Katie screamed and clamored to the driver’s side of the SUV. Isabelle heard the doors unlock and relock as the girl verified her perceived safety. Those locks wouldn’t keep a demon out. Inside the vehicle, the child stared in the direction Boyle had thrown her mother and sobbed. Melanie wasn’t getting up.

Isabelle shot to her feet, ignoring the wrench of pain across her chest where she thought she’d heard something crack. Her vision dimmed for a moment as she gathered her power again. She didn’t have much in reserve, not that it mattered. Their magick was just an annoyance to him. Thomas and Adam took up the slack while she recovered by hurling blast after blast of magick at the demon.

With no clear way to reach the girl since the demon stood between her and the SUV, she joined the fray, tossing every trick she knew from her water magick arsenal, while she edged herself well away from Boyle’s range.

The demon turned toward the three of them, blocking and parrying their attacks. He made a frustrated growling/gurgling sound deep in his throat. If she’d needed any reminder of what they were fighting, that completely inhuman sound provided it. It raised every hair on her body.

Thomas and Adam moved to the right and she moved to the left, trying to get clear enough to make a dash for the girl. The men grasped her intention and began drawing the thing to the side more and more, farther away from the SUV.

The demon made the animal-like noise again and something on his hands flashed—he’d unsheathed some viciously long claws. Boyle turned toward her and images of how he’d used those claws on Angela swept through Isabelle’s mind. Her knees went weak and her heart thumped faster.

She cried out under the demon’s directed mental assault—Angela screaming, skin parting, blood spurting. A phantom pain in her chest flared, echoing what Angela likely felt when her magick had been ripped from its roots. Isabelle’s knees gave out and she caught herself on the hood of the SUV, sobbing under the attack.

Bastard! He knew exactly who she was!

“Come on! Over here,” taunted Adam. “You’re neglecting us, you cute widdle demon, you.”

The demon swung its head back to the men and the attack on her blessedly ended. Demon power crackled along her skin and that same dry/acrid scent filled the air. Her ears popped and her stomach heaved from the strength of it. The creature was raising a hell of a lot of power.

Adam charged him in a suicidal move if she ever saw one. He ran straight toward the demon, war cry pealing the air and fire ripping across the pavement on either side of him.

“Aeamon, you irritate me!” Boyle bellowed.