“But Stefan needs to stay alive. At least for now. He can help us apprehend the demon by providing information. The Duskoff are the people who have had the most interaction with demons. They’ve studied them in order to understand the creatures they’re using. After he’s helped us, he’ll stand trial for his crimes, along with the thirteen other warlocks who participated in the circle last winter at Duskoff International. They will be tried and punished. That means either life imprisonment or death.”

She snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He sighed. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who wants to see Stefan pay. And don’t think you’re the only one who wants that demon dead.”

“What did Stefan do to you?”

“Well, he tried to kill my cousin last winter for starters.”

“Mira Hoskins.”

He nodded. “And the first witch the demon killed, Melina, she was someone I knew.” He paused. She had been an old lover. It had been a long time ago, but Melina had been special to him. “She was a good friend. She had kids, a husband.”

Isabelle was silent a long moment before she spoke. “Do you think the demon picked her on purpose? It’s a strange coincidence she should be an old friend of the leader of the Coven.”

“That’s exactly why we need all the information from Stefan that we can gather. We don’t know how or why the demon is picking his victims at this point. We don’t know much of anything beyond the fact that the demon is killing witches.”

She chewed her lower lip, deep in thought. “Usually the demons the Duskoff raise have their fun and go home. They don’t stick around for twenty-five years hiding, then all of a sudden pop up and start killing off witches.”

“We’ve just noticed the demon never returned to his dimension, but the Coven archivist is going through old newspapers and finding evidence the demon hasn’t been hiding at all. We think he’s been killing humans for sport the entire time. We just never noticed him until he started targeting witches so heinously.”

“Yeah, heinous is one word for it.” Her hands tightened so hard on the arms of the chair they turned white. “He’s been killing the witches in some kind of demon ritual, hasn’t he? He’s stealing their power for something.”

“We think so, but we’re not sure. All of this is reason to use Stefan to gain information. He knows more about demons and their world than we do and it’s imperative we find and kill this demon before he murders more people.”