I inhaled and rolled. Softness under me moaned until a spring gave a twang. I crawled my fingers along the soft blanket and tried to reach for my head. Agony beat a damn drum between my ears, clustering along the top with a savage bite, and carried all the way down.

“Hey…hey, there. I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

Something soft pressed against my forehead. I hissed at the cold and tried to open my eyes. Too bright…sunlight speared through the cracks.

“Turn off the damn light,” I moaned, and slammed my eyes closed.

The surface under me dipped and then rose…a mattress. Someone’s bed…The clatter of blinds echoed before the blinding glare eased. Better…so much better.

“You okay? Had me worried there for a moment.”

His voice seemed to close in from all sides. I opened my eyes, blinked into the faded light, and stared at an empty bedroom.

“I think the worst has passed now.”

Worst? I tried to remember, tried to think, but the beat of the drum in my head was an unseen nail, pushing all the way through. “What the hell happened?”

A shadow moved as Titus Banks sat on the edge of his bed. “You, my friend, ingested Sigil.”

I wrenched open my eyes and shoved upwards on one elbow. The room spun, sparks ignited in my head like damn flash bombs. “Ingested…no fucking way.”

“Way,” he murmured and reached for my hand. I wanted a warm caress, and all I got was a hard grip as he tuned my hand palm up. “You grabbed the damn drug with bare hands, and it bled into your cuts. Don’t they teach you anything in that damn place? Never, ever touch a drug without gloves. Now, what I want to know is, where the hell did you get it?”

Where did I get it? I tried to remember, tried to think. The Circle…the meeting…getting rammed up the ass by Director dickhead Horton…and Redemption.

Redemption…black car…punctured tire.

I dropped my head at the scolding and looked to my boot as the rest came to me in a rush. The drug came from the grill when the tire deflated.

Drugs hadn’t been a problem before, not like this. It was a human thing, not a supe thing. All us freaks needed was a drop of damn pure blood, or a good incantation.

Not this…

“It was on the ground, that’s all I know. I went to check out Redemption’s car and saw it there. I thought…hell, I dunno what I thought. Shouldn’t have picked it up.”

“No, you shouldn’t have…but you did. I’m expecting the worst is over, but you’re going to have some residual effects.”

And now he sounded like a pain in the damn ass. Where was the fucking good news in all this? I glanced at the neatly made bed, and then the empty room. There wasn’t a nightstand, not even a damn dresser. The place looked hollow. Where the hell was I? Not my place, that’s for damn sure.

“How about some coffee, and then you can tell me about the effects?” Titus leaned backwards as I gave a weak nod and then stilled.

This was his place…he brought me to his damn place. His eyes glinted as though he was waiting for me to say something about the lack of furniture. “Black,” I muttered. “I take it back.”

One nod of his head and he was gone, striding from the room. The clatter of cups came a second later. I collapsed my arm and hit the mattress. What an idiot. What a damn idiot. Touching the damn drug like that. What a rookie move. I lifted my hand and stared at the long gouges on my palm.

The flesh itched, and not the niggling, healing wound type of thing. It was a bone-deep nagging, like a junkie on their last fix, already looking ahead to the next taste. I clenched my fist and then relaxed. Something flared under the skin…a mark, cutting across the flesh of my palm, and then up toward the wrist. I swallowed, stared at the mark as the mark took hold…like a…sigil. A whimper savaged my throat as I shoved from the mattress and gripped my hand.

“Lorn?” Titus called. Heavy footsteps raced, and he was there, standing in the doorway. He shifted his gaze to my hand and took a step closer. “What’s going on? What do you see?”

“There,” the whimper was weak and pathetic. I didn’t care… “Can’t you see it?”

His touch was so gentle, unfurling my fingers, bending down to peer at my flesh. “I see the cuts from your nails, that’s all.”

Concern filled those eyes as I pointed to the mark as it slowly faded. “See there, it’s a triangle, upside down, and a cross through it.”

He peered closer, following the damn lines in my palm. That wasn’t it…that wasn’t the damn thing I saw. I stared at the flesh, and found nothing, no mark, no damn sigil. No triangle with a cross.

“I don’t see it,” he murmured, and then lifted his gaze. “But I believe you. I don’t understand this drug yet. I’m not sure if what it’s showing you is real, or imaginary. So if you saw that on your hand, then it could be important.” He straightened and held out his hand. “Coffee is just about done, let’s drink and try to work out how we’re going to tackle this…sudden change of events.”

