Minias blinked, and I sighed at his contriving smile and the bow that made my mom titter like a schoolgirl. The conversations at the broken window shifted, and when I looked at the street and the sound of approaching cruisers, someone’s camera phone flashed. Oooooh, better and better.

Licking my lips, I turned to Minias. “Demon, I demand that you depart—” I started.

“Rachel Mariana Morgan,” Minias said, stepping so close to the edge of the barrier that smoke curled up where his robe touched it, “you’re in danger.”

“Tell us something we don’t know, moss wipe,” Jenks muttered from my shoulder.

“I’m in danger?” I said snidely, feeling better now that the demon was behind a circle. “Gee, you think? Why is Al out of jail? You told me he was in custody! He attacked me!” I shouted, pointing to the destroyed shop. “He broke our agreement! What are you going to do about it?”

Minias’s eye twitched and the barest rasp gave away his slippers scuffing the floor. “Someone is summoning him out of confinement. It’s in your best interest to help us.”

“Rache,” Jenks complained. “It’s cold and the I.S. is almost here. Get rid of him before they make us fill out paperwork until the sun goes nova.”

I rocked back on my heels. Yeah. Like I was going to help a demon? My reputation was bad enough.

Seeing me ready to banish him, Minias shook his head. “We can’t contain him without your help. He will kill you, and with no one alive to file a complaint, he’ll get away with it.”

A chill ran through me at the certainty in his voice. Worried, I glanced at the people at the window, then looked over the store. Not much was standing. Outside, traffic began to move as the amber and blue lights of an I.S. car started playing over the buildings. My gaze fell on my mom and I cringed. I could usually keep the more lethal aspects of my job from her, but this time…

“Better listen,” she said, shocking the hell out of me, then clacked her heels smartly as she went to intercept the clerk’s dash to the street.

A bad feeling knotted my stomach. If Al wasn’t playing by the rules anymore, he’d kill me. Probably after making me watch him murder everyone I loved. It was that simple. I’d been living on instinct for the first twenty-five years of my life, and though it had gotten me out of a lot of trouble, it had also gotten me into just as much. And killed my boyfriend. So though every fiber of my body said to banish him, I took a slow breath, listened to my mother, and said, “Okay. Talk.”