Her smile grew. “What do you think? I have two demons in my backyard who are in an arms race. Both are getting attention from demons outside the Northwest.” I didn’t like the sound of that and recalled Cedric affirming as much. “You think I want to be involved in that? You think I want to be played the way everyone’s playing you? My territory’s small, and I’m weaker than both Jerome and Cedric. I don’t want them to decide to annex Portland while they play their cosmic game of Risk. I want them to leave me alone.” Her voice was hard, but I heard a bit of worry in there too, and I realized what was going on.

“You’re here to . . .” I considered “suck up” or “beg” but thought better of it. “. . . negotiate with Cedric. For protection. To keep you out of it.”

Nanette looked away, unwilling to acknowledge this in front of a succubus. Just then, the door opened and Cedric stepped out. He glanced around. “Kristin’s still gone? I wish she’d hurry up and bring back those donuts.”

“Tim Hortons?” I guessed.

He gave me an incredulous look. “Of course.” He turned to Nanette. She’d stood up, and he kissed her hand in a polite, antiquated way. “Sorry. Phone call with Tech Support. You know how that is.” To me he said, “We’ll talk later.”

I took it as a bad sign that he said “later” and not “soon.” Settling into my chair, I braced myself for patience. Ten magazines later, Cedric opened the door again. Nanette was nowhere in sight, so I presumed she must have teleported back to Portland.

I took my same chair in Cedric’s office, noting that his screen showed Match.com rather than Wikipedia today. When he saw what I was looking at, he hastily minimized his Web browser.

“So, what have you found out?”

I gave him a report of my morning with Evan. “They’re ridiculous,” I declared as my final assessment.

“I already knew that,” he said. “You think you can put an end to this? Soon?” The impatient sound in his voice made me wonder if he’d expected me to cinch things up already.

I thought about it. “Yeah, pretty sure I can as soon as I meet the others. This guy looked like he might crack on his own. But I won’t see them until Saturday.”

Cedric tipped back in his chair, face thoughtful. “All right. They probably won’t do anything before then anyway. Go to their meeting and work over the rest of them. In the meantime, you might as well head back home.”

I straightened up in my chair. “Really?”

He shrugged. “No point in you sticking around unless you want to sightsee. Just come back Saturday.”

“But . . .” I hesitated. “Jerome sent me here because he was mad and didn’t want to deal with me. If I go back and he doesn’t want me there . . .”