The living room was a couch before a wide-screen TV bolted to the wall, out of view from the windows thanks to the screens. Beside it in the corner—also out of sight—was a stack of expensive equipment, everything black and silver and piled as if they were worth nothing, but nothing was likely what he’d paid for them. The last corner between two windows had a gray slab of slate propped two feet up on cinderblocks, probably to get the underside of a circle free of pipes or lines. Beside the raised stone was a locked box. It had demon summoning all over it, and I think Pierce had come to the same conclusion, since his lips were pressed tight in disapproval.

But it’s okay for you to do black magic, eh?

“This is nice,” I said as I dropped my bag on the couch. The fabric was faded, and I sat gingerly on the edge and wiggled out of my coat, leaving it to slump behind me. It was warm in here, for Jax, and the windows dripped condensation.

Nick looked satisfied as he came out from the fridge with a bottled water. “Pierce, you want a beer?” he said as he threw it to me.

The water thunked into my raised hand, and I set it on the coffee table unopened, thoughts of Alcatraz’s spice drifting through my head.

Pierce didn’t look away from a rack of leather books, his hands behind his back as he squinted at the titles. They were regular spell books, then. Demon texts had no names. “No. I’m of the mind to remain clearheaded,” he said, his voice flat.

Deciding that Nick wouldn’t magic my drink, I cracked the lid and took a sip. My gaze landed on a statue of an Incan god, and I moseyed over to the ugly thing. “Is this real?”

Nick leaned against the counter with his ankles crossed. “Depends on who you ask.”

Depends on who you ask, I mocked in my thoughts. Stupid ass.

Pierce’s hands came out from behind him to touch a long, curved knife resting on a wooden stand before the leather-bound books. It was almost a dagger, really. “This is real,” he said, turning it over and examining the detail on the engraving.

“Is it?” Carefully casual, Nick pushed himself into motion, beating me to Pierce and taking the knife from him. “I found it at an estate sale,”he said as we peered at it, the lie coming so easily it was disgusting. “The woman said it belonged to a sea captain who refused to sail back to England. I thought it was pretty. Someday, I’ll find out what the words on the handle mean.” Setting it on a higher shelf over our heads, he put his beer on the coffee table and moved to the bedroom, defined by a large folding screen.