“Such as?”

“Stillbirths,” I said quietly. “Ill patients dying when they should have been able to recover. An empty ‘pitcher’ would almost have a vacuum effect as it pulled back any available essence.”

He frowned. “What about population growth?”

“More essence can form, or grow from existing essence, but it takes time. Think of a tomato. Takes weeks to grow it but minutes to eat.”

“I think it scares me that you know this,” he said, a slight smile twisting the corner of his mouth.

I shifted uncomfortably in the chair and didn’t smile back. “I think it might have been my fault.”

He straightened. “Wait. What? Why on earth would you think that?”

I quickly explained about the ilius and my worry that somehow I’d failed to dismiss it properly. But by the end of my recitation he was already shaking his head.

“Nope, not buying it. I don’t know that much about summonings and demons, but it doesn’t make any sense that it would escape your control and then go swoop down on this guy. Even if he did commit suicide.”

I sighed. “I know, but I can’t think of a better explanation.”

“Then you haven’t figured it out yet,” he said. “You will.”

I gave him a small smile. His belief in me was probably misguided, but it was still reassuring. “Well, just for that, I’m going to let you come with me to my aunt’s house while I try—yet again—to break in to her library so I can do some research.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “Like Tom Sawyer ‘let’ his friends paint the fence?”

I grinned and stood. “Damn, I didn’t know you could read.”

“Yeah, well, it was an audiobook.”

“Smart-ass. I’ll meet you over there.”

I stood in the hallway of my aunt’s house and scowled at the door to the library. I loved my aunt. I really truly did. She was the only family I had left after my parents died—my mother of cancer when I was eight and my father from a drunk driver three years later. She raised me and became my mentor after determining that I had the talent to become a summoner of demons. Aunt Tessa had the capacity to drive me crazy, and there were times I wanted to throttle her, but I did love her.

However, at the moment I was back to wanting to throttle her. She’d rigged her library so full of twisty-ugly wards and other arcane protections that I felt like a member of an arcane bomb-disposal unit. And though I’d known she had a zillion arcane protections on her house and library, I’d assumed—foolishly, as it turned out—that my aunt had allowed some sort of exception for me, her only living relative.

I couldn’t even open the library door to see what kind of condition the room was in, because of the protections that writhed and pulsed in angry coils of purple and black—visible only to someone who could see the arcane. To the average person, it looked just like a regular door.

Actually, the average person wouldn’t get close enough, since part of the protections on the library—and on the house itself—involved a complicated aversion effect that made anyone trying to get into the house suddenly think of something that urgently needed doing elsewhere.

The aversions hadn’t been hard for me to get around, but the rest of the protections were another matter entirely. Working with arcane wards was not my forte. It required skill and potency—much like a summoning. I needed more experience to gain the skill, and potency was difficult to come by except during the full moon. The reason that summonings were usually done when the moon was at or near its fullest was because natural potency was rich and calm at that time. During waning and waxing of the moon, potency was scattered and hard to control. It was low and weak during the dark moon, but it was even, which was safer. Fluctuations in potency could be devastating when summoning a demon. I’d summoned the ilius the night before the full moon—safe enough to do with a third-level demon—but a summoning of anything higher than eighth or ninth level was best left to the night of the full. The restrictions of the phases of the moon were a pain in the ass, but the only method of storing potency that I knew of was the one the Symbol Man had used—torture and murder. Needless to say, I didn’t want to go there.

Ryan let out a low whistle. “That looks seriously ugly.”

“It’s ridiculous,” I complained. “Why the hell did she need all of this?”

“I dunno, but she was apparently not kidding about keeping people out.”

“I’m her only fucking relative. I should be able to get in.”

He peered at the winding wards. Ryan was able to sense the arcane, though not to the degree I could. “Fucking shit. Where would you even start?”

“That’s the problem. I’ve been poking at the edges for the past couple of weeks, because it doesn’t look so bad there. But every time I get that part undone, it re-forms.” I scowled at the door and the writhing wards. I’d been spending almost as much time at Tessa’s house as at my own—to the point where I’d begun to keep clothing and toiletries in her spare room. “I’m just going to have to dive into that big knot in the middle.” I thought I could see where to begin to unravel the damn things; all I needed to do was work up the nerve to touch them arcanely. You’re being chicken, I berated myself. If you’re wrong, you’ll get a big zap. Get over it!

“Well, here goes nothing,” I muttered as I began to mentally reach out. “It’s not like my aunt would try to—”

I threw myself backward as I saw the protection ward flash red in my othersight.… kill me! Shit! The edge of the arcane lightning bolt crackled over me, sending a stinging pain sparkling through my extremities as I landed heavily on my back on the hard wooden floor.

“Shit! Kara!” I heard Ryan shout. “Are you all right?”

I blinked away the stars crowding my vision to see him crouched over me, his face a mask of horror and concern. “Okay, that hurt,” I croaked.

He reached out and pushed my hair back from my face. “Are you all right?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” I wheezed, more than a little surprised by his gesture. “Just let me lie here and gasp for a while.”

He must have seen it in my eyes, for he abruptly jerked his hand back and shoved it through his hair instead. “That was insane,” he said, blowing out his breath. “A fucking lightning bolt?”

I finally progressed to rolling over onto my side, and from there I managed to shove up to a sitting position against the opposite wall. My limbs still twitched, and the stinging pain was only just beginning to fade.

“Damn it,” I said, frustrated. “I guess I’m going to have to summon a demon to get through these wards.”

