Dora waved excitedly.

  Kyle sent him a glare and asked. “You okay, boss?”

  Amber gave him a thumbs-up just as Sarah saw them.

  “You’re back,” she said as she wiped the table down. “I kept your food warm, but mostly you owe me forty bucks.”

  Quentin grinned. “Sorry. We had an emergency.”

  Sarah eyed Amber, clearly noting her change of clothes. Her mussed hair. Her pinkened cheeks. “I can see that.”

  Quentin took out a fifty and handed it to her as Amber asked, “Sarah, can we talk to you?”

  She straightened in surprise. “Sure thing. Want to sit?” She gestured toward their table. The one that still had an old pair of sunglasses sitting on it. The ones Amber had put on Quentin. His eyes must’ve been black when she delved into his head. That would take some getting used to.

  Instead of sitting in one of the empty seats, Sarah pulled up a fifth chair. Amber had been right. She could see Kyle and Dora, at least to some degree. They sat, and she looked between them, askance. “What’s up?”

  Quentin decided to leave the diplomacies to Amber. He’d never been good at tact.

  “Sarah, did you summon a demon to kill Billy Tibbets, Angela Morrisey, and Dora Rodriguez?”

  Okay, then. Maybe the elfin wasn’t the best at diplomacy either.

  Dora gasped and stared wide-eyed.

  Sarah stilled for a long moment before sinking back in her chair.

  A blonde woman came around the bar, combing through her bag as she walked toward the door. “I have a few errands to run. You okay for a bit, Sarah?”

  Sarah nodded, her response automated.

  The woman stopped and studied the group curiously. “Is everything okay?”

  Sarah snapped out of it and turned to her. “It’s all good, Lori. We’re just catching up.”

  Not entirely convinced given the look on her face, the woman pulled the strap over her shoulder and headed out. “I won’t be long.”

  Sarah waved and then turned back to them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course, you do. We know it was you. We just don’t know how. Or why.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “What does it matter? It’s not like you can prosecute me for summoning a demon.”

  Dora made the sign of the cross.

  Amber tilted her head in thought. “Technically true. But you need to be honest with us. Did you sic it on anyone else?”

  She pressed her lips together to fight a grin, then shook her head. “No. Is that who’s here?” She pointed to the only two departed people in the room. “Are they going to haunt me or something?”

  “Dora’s here,” Amber said. “Billy and Angela must’ve crossed over.”

  Sarah laughed and shook her head. “So, they get to go to heaven? Is that it?”

  Quentin noted her distaste. “You didn’t want them to?”

  “No. I did not want them to bask in eternal bliss. If that’s even real.”

  Amber leaned forward. “Sarah, what did they do? Dora honestly doesn’t know.”

  “The fuck she doesn’t.” The woman Quentin had once thought so pretty became little more than a demon herself in his eyes. Ugly with hatred and vitriol.

  Dora pressed both hands to her chest. “I don’t understand, Amber. I don’t even know her. What could I have done to her to make her hate me so much?”

  Amber turned back to Sarah. “She doesn’t know you. What is it you think she did?”

  A cryptic smile spread across the woman’s face. One filtered through resentment and cruelty. “Madeline Kemp.”

  Dora’s expression morphed from confusion to doubt then finally to realization. “She’s Madeline? The little girl who disappeared on my bus route? But that was…that was over twenty years ago.” She clasped her hands at her mouth. “She’s alive? All this time, she’s been alive?”

  Quentin and Amber watched as Dora’s emotions ran the gamut. At first, she was filled with joy, thrilled that the little girl who’d disappeared years ago was alive and well. Then the stark reality hit her. The fact that Sarah hated her so much that she’d summoned a demon to kill her. Tears pooled between her lashes.

  “What happened, Sarah?” Amber asked.

  “I was abducted that day, and that bitch knows it.”

  Dora shook her head. “I don’t understand how she could believe such a thing.”

