My mouth opened as I stared at his ears, but I didn’t quite know how to tell him, and my face warmed. His ears were pointed, just like Lucy’s and Ray’s. Shit, I thought that his dad had fixed them by tinkering with his DNA, not cropping them like a Doberman.

“Um . . .” I started, then jumped when the silver bell hanging suspended above the fireplace made a single beautiful peal of sound.

Trent looked up, startled, and then we both flung ourselves backward from the heavy burst of burnt-amber-tainted air that exploded on the hearth. I gasped as Al popped into the room. Shrinking backward, I pulled my legs up onto the chair. Trent had stood, shoving his chair back nearly three feet as the demon in his crushed green velvet coat all but rolled into the fire, arms and legs askew.

“Al!” I shouted when he came to a grunting halt. Then I cried, “Al!” in a panic. “You’re on fire!”

His sleeve flaming, he sat up, blinking from behind his blue-tinted glasses sitting halfway off his face. “Oh, look at that,” he slurred as he set a black bottle down to pat at his arm. “I am on fire.”

“Get him out of here, Rachel,” Trent said in a bad temper as he stood to the side, his expression lost in the shadows. “This is intolerable.”

I winced, glancing at Al when he began to giggle at the flames he was making dance on his fingertips. “I’m sorry,” I said as I unfolded myself from the chair, really meaning it. “There’s no reason for him to show up.” I turned to Al. “Al, you need to leave. Now.”

But the damage had already been done. And it wasn’t like I had a say in the matter.

“Don’t want to go . . .” the demon slurred as he took a swig from the bottle and scooted to lean against the rock next to the firebox, his knees pulled up and his head thrown back. “I heard you tap a line, and I came for a visit. It’s so quiet. There’s no one about, no parties, no one to flay, to torture.” He blinked, as if seeing the ceiling for the first time. “Where am I?”

I glanced at Trent now moving quietly through the room, gathering things up and shoving them into drawers. The candle at the shrine was out. “Oh my God,” I said, peering closer at Al. “You’re drunk!”

Trent shoved a tiny window open in anger, and Al raised his bottle in salute. “No, I’m not,” he protested. Then . . . “Wait, I am. Yes. I am drunk. You have no idea how hard it was to get to this mar-r-rvelous state of disconnection.” Wavering, he looked past me to an open cupboard. “Oh, look, there’s more.”