Chapter 1

Chapter

One

D arkness had descended hours ago, and a chilly desert breeze rustled palm fronds, kicked up dust, and stirred the stale air. All in all, it was a pleasant evening in the southwestern desert of California.

Perfect night to take on a demon.

"You sure you're up for this, Betty? You haven't handled a banishment since before your mom passed away."

"It's a banishment, not a summoning. I'll be fine."

"I know, but maybe you should think about calling the?—"

"Ida Summer, if the next word out of your mouth is coven , I'm out of here."

"Nope, not my next word." Ida put her hand over her heart and shook her head. "I was going to ask if you should think about calling the gal who sells the good tamales—the ones with the green olives. We need to put in an order in time for Christmas."

"It's February," I said drily.

"Leticia gets busier every year."

I gave my friend a long, suspicious look. Ida was my height—five-four—and slim, with a cap of silvery white hair and a smile that made her blue eyes sparkle. I'd always thought she looked like Helen Mirren. There was an intellectual deviousness in both women's smiles that matched up. There were forty-five years between my thirty-five and her eighty, and it often felt like I was the elder in our friendship, not her.

"As long as you don't talk to the creature, everything will work out fine," I said. "Stick to the plan."

I had zero faith in this part of my strategy. My friend was a lot of things—funny, courageous, loyal—but she wasn't the type of person to keep her mouth shut. It just wasn't in her.

Since she'd talked me into taking this job, I'd warned her repeatedly about the dangers of speaking to hitchhiker—aka highway—demons, about how once you engaged them in conversation, they slipped into your head like a slithery little worm and took over your body. Yet here we were, having the talk again.

"Right," she said. "The plan."

"You remember it, don't you?"

" Pshaw . Of course I do. I know it so well I could recite it backwards." She tucked a strand of her short white hair behind her ear, shoved the key in the ignition, and fired up the engine of the '72 Ford LTD. "But if you wanted to go over it again, I'd be okay with it."

Midnight was bearing down on us, so I slid into the passenger seat, leaving space for my partner Fennel to sit beside me. Ida backed out of her driveway and pulled onto the road as I went over the game plan one last time.

"You're going to pull over and pick up the demon. He'll sit in the passenger seat. You'll drive into the ring of mesquite trees on the edge of the alfalfa field and lead the demon creature to the containment circle there. You'll be able to see it. He won't. The portal will show up either before or after the car pulls in. Doesn't matter which for our plan." I narrowed my eyes and leaned closer to her. "It will all go smoothly as long as you don't engage the demon in conversation. Don't make eye contact, don't even nod when he asks you a question. Try to look scared."

"Of a hitchhiker demon?" She laughed.

"Ida, you need to take this seriously."

"I am, I swear. Don't engage. Got it." She took both hands off the wheel, made finger guns at me, and winked.

" Careful ." I grabbed the wheel before we ran off the road.

"Oops." She took it back, sat up straight, and peered over the LTD's high dashboard.

I glanced down. Fennel tilted his black furry head in his version of a shrug.

My partner—not familiar, as everyone assumed—was an integral part of another stratagem I was bringing into play tonight. One I'd shared with Ida in a peripheral sort of way, not wanting to distract her.

"You good?" I whispered to the golden-eyed cat.

Meow , he said, via the mental-link spell we'd cast before we left. He was good.

Fennel had shown up a month after my mom died, at a time when I'd been so low even Ida couldn't help me up. He'd moved into my garden room and napped with me on a chaise lounge I'd dragged in because it was the only place I could sleep. Sometimes, when the sadness in me was so strong I couldn't breathe, he'd cuddle close and make biscuits on my chest until I calmed. Many a night, he purred me to sleep.

Soon, I set out one of Mom's Limoges teacups for him to sip water from and ordered a bag of cat food. I took him to the vet for a checkup. Bought him a snuggly bed I tucked beneath a planter of his namesake in the garden room so he could take long, herb-scented naps.

When Fennel trusted me enough, he showed me his magic. Nearly three years later, I was still in awe of his power. Moreover, I was grateful and humbled he'd chosen to share it with me.

Ida and Fennel were the people I loved most in the world, and the only ones I trusted implicitly. If anything went wrong tonight, I'd walk through Hell itself to save them.

Nothing would go wrong, of course. As long as everyone followed the plan .

Ida dropped me off a half mile north of the rendezvous point, and I hoofed it through an alfalfa field while she and Fennel circled back and took their place on the road.

The wind buffeted my body, sending cold darts of air into the skin I'd left exposed. I popped my collar, shoved my hands into the pockets of my black, faux-leather jacket, and willed my misty breath not to give away my position as I trudged through the pungent plants to a stand of eight-foot mesquite trees, where the wind would be blocked enough for me to get the salt circles drawn.