  “You were abducted?”

  “Of course, I was abducted. And my own mother set it up.”

  Amber seemed taken aback. “How do you know?”

  “Because I found the letters between her and the Gladwells.”

  “The Gladwells?”

  “The couple who abducted me. They told me my mother was sick and I had to go live with them. But my mother practically sold me to that crazy old couple as cheap labor.”

  “No,” Dora said. “Pauline would never do that. And she really was sick. She died of cancer not long after Madeline disappeared.”

  “Wait.” Amber held up a hand in a timeout. “What does any of this have to do with Billy and Angela?”

  “It was all their fault. They lied to everyone. Said they saw me skinning a coyote.”

  “Were you?”

  “Yes, but they said it was still alive.”

  Amber raised her chin, clearly upset by the thought. “Was it?”

  The woman scoffed. “How is that even remotely relevant?”

  “You thought they deserved to die because they lied about a coyote?”

  “They also said I broke a little girl’s arm.”

  “Did you?”

  Sarah glared at her. “She took my doll. Damn straight, I did.”

  “Ay, Dios mio,” Dora said. “Pauline was afraid of her. She tried to tell me, but… I just couldn’t imagine it.”

  Amber went to grab the woman’s hand, then remembered she couldn’t. “I saw Dora’s memories, Sarah. I don’t know what you think happened, or how you think she was involved, but she did her job correctly. The cattle guard was down. She couldn’t get across.”

  “It was a setup. I know damned well she was in on it. The cattle guard just happened to be down when the Gladwells were waiting for me? Not likely.”

  Amber leaned forward. “Did they…were you hurt?”

  “No. They just kept me on the farm. Didn’t let me go to school or have any friends. I… They died when I was sixteen. That’s when I found the letters. My mother set it all up. Said she was worried I would hurt someone.”

  “How did they die?”

  “That’s not the point!” Sarah slammed a hand on the table.

  Amber blanched, and Quentin almost came unglued. He steeled himself, biding his time.

  “No, I don’t suppose it is,” Amber said.

  “Ay, Dios mio,” Dora repeated, then hugged herself and rocked.

  “Are you okay, hon?” Amber asked her.

  “What’s she saying?” Sarah asked. “How is she here?”

  Quentin scrubbed his face. “This still doesn’t tell us how you did it.”

  “Thinking about using it yourself?”

  Amber pressed her nails into the palms of her hands and drew blood. It disturbed him, but she was focused on the psychopath in front of her. “You need to tell us, Sarah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the demon doesn’t just kill the people you summoned it for. It kills the summoner, too.”

  She stilled. “You’re fucking with me.”

  “It’s a tad angry about being controlled.”

  The fear on her face was genuine. “Yeah, but it’s not just me. Lots of people have used it.”

  “Yes, and they’ve all died,” Quentin said.

  She looked at him. “Are you even Deaf, or was that a ruse, too?”

  “Sarah, how did you contact it?” Amber asked. “How did you summon it?”

  “On the dark web. There’s a group that worships this demon named Sadeet. For five hundred bucks, they tell you how to summon it. How to basically get away with murder.”

  Quentin took out his phone. “I’ll let La Guardia know. They can take down the site and figure out who’s behind it so they don’t do something like this again with another demon.”

  “And how will they do that?” Amber asked. “Considering how gentle they were with you.”

  He looked up at her, surprised. “You’re worried about the people who sell an all-access pass to a demon assassin?”

  “No.” She crossed her arms. “I guess not.”

  “The house, human,” Rune said.

  Quentin watched through Rune’s eyes. Someone, a girl, opened the front door of Dora’s house. She pushed the salt aside.

  “Get ready,” Rune said. “It’s coming.”

  Quentin retrieved the dagger from the sheath he’d slipped into the back of his pants. He felt rather than saw the tendrils of ink slide across his eyes and slowly fill them. Unable to help that now, he took Amber by the arm and lifted her out of the chair. “It’s coming.”