I stared into his gaze. He was talking weird, what’s with all the we and let’s. My throat tightened as the meeting reared in my head. Policing duties…isn’t that what that toupee-wearing, trash-eating Director wanted?

Was this what Titus had in mind? The bullshit cases, well…this one, anyway. Load her up with a rigged workload and then give her a knight in shining armor?

He gave me a weak smile and turned. This time I followed, shoving my way to the side of the mattress, and slipped from the bed. There was a photo sitting on the a set of drawers a wedding photo of a young couple in love.

I stared at a younger, more alive, Titus. He even smiled into the camera, arms wrapped around his new bride. Jealousy flared as I stared at the young blonde. Red lips were curved, the beauty spot above her upper lip made her a little glamorous. She was pretty, with an honest face and dark eyes. But there was something about her. Something about the smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was hiding something, keeping a secret from her husband.

The clink of a cup wrenched me back into the moment. It was none of my business…not Titus Banks, or his damn marriage.

The rest of the house looked even worse than the bedroom. The living room was empty, except for a milk carton doubling as a TV cabinet and a small, ancient TV.

“Black, right?” He muttered, eyes down, focusing on the damn coffee.

But I could tell he was embarrassed, stealing glances along the counter, but unable to meet my eyes.

“Just like my soul,” I answered, and stepped around to the two high-backed chairs under the breakfast counter. “Man, she really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

There was no answer, not that I expected any. “The sink? At least she left that.”

The tight curl of his lips was all the answer I got. “Basically, anything that wasn’t grouted in or nailed down was fair game.”

I turned my head to find an empty dog’s bowl in the corner of the room. Man, she even took the dog. That’s cold…

He slid a mug across the counter and motioned toward the open bowl of sugar. I leaned across, grabbed the teaspoon, and heaped three teaspoons into the coffee before I stirred.

“So, the drug, can you explain the effects?”

He took a sip and then leaned forwards.

I wanted to answer, give him all the details I could. But the meeting and the sudden increase in duties just stuck in my throat. "First, let’s clear the air. You asked…no, you demanded Director Horton release me to you to do…whatever it is you human investigators do."

“I asked for assistance, not specifically you, to be exact…but I was hoping.”

“And this was after last night’s epiphany, was it?” I mean, the guy's emotions were giving me whiplash. “So now, thanks to you, I’ve got this as well as my own bullshit case to close. You want to sit here and drink coffee like we're both cool, then that’s fine. But you screwed me, Banks, and it wasn’t as enjoyable as I'd imagined.”

“It was supposed to be in lieu of your normal duties,” he muttered. “That was the arrangement, three days with me trying to get a handle on this damn drug, and a clear workload for you.”

I flinched with the sincerity. Even if you didn’t know the guy, one look at his face and you knew he was telling the truth. He didn’t know…I mean, how could he? Sonofabitch Horton was just itching to bring me down. I lifted the mug, took a long draw, and winced.

“Not the best, I know. But it’s hot and there’s plenty.”

Yay for me. I glanced around the kitchen, eyeing the hanging copper pots and muttered, “So, you what, brought me here, to your house? Your damn bed?”

“I had nowhere else to take you, unless you prefer I'd left you wailing and thrashing in the goddamn street. You were on fire, Lorn, well, you thought you were on fire. And you were, and summoning something, or someone. You almost incinerated my damn car.”

Incinerated? I stared into his eyes and tried to remember. The feeling was slow, building like a tempest on a hot summer’s day.

“What did you see…tell me, and then maybe we can try to get a handle on this.”

“It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.” Fire and flames…hot…so damn hot.

A bead of sweat broke out at the back of my neck. I lifted my hand, finding corded muscles all the way to the base of my skull.

“You were calling for someone. Do you remember? Do you remember anything at all…any person, any thing?”

“Calling? Calling how…”

“Latin…I’m pretty sure it was Latin, you were calling a name and then repeating ego inferia sum…ego inferia sum. Over and over.”

Ego…means I. I…something. I shuddered with the thought of summoning someone or something and took another gulp of this stuff he called coffee.

“This drug is dangerous, and I’m not talking demons-who-commit-mass murder dangerous. I’m talking on a global scale. I want to know who’s selling it. I want to know who’s making it, and I want to shut the entire thing down. That’s where you come in.”

“Me?” He didn’t believe me about finding the drug. Didn’t believe a damn thing I said. “I told you…I found it.”

Dark eyes glinted as he lowered his mug to the counter. “And I believe you, but the shit has to come from somewhere. We start low, start local. Find the buy, track the dealer all the way to the top. I’ve been given some intel…this guy. I want to know all about him, where he lives, where he frequents. Everything.”