Made it with five minutes to spare.

Setting up didn't take long. Yes, it had been a while, but I'd been drawing demon-containment circles since I was a kid. Despite Ida's worries, it wasn't something I was ever likely to forget.

Fennel sent me a message through our mental link. Ida had picked up the hitchhiker demon after crossing a farm road beside an irrigation canal, and the three of them were headed toward me.

An ancient chant rolled off my tongue the second the blue Ford barreled into view. The demon was in the passenger seat, Ida was behind the wheel, and Fennel hunkered on the floorboard in the back.

So far, so good.

I touched up my two salt circles—I'd added the second one as a failsafe—chanted the last lines of the spell that would hide them, and slipped into the shadows of the thick, bent branches, brushing the narrow leaves out of my hair. A sudden strong gust rustled the winter-soft pods on the mesquite branches.

The boat-sized LTD coasted through the opening between the trees and docked five feet from the edge of the outer circle. I released my mental link with Fennel. Maintaining it took energy I'd need later.

A wavering black membrane appeared in the air.

The demon's gateway.

I'd known it was coming, but my guts turned inside out anyway. Doubt clouded my focus, panic gripped me. It'd been four years since I'd banished even a low caste demon, and I couldn't be certain what level of dark entity the highway demon was until he was in my circle.

This is why I prefer to work alone.

But I wasn't alone. Ida and Fennel were depending on me. Fennel doubly so.

S top it. You're in control, spell to seal. Contingencies are in place. Ida knows what she's doing and so does Fennel. It's going as planned.

Ida opened the driver's side door, and Fennel streaked out of the car. The demon didn't notice the Bombay as he was too busy trying to extricate himself from the seatbelt he'd put on for some reason. Probably after watching Ida take her hands off the wheel while driving.

Demons didn't die like humans, but they could feel the pain of being flung through a car windshield the same as anyone.

Once the demon was out of the car, he stepped into a beam of moonlight, revealing himself. Short, humanoid, and balding, the creature had soulless black eyes and skin the color of mold on white bread.

A gust of air blew his noxious scent into my face, where it assaulted my nasal passages and oozed into my mouth. I would rather have thrust my head into a dumpster full of rotting food on a hundred-fifteen-degree day than be one inch closer. How Ida wasn't gagging from the stench, I hadn't a clue.

Fennel scaled the nearest mesquite. He leapt stealthily from branch to branch, tree to tree, finally settling on a crooked limb that hung to the left of the portal.

If either Ida or the demon noticed, they didn't show it.

Ida clambered out of the car and slammed the door shut. "What're you planning to do to me, punk? I should warn you, I'm no pushover. First chance I get, I'm out of here."

Damn it, Ida.

"Silence," the demon said.

Ida shot him a dirty look.

"Follow," the demon commanded, and the robotic way she obeyed told me he had her under his control.

I would've sighed if I'd dared draw attention to myself. But the plan depended on a number of precarious things, and my staying unnoticed for now was one of them. Besides, this was a complication I'd anticipated and allowed for.

Sometimes constantly second-guessing yourself comes in handy.

"Does anyone know you're here, elder woman?" the demon asked.

She nodded.

"Who did you tell?"

The dumbass had just commanded her silent. How exactly did he expect her to answer?

"Elder woman, I asked you a question."

She raised her eyebrows and pointed her index finger at her mouth.

"Oh, yeah." Dark green splashed across his cheeks. His version of blushing, I assumed. "You may speak freely. Answer my questions. Tell the truth."

A truth command . Dumbass demon isn't so dumb, after all.

I crouched, plunged my fingertips into the soil. A frisson of power traveled through my fingers, up my arm, and into the rest of my body. The soil here was happy—well-fed, well-watered, and harboring life beneath and above the surface. That happiness created energy that powered my magic.

I used it to ready my next spell.

"You want me to tell the truth?" Ida gave him her brightest, most unhinged smile. "Fine. The truth is I did tell someone where I was going to be tonight. Two someones, in fact. I went to the garden and told the fennel and Lilibet. I do so love herbs and roses. We have the most wonderful conversations."

Clever woman. She could've gone with Agapanthus orientalis , or Lily of the Nile, but the Lilibet rose was a good choice, too. It was, after all, my first name.

"Great. Another lunatic," the demon grumbled. He thumbed at the black shimmer hanging in the air behind him. "Let's get this over with. Walk through the gate and meet your fate."

Ida chuckled. "You're a poet, and you don't know it."

He probably shouldn't have returned her the ability to speak freely. The woman had no filter. Usually, it was one of her finest qualities.

