“No,” Algaliarept agreed. It laced its white-gloved hands behind its back, its gaze dropping to Ceri. The deep fury in its eyes scared the crap out of me. “But I’m making it your problem. You stole my familiar and left me with nothing. You tricked me into letting you slip payment for a service. If I can’t drag you in, I’ll find a way to use you through the lines. And I will never let you die. Ask her. Ask her of her never-ending hell. It’s waiting for you, Rachel. And I’m not a patient demon. You can’t hide on holy ground forever.”

“Go away,” I said, my voice trembling. “I called you here. Now I’m telling you to leave. Take one of these marks off me and leave. Now.” I had summoned it, and therefore it was susceptible to the rules of summoning—even if I was its familiar.

It exhaled slowly, and I thought the ground moved. Its eyes went black. Black. Black, black, then blacker still. Oh, shit.

“I’ll find the way to make a strong enough bond with you through the lines,” it intoned. “And I’ll pull you through, soul intact. You walk this side of the lines on borrowed time.”

“I’ve been a dead witch walking before,” I said. “And my name is Rachel Mariana Morgan. Use it. And take one of these marks off of me or you forfeit everything.”

I’m going to get away with it. I outsmarted a demon. The knowledge was heady, but I was too frightened for it to mean much.

Algaliarept gave me a chilling look. Its gaze dropped to Ceri, then it vanished.

I cried out as my wrist flamed, but I welcomed the pain, hunched as I held my demon-marked wrist with my other hand. It hurt—it hurt as if the dogs of hell were chewing on it—but when my blurred vision cleared, there was one scared line crossing the welted circle, not two.

Panting through the last of the pain, I slumped, my entire body collapsing in on itself. I pulled my head up and took a clean breath, trying to unknot my stomach. It couldn’t use me if we were on opposite sides of the ley lines. I was still myself, though I was coated with Algaliarept’s aura. Slowly my second sight faded and the red smear of the ley line vanished. Algaliarept’s aura was getting easier to bear, slipping almost into an unnoticed sensation now that the demon was gone.

Ceri let go of me. Reminded of her, I bent to offer her a hand up. She looked at it in wonder, watching herself as she put a thin pale hand in mine. Still at my feet, she kissed the top of it in a formal gesture of thanks.