  “What?” Startled, she glanced around.

  “My niece,” Dora said, looking out the window.

  “She broke the circle.” He shoved her toward the door. “Get out. Get inside my truck. It’s protected.”

  “Release us, human.”

  “No.”

  “You will not survive.”

  Quentin drew in a deep breath and said out loud, “You fucking say that every time.”

  “And one day, we will be right.”

  “Yeah, well, today’s not that day.”

  “Quentin?” Amber said.

  He pulled her to him with one arm, keeping the dagger far away from her. It was much sharper than it looked and infused with an ancient and powerful curse. One slice could kill her. Or him, for that matter.

  Despite his eyes, she rose onto her tiptoes, cupped his face, and pressed her mouth to his.

  The kiss was magical. He drew power from it. Energy and warmth and light. Like the electric company, only hotter. Much, much hotter.

  With a reluctance forfeited by urgency, he broke off the kiss, pressed his mouth to her ear, and whispered, “Run.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Of course, I have flaws,

  but my boobs usually distract people from them.

  —T-shirt

  His bravery was staggering. Amber had never been more in love in her life. There simply weren’t many men in the world who would risk facing a demon just to save a few people. A few people he did not know and would never meet.

  He wrapped a hand around the back of her head and pulled her close, his mouth warm at her ear as he whispered, “Run.”

  She’d used the kiss as a distraction and grabbed some of the salt from his pocket. She put it into her jacket and nodded. “Sarah, come on.”

  “There’s a back door,” she said, suddenly willing to cooperate if it meant saving her sociopathic ass.

  “Hawaii,” Amber said since he was the only one left in the Tavern. “Time to go.”

  He’d been paying attention. He folded the paper and followed them without question.

  Sarah led them through the kitchen and toward the back, but Amber stopped. “You guys run. Hawaii—”

  “Steve.”

  “Steve, whatever you do, don’t follow Sarah.”

  “You got it.” He hurried out the back exit, his flip-flops slapping the wood floor. Sun streamed in when he opened the door. Little man could run.

  She turned to Sarah. “Go.”

  “I thought…you have to protect me.”

  “The only person who can protect you is in the dining area, and I’m not leaving him.”

  Sarah grabbed a knife. “Yes, you are.”

  “Really?” Amber asked. Sociopaths sucked.

  When a thundering bang shook the building, Sarah gasped, her eyes wide with fear.

  The cook stopped cleaning up and looked around.

  “You need to leave,” Amber said to him.

  Dora appeared, pointing toward the front. “It’s here, Madre de Dios.”

  The cook looked around. “What the hell?”

  “You need to leave,” Amber repeated.

  “Come on, Sarah,” he said when another loud crash sounded. This time, chairs had been upended. The demon was not happy, and Quentin was in there with it. Alone.

  Amber took the opportunity to run to the swinging door between the dining area and the kitchen. She looked out the small window. The room looked as if a tornado had hit it, and Quentin stood there waiting as he basically watched the demon throw a temper tantrum.

  Then he was hit. He crashed through the door, taking her with him. They landed in a heap by the refrigeration units. The demon came barreling through the double doors, clearly hurt. Even angrier. Quentin had gotten it with the salt again.

  Sarah stood staring at the creature. It was solid, so she got a very good view of what she had summoned. She couldn’t move. Fear had frozen her to the spot. She only looked up at it, her jaw hanging open.

  Amber and Quentin scrambled to their feet as the demon spotted its summoner.

  “I thought I told you to run,” Quentin said over his shoulder. He took the lead and kept himself between Amber and the demon.

  “I did run. Just not very far.” Amber checked the area. The cook was gone, thank God.

  The demon took a step closer to Sarah, its claw scraping on the wood floor. But with each step, the floor faded away, and another dimension appeared beneath its feet. The other dimension spread, its energy building and twisting around them until they were standing in the funnel of a tornado.

