Oh God, Nick. The remembered burst of ley line energy I’d pulled through him made my face go cold. “Nick,” I stammered. “I have to call Nick.” But as I looked over the room for my bag and the phone in it, I hesitated. Quen’s blood was gone. All of it. I guess Quen was serious about not wanting any evidence that he was here. How had he done that? A little elven magic, perhaps?

“Mr. Sparagmos is in the parking lot,” Edden said. Peering at me and my cold face, he snagged a passing officer. “Get me a blanket. She’s going shocky.”

Numb, I let him help me across the room and the hole in the wall. “Poor guy passed out, he was so worried about you. I wouldn’t let him or Jenks out of the car.” Eyes alight in a sudden thought, he reached for the radio on his belt. “Tell Mr. Sparagmos and Jenks that we found her and she’s all right,” he said into it, getting a garbled answer back. Taking my elbow, he muttered, “Please tell me you didn’t really leave a note on your door saying you were going to stake Piscary?”

My eyes were fixed upon my bag with its pain amulet clear across the room, but my head snapped up at his words. “No!” I protested as my vision swam at the quick movement. “I said I was going to talk to him and that he was the witch hunter. Kisten must have done that, because my note is here somewhere. I saw it!” Kisten had replaced my note?

I stumbled in confusion as Edden pulled me forward. Kisten had replaced my note, giving Nick the only number that would bring the FIB out here. Why? Had it been to help me, or simply to cover his betrayal of Piscary?

“Kisten?” Edden questioned. “That’s the living vamp you don’t want me to shoot, right?” He took the blue FIB blanket someone held out and draped it over my shoulders. “Come on. I want to get you upstairs. We can figure this out later.”

Leaning heavily on him, I tugged the blanket closer, wincing as the rough wool hurt my hands. I wouldn’t look at them, thinking they were nothing compared to the smut on my soul for having invoked that black charm Quen had taught me. I took a slow breath. What did it matter if I knew black charms? I was going to be a demon’s familiar.

“My God, Morgan,” Edden said as he put the two-way back on his belt. “Did you have to blow a hole in his wall?”

“I didn’t,” I said, focusing on the carpet three feet in front of me. “It was Quen.”

More officers clattered down the stairs and into the room, a hoard of official presences suddenly making me feel like an alien. “Rachel, Quen isn’t here.”