He leaned, grabbed a police file from the counter and flipped it open. The sketch was good, capturing many fine points…of a demon. “A demon…you want me to track a demon?”

One nod of his head was all I needed. “I want this sonofabitch, Lorn.”

Something wasn’t right. A tightening of my gut spoke volumes. I stared at the sketch and tried to think. Demon, Sigil. It wasn’t really their MO. They liked depravity, the more the merrier, and a drug like Sigil…it just wasn’t enough.

Now vamps, or witches, that was another matter altogether. They liked the dance between realms, liked the rush of going where no human has gone before.

“A demon, you’re sure about this?”

Titus nodded, drained the last of his coffee, and turned toward the sink. I needed a minute, just a damn minute to think. “The bathroom…”

He glanced toward the hall. “On the left two doors down.”

I left the sketch and the coffee behind and headed for the hall. The bathroom was neat and clean. One clean towel hung perfectly in the middle of the towel rail, and a washcloth sat folded next to it. It looked too neat, too perfect.

I used the toilet and flushed it. Come on, Lorn. You can do this. I stepped to the sink and lifted my gaze. Haunted eyes stared back at me. I turned my head, a bruise…on my damn cheek. I lifted my hand and probed the bone. Ouch. The damn thing smarted. Great. I smoothed my hair and plucked bits of grass from between the red strands.

Gold glinted in the corner of my eye. I dropped my gaze, finding the band on the corner of the shelf, a wedding band. I picked it up and slid it over my finger. It was big…huge, even. My finger swam, hitting one side and then the other.

I glanced toward the door. It was Titus' wedding ring. The same ring I saw in my vision last night and, the more I thought about it, the more that feeling in my core took hold. Titus was playing me, and I needed to find out why.

I placed the ring back on the shelf, washed and dried my hands, and made for the door.

He didn’t meet my gaze now, stealing a glance at my hands before turning back to the folder in front of him. “So, I think we need to make a list of known dealers…of the supernatural kind. I’ve got a printout from our end, but, of course, you’d have a more extensive—”

“Now, hold up a minute,” I muttered. “Let’s set some things straight. I don’t work for you, you don’t pay my bills, you don’t put food in my belly…and, as much as I’d love to play cops and drug dealers with you all day, I’ve got a case. That takes priority. Period.”

His brows narrowed, jaw flexed. Not playing by his rules set him on edge. I had no plans on playing on that, but it was just one more thing that made this whole thing not feel right.

“Director Horton…” he started.

He had to do it…had had to go and play that damn card. “Can suck my balls. See, there’s one little thing you need to know about Horton and me, we don’t see eye to eye, and, by that, I mean I’d love to shoot him in the head with a silver bullet…and that’s on a good day. So I wouldn’t hold that over my head, if I were you. You might find that this dog likes to bite the hand that fucking feeds her.”

“You really are a bitch, aren’t you?” he murmured and shook his head.

“Yep, to the fucking core. My hobbies also include having no time for bullshit.” I glanced toward the door, “Not that this hasn’t been a blast.”

“Wait a minute…I said wait a damn minute…”

I didn’t want to wait, or slow, even when the thunder of his boots filled the space. Cruel fingers gripped my arm as I reached the door. He spun me around, and slammed his hand against the door, blocking my exit. “I said, just give me a damn minute here.”

I saw him then, saw him as though it were the first time. I'd thought he looked bad last night, but this morning he looked even worse. His shirt was crumpled and stained. There were dark circles under his eyes, even darker than the night before.

But what really rocked me was the desperation coiled inside him like a snake ready to strike. The putrid taste of bitter lemons filled my mouth. He was on the edge, Jekyll and Hyding that shit like a pro. “What’s going on with you, Titus? What aren’t you telling me?”

His lips parted, but nothing spilled out, not at first. “The drug…”

“The drug, the case. I get it, I really do. But you gotta work with me a little here. You gotta give me something. My case comes first.”

His shoulders dropped, as he nodded. “Okay, your case first. We get that done and you’re mine.”

I swallowed hard at those words. “We? Oh, hell no. You don’t want to come with me on this one. This is not for human consumption.”

He dropped his hand and took a step backwards. “That’s the deal. Your case and then mine. You can either take me along for the ride, or I can tail your ass all over the city.”

A nerve twitched in the corner of my eye. I didn’t work with others. Redemption found that out the hard way…and here was a damn human forcing me to be nice once more. “You know you really are a bitch,” I murmured.

And this time it was Titus’s turned to smile. “To the fucking core.”