Nina shrieked. Adrenaline slammed through me. I jerked Nina out of the way, my other hand extended toward the slavering soul coming at us. “Detrudo!” I shouted, locking my knees against the surge of power.

The surface demon skidded to a halt, but my magic caught him square in the chest, bowling him back into the darkness in a flurry of long bare limbs and tattered clothes.

Shit. “Trent!” I shouted, feeling his chant rising through me. “There’re too many of them!”

“Look!” Nina screamed, pointing at the dark.

I couldn’t see crap. Jenks and Bis were still AWOL, and frustrated, I made a fist and pointed it at the sky. “Leno cinis!” I shouted, funneling a crapload of energy through me and into the faintest imagined circle above us. A burst of amber-tinted light lit the entire area in a flash.

Nina cowered as the surface demons hid from the light. I didn’t want to invoke the perimeter circle unless I had to, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the grass rustled like dead cornstalks on All Hallows’ Eve as they faded back. But they didn’t go far.

“I don’t think he’s here,” I said softly, not wanting to interrupt Trent’s chanting.

I turned, lips parting as I saw him crouched before his circle, the amber light from my slowly drifting spell making him look covered in old blood. A memory of seeing Al like this flashed over me, shaking me.

Shit, what am I doing getting Trent involved in this?

Nina cried out in fear, and I spun. But it was only Bis and Jenks, and I yanked the energy from a rising spell back, feeling it burn as I dissolved the outer edges and it collapsed.

“Do what you need to do and be quick,” the pixy said, then did a double take at Trent, still chanting. “It’s like someone yelled free lunch.”

And we’re the entrée, I thought, flicking the mostly spent charm at the circling demons.

“How do you know you’re not chasing Felix away?” Jenks said.

My lips pressed tight. “I don’t.” Frustrated, I watched two surface demons skulk closer. Maybe Trent should tamp down his siren song a little. But then my eyes narrowed as they stopped just outside my easy magical reach. I turned to the right, seeing five more doing the same. Three were to the left, but more were coming up to fill in the blanks. Crap on toast, they were staying exactly out of my range. That’s why the first had been so bold. They’d been learning my reach. Toast. We were toast.

Concerned, I edged to Trent, hesitating when his pull on my soul became ... tantalizingly alluring, whispering of peace and contentment.