Killian was back but he sure as hell wasn’t doing well. The previously polished lawyer was wearing a wrinkled suit, tie crooked, and hair rumpled. This wasn’t the man I’d first met. This guy hadn’t changed clothes in a couple of days and there was a nervous twitch in those dark eyes. Dark eyes that hadn’t been afraid of me, but now was afraid of… something.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you were?” It’d annoyed the fuck outta me that I’d had to wait days to see him because he was out of town. It’d also annoyed me because, damn, that siren was a smoking hottie and I’d had to talk to her on the phone more than once.

Killian shrugged and spread his hands apologetically. Yeah, figured.

I shook my head. “Fine. Let’s just get to it then. First, can you tell me where Uncle Luc is yet? I’ve found something that, you know, actually concerns him this time.”

Killian pursed his lips. “You’ll hear from him soon.”

“Buuut not soon enough to help me with this.” I sighed and propped my hands on my hips. “Okay then. What can you tell me about a dem named Silaran?”

He stiffened, the expression on his face dropping to a nervous frown. A new tension thrummed in his body and I narrowed my eyes. “Be careful. There are some powers beyond you. Ones that no one but your uncle can control. It would be best if you left this until he returned.”

“Yeah, so, I don’t have that option. Shit’s going down now. Like, now. If Uncle Luc can’t help me, I’ve got to deal with this myself. FYI, I’m not looking forward to it. Another FYI, I don’t have a choice.”

“If that’s how you feel.” His stoic expression remained, but the tension remained high.

“Good. Then there’s something I need from you.”

He pressed his lips tightly together, but those eyes… Killian was a freaked out unhappy camper.

“I need a name and any information you might have on a mortal woman who was involved with Silaran.” Though, really, who could fuck a guy so… ugly? Like, physically ugly? “Whoever was stoking his furnace lately allegedly killed herself and Uncle Luc took her to a part of hell where Silaran can’t reach her. Which, seems like a thing that might tick off an uber-powerful demon.”

Killian rubbed his hands together, fidgeting in his seat. The unflappable lawyer I knew didn’t fidget. I could also see the new calculation in his stare. He was bound by my uncle or dark magic, so he couldn’t share everything. I could tell he wanted to help—as much as an evil dem could want to do anything nice—I just needed to figure out the right way to get what I needed.

“Let’s try that again.” If I had to play by someone else’s rules, I’d do it, but I was sure I could find a way to twist those rules to serve my purpose. “As the devil’s advocate, you have access to information about new arrivals to Hell.” He nodded and I continued. “As Lucifer’s niece and the bitch in charge up here, I have a responsibility regarding mortals, correct?”

He nodded again, a small smile on his lips and a bit of life in his body.

“So if someone took their own life and got sent to Hell, it’d be within my purview to check in on their family up here.” I adopted that pouty, sweet look I’d perfected long ago. Six hundred years gives a gal a long time to learn how to fake it. “I’d need to find out if losing a loved one to a mortal sin has negatively affected them. Maybe find out if the loss has set them on a dark path that might lead them to sin as well. That definitely sounds like something that would fall under my jurisdiction.”

“I’m inclined to agree.” He tilted his head.

“Excellent. So, I’d like a list of all suicides in the Orlando area within the last… year.” A year sounded good. This mystery woman must have killed herself after I instituted the dem ban. Hell, the ban could have been the reason she’d killed herself. If she got cut off from her lover, she might have wanted to end her life early to be with him. That sort of thing would take a lot of dedication… and insanity. Someone dating an ancient demon probably had a lot of both.

Me? I would have just moved, but I have that whole logic thing going on. Not all humans are smart.

If it’d been longer than a year, he would have come at me sooner, but it happened recently. Recently enough for him to push forward now.

“Well,” Killian grinned, “by disclosure agreements, I do have to share our files on Hell with authorized parties, whether they be from the tween or On High. Can’t have anything that could lead to a mistrial when a soul is judged for their eternal fate.”

He touched a button on his desk phone. “Janice, please make copies of the Black File for Ms. Morningstar. Everything for the last year.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Howe.”

That siren needed to not talk. Like, ever again.

I smirked at Killian, stomping on the tendril of arousal that wrapped around me. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

“Always.” I got a wicked grin.

I snared the file on my way out the door, not giving “Janice” a chance to speak. I just needed the names, not a good time. I had a file containing bios on thirty-seven humans who’d decided to end their lives in my town.

When I got back to Momma R’s, we got to work, slicing the list in half pretty quickly by eliminating men, teenagers, and seniors. While I wouldn’t put it past a dem to seduce a teen for his own purposes, a woman had been offered the throne. An ancient dem didn’t make that kind of deal with a minor.

That left me with eleven possibilities. Seven more eliminations because they’d been married ladies and couldn’t be our girl. No matter his age, even dems were bound by certain laws and rules. The whole “til death do us part” was something they couldn’t violate. The sanctity of marriage kinda stuck to a soul and was a total turn-off in Hell. Toying with a married woman to taint her mortal soul was good, actually marrying her when she entered Hell was another.

And Silaran had been looking for a bride.

That left me with four. The first three didn’t trip my what-the-fuck trigger, but the fourth…

I held up the last bio. “This is our girl. Lucia Cole. Twenty-seven, raised by an abusive father, drug problem, suffered from depression and possible schizophrenia. Sounds like the kind of woman who’d fall for a demon’s seduction.”

Jezze read the page over my shoulder and pointed at a line near the bottom. “Living next of kin, Maxim Cole. He’s got an address downtown.”

“Then let’s go visit Maxim and convey our regrets for his loss.”

When the three of us got there, I had some actual regrets. Mainly that it’d taken me this long to figure out the right question for Killian. The place was abandoned, a thick layer of dust all over the furniture inside. There was no indication of where he’d gone or when he left.

The basement, however, had lots of lovely things that sent chills up my spine—beakers and vials, discarded rubber gloves and plastic goggles. Either Maxim got a badass chemistry kit for Christmas, or this was some kind of meth lab.

I sniffed around, my wolf whimpering at the scent of the vile substances. Some of the residue smelled similar to the dem drug. “I think we found our chef.” I poked one of the vials. “Though this stuff looks pretty mundane.”

Jezze wandered through the lab, picking up a notebook and flipping through the pages. “He was probably a human dealer before his sister died. You think maybe Silaran got ahold of him? Convinced him to try out a fancy new recipe?”

Sam scowled. “After which, he began poisoning the city.”

We dug around a bit longer until I found a wastebasket with burned slips of paper. I pulled them out and laid the scraps on one of the tables. “Jezze?”

She came to my side and scanned the pages. “I think I can work with this. Hold on.”

Jezebeth slowly waved her hands over the pages, muttering arcane words under her breath. A soft glow flowed down over the charred paper, slowly restoring them to their original form. When she was done, I picked up the sheets and flipped through them.

Computer printouts, maps of the Orlando area, along with some notes written in a shaking hand. On the last page, there was a location circled in red pen. Right beside it? The word “ISOLATED,” the word underlined several times.

“Aw, our boy didn’t want us to track down his operation.” I grinned. “He moved his base of operations outside the city. An old, abandoned mine.”

“We should go now. Get this done.”

I couldn’t agree more.