As I leapfrogged back onto the coffee table, I recited the incantation to take me home. It didn't work. Tried another one. Didn't work, either. Whatever mojo the Fates had going in this angel's cell, it was obviously designed to keep her in. All things considered, that didn't seem like such a bad idea. If only I weren't in here with her.

"Yâflan dâdvari!" she spat at me.

"Yeah? Right back at you, you crazy bitch."

She stopped and went completely still. Then she stepped back, lifted her arms and face to the ceiling in supplication, and began an incantation.

"Hey, I didn't mean it," I said, stepping to the edge of the table. "If you're calling the Fates, that's fine. They sent me."

Something shimmered in Janah's raised hands, slowly materializing from the ether. It looked like a piece of metal at least four feet long and so shiny it seemed to glow. Etched along the side were inscriptions in an alphabet that looked vaguely familiar.

As the object solidified, a burnished handle appeared on one end. Janah gripped it, fingers closing around the handle, eyes shutting, lips parting, as if sliding into a glove of the softest leather. She raised the object over her head-the pointed shaft of the biggest goddamned sword I'd ever seen.

"Holy shit!"

The words were still whooshing from my lips as that sword cleaved through the table legs like they were sticks of warm butter. As my perch crumbled, I managed to scamper onto a chair. When I dove over the back of it, the sword sheered toward my knees. I hit the floor. The tip of the blade jabbed through the upholstery, within an inch of my shoulder.

Janah leapt onto the chair and plunged the sword down at me. Ghost or no ghost, I got the hell out of the way. Doesn't matter how invulnerable you think you are, facing off against a psychotic angel with a four-foot samurai sword is not the time to test that theory.

I scampered across the room, casting spells as I ran. None of them worked.

"'Demon-spawn!" Janah shouted.

Couldn't argue with that.

"Infidel!"

Debatable, but sure, I'll give you that one, too.

"Satan's whore!"

Okay, now that was uncalled for. I spun and kicked. This time, my conscience stood down and let my foot fly. I caught Janah in the wrist. She gasped. The sword flew from her hand and clattered to the floor. We both dove after it. As Janah's fingers touched the handle, I smacked it out of her reach, then twisted and grabbed the blade.

White-hot pain ripped through my arm. I screamed, as much in shock as pain. In three years I hadn't suffered so much as the pang of a stubbed toe, and never expected to again, so when the blade lit my arm afire, I let out a scream to rock the rafters. But I didn't let go. I lifted the sword by the blade, pain still throbbing down my arm.

Then all went dark.

"I think you were supposed to wait for me."

The voice was male and so rich it sent chills down my spine. I looked around. I was sitting on the floor in Janah's front hall, outside the white door.

In front of me stood a pair of legs, clad in tan trousers with an edge sharper than Janah's blade. I followed the legs up to a green shirt, then up higher, to a pair of eyes the same emerald shade as the shirt. Those eyes were set in an olive-skinned face with a strong nose and full lips quivering with barely concealed mirth. Tousled black hair fell over his forehead.

The man reached down to pull me up. His grip was firm and warm, almost hot.

"Thanks for the rescue," I said, "but I think I had things under control."

The grin broke through. "So I saw." He jerked his chin at the door. "Not what you expected, I suppose."

"No kidding." I glanced down at my hand. It looked fine, and the pain had stopped the moment I'd let go of the blade. "So that's an angel?"

"By occupation, not by blood. She's a ghost, like you. A witch as well… which is probably why she went easy on you." He extended his hand. "Trsiel."

I assumed that was an introduction, but it didn't sound like any name-or word-I'd ever heard. Though I refrained from a rude "Huh?" my face must have said it for me.

"Tris-eye-el," he said.

His phonetic pronunciation didn't quite sound like what he'd said the first time, but it was as near to it as my tongue was getting.

"Bet you got asked to spell that one a lot," I said.

He laughed. "I'm sure I would have… if I'd ever needed to. I'm not a ghost."

"Oh?" I looked him over, trying to be discreet about it.

"Angel," he said. "A full-blood."

"Angel? No wings, huh?"

Another rich laugh. "Sorry to disappoint. But putting wings on an angel would be like hitching a horse to a motor car. Teleportation works much faster than fluttering."

"True." I glanced toward Janah's door. "But teleportation doesn't work for her, does it? Or is that because of the anti-magic barrier?"

"A bit of both. It doesn't always work for full-bloods, either. There are places-" His faced darkened, but he shrugged it off. "Even full-bloods can be trapped. Like Zadkiel."

I nodded. "The last one who went after the Nix."

"Normally, he'd be here, helping you. That's his job, to assist on the inaugural quests. But obviously he can't, so I've been asked to step in. I'll be helping you with anything that might be difficult for a non-angel, like talking to Janah."

"So that's her problem. Now that she's an angel, she doesn't like talking to us mere ghosts?"

"It's not that. She picked up the demon blood in you. Her brain, it misfires, gets its connections crossed, especially when it comes to anything that reminds her of the Nix."

"She sensed demon, and saw the enemy."

He nodded. "She even does it to me now and then."

I frowned.

"Because of the demon blood," he said.

"I thought you said you were-"

"Demon, angel, all the same thing if you go back far enough, or cut deep enough. I wouldn't advise saying that too loudly, though. Some don't appreciate the reminder. When Janah sees you or me, she sees demon, which to her means the one demon she can't forget: the Nix who put her in there. I can usually get through to her, though. Ready for a rematch?"

"Bring it on."

San Francisco/1927

THE NIX ROUSED HERSELF INSIDE JOLYNN'S CONsciousness, struggling to stay alert as the woman droned on about her life. The subject, as dull as it was, wasn't the only cause of the Nix's lethargy. She was growing weak-a concept so repugnant that she fairly spit each time she thought of it. Once she'd sipped chaos like fine wine; now it was like water. Too long without it, and she weakened.

She was too particular in her choice of partners. Yet she still refused to lower her standards. Selecting the wrong partner was like quenching her thirst with sewer water.

This time she'd waited longer than usual, probably because her last partner had been such a disappointment. That's why she'd taken a chance with Jolynn. No smarter than her last partner-perhaps even stupider-with the vacuous self-absorption that sometimes afflicted young women with not enough going on behind their pretty faces. Yet Jolynn lacked more than common intelligence-she had an empty head, and an empty soul to match. The Creator, perhaps realizing the defect, had given her to a minister and his wife, as if hoping they'd supply what she lacked.

Jolynn's missing soul had proved to be a moral blank slate. Her parents inscribed goodness on it, and she became good. She married a good man, a doctor many years her senior, and followed him into the wilds of Africa, bringing medicine to the afflicted. But when she contracted malaria, her husband sent her home to recuperate, not with her aging parents, but in a California sanitarium. Freed from the watchful eyes of parents and husbands, the truth about Jolynn's soul became clear. It was indeed a slate, and could be erased just as easily as it had been written.