He didn’t look as surprised as I would have expected. He stared at me, waiting for more. “I left the church to get a recipe for a spell,” I said softly. “The I.S. sent a demon after me. It made itself into a vampire to kill me. Nick bound it in a circle or it would have.” I slumped, exhausted. My pulse hammered. I was too weak to even be angry.

“The I.S.?” Keasley cut his needle free and glanced at me from under his lowered brow. “Are you sure it was a demon? The I.S. doesn’t use demons.”

“They do now,” I said sourly. I looked at my wrist, then quickly away. It was still bleeding, the blood oozing from between the green stitches. I reached up to find my neck at least had stopped. “It knew all three of my names, Keasley. My middle name isn’t even on my birth certificate. How did the I.S. find out what it was?”

Keasley’s eyes were worried as he blotted at my wrist. “Well, if it was a demon, you won’t have to worry about any residual vamp ties from your bites—I’d imagine.”

“Small favors,” I said bitterly.

He took my wrist again, pulling the lamp closer. He cupped a towel under it to catch the still-dripping blood. “Rachel?” he murmured.

Alarm bells rang in the back of my mind. I’d always been Ms. Morgan to him. “What?”

“About the demon. Did you make a deal with it?”

I followed his gaze to my wrist and went frightened. “Nick did,” I said quickly. “He agreed to let it out of the circle if it got me back here alive. It took us through the ley lines.”

“Oh,” he said, and I felt myself go cold at his flat tone. He knew something I didn’t.

“Oh, what?” I demanded. “What’s the matter?”

He took a slow breath. “This isn’t going to heal on its own,” he said softly, setting my wrist on my lap.

“What?” I exclaimed, holding my wrist as my stomach churned and the chocolate threatened to come back up. The shower went off, and I felt a flash of panic. What had Nick done to me?

Keasley opened a medicated adhesive bandage and applied it over my eye. “Demons don’t do anything for free,” he said. “You owe it a favor.”

“I didn’t agree to anything!” I said. “It was Nick! I told Nick not to let it out!”

“It’s not anything Nick did,” Keasley said as he took my bruised arm and gently prodded it until my breath hissed in. “The demon wants additional payment for taking you through the ley lines. You have a choice, though. You can pay for your passage by having your wrist drip blood the rest of your life, or you can agree to owe the demon a favor and it will heal. I’d suggest the former.”

I collapsed into the cushions. “Swell.” Just freaking great. I’d told Nick it was a bad idea.