind the police saw as valuable members of society—the authorities might have pressed Adam harder about why she’d had his card. His explanation, after all, was a bit thin. But there was only so much time and effort they were willing to put into the case, and Adam was a high-profile, upstanding citizen, so he was getting something of a free pass. Damn convenient for us, but I couldn’t help feeling a surge of disgust at the police department’s lack of interest in the death of a young woman. I understood all the reasons why it wouldn’t be a priority, but I didn’t have to like it. It gave me another reason to really hope we caught up with whoever had forced Helen Williams to summon a demon she didn’t want. A little vigilante justice might hit the spot.

How many more people like Helen Williams were out there right now? I shuddered to think.

“I guess we need to go on another hunting expedition,” Raphael said. His compassion for the dead woman was underwhelming, but then I hadn’t expected anything more from him.

“No,” Barbie said. She sat rigidly on her straight-backed chair. “We just got that poor woman killed. I’m not doing that again.”