Andrew turned around and started to call out to Human-Mike before Anya cut him off.

“No, God, not him. My real supervisor.”

She pulled a second necklace out of her collar. This one had a much smaller jewel and had been given to her eleven hundred years ago during her brief human life. She curled her hand around the talisman and cried out, “Blessed be the name of D’Hoffryn!”

After a moment’s pause, there was a crackle of indoor lightning that made Human-Mike spill his dirty mop water. Andrew and Jonathan yipped, jumping out of the way.

A deep voice boomed, “Behold D’Hoffryn, lord of Arashmaharr! He that turns the air to blood and rains death upon—ahem. A little help, if you please?”

Anya peered over the counter. Her longtime boss, D’Hoffryn, the master of all vengeance demons, had materialized as a disembodied blue head on the floor between Jonathan’s feet. The boy’s eyes bulged as he staggered backward.

“Get that thing off my floor!” Human-Mike cried, backing away from the soapy puddle he’d made.

“Andrew, pick him up,” Anya said, flapping a hand at what was left of D’Hoffryn. “He’s one of the Lower Beings of hell, for God’s sake. Show some respect.”

“He’s pretty low right now,” Jonathan said.

Andrew reached down, both of his hands shaking as he lifted D’Hoffryn’s spiky blue head and set it on the handoff counter between him and Anya.

“Anyanka,” D’Hoffryn said. Andrew’s hands had left smears of dark blood on the Lower Being’s cheeks. His goatlike beard brushed the counter as he spoke. “I’m glad you called. As you can see, there’s been trouble in Arashmaharr.”

“What happened to your body?” Anya asked with what could have been considered a shriek. D’Hoffryn was usually over six feet tall and sturdily built under a brown velvet robe he’d been wearing since the dawn of time. Seeing him without limbs was perturbing.

D’Hoffryn side-eyed Andrew and Jonathan. “Who are these mortals?”

“Coworkers,” Anya said. “They’re harmless.”

“Mostly harmless,” Andrew said under his breath. For some reason, this made him and Jonathan snicker.

D’Hoffryn glared at them for a moment before his gaze slid back to Anya. “My body was cleaved in twain.”

“Cleaved?” Anya asked. “By whom? Or what?”

Anya didn’t know of anyone who would dare attack one of the Lower Beings. Outranked in hell only by the primordial Old Ones, the Lower Beings had their own magic beyond what was granted to the vengeance demons by their connection to the Marnoxon gem. D’Hoffryn could teleport and fly and shoot fire out of his hands—when he had hands.

“Yesterday,” D’Hoffryn said with a weary sigh, “a slayer gained entry into Arashmaharr—”

“Who left a talisman where a slayer could get to it?” Anya asked, aghast at the thought.

“Lloyd, we believe. He was found dead here in Demondale, his amulet missing,” D’Hoffryn said. A chill ran up Anya’s back as she pictured a fellow vengeance demon murdered in the town where she lived. Lloyd wasn’t some soft-skinned former human, either. He’d been an Asphyx demon with shoulders sharp as pikes. “His talisman brought the slayer directly to the office. She was wielding an ax twice her size and slaughtered everyone that came between her and the Marnoxon gem. There are very few survivors. Only those of us with magic of our own are even able to leave the scene.”