  “Stay behind me!” Quentin yelled, but Amber pushed past him as the demon bore down on Sarah.

  “She didn’t know you were real!” she said to it, hoping to reason with it.

  It spared her a quick glance, but before Amber could process what was happening, it pounced on Sarah and swallowed her whole.

  Amber gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth as the demon looked at her and uttered in a guttural, gravelly voice, “She does now.”

  The demon swung. Its claw caught Quentin across the chest, but Quentin cut its talon with the dagger. The demon let loose an unearthly screech. It bought them some time.

  As Quentin doubled over, blood soaking his T-shirt alarmingly fast, Amber covered him with her body, reached into her pocket, and released salt into the wind.

  The entity screamed, and the dimension fell away, but it wouldn’t stop the demon for long. She had to get Quentin out of there. The demon had done what it set out to do. It’d killed the summoner. Surely, it would just leave. Instead, it turned toward them, its eyes glistening as its tongue slithered out.

  “No, goddammit,” Quentin said, almost to himself. He was talking to Rune. Arguing with him.

  And Amber realized that Rune was likely trying to talk Quentin into releasing them to the demon. To feed it. Rune knew the demon would kill Quentin to get to them.

  Just then, someone shouted from behind it. “Hey!”

  The demon turned, and they all saw Kyle standing there, pointing his pen at it.

  “Get away from them!”

  It was the opening Quentin had been waiting for. He vaulted over Amber, landed on the demon’s head, and used all of his weight to flip it onto its back.

  They crushed the prep station and took out half the ceiling in the process. Sheetrock and paint snowed down on them as Quentin jumped on top of the demon and pressed a knee into its throat. But the demon was too strong. With one swipe, it could take Quentin out for good.

  Amber reacted without thought. She scrambled to the demon and straightened onto her knees over its head.

  It couldn’t help it. It spared her a glance.

  It was all she needed. She dove. She let the world fall away around them and dove into its mind, paralyzing it.

  “Tra-vel-er,” it croaked, completely helpless. “What are you doing?”

  Quentin answered for her. “The compass or the knife?”

  She could see in her periphery that he held the dagger perpendicular to the demon’s heart with one hand, and the compass in the other, but he was fading fast. Blood flowed from him in rivers. It pooled onto the demon’s chest, and Amber almost lost her concentration.

  “The compass or the knife?” he repeated, his eyes as black as a moonless night.

  Amber bounced back and kept it paralyzed as she plundered its memories. Someone, it didn’t know who, had figured out how to summon it. It didn’t want to leave the plane until it found out who, but it would have little choice now.

  Quentin sank the knife into its chest just a fraction of an inch, and it screamed again, but only in its mind. Amber had paralyzed its vocal cords. It was so hungry. It just wanted to eat.

  “Compass,” it said to her with its mind.

  “I am going to release you. If you do anything other than go into the compass, you will die. Painfully. I will see to it myself.”

  “Traveler,” it said almost lovingly.

  She released it, and it dematerialized just as Quentin opened the compass. He turned the face, and a burst of light exploded from it. He held it steady and waited. Even if the demon had changed its mind, the compass would’ve captured him, and she realized it was another dimension. With four jewels on it, it could actually be four dimensions, probably each inescapable. Hopefully, once there, the demon could no longer be summoned onto this plane.

  They would have to figure out who’d started it all before he or she found another demon to do their bidding.

  When the blinding light dissipated, Quentin closed the compass and sank to his knees. Amber caught him just in time for them both to faceplant on the floor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  If you get in my car, then you’ve just

  won a free ticket to see me live and in concert.

  —True story

  “It’s a coffee shop. Talk to Charley. She’ll get you across.”

  “Thank you,” Dora said to Amber. Quentin watched them, but they were sitting in front of a window with a large, orange sun behind them. It was so bright he could only see their silhouettes. “I’d like to say goodbye to my family. Would that be possible?”