Chapters (43)
- The Outlaw Demon Wails
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- The Undead Pool: An Excerpt
- Chapter 2
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Credits
- About the Publisher
I took another swallow of my coffee and gathered myself to rise. I wanted to get home to my sanctified church before any more demons popped into my life with nasty solicitations. Not to mention I had to talk to Ceri. Make sure Ivy had told her Al was out.
As I slowly followed Jenks and my mom to the trash and then the door, my thoughts swung back to what Minias had said about no new demons being born for the last five thousand years. He was at least five thousand years old and had been assigned to monitor and seduce a female demon? And why no new demons? Was it because there were so few female demons left, or because having sex with one could be deadly?
Three
I set the stack of unopened desk organizers I’d bought last month on the scratched hardwood floor of the sanctuary, wincing at the high-pitched squeal of pixy children as they swarmed into the nook of my desk that I had just opened up. They weren’t moving in for the winter yet, but Matalina was getting a jump on prepping my desk. I couldn’t blame her for the fall cleaning. I didn’t use my desk much, and there was more dust gathering than work done at it.
The urge to sneeze took me, and I held my breath, eyes watering until the feeling evaporated. Thank you, God. I glanced at Jenks at the front of the church, where he was keeping a fair number of his younger kids busy, and out of the way, with decorating the sanctuary for Halloween. He was a good dad, a part of him that was easy to overlook when he was out busting bad guys with me. I hoped I found half as good a man when I was ready to start a family.
The memory of Kisten—blue eyes smiling—swam up, and my heart seemed to clench. It had been months, but reminders of him still came fast and hard. And I didn’t even know where the thought of children had come from. There wouldn’t have been any with Kisten, unless we fell back on the age-old tradition of borrowing a girlfriend’s brother or husband for a night, practices born long before the Turn, when to be a witch would sign your death warrant. But now even that hope was gone.