The huge house was mostly silent, though I heard a vacuum cleaner somewhere in the distance, sucking up the debris left behind by a dozen kids.

Clayton sat tall and silent at the large table, and after I poured myself a huge mug of coffee and grabbed a package of cookies, I joined him. The house possessed a large, formal dining room, but nearly everyone in the house preferred the kitchen and the battered old wood table to the dining room. That particular room was utilized for large Thanksgiving and other family dinners, when the children’s mothers and extended relatives descended upon the house.

“Angus says you have new information about the attacker,” I said.

“Yes,” Clayton responded, when I sat down. “I do.”

At last, I looked at him. I tried to keep my emotions out of my face but was pretty sure I was unsuccessful when he studied me for a few seconds, then gave a small sigh.

A light in his eyes seemed to flicker like a sputtering candle flame, and then it was extinguished, leaving only a dull emptiness behind.

Maybe I’d been the only person who’d ever been in his corner—at least since he’d been brought back. Maybe I’d been the only person not to look at him with contempt. Maybe I’d been the only person who looked at him the way a woman looks at a man.

And maybe he was sad to see that go.

I couldn’t feel bad about that. I couldn’t.

But fuck me if I didn’t.

Peppered in with the judgment were the memories of how he’d touched me, how his lips had felt against mine, how his voice had sounded when he’d whispered my name.

God. God.

“What did you find out?” I asked, my voice a little hoarse. I dropped my gaze, unable to think clearly when the remembered heat of him was fierce enough to burn me.

“Trinity,” he said, quietly. “Someday I’ll—”

I shook my head hard to dislodge the images. “What, Clayton? What will you do? Convince me that torturing a man in front of his daughter doesn’t make you a monster? I don’t want to hear it.” I sat back and crossed my arms. “Just tell me what you found out about the demon. He’s the only asshole I want to think about right now.”

He inclined his head. “He’s definitely an incubus.” He slipped his hand into his suit jacket and emerged with a folded piece of paper. “The name he uses is Seth Damon. We traced him back sixty years. Back then, he didn’t kill his victims. He took what he needed and left them alive, as most incubi do. The victims would have thought they had the flu for a week or two afterward. This drawing came from one of his later victims—he nearly killed her but she escaped with the help of her boyfriend.”

“I glimpsed his face.” I stared down at the drawing. In the picture he looked…human. Surprisingly normal. Handsome, with intense eyes and short, dark hair. The face I’d barely seen had been…terrible.

“That’s his façade,” Clayton said. “Some humans believe vampires can’t be photographed, but they can. Demons can’t be photographed. At full power, he could change his façade to look like anyone he wanted. If he’s sick, he’ll stick to the easiest disguise, which is the one you’re holding now. And it’s beginning to crack.”

“That’s why he wears the hood,” I said. “To hide his face.”

He nodded. “He no longer has the energy to maintain it. At least not all the time.” He took back the drawing, then continued. “If we don’t find him before the humans discover the foam, there will be trouble. He’s not going to leave Red Valley.”

“Because of me.”

“Yes. And because his time is running out. I think this is his last stand.”

We stared at each other in silence. I didn’t see worry or doubt in his eyes, but I knew mine would be full of both. Clayton believed he and the others could really help me defend myself against a hungry, desperate demon.

I wasn’t so sure.

“Some time ago,” Clayton said, “he came and never left. I don’t think that was his choice. I think he’s stuck here, and in order to go home, he has to generate a huge amount of energy.”

I nodded. “Energy from a hunter.”

“No. Energy from a bloodhunter.”

“And because we’re so rare…”

“He’s fixated on you. He’s found you, and until we kill him, he will be a threat to you. But there’s a problem.”

“Demons can’t be killed,” I murmured.

“Exactly.”

“Then what do we do?”

“I’d like to find a way to help him return to his world. A way that doesn’t involve him killing you.”

“I would like that as well,” I acknowledged.

He gave me a ghost of a smile.

I didn’t return it. “Do you have any ideas about how to do that?”

He hesitated. “No. I’ll let you know when I do.”

His hesitation made me think he knew more than he was telling me, but I didn’t press the issue. “Anything else?” I asked.

He stared over my head, his eyes about as blank as I’d ever seen them. “Miriam has not retracted her orders that I protect you.”

I dunked a cookie into my coffee. “What happens if you disobey her? Will you die?”

He laughed, a sharp, humorless bark of sound that was nearly sharp enough to cut me. “I would have disobeyed her long ago, if death were the outcome.”

“The reward,” I realized.

He lowered his stare to mine. “Yes.”

I released a soft breath, suddenly tired. “Life is hard.”

That time, when he laughed, it held genuine amusement. “At times.” He sobered. “It has been a very long time since I laughed, Trinity.”

And despite everything, I softened once again toward the man who was Miriam’s nightmare. But only a little. Thank God, only a little.

I put the conversation back on the demon. “How do you think he makes the foam?”

He shrugged. “The Foam of Aphrodite has always been immersed in mystery. It’s believed that it was originally created by the faeries, and the demons stole it, then modified it. We think it’s made from sperm and blood, some of the energy they steal from their victims, and the…magic, you could call it, inside them. ”

I stood abruptly and carried my empty mug to the sink. “So we have a face and a name for him. We just have to figure out how to ship him back to his world.”

“We have to keep you alive,” he said.

I rinsed my cup, then put it in the drainer. “That, too.”

My cell vibrated and I pulled it from my pocket, then put it to my ear. “Captain.”

“Frank,” he reminded me. “I wanted to touch base.”

I hesitated. “I picked up Gray’s tracks but lost him in the woods off Raeven’s Road.”

“The two dead humans,” he said. “Stark called me.”

I hesitated. “The humans…”

“They’ll serve as further cautions to those who think it might be fun to hang with the monsters.” His voice was brusque, and maybe even a little bitter. “They need to know it’s not so fun to bleed and die.”

I nodded, though he couldn’t see me. “I’m going back out tonight. I’ll be in contact.”

“Thanks, Sinclair.” He cut the connection.

I slid my phone back into my pocket. It wasn’t likely Shane was going to be up for a little tracking so soon, even if he were so inclined to give me another chance. It didn’t matter. I’d feel better going alone. Less risky that way.

At least for my partner.

“I’ll be with you,” Clayton said, as though he knew exactly what I was thinking.

I only nodded. He had his orders, and if I refused to let him go along, he’d simply follow me. No sense wasting my time or breath arguing about it.

“Clayton,” I said. “If the demon stays in Red Valley, dead human bodies will start piling up. Can we blame it on the vampires?”

“We can try.”

If the humans believed the vampires were responsible, the heat would be taken off the supernats. The vampires were hated and persecuted anyway, and they deserved their hard lives. They ate humans. They became infected and went nuts and tore people up. I could understand the hatred.

But the supernaturals of a city played by the rules.

I shuddered, imagining Angus’s children hauled in, separated, and imprisoned if things started going sideways. Their freedom was tenuous, and they lived with an insidious, creeping fear and insecurity I could barely comprehend or imagine. Every single day of their lives.

The supernaturals just wanted to live their lives. For the most part, they hurt no one, and I would do everything I could to help funnel the blame from them to the vampires.

We could tell the humans an incubus was on the loose, but they’d want someone they could catch. Someone they could see, and someone they could hurt—so until we contained the demon, the humans were getting the vampires.