Faster than a striking cobra, Bones’s power flashed out, wrapping around Trove. The famous politician stopped in his tracks, an odd expression creasing his features. Then Bones squeezed that invisible grip around him with all of the loathing he had for demons. Considering that one had possessed him last year and almost forced Bones to murder me, that was significant.

Beneath that punishing, full-body vise, Trove shouldn’t have been able to draw a breath, let alone take a step. Yet he did both, and his strange expression turned into one of near rapture.

“That tickles in all the right places,” he purred in his good ol’ Texas boy drawl.

My jaw dropped. From the power seething off him, Bones wasn’t having performance issues. How was Trove still coming toward us? Bones must have been wondering the same thing. He doubled the dose he leveled at Trove.

The subsequent blast of energy was like a bomb going off. Humans in the room might not have felt it, but it rocked me backward with enough force to send me crashing into the waiter behind me. We landed in a pile of champagne and broken glass, and still, Trove kept coming.

How is he doing this? my mind screamed. Bones had used less power when he levitated a dozen guards through a laser net!

Trove was only a few feet away now. I grabbed a hunk of broken glass out of instinct to reach for any weapon available. Then I dropped it. He didn’t have a heartbeat, so he was a corporeal demon, not a demonic spirit who’d possessed a human. As such, only one thing could kill him—demon bone stabbed through his eyes. And we didn’t have any.

“You seem to have taken a nasty spill, young lady,” Trove said in a conversational tone. “Let me help you.”

The demon extended his hand, leaning down. Before his skin brushed mine, Bones hauled him back. For some unfathomable reason, his telekinesis didn’t seem to affect Trove, but his grip worked just fine.

“Don’t. Touch. Her.”

Each word hissed out with naked enmity. People around us started to whisper behind their hands. Muscular men with wires taped to their ears began to push through the crowd. Undercover Secret Service agents, no doubt. Trove flashed a smile at them, holding up his hands as much as Bones’s grip would allow.

“Everything’s all right, fellows. As I used to say when I was young, it’s not a party until something gets broken.”

Then lower, to Bones. “If you don’t want me to start killing innocent bystanders, you’ll let go of me.”

Bones smiled back but didn’t loosen the grip he had on Trove’s arms.

“A roomful of politicians? Have at it.”

“Bones.”

I got up, pulling the waiter with me without taking my eyes off the two men. “Don’t.”