My mother’s jaw clenched. “Shut your mouth,” she said hotly. “My daughter just saved your butt. She drove off two demons and bound a third while you hid like a prissy girlie-girl who wouldn’t know the right end of an amulet if it came out her ass.” Color high, she turned with a huff and looped her arm through mine. The plastic bag of charms was in her grip, and it thumped into me lightly. “Rachel, we’re leaving. This is the last time I shop in this pee-stained hole.”

Jenks was grinning as he hovered before us. “Have I told you lately how much I like you, Mrs. Morgan?”

“Mom…people can hear you,” I said, embarrassed. God! Her mouth was worse than Jenks’s. And we couldn’t leave. Minias was still standing in my circle.

Heels crunching on the merchandise, my mom dragged me to the door, her head high and her red curls bobbing in the breeze from the busted window. A tired sigh lifted through me at the wail of sirens. Great. Just freaking great. They’d want to haul me down to the I.S. tower to fill out a report. Demon summoning wasn’t illegal, just really stupid, but they’d think of something, probably a bald-faced lie.

The I.S., or Inderland Security, didn’t like me. Since having quit their lame-ass worldwide police force last year, Ivy, Jenks, and I had been showing up the Cincinnati division with a pleasant regularity. They weren’t idiots, but I attracted trouble that just begged me to beat it into submission. It didn’t help that the media loved printing stuff about me either, if only to feed people’s animosity and sell papers.

Minias cleared his throat as we approached, and my mother halted in surprise. Clasping his hands innocently before him, the demon smiled. From outside came an increase in conversation at the approaching cruisers. The jitters started, and Jenks slipped between me and my scarf with that paper clip still in his grip. He was shivering, too, but I knew it was from the cold, not fear.

“Banish your demon, Rachel, so we can get our coffee,” my mother said as if he was a nuisance like fairies in her garden. “It’s almost six. There will be a line if we don’t hurry.”

The clerk steadied herself against a counter. “I called the I.S.! You can’t go. Don’t you let them go!” she screamed at the watching people, but thankfully none came in. “You belong in jail! All of you! Look at my shop. Look at my shop!”

“Put a cork in it, Patricia!” my mother said. “You have insurance.” Coyly touching her hair, she turned to Minias. “You’re nice looking—for a demon.”