“Rachel? “Ivy questioned, clueless.

No! I thought, scared. I wasn’t a demon. I could not be summoned like this!

But I’d been summoned before by black-arts witches trying for Al, and this was exactly what it had felt like.

My breath hissed in as another wave of pain hit me. A horn blew behind us, and I yanked the car back into my lane. “No,” I panted through my teeth. “I won’t go. You can’t make me.”

“She’s being summoned!” Jenks shrilled, and Ivy’s face, now close to mine, became terrified. “Ivy, she’s being summoned!”

“Pull over!” Ivy exclaimed. “Rachel, stop the car!”

I couldn’t think, it hurt that bad. My hands gripped the wheel and I seized, the engine racing until I jerked my foot off the gas. The car lurched, and my head hit the wheel. Tears pricked, and I held my breath, trying to make the world stop spinning. Damn it, I should have insisted that Al give me my password back. But as long as I had his, he couldn’t abduct anyone.

“Ivy! Do something!” Jenks yelled as another pain ripped through me. I let go of the wheel to clutch my middle. Ivy grabbed the wheel as the car swerved. Vampiric incense rolled over me, and the car jerked as it hit the curb and swung back.

My head hit the wheel again, and a horn blew. “Ow,” I moaned, trying to open my eyes. I could smell ashes. I wouldn’t go. I was not a demon!

Vertigo hit, and I reached out, grasping anything as the ground was jerked from me, hands digging into the door, the seat … anything.

“Get out, Jenks!” Ivy screamed. “We’re going to hit!”

There was a quick hum of wings, and then a terrifying jerk. The sound of plastic splintering and the screaming of wheels was loud. My face hit something that felt like a wall and smelled like plastic. The hold on my will cracked, and with the suddenness of a drop of water leaving a faucet, I felt my body suck inward, pulling my soul and aura with it.

And I wasn’t in the car anymore.

The sudden cessation of pain was a shock. I tried to take a breath, but I didn’t have lungs. I was in the ley lines, the warmth and tingling sensation familiar as I was pulled who knew where. Somewhere between my car hitting something and now, I had accepted the smut of the demon curse and the pain had vanished. It hurt only when you resisted.

Oh my God, Ivy and Jenks. They had to be okay. I think the airbag had deployed. We’d hit something, and I was okay, but Ivy and Jenks …

Anger replaced my fear. Someone had pulled me out of existence, causing an accident that I’d live through but that my friends might not. Jenks, I thought, imagining his fragile body against the glass, slowly going cold in the night air as no one looked for him. Damn it, someone was going to pay for this!