Judging by the strength of the magick filling the air, the thing had just been playing with them up until that moment. Now, Boyle was getting serious.

Thanks to Adam, he was also sufficiently distracted.

Knowing she only had this one opportunity, Isabelle shot to the driver’s side of the SUV and motioned for the girl to exit. Inside, Katie froze. Her eyes went wide and she hesitated, as if thinking over the wisdom of leaving the vehicle.

Oh, no. Isabelle frantically mouthed, Now!

The girl unlocked the door and slid out into her arms, tears streaming down her face. Isabelle tapped the dregs of her reserves and used a quick burst of magick to influence the water around whatever was injured in her chest. It coalesced and soothed, eased the pain, as she picked up the child and ran as fast as she could without looking back.

Thomas called her name right before a blast of magick hit the men like a lightning bolt. The backlash of power rippled and rolled like a tidal wave behind her. Isabelle heard the rush of it, tasted it like dirt on the back of her tongue, but she couldn’t outrun it.

It hit. She tripped and toppled face forward. Right before they made impact with the pavement, she twisted to break the child’s fall. White-hot pain washed through her chest, making her vision spot.

It was nothing like the magick that followed it.

It seared her skin and filled her nostrils with sweet-burning yuck. Gasping, unable even to breathe, she rolled over onto her stomach and saw the girl sitting a short distance away, a look of horror in her dark eyes, her long chestnut-colored hair a tangle around her face.

“Run!”

The demon was coming.

“Run!” Isabelle managed to scream at her once more as a meaty hand closed over her ankle and pulled her backward.

Gravel scraped her skin where her shirt had ridden up. Her fingernails clawed the pavement as she attempted to find some kind of purchase to halt her backward slide into hell.

She was going to die like her sister.

Isabelle reached into her left sleeve and grasped the handle of the last tie to Angela she possessed in that moment. A pretty bit of artistic fluff disguised as a knife.

It came down to this; an earthly weapon to use against an unearthly beast.

Oh, this so wasn’t going to go well.

The demon flipped her like she was made of aluminum foil and came down on top of her. He looked less human now, maybe because of the power he’d relinquished to defend himself.

And how had Adam and Thomas fared under that power, anyway? Lady, she didn’t want to imagine.