Newt glanced at the blood, then rubbed her wrists as the knots came loose. “I don’t know. He wasn’t a demon. Honestly, I was simply enjoying the fountain and he was sitting beside me.”

Relief coursed through me, quickly followed by anger. “They killed an innocent man because he might have been a demon?” I said loudly, then turned to the crowd, slowly realizing what they’d done, what they’d allowed, hell, what they’d encouraged to happen. “You killed a man and he wasn’t even a demon!” I shouted, my voice echoing between the buildings. “What is wrong with you people!”

“They’re demons!” someone shouted, quickly hushed by those nearest her.

“Yeah? So what?” I shouted back. That didn’t go over so well, and the murderous rise of complaint started to gain strength. The crowd, though, was beginning to break up at the back as the I.S. and FIB began to show.

“Demons deserve to die!” another shouted, and I turned to him, feeling both strong and weak with Newt and Al behind me.

“Why, because you say so?” I said, fingertips tingling. “Maybe, but not on my watch. I warned you. I told you taking the easy way out was a bad idea. Did you listen? No! So you’re going to listen to me now!”

That went over even better, and small fights were breaking out all over as the Weres tried to get closer to the stage. “You need more practice at this,” Al said as two men vaulted onto the stage.

“Go home!” I shouted as Newt waved a cautionary finger at the men. “Go home, and pray that I find a way to reinstate the lines in Arizona, or demons without magic will be the least of your problems! You all think that security and peace are born from destroying everything stronger than you? There is no safety. There is no peace but what you make, every day, every second, with every choice.”

As if that was the signal, the crowd surged forward, swamping us.

Panic iced through me again, and I slipped on some poor man’s blood and went down, almost passing out from the pain as my hip hit the stage. “Rache!” I heard distantly, and then I’d had it.

“Enough!” I shouted, and a great boom of sound exploded from me. My fingers tingled, and I pulled my head up as men cried out, falling back from the stage, pushed by a glowing ball of silver light. My hair was floating, and I tried to flatten it, but I couldn’t stand up, and my hands were sticky. I felt as if I were glowing, and I looked at Al. He had fallen, seeming as shocked as I was. It had been magic, but how?