Then I sat on my sofa and Googled the names on the list of human cleaners Mariam had given me. Nothing jumped out at me, so I took a photo of the list and sent it to Steve. If I had time today, I’d go to their office and interview the manager. I needed to know who was usually assigned to Mariam’s floor. For now, I had my hands on Gary’s calendar.

Halfway to the hospital, terror slammed into me, my pulse racing. I choked on my breath. Holy shit I was about to die here, at a red light in my car.

My breaths came in pants, and the world sharpened. Time slowing to a crawl.

A feeling of intense doom swept through me. I was hanging on the side of a cliff, my hands barely holding onto the rock. I was freefalling through the air. I was…

Someone was laying on their horn. The light had turned green, and now yellow. The truck swerved around me and shot through the intersection, flipping me off, and I shivered, sweat dripping down my body.

I managed to pull over to the side of the road. Someone was suddenly next to my door and I jolted, a throwing knife in my hand.

Don’t kill the demon, Danica.

Inferus. Still following me around. And witness to my sudden, debilitating panic attack.

“Are you okay, ma’am?”

“Don’t call me ma’am,” I said automatically, through numb lips. “I’m fine. Please leave me alone.”

He merely nodded and lifted off, back into the sky where he’d watch me some more.

Fear climbed back up my throat. I knew what this was about. Just because you choose to ignore the things that send earthquakes through your world doesn’t mean that they don’t simmer away in your subconscious and rip the feet out from under you as soon as you think you’re making it through the day.

I was half demon. Half demon and bonded to Samael. My mother had slept with a demon at some point, and I needed to get control of my powers before I hurt someone. Bad.

I was also unemployed. I’d attempted to push that sad fact out of my mind, but the Mage Council was all I’d known since the moment I got to Durham. Now I was on my own. And I would be on my own for the next however many centuries while everyone around me died.

I focused on taking deep breaths, counted to one hundred, and waited for my hands to stop shaking. Then I turned the key and kept driving. I didn’t have time for this today. At some point, I’d have to unpack the baggage I’d inherited from my mother. I’d have to figure out who I was, and what I was going to do with my life. But that wouldn’t be today.