Tonight, it was a liability.

"Laugh now," the highway demon said through sharp, clenched teeth. "Because you won't be laughing for long. It's time for you to enter my little corner of the underworld."

"You and the clichés. Sheesh." Ida laughed and rolled her eyes. "Did you actually have a sweetie named Elaine who died in a tragic accident on that very road or was that a lie?"

Typical. Hitchhiker demons always had a sob story handy. It was how they got people to feel bad for them and start talking.

"I have a torturer named Elaine who can't wait to meet you," the demon replied.

Ida scrunched her nose. "You've got a torturer named Elaine ?"

The hitchhiker's green face contorted into a scowl. He stuck his hands on his hips. "Yeah, what about it?"

Ida shook her head. "No, it's nothing. Only…the name Elaine doesn't exactly invoke fear."

The demon huffed. "It's a nickname. We don't use our real names because they can be used against us."

"So, what's stopping you from telling me Elaine's real name? She's not even in this realm. Or your name, for that matter? You've got me under your control. What's the big whoop about it now?"

The demon's eyes rolled to the left. He gnawed his sticky lower lip like a noir-movie ingenue. "You might break free and run away."

She huffed; her body moved stiffly, since she was still under the spell, but her attitude had other ways of surfacing. "I'm eighty years old. How many elderly humans do you know who can still run?"

Clever wording. Especially since Ida was the least elderly eighty-year-old I'd ever met in my life. Last fall, she'd set a record in the Eastern Star 5K Charity Walk, beating out women a third her age and raising over ten thousand dollars for the new pediatric wing of La Paloma Regional Hospital.

"That does appear to be true, elder woman." He tapped a green finger against his cheek. "You are advanced in years for a human."

He thought Ida was human. Good. That meant he didn't have control of her mind, only her body.

"Helpless humans, am I right?" She shook her head, mock-sadly. "Too bad we're not as strong as demons. I've heard stories about the way your kind manifest in our world. Explosions like an Independence Day celebration on steroids—I've heard the most powerful of you can even make it rain fire."

The demon smiled with all his teeth. "I can do that."

"Can you do that this is my name, and you will obey me thing?" She gave him an assessing look. "I'm thinking you probably can't. Probably don't have that kind of power if you're worried about an old lady breaking your hold."

Old lady. Sure.

"I have power that could crumble mountains in your world." His mouth turned down. "But I'm not supposed to draw attention?—"

" Supposed to? Oh, don't worry about it then," Ida said, her tone dismissive. "I thought you were in charge. I didn't know you were a lackey. If your master won't let you?—"

" Lackey ?" The demon drew himself up to his full height of five foot nothing and snarled, "Elder woman, I am no demon's servant, and I'll prove it."

A satisfied smile walked across my lips. I'd told her not to talk to him, and I'd meant it, but if she could find out his name before I trapped him in the circles it would help save time.

Speaking of…

" One ," I chanted, doing my best to sound like the wind whispering through the branches.

Fennel's triangular ears perked up. He went to all fours on the narrow branch and crouched, tail up, front end low.

"Check this out." The demon strode up to the shimmering gateway, keeping Ida in his line of sight. Another step, and I'd have the stinky little creature.

" Two ," I chanted, magic modulating my voice to sound like a train whistle in the distance to everyone except Fennel.

Cymbals crashed, the bottomless peal of a bell sounded, and the air in the tree-lined clearing thickened. Lightning flashed above our heads.

" I am Gnath, servant of iniquity, commander of the second brigade of malfeasance, demon of Highway 86."

The demon's voice sounded like a truckload of accordions being fed into an industrial woodchopper. My back teeth hurt. Fennel gave his head a sharp shake, which made the branch he was on jiggle until he was forced to back up into the tree to keep his balance.

"Is something in that tree?" Gnath asked.

"Probably a bird." Ida sniffed. "So, where's the fire rain? You said you were powerful, but I still don't see any fire rain."

Gnath tore his attention from the tree. Squeezed his hands into fists. Grunted.

"Look at this." Ida held out a hand, palm up. "Not even a speck of ash."

"I'm trying," he snarled, his face suffused with sweat. "Give me a minute."

Fennel crept out onto the branch again. I had a moment to second- and third-guess my plan.

What if I'd picked the wrong demon to attempt this with?

What if the information I'd gotten was wrong?

What if my magic wasn't strong enough to protect him?

Fennel's golden eyes shone green with magic. He stared at me, waiting for the signal. Trusting me.

The branch bobbed in a gust of wind. Fennel kept upright, but it had been a near thing. If I was going to do this, it had to be now.

" Three ."