Ryan reached down a hand to help me up. I was grateful for the assistance. My knees still felt wobbly, but at least the pain was pretty much gone. I’d been lucky. Landing on that floor had hurt like crazy, but it was better than being fried. I’d caught just the edge of it, and that was more than enough. “Your aunt has a summoning chamber here, doesn’t she?” he asked.

I gave him a thin smile. “She sure does. And she has that all warded up as well.” I sighed and tugged my T-shirt back into place, rolling my head on my neck to try to get everything back into proper alignment. “I’m going to have to summon in my own chamber and bring the demon over here.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not talking about summoning some nice little dog-size creature?”

“Because you’re annoyingly perceptive. I need oodles of answers, and there’s a reyza that owes me a favor.” A reyza was a twelfth-level demon—the highest level of demon that could be summoned by normal means. Demonic lords could be summoned as well, but the rituals involved were so insanely complex and required so much power that it was damn near impossible unless the lord was willing, which was pretty much never.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “And how the fuck are you going to get an eight-foot-tall demon with giant wings, horns, and a tail from your basement to here? In the trunk of your Taurus?” Ryan had good reason to be familiar with the appearance of a reyza—he’d been closer to one than he’d ever wanted to be when he was captured by Sehkeril, the demon who’d allied with the Symbol Man.

“You just leave that to me,” I said with a smug smile. I headed toward the door, with Ryan following.

“So, uh, do you think you’ll need any help transporting your demon?” He managed to keep his tone light and nonchalant, but I knew how badly he wanted to see a summoning.

Of course, he had seen a summoning before, but from a vantage that he probably had not desired—on the inside of the circle, as one of the intended sacrifices.

I gave a dramatic sigh. “Oh, well, I suppose I could use some help. Yes, you can come to the summoning.” Then I lowered my head and glared at him. “And the only reason I’m even considering allowing you to attend this summoning is because this particular reyza owes me a debt, so I feel fairly secure that he won’t immediately try to rip us both to pieces.”

He grinned.

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help smiling. There were times when the federal-agent attitude dropped away completely and he was like a teenager. I loved seeing these other facets to his personality—and that he was willing to reveal them to me almost made me feel like a trusted insider.

I closed and locked the front door and walked down the steps to where our cars were parked in the driveway. I turned back to speak to him, then paused, looking at Tessa’s front yard, squinting in the late-afternoon sun that bounced off the lake.

He noticed my puzzled expression and glanced at the yard, then back to me. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone mowed her lawn.” And fairly recently too. Perhaps the day before? And the flower beds out front had been weeded and tended. I gave myself a mental thwack for not noticing this earlier.

Ryan gave the yard another sweeping glance, then shrugged. “Probably one of her neighbors doing her a favor.”

I chewed my lower lip as I scanned up and down the street. “Maybe,” I said, not totally convinced. Aunt Tessa’s house was on the lakefront, a neighborhood made exclusive by the price and quality of the houses. The houses here were old and lovely and had been either exquisitely maintained or carefully restored; most were now tourist attractions. Every yard on the street was in exquisite condition. An unkempt lawn was not the sort of thing that would be tolerated in this area, and it was perfectly reasonable to assume that one of her neighbors had taken up the task. “But how did they get past the aversions?”

Ryan frowned. “Are the aversions strong enough to keep someone from mowing the lawn?”

“Well, they’re placed on the house itself, but their effect certainly extends past the flower beds.” Then I gave a shrug. “On the other hand, I have a hard time being upset about it, since, if the tending had been left to me, there’d be nothing but dead flowers and tall grass.” Proof in point was the fact that it had taken me this long to even notice the lawn. But the question of who and how definitely had me baffled. Maybe the aversions were beginning to fade? It was tough for me to tell, since I was used to ignoring them.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to worry about that now, but I made a mental note to look into it as soon as I had the chance. It was just her yard, anyway. If I thought someone had been in her house, then that would be a completely different thing.

I turned back to Ryan. “Okay, I’ve been awake since about nine last night, and I need to make preparations for the summoning and then take a nap, so you have to go away for a while. Come to my house at ten tonight.”

He grinned with wicked deviousness. “Aww, can’t I come over and nap with you?”

“What? No!” I blurted before my brain could engage. Shock flickered briefly in his eyes, and then his grin slipped, to be replaced by his neutral fed smile. Fuck, Kara. Overreact much? I thought with a mental groan. “I mean, I really need to rest, so I intend to sleep.… Unless you are offering to bore me into somnolence?” I added, struggling to bring back the teasing tone of the conversation.

“Ouch!” He laughed, but I could detect a forced edge to it. “All right, I’ll see you at ten.” And he turned and sauntered off to his car.

I watched him go, mentally thrashing myself for reacting like such an idiot. What the hell was wrong with me? I teased and joked with my coworkers all the time. So why the freak-out when Ryan did the same? He was teasing too. Right?

I exhaled as he backed out of the driveway and drove off. I had to face facts: I was no good at dealing with men. I couldn’t even tell if he had any real interest in me. How pitiful was that? Still, it wasn’t like I knew him all that well. We’d been thrown together for a month on the Symbol Man case, and that had pretty much been it. It was sad that my best friend was someone I barely knew, but even if I did know him, did I want to get involved with him?

Not sure. That was the best answer I could give myself. Not only did I not want to chance losing him as a friend, but I also didn’t know enough about him. The demonic lord Rhyzkahl had implied that Ryan was more than he seemed. Unfortunately, I’d had no chance to pursue that, as I’d been more consumed with finding a way to help my aunt. Hell, Rhyzkahl could have merely meant that Ryan had more arcane ability than he was letting on, or maybe even that he colored his hair. But the comment still bothered me, if only because it cast doubts I didn’t want to contemplate. I liked